"An' yo' rayly had no heart to fight for the nigger, an' that yo'd treat me like a sister."
"A sister," Shorty exploded internally. "Think of a feller's havin' a sister like that. Why, I wouldn't throw her in a soap-grease barrel."
"Who was this friend. Madam?" said Si, "and where is his letter?"
"I don't know whether to give it to yo' or not," said she. "Y're not the men at all that he ascribed to me. He said yo' wuz very good-lookin', perlite gentlemen, who couldn't do too much for a lady."
"Sorry we're not as handsome as you expected," said Si; "but mebbe that's because we're in fatigue uniforms. You ought to see my partner there when he's fixed up for parade. He's purtier'n a red wagon then. Let me see the letter. I can tell then whether we're the men or not."
"Kin yo' read?" she asked suspiciously.
"O, yes," answered Si laughingly at the thought almost universal in the South that reading and writing were—like the Gift of Tongues—a special dispensation to a few favored individuals only. "I can read and do lots o' things that common people can't. I'm seventh son of a seventh son, born with a caul on my head at the time o' the full moon. Let me see the letter."
She was not more than half convinced, but unhooked her dress and took a note from her bosom, which she stuck out toward Si, holding tightly on to one end in the meanwhile. Si read, in Levi Rosenbaum's flourishing, ornate handwriting:
"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteers,
in Camp on Duck River."
"That means me," said Si, taking hold of the end of the envelope. "There ain't but one 200th Injianny Volunteers; there's no other Co. Q, and I'm the only Josiah Klegg."