“Because he was so good-natured, some of the boys took it into their heads, I reckin, that he didn't have no real grit; or mebbe they thought he wasn't spunky because he was a Jew. That's a delusion which a good many suffer frum that don't know his race.
“I remember one night, about three weeks or a month after we went into camp, Herman was put on post. The sergeant mighty near lost his mind, and did lose his disposition, drillin' the countersign and the password into Herman's skull. So a couple of boys out of the Calloway County company—they called themselves the Blood River Tigers, and were a purty wild and devilish lot of young colts ginerally—they took it into their heads that after it got good and dark they'd slip down to the lines and sneak up on Herman, unbeknownst to him, and give him a good skeer, and mebbe take his piece away from him—sort of play hoss with him, ginerally. So, 'long about 'leven o'clock they set out to do so.”
He paused and looked at Doctor Lake, grinning. I couldn't hold in.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, nothin' much,” said Judge Priest—“exceptin' that presently there was a loud report and consider'ble many loud cries; and when the corporal of the guard got there with a squad, one of them Calloway County boys was layin' on the ground with a hole through his right shoulder, and the other was layin' alongside of him right smartly clubbed up with the butt end of a rifle. And Herman was standin' over 'em, jabberin' in German—he'd forgot whut little English he knowed. But you could tell frum the way he carried on that he was jest double-dog darin' 'em to move an inch. I don't believe in my whole life I ever seen two fellers that looked so out of the notion of playin' practical jokes as them two Blood River Tigers did. They were plumb sick of Herman, too—you could tell that frum a mere glance at 'em ez we toted 'em in and sent for the surgeon to patch 'em up.
“So, after that, the desire to prank with Private Felsburg when he was on duty sort of languished away. Then, when Herman took down sick with camp measles, and laid there day after day in the hospital tent under an old ragged bedquilt, mighty sick, but never complainin'—only jest grinnin' his gratitude when anybody done a kind turn fur him—we knowed he was gritty in more ways than one. And there wasn't a man in Company B but whut would have fit any feller that ever tried ag'in to impose on him.
“He was sick a good while. He was up and round ag'in, though, in time to do his sheer in the first fight we were in—which was at Belmont, over acrost the Mississippi River frum Columbus—in the fall o' that year. I seem to recall that, ez we went into action and got into fire, a strange pair of laigs took to tremblin' mightily inside the pair of pants I was wearin' at the time; and most of my vital organs moved up into my throat and interfered some with my breathin'.
“In fact I made a number of very interestin' discoveries in the openin' stages of that there fight. One was that I wasn't never goin' to be entirely reconciled to the idea of bein' killed on the field of battle; and another was that, though I loved my native land and would die fur her if necessary—only hopin' it wouldn't be necessary to go so fur ez all that—still, ef I lived to git out of this particular war I wasn't goin' to love another native land ez long ez I lived.”
“Shucks, William!” snorted Doctor Lake. “Try that on somebody else, but don't try to come such stuff on me. Why, I was right alongside of you when we went into that charge, and you never faltered!”
“Lew,” stated Judge Priest, “you might ez well know the truth. I've been waitin' fur nearly forty years to make this confession. The fact of the matter was, I was so skeered I didn't dare to stop goin' ahead. I knowed ef ever I did slow up, and give myself a chance to think, I'd never quit runnin' the other way until I was out in the Gulf of Mexico, swimmin'.