CHAPTER XI. WINTER QUARTERS
THEY BUILT THEM A HOUSE AND GOT IN OUT OF THE RAIN.
THE NEXT day Sunday after the battle dawned as clear, bright and sparkling as only a Winter's day can dawn in Tennessee, after a fortnight of doleful deluges. Tennessee Winter weather is like the famous little girl with the curl right down in the middle of her forehead, who,
"When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid."
After weeks of heart-saddening down-pour that threatened to drench life and hope out of every breathing thing, it will suddenly beam out in a day so crisp and bright that all Nature will wear a gladsome smile and life become jocund.
When the reveille and the Orderly-Sergeant's brogans aroused Si and Shorty the latter's first thought was for the strip of canvas which he had secured with so much trouble from the wagon-cover, and intended to cherish for future emergencies. He felt his neck and found the strip that he had tied there, but that was all that there was of it. A sharp knife had cut away the rest so deftly that he had not felt its loss.
Shorty's boiler got very hot at once, and he began blowing off steam. Somehow he had taken an especial fancy to that piece of canvas, and his wrath was hot against the man who had stolen it.
