"Certainly. And why not, my boy?"
"Why, we have no drums, Major!"
"Well, your fifers have fifes, haven't they? We'll do without the drums; but you must all turn out, and the fifers can play."
So when we stood drawn up in line on the parade-ground among the woods, and the order was given:
"Parade rest! Troop, beat off!"
Out we drummers and fifers wheeled from the head of the line, with three shrill fifes screaming out the rolls, and started at a slow march down the line, while every man in the ranks grinned, and we drummer-boys laughed, and the officers joined us, until at last the whole line, officers and men alike, broke out into loud haw-haws at the sight. The fifers couldn't whistle for laughing, and the major ordered us all back to our places when only half down the line, and never even attempted another parade until a full supply of brand-new drums arrived for us from Washington.
Then the major picked out mine for me, I remember, and it proved to be the best in the lot.
CHAPTER XIII.
PAINS AND PENALTIES.
Among all civilized nations the "rules of war" seem to have been written with an iron hand. The laws by which the soldier in the field is governed are of necessity inexorable, for strict discipline is the chief excellence of an army, and a ready obedience the chief virtue of the soldier. Nothing can be more admirable in the character of the true soldier than his prompt and unquestioning response to the trumpet-call of duty. The world can never forget, nor ever sufficiently admire, a Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans at Thermopylæ, the Roman soldier on guard at the gates of the perishing Pompeii, or the gallant six hundred charging into the "valley of death" at Balaklava. Disobedience to orders is the great sin of the soldier, and one that is sure to be punished, for at no other time does Justice wear so stern and severe a look as when she sits enthroned amidst the camps of armed men.