“Gently, boys,” the victim panted. “You don't want to be too hard on a poor fellow for having a little joke of his own.”
“Who is it—what has he done?” inquired Ralph, who didn't enjoy such rough sport, and was really concerned lest they might carry it so far as to injure the man.
“It's Corporal Fred Greene, the funny fellow of Co. H,”
Tim Mackey responded. “It's his birthday, and we re celebrating it. And he's having a high time.”
Fred was a mischievous young fellow, who had just seen his twenty-third birthday. If there was any chance for a joke on any member of the company, he never lost the opportunity of making the most he could out of it.
In order to impress the fact that he had a birthday, he had invited a score of his comrades to a “small spread” in his tent. The colored cook was in the secret, and through his connivance, and the help of a few cracker boxes draped with bunting, and some tin cans, he had succeeded in making quite a tasty looking table. Before the banquet began, he made a short speech of welcome, which was responded to in good faith by Franklin Field, who was deputed to do the speaking on all occasions, as he had quite a gift of extempore oratory.
Without further ceremony, Fred cordially pressed all of them to “fall to.” Just at this interesting moment, the cook, a loose-jointed, wrinkled old darkey, whose huge mouth looked as if it was always ready to utter a guffaw, entered the tent, and scraping and bowing to the “gemmens,” broke out with—“Sorry to put back your 'joyment, Massa Fred, but youse wanted outside, bad.”
Fred rose, and with a graceful salute to his guests, begged them, in a most elaborate manner, to attack the food, which was entirely at their service. It was unfortunate that he should be disturbed at such a moment, but duty called him, and he would return at the earliest opportunity.
“This black rascal is bound I shan't have my share, but fall to, friends.” Once outside, he hunted a safe hiding place waited behind a hedge.