"I know it ain't quite right to speak of Si as a friend," she explained, when she spread the shirt out for the family's examination and admiration; "but I couldn't think of nothin' to rhyme with brother."
"I could," said Maria, in her superior way. "I'd said somethin' like this:
"The ring's no end
From which to t'other;
So is the love I send
My onliest brother."
"Maria, you always was so much smarter'n me in writin' poetry," admitted Matilda. "It would've bin ever so much nicer. But it's too late now to do it over agin."
Annabel was sorely puzzled what to send. She wanted something that would be indicative of her feelings toward Si, and yet maiden modesty restrained with the fear of sending something that might be too significant. She spent a sleepless night thinking it over, and finally decided to send a new ambrotype of herself, with a lock of her hair. It is needless to say that this kept Si warmer than a whole bale of flannel shirts would have done.
A thousand things occurred to the family that Si would enjoy, from a couple of feather pillows to a crock of "head cheese," of which Si used to be immensely fond. The old hair trunk was brought down from the garret, and its dimensions studied. But the next evening Jim Wilkins, of Co. Q, who was home patching up a leg which had caught a bullet at Stone River, came in, and his advice was asked.
"No, sir-ree," said he, emphatically. "Don't you never take no trunk nor no box. Don't you take nothin' that you can't hang on to, and keep your eye on every minute. I think the Army o' the Cumberland is the most honestest army in the whole world. I'd knock any man down in a minute that hinted there was a single thief in it. All the same, the only sure way to keep anything you want is to never let go of it for a second. You'd better only take a carpetsack, and look mighty sharp after that, the nearer you git to the army. Keep one eye on it all the time after you cross the Ohio River, and both eyes on it when you git to Murfreesboro'."
A week later a strongly-built, farmer-looking man entered the Nashville train at Louisville and looked anxiously around among the crowd of soldiers with which it was filled. His full, resolute face was destitute of whiskers, except a clump of sandy hair on his chin. He wore a coarse but warm overcoat, a black slouch hat, around his neck was a voluminous yarn comforter, and mittens of the same generous proportions were on his hands, one of which held a bulging blue umbrella and the other a large striped carpetsack.