The Last Three Soldiers

by W. H. Shelton

It is a Sunday morning in September again, and, to be exact with the date,—for it was a very important one in their history,—it is the fifth day of the month in the year '70. The three soldiers are standing together by the door of the mill, dressed very much as we last saw them there, and engaged in an animated conversation.

"An egg," said Lieutenant Coleman, facing his two comrades, and crossing his hands unconsciously over the great "A" on the back of his canvas trousers, "as an article of food may be considered as the connecting-link between the animal and the vegetable. If we had to kill the hen to get the egg, I should consider it a sin to eat it. What we have to do, and that right briskly, is to eat the eggs to prevent the hens from increasing until they are numerous enough to devour every green thing on the mountain."

"I am not so sure of that," said Philip, toying with his one dusty suspender; "we could feed the eggs to the bear."

"We could, but we won't," said Bromley, shaking some crumbs from the front of his gown. "When nature prompts a hen to cackle, do you think we are expected to look the other way? Why, Philip, you will be going back on honey next because bees make it. We are vegetarians because we no longer think it right to destroy animal life. We not only think it wrong to destroy, but we believe it to be our duty to preserve it wherever we find it. Don't we spread corn on the snow in the winter for the coons and squirrels? Come, now! We are not vegetarians at all. We are simply unwilling to take life, which leaves us to choose between vegetable diet and starvation. Now, then," said Bromley, spreading out his bare arms and shrugging his shoulders, "of the two, I choose a vegetable diet; but if I could eat half a broiled chicken without injury to the bird, I'd do it. That's the sort of vegetarian I am."

"Nonsense!" said Philip. "You're a dabster at splitting hairs, you are. It was uphill work making a vegetarian of you, George; but we have got you there at last, and you can't squirm out of it."

"Give it to him, Phil!" cried Coleman. "Hit him on the salt!"

"Exactly!" continued Philip, taking a swallow of water from a golden cup, and addressing himself to Bromley. "When the salt was gone you thought you'd never enjoy another meal, didn't you?—and how is it now? You are honest enough to admit that you never knew what a keen razor-edge taste was before. I'll bet you a quart of double eagles, George, that you get more flavor out of a dish of common—"

At that moment a bag of sand came through the branches of the tree which shaded the three soldiers as they talked. There was a dark shadow moving over the sunlit ground, and a rushing sound in the air above. Their own conversation, and the noise of the water pouring from the trough over the idle wheel and splashing on the stones, must have prevented their hearing human voices close at hand. Rushing out from under the trees, they saw a huge balloon sweeping over their heads. The enormous bag of silk, swaying and pulsating in the meshes of the netting, was a hundred feet above the plateau; but the willow basket, in which two men and one woman were seated, was not more than half that distance from the ground. The surprise, the whistling of the monster through the air, the snapping and rending of the drag-rope with its iron hook, which was tearing up the turf, and which in an instant more scattered the shingles on the roof of their house like chaff, and carried off some of their bedding which was airing there—all these things were so startling, and came upon them so suddenly, that they had but short opportunity to observe the human beings who came so near them.