In every camp the cheering men were making bonfires of the furnishings of their Winter camps. Chairs, benches, tables, checker-boards, cupboards, what-nots, etc., which had cost them considerable pains to procure, and upon which they had lavished no little mechanical skill, and sometimes artistic ornamentation, were ruthlessly thrown to feed the joyful fires which blazed in each camp which had been lucky enough to receive orders. The bands were playing, to emphasize and give utterance to the rejoicings of the men.
Shorty took little Pete by the hand to assist him in keeping up with the rapid pace Si and he set up to get back to their own camp, and participate in its demonstrations.
"Of course, our rijimint's goin' too—goin' to have the advance," Si said to Shorty, more than anything else to quiet a little disturbing fear that would creep in. "They wouldn't leave it behind to guard one o' these mud-piles they call forts, would they?"
"They never have yit," answered Shorty, hopefully. "They say old Sherman is as smart as they make 'em. He knows a good rijimint when he sees it, and he's certain to want the 200th Injianny in the very foremost place. Hustle along, boys."
As they neared their camp they were delighted to find it in a similar uproar to the others, with the men cheering, the brigade band playing, and the men throwing everything they could find on the brightly blazing bonfires. Ordinarily, such a long march as they had made to the top of the Lookout Mountain and back again would have been very tiresome, but in the enthusiasm of the occasion they forgot their fatigue—almost forgot their hunger.
"The orders are," the Orderly-Sergeant explained to Si, as they were cooking supper, "that we're to move out tomorrow morning in light marching order, three days' rations, 80 rounds of cartridges, only blankets, no tents, but one wagon to a regiment, and one mule to a company to carry ammunition and rations. O, we're stripped down to the skin for a fight, I tell you. It's to be business from the first jump, and we'll be right in it. We're to have the advance, and clear away the rebel cavalry and pickets, to open up the road for the rest of the division. You'll find your rations and ammunition in front of my tent. Draw 'em and get everything ready, and go to sleep as soon as possible, for we'll skin out of here at the first peep of day. There's a whole passel of sassy rebel cavalry out in front, that's been entirely too familiar and free, and we want to get a good whack at them before they know what's up."
And the busy Orderly passed on to superintend other preparations in the company.
After drawing and dividing the rations and cartridges. Si gave the boys the necessary instruction about having their things ready so that they could get them in the dark the next morning, and ordered them to disregard the bonfires and mirth-making, and lie down to get all the sleep they could, in preparation for the hard work of the next day. Then, like the rest of the experienced men, who saw that the campaign was at length really on, and this would be the last opportunity for an indefinite while to write, he sat down to write short letters to his mother and to Annabel.
Influenced by the example, Shorty thought he ought to write to Maria. He had received a second letter from her the day that he had gone out to the mill, and its words had filled his soul with a gladness that passed speech. The dispassionate reader would not have seen anything in it to justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full of errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these. Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand, secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far from Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the pitch-pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk bandana, and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and Maria's last letter, which he spread out and re-read several times.
Commonplace and formal as the letter was, there was an intangible something in it that made him feel a little nearer the writer than ever before. Therefor, he began his reply: