("I'm not certain about that last," thought Shorty, "but I heard a preacher say it once, and it ought to be all right to write to a young lady.")
"We are still layin' in camp, but expectin' every day orders
to move out for a little soshable with Mister Joe Johnston,
whose roostin over on Pigeon Mountain. When we git at him,
there won't be no pigeon about it, but a game ov fox-and-
geese with us for the foxes.
("There," mused Shorty, complacently; "that'll amuse her. Girls like a little fun throwed into letters, when it's entirely respectful.)
"Little Pete Skidmore is in the company, all rite. He is wun
ov the nicest boys that ever lived, but he needs half-
killin' nerely every day. All real nice boys do. Woodent
give much for them if they diddent. Tel his mother He look
out for him, and fetch him up in the way he shood go, if I
haf to break every bone in his body. She needent worry. I no
awl about boys. Thair like colts—need to be well-broke
before thair enny akount."
("Now," commented Shorty, as he read what he had written, "that'll make Maria and his mother feel easy in their minds. They'll think they're in great luck to git a man who'll be a second father to Pete, and not risk spilin the child by sparin the rod.")
("Great Jehosephat, what work writing to a young lady is. I'd much ruther build breastworks or make roads. Now, if it was some ordinary woman, I wouldn't have to be careful about my spelin' and gramer, but with sich a lady as Maria Klegg—great Cesar's ghost! a man must do the very best that's in him, and then that ain't half enough. But I must hurry and finish this letter this afternoon. I can't git another day off to work at it.")
"Respected Miss Maria, what a fine writer you are. Yore
handwritin' is the most beautiful I ever seen. Jeb Smith,
our company clerk, thinks that he can sFlink ink to beat old
Spencerian System hisself, but he ain't once with you. Ide
ruther see one line ov your beautiful ritin' than all that
he ever writ."
("That's so," said Shorty, after judicially scanning the sentence. "Jeb kin do some awful fancy kurlys, and draw a bird without takin' his pen from the paper, but he never writ my name a thousandth part as purty as Maria kin.")
"And how purty you spel. Ime something ov a speler myself,
and can nock out most ov the boys in the company on
Webster's Primary, but I aint to be menshuned in the saim
day with you.
"With best respecks to your family, and hoapin soon to here
from you, I am very respeckfully, your friend,
W. L. Elliot.
Corpril, Company Q, 2 Hundsrdth Injiamiy Volintear
Infantry."
By the time he had his letter finished, and was wiping the sweat of intense labor from his brow, he heard the bugle sounding the first call for dress parade. "I must go and begin my fatherly dooties to little Pete Skidmore," he said, carefully sealing his letter and sticking a stamp on it, to mail at the Chaplain's tent as he went by. "It's goin' to be extry fatigue to be daddy to a little cuss as lively as a schoolhouse flea, and Corpril of Co. Q, at the same time, but I'm going to do it, if it breaks a leg."