"Which o' you boys got my kittle?" he inquired, walking along the line.
"Got your kittle, you blamed teamster," they an swered crossly. "Go away from here. We won't allow teamsters at this spring. It's only for soldiers. Go to your own spring."
His kettle was gone, too. That was clear. As the Deacon walked back to the cabin he was very hot in the region of his collar. He felt quite shame faced, too, as to the way the boys would look on his management, in the face of the injunctions they had given him at parting. His temper was not improved by discovering that while he was gone someone had carried off the bigger part of the wood he had laboriously chopped and piled up in front of the cabin. He sat down in the doorway and meditated angrily:
"I'll be dumbed (there, I'm glad that Mariar didn't hear me say that. I'm afeared I'm gittin' to swear just like these other fellers). I'll be dumbed if I ever imagined there wuz sich a passel o' condemned thieves on the face o' the airth. And they all seem sich nice, gentlemanly fellers, too. What'll we do with them when they git back home?"
Presently he roused himself up to carry out his idea of getting a good meal ready for the boys by the time they returned, tired and hungry. He rummaged through the cabin, and came across an old tin bucket partially filled with scraps of paper. There did not seem to be anything of value in it, and he tossed the contents on the smoldering fire. Instantly there was an explosion which took the barrel off the top of the chimney, sent the stones rattling down, filled the room full of smoke, singed the Deacon's hair and whiskers, and sped him out of the cabin in great alarm. A crowd quickly gathered to see what was the matter. Just then Si appeared at the head of his squad. He and Shorty hurried to the scene of the disturbance.
"What is the matter, Pap?" Si asked anxiously. "Why," explained his father, "I was lookin' round for something to git water in, and I found an old tin bucket with scraps o' paper in. I throwed them in the fire, and I'm feared I busted your fireplace all to pieces, But I'll help you to fix it up agin," he added deprecatingly.
"But you ain't hurt any, are you, Pap?" asked Si, anxiously examining his father, and ignoring all thought as to the damage to the dwelling.
"No," said his father cheerfully. "I guess I lost a little hair, but I could spare that. It was about time to git it cut, anyway. I think we kin fix up the fireplace, Si."