"Don't ye never blow on this thing," said Si. "It'll be a cold day for us if they'd find it out."
"There ain't no danger o' my tellin'," replied Shorty. "But, say, ain't that a nice girl out there?"
"She's a mean rebel, that's what she is! But that was a smart trick o' her'n, wasn't it?"
"Come mighty near bein' too smart fer us!" replied Shorty. "I don't want no more such close shaves in mine. You 'member the story of the spider and the fly, don't ye? Well, she was the spider 'n' we was two poor little fool flies!"
"Shorty," said Si, "I'd a mighty sight ruther be an angel an' have the daisies a-bloomin' over my grave, than to have been tuk a prisoner in that house. But that dinner was good, anyhow—what we got of it!"
CHAPTER XX. "THE SWEET SABBATH"
HOW THE BLESSED DAY OF REST WAS SPENT IN THE ARMY.
"TOMORROW'S Sunday, ye know," said the Orderly of Company Q one Saturday night at roll-call.
This was in the nature of news to the boys. But for the announcement very few of them would have known it. The Orderly was not distinguished for his piety, and it is not likely that the approach of Sunday would have occurred to him if the Sergeant-Major had not come around with orders from the Colonel for a proper observance of the day. The Colonel himself would not have thought of it either, if the Chaplain had not reminded him of it. Everybody wondered how even the Chaplain could keep track of the days well enough to know when Sunday came—but that was chiefly what he wore shoulder-straps and drew his salary for. It was the general impression that he either carried an almanac in his pocket, or else a stick in which he cut a notch every day with his jack-knife, and in that way managed to know when a new week began.