The boys of Co. Q showered their congratulations upon Si in the usual way. They made it very lively for him that day. In the evening: Si hunted up some white cloth, borrowed a needle and thread, went off back of the tent, rammed his bayonet into the ground, stuck a candle in the socket, and sewed chevrons on the sleeves of his blouse. Then he wrote a short letter:
"Deer Annie: I once more take my pen in hand to tell you
there's grate news. I'm an ossifer. We had an awful fite
yisterdy. I don't know how menny rebbles I kild, but I guess
thare was enuff to start a good sized graveyard. I tuk a
prizner, too, and the Kurnal says to me bully fer you,
Mister Klegg, or sumthin to that effeck. This mornin they
made me a Corporil, and red it out before the hull rijiment
I guess youd been prowd if you could have seen me. To-night
the boys is hollerin hurraw fer Corporal Klegg all over
camp. I ain't as big is the Ginrals and gum of the other
ossifers, but thars no tellin how hi I'll get in three
years.
"Rownd is the ring that haint no end,
So is my luv to you my friend.
"Yours, same as before,
"Corporal Si Klegg."
CHAPTER XVI. ONE OF THE "NON-COMMISH"
A NIGHT'S ADVENTURES AS "CORPORAL OF THE GUARD."
"CORPORAL Klegg, you will go on duty to-night with the camp guard!" said the Orderly of Co. Q one evening, as the 200th Ind. filed off into a piece of woods to bivouac for the night, two or three days after Si had been promoted.
The chevrons on his arms had raised Si several degrees in the estimation not only of himself, but of the other members of the company. His conduct in the skirmish had shown that he had in him the material for a good soldier, and even the Orderly began to treat him with that respect due to his new rank as one of the "non-commish."
Like every other man who put on the army blue and marched away so bold, "With gay and gallant tread," Si could not tell whether he was going to amount to anything as a soldier until he had gone through the test of being under fire. There were many men who walked very erect, talked bravely, drilled well, and made a fine appearance on dress parade, before they reached "the front," but who wilted at the "zip" of bullets like tender corn blades nipped by untimely frost. And a good many of them continued in that wilted condition. Perhaps they really couldn't help it. An inscrutable Providence had seen fit to omit putting any "sand in their gizzards," as the boys expressed it.
It must be confessed that Si was somewhat unduly elated and puffed up over, his own achievements as a skirmisher and his success in climbing the ladder of military rank and fame. It is true, it wasn't much of a fight they had that day, but Si thought it was pretty fair for a starter, and enough to prove to both himself and his comrades that he wouldn't be one of the "coffee coolers" when there was business on hand.
Si was sorry that his regiment did not get into the fight at Perryville. The 200th Ind. belonged to one of the two corps of Buell's army that lay under the trees two or three miles away all through that October afternoon, while McCook's gallant men were in a life-and-death struggle against overwhelming odds. It bothered Si as much to understand it all as it did 30,000 other soldiers that day.