CHAPTER IV. THE DEACON'S PLAN
DEALING WITH AN OBSTRUCTION TO THE HOMEWARD JOURNEY.
THE Surgeon, who had conceived quite a good opinion of the Deacon's ability, readily certified that the boys could be safely taken home, since they would have the benefit of his care and attention, and the necessary papers came down from Headquarters that day. The Deacon had the good luck to find his old friend, the Herd-Boss, who took a deep interest in the matter. He offered to have as good a team as he had at the crib the next morning, with the wagon-bed filled with cedar-boughs, to make as easy a couch as possible for the rough ride over the mountains.
With his heart full of hope and joy, the Deacon bustled around to make every possible preparation for the journey.
"It's a long way back home, I know," he said to himself, "and the road's rough and difficult as that to the New Jerusalem; but Faith and Hope, and the blessin' o' God'll accomplish wonders. If I kin only hold the souls in them boys' bodies till I kin git 'em back to Bean Blossom Crick, I'll trust Mother Klegg's nursin' to do the rest. If there ever was a woman who could stand off the Destroyin' Angel by good nursin' that woman's Mother Klegg, bless her soul."
The next morning he was up betimes, and cooked the boys as good a breakfast as he could out of the remainder of his store and what he could get from the hospital, and then gave what was left to whoever came. The comfortable crib, which had cost the Deacon so much labor, had been pre-empted by the Surgeon for some of his weakest patients.
The news had reached the 200th Ind. that the boys were going home, and they came over in a body to say "Good-by."
The sight of them pained the Deacon's good heart. Instead of the hundreds of well-fed, well-clothed, comfortable-looking young men he had seen at Murfreesboro a few months before, he now saw a shrunken band of gaunt, unkempt men, their clothing ragged and patched, many of them almost shoeless, many of them with pieces of blankets bound around their feet instead of shoes, many of them with bandages about their still unhealed wounds, but still keeping their places bravely with their comrades, and stubbornly refusing to count themselves among the sick and disabled, though it required all their will-power to do their share of the duty. But all of them were brimming over with unconquerable cheerfulness and pluck. They made light of their wounds and disabilities, jested at one another's ragged clothes, laughed at their hunger, teased one another about stealing corn from mules, jeered at the rebel shells from Lookout Mountain, yelled derisively at the rebel pickets across the creek, and promised them to soon come out and run Bragg's army off the face of the earth.
All were eager to do something toward the comfort of their departing comrades. They scanned the arrangement of the boughs in the wagon with critical eyes, and picked them over and rearranged them, so as to avoid every chance of uncomfortable knots and lumps. They contributed blankets from their own scanty supply, to make sure that there would be plenty, and so many were eager to help carry Si out and put him in the wagon, that the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q had to take charge of the matter and make a detail. The teamster was given strong admonitions as to careful driving, and fearful warning as to what would happen to him in case of an accident.