A CHRISTMAS FROLIC.
Christmas came. The men had a holiday, but no turkeys, no plum puddings, except such as had come to individuals in private boxes from home. The sight of these boxes was not very edifying to those who had none. Frank, who was once more in communication with his friends, had expected such a box, and been disappointed.
"You just come along with me, boys," said Seth Tucket, "and we'll lay in for as merry a Christmas as any of 'em. It may come a little later in the day; but patient waiters are no losers,—as the waiter said when he picked the pockets of the six gentlemen at dinner."
"What's the fun?" asked the boys, who were generally ready for any sport into which Seth would lead them.
He answered them enigmatically. "'Evil, be thou my good!'—that's what Milton's bad angel said. 'Fowl, be thou my fare!'—that's what I say." From which significant response, followed by an apt imitation of a turkey-gobbler, the boys understood that he had some device for obtaining poultry for dinner.
It was a holiday, and I have said, and they had already got permission to go beyond the lines. There were some twenty of them in all, Frank included. Tucket led them to a thicket about two miles from camp, where they halted.
"You see that house yonder? That's where old Buckley lives—the meanest man in Maryland."
"I know him," said Frank. "He's a rebel; he threatened to set his dog on us one day. He hates the Union uniform worse than he does the Old Scratch."
"He has got lots of turkeys," said Ellis, "which he told the sergeant he'd see die in the pen before he'd sell one to a Yankee."