"And, then," continued Si, unmindful of the interruption, "after she took the bread out, smelling like a bouquet, she put in some biscuits, and then some dressed chicken, a young pig."
"Just like this," echoed Shorty, pulling out a rusty remnant of very fat commissary pork.
"Shet up, Shorty," said Si, angered at this reminder of their meager store, which was all that was left them for the day, since they had far out marched their wagons. "I won't have you makin' fun o' my mother's cookin'."
"Well, you shut up torturing me about home goodies," answered Shorty, "when we hain't got enough grub here to fill one undivided quarter-section o' one o' our gizzards, and there hain't no more this side o' the wagons, which are stalled somewhere in the Duck River hills, and won't be up till the katydids sing. I ain't making fun o' your mother's cookin'. But I won't have you tormenting me with gas about the goodies back home."
"I know it ain't right, Shorty," said Si. "It only makes us feel worse. But I can't help thinkin'—"
"Jest go on thinkin'," sneered Shorty, "if you kin fill yourself up that way. I can't. You'd better set to studyin' how to make less'n quarter rations for one fill up two men for all day. There ain't no use goin' a-foragin'. They call this country the Cumberland Barrens. There never was grub enough in it to half support the clay-eaters that live around here, and what there was the rebels have carried off. The only thing I kin think of is to cut up some basswood chips and fry with this pork. Mebbe we could make 'em soft enough to fill up on." And Shorty gloomily shook out the last crumb from the haversacks into a tin of water to soak, while he fried the grease out of the fragment of pork in his half-canteen.
"And Pap," continued Si, as if determined to banish famine thoughts by more agreeable ones, "has had the trottin' team nicely curried, and their manes and tails brushed out, and hitched 'em to that new Studebaker-spring wagon he wrote about. They'll put all the good things in, and then mother and the girls'll climb in. They'll go down the road in great style, and pick up Annabel, and drive over to the Grove, where they'll meet all the neighbors, and talk about their boys in the army, and the Posey Brass Band'll play patriotic tunes, and old Beach Jamieson'll fire off the anvil, and then Parson Ricketts'll put on his glasses and read the Declaration o' Independence, and then some politician young lawyer from Mt. Vernon or Poseyville 'll make a sky-soaring, spread-eagle speech, and—"
"O, do come off, Si," said Shorty irritably. "You're only making yourself hungrier exercising your tongue so. Come here and git your share o' the breakfast and mind you eat fair."
Shorty had fried out the pork in the dingy, black half-canteen, poured the soaked crackers into the sputtering hot grease, and given the mess a little further warming and stirring. Then he pulled the half-canteen from the split stick which served for a handle, set it on the ground, and drew a line through it with his spoon to divide the food fairly into equal portions..
Meanwhile Si had strolled over a little ways to where an old worm fence had stood when the regiment went into camp. Now only the chunks at the corners remained. He looked a minute, and then gave a yell of delight.