It was rather interesting to walk through a company street of an evening, and listen to a few words of the conversation in progress in the tents—all lighted up, unless some one was saving or had consumed his allowance of candle. It would read much like a chapter from the telephone—noted down by a listener from one end of the line only. Then to peer into the tents, as one went along, just time enough to see what was going on, and excite the curiosity of the inmates as to the identity of the intruder, was a feature of such a walk.
While the description I have been giving applies in some particulars to life in Sibley tents, yet, so far as much of it is concerned, it describes equally well the life of the private soldier in any tent. But the tent of the army was the shelter or dog tent, and the life of the private soldier in log huts under these tents requires treatment by itself in many respects. I shall therefore leave it for consideration in another chapter.
CHAPTER V.
LIFE IN LOG HUTS.
Then he built him a hut,
And in it he put
The carcass of Robinson Crusoe.
Old Song.
