Si's heart was in a tumult as the engine-bell rang its final warning and the engine moved out with increasing speed. Every roll of the swift wheels was carrying him nearer the dearest ones on earth. The landscape seemed to smile at him as he sped past.
"Isn't this the grandest country on earth, Shorty?" he bubbled over. "It's God's country for a fact. So different from old run-down, rebel-ridden Tennessee. Look at the houses and the farms; look at the people and the live-stock. Look at the towns and the churches. Look at everything. Here's the country where people live. Down yonder's only where they stay and raise Cain."
"Yes," admitted Shorty, who had not so much reason for being enthusiastic; "but the Wisconsin boys say that Wisconsin's as much finer than Injianny as Injianny's finer'n Tennessee. I'll take you up there some day and show you."
"Don't believe a dumbed word of it," said Si, hot with State pride. "God never made a finer country than Injianny. Wisconsin's nowhere."
Then he bethought himself of the many reasons he had for gladness in his home-coming which his partner had not, and said thoughtfully:
"I wish, Shorty, you wuz goin' home, too, to your father and mother and sisters, and—and best girl. But my father and mother'll be as glad to see you as if you was their own son, and the girls'll make just as much of you, and mebbe you'll find another girl there that's purtier and better, and—"
"Stop right there, Si Klegg," said Shorty. "All girls is purty and nice that is, them that is purty and nice, but some's purtier and nicer than others. Then, agin, one's a hundred times purtier and nicer than any o' them. I've no doubt that the girls out your way are much purtier and nicer'n the general run o' girls, but none o' them kin hold a candle to that girl up in Wisconsin, and I won't have you sayin' so."
"If we're on time," said Si, by way of changing the subject, "we'll git to the station about sundown. The farm's about three miles from the station, and we'll reach home after supper. Pap'll be settin' out on the front porch, smokin', and readin' the Cincinnati Gazette, and mother'll be settin' beside him knittin', and the girls'll be clearin' away the supper things. My, won't they be surprised to see us! Won't there be a time! And won't mother and the girls fly around to git us something to eat! Won't they shake up that old cook-stove, and grind coffee, and fry ham and eggs, and bake biscuits, and git us cool, sweet milk and delicious butter from the old spring-house, and talk all the time! Shorty, you never heard my sisters talk, especially when they're a little excited. Gracious, they'll just talk the ears off both of us."
"Well, if they take after you, they are talkers from Talkville," said Shorty. "Mill-wheels ain't in it with your tongue, when it gits fairly started."
The train was on time, and just as the sun was setting behind the fringe of cottonwoods along Bean Blossom Creek they stopped at the little station, and started to walk out to the farm. A neighbor who was drawing a load of tile from the station recognized Si, and begged them to get up and ride, but the team was too slow for the impatient boys, and they forged ahead. A thousand well-remembered objects along the road would have arrested Si's attention were it not for the supreme interest farther on. At last they came to a little rise of ground which commanded a view of the house, and there, as Si predicted, sat his father and mother engaged in smoking, reading and knitting. His first impulse was to yell with delight, but he restrained himself, and walked as steadily on as he could to the front gate. Old Towser set up a bark and ran down the walk, and then changed his note to de lightful yelps of recognition. Si was so nervous that he fumbled vainly for a minute at the gate-latch, and while he did so he heard his mother say: "Father, there's a couple o' soldiers out there." "Wonder if they kin be from Si's company," said the father, lowering his paper, and looking over his spectacles.