HOURS THAT WERE ALL-TOO-FEW AND ALL-TOO-SHORT.

THE girls heard their mother's happy scream and rushed out, dish towels in hand. They at once realized what had happened, piped up their joyous altos, and precipitated themselves upon Si. The good old Deacon came trotting down the walk, fidgeting with his spectacles, but so enveloped was his son with skirts and women's arms and happy, teary faces that he could not get within arm's length of him. So he turned to Shorty:

"Great day, Shorty, but I'm glad to see you! Come right up on the steps and set down. How'd you happen to come home. Either of you sick or wounded?"

"Nope," answered Shorty sententiously. "Both sound as nuts and healthy as mules."

"Well, come right up on the porch and set down. You must be awful tired. Le'me carry your gun and things for you."

He took hold of the gun with such a desire to do something that Shorty was fain to yield it, saying:

"Deacon, you are the first man in about a million betwixt here and the Tennessee River that I'd let tech that gun. I don't know now of another man in the United States that I'd trust it with. That 'ere gun is loaded plum full of other folks's money."

"Goodness, is that so?" said the Deacon, handling the musket with increased respect. "I've heard o' a bar'l o' money, but never supposed that it was a gun bar'l."

"And more'n that," continued Shorty, "there's a full-grown cartridge below that might shoot a war widow's new dress and shoes for the children off into the moon."

"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated the Deacon, holding out the gun as he did Si the first time that interesting infant was placed in his hands, "handlin' other people's money's always ticklish business, but this's a leetle the ticklishest I ever heard of."

"That's what bin wearin' me down to the bone," responded Shorty soberly, and as they reached the porch he explained the situation to the Deacon, who took the gun in the house, and laid it carefully on a bed in the "spare room."

"Girls, you're smotherin' me! Let up, won't you? Mandy, you dabbed that wet dishcloth right in my eye then. Maria, I can't talk or even breathe with your arm over my windpipe. You, dear mother, I'll pick you up and carry you into the house, if you'll let me," Si was trying to say. "I can't answer all your questions at once, 'specially when you're shuttin' off my breath an' dinnin' my ears till I can't hear myself think."

"Le's carry your things up, Si," said Maria, after Si had gotten them calmed down a little. "You must be awful tired."

Si saw that this would be the best way to keep the girls off, while he devoted his attention to his mother. He handed his gun and belt to Maria, who marched on ahead, triumphantly waving her dish-towel as a gonfalon of victory, while she cheered for the union in her sweet contralto. Mandy took possession of his blanket roll and haversack, while Si almost carried his tearful mother on to the porch. There her housewifely instinct at once asserted it self.

"I know you and your friend there must jest be starvin'," she said, gathering herself up. "I never knowed when you wasn't, if you'd bin an hour from the table."

"Shorty's worse'n me," said Si with a grin. "But I haven't interduced him yit. Mother, girls, this is Shorty, my pardner, and the best pardner a feller ever had."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Shorty," said they, shaking his hand. "We've heard so much of you that we feel that we've knowed you all along."

"drop the Mister, then," said Shorty. "I'm plain Shorty to everybody until I'm out o' the army. I've heard so much of you that I feel, too, that I've bin acquainted with you all my life."

"Girls," commanded the mother, "come on and let's git the boys something to eat."

"No, mother," pleaded Si, holding fast to her hand. "Let the girls do it. I want you to sit here and talk to me."

"No, Si," answered the mother, kissing him again, and releasing her hand, "I must do it myself. I must cook your supper for you. The girls won't do it half well enough."

She hustled away to the kitchen, and Si and Shorty explained to the Deacon the circumstances of their visit, and that they must leave by the next train going east, in order to keep their promise to Lieut. Bowersox. The Deacon immediately started Abraham Lincoln and the boy on saddle horses to bring in the neighbors to see the boys, and get the money that had been sent them. They went into an inner room, carefully blinded the windows, and began to draw out the money from various pockets, cartridge-boxes, and other receptacles about their persons.

All drew a long breath of relief when, counting that in Shorty's gun, every dollar was found to be safe.

"But how in time you're ever goin' to git that money out o' that gun beats me," said the Deacon, picking up the musket, and gazing dubiously into the muzzle. "It was a mighty smart thing to do down at the front, but what are you going to do now, when you want to give the money to the people it belongs to?"

"It certainly don't seem as smart as it did that night on the banks o' the Tennessee," Shorty admitted as he fixed his bullet screw on the end of his rammer, "but I'm goin' to trust to my own smartness and the Providence that provides for war widows and orphans to git out every dollar in good shape for them it was intended for."

The bullet-screw brought out the first "wad" easily and all right.

The First Wad Came out Easily and All Right. 165

"Well, Providence is lookin' out for Jim Irvin's wife and children all right," said Shorty, as they smoothed out the bills and found them intact.

The next attempt was equally successful, and as Shorty unrolled the bills he remarked:

"Providence is again overlookin'. There's Jim Beardslee's $50 for his widowed mother."

"And she needs it, poor woman," said the Deacon. "I've seen that she had all the meat and wood she's needed since Jim enlisted, and Deacon Flagler keeps her in flour."

The next offered more difficulty. The rammings on those above had compacted it pretty solidly. The bullet screw cut off bits of it, and when finally it was gotten out the $10 bill was in pieces.

"That's Alf Ellerby's gift to his lame sister," said Shorty, as he ruefully surveyed the fragments. "I'm afraid Providence wasn't mindin' just then, but I'll give her a good bill out o' my own pocket."

"No, you needn't," said Maria, who had slipped in, fork in hand, to pinch Si, kiss him, and ask him a question which she did not want Mandy to hear; "I kin paste that all together with white of egg so's it'll look as good as ever. I done that with a bill that Towser snatched out o' my hand and chawed before I could git it away from him. The store keeper took it and said it was just as good as any. Sophy Ellerby 'd rather have it that way than a new bill, so long's it comes direct from Alf."

Again Shorty sent down the bullet screw, and again there was more tearing off of bits, and finally a mangled $20 bill was dragged forth and laid aside for Mandy to repair. "Ike Englehardt sent that to his mother to help take his sister through the Normal School, so's she kin become a teacher. She'll git that all right. But I've broken my bullet screw in that wrastle. It snapped clean off, and I've got the worst job of all now to get out $100 in two 50's that Abe Trelawney sent his mother to meet that mortgage on her little house. Abe's bin savin' it up for months, and I was more anxious about it than any other, and so I put it down first. Si, let me have your bullet-screw."

"Hain't got none. Lost mine weeks ago, while we was on the Tullahomy march."

"Great Jehosephat! what am I goin' to do?" groaned Shorty, the sweat starting out on his fore head. "Now's the time for Providence to help out, if He's goin' to. I'm at the end o' my string."

"Supper's ready, boys; come on in," announced the sweet, motherly voice of Mrs. Klegg. She seconded her invitation with her arm around Si and a kiss on his cheek. "Father, bring Shorty, unless he'd rather walk with the girls."

Shorty was altogether too bashful to take advantage of the direct hint. Si's lively sisters filled him with a nervous dread of his social shortcomings. He grew very red in the face, hung back from them, and caught hold of the Deacon's arm.

"Go slow with him, girls," whispered the Deacon to his daughters, after they were seated at the table. "He's a mighty good boy, but he ain't used to girls."

"He's rather good looking, if he does act sheepish," returned Mandy.

"Well, he ain't a mite sheepish when there's serious business on hand," returned the father. "And next to ourselves, he's the best friend your brother has."

It had been many years since the wandering, rough-living Shorty had sat down to such an inviting, well-ordered table. Probably he never had. No people in the whole world live better than the prosperous Indiana farmers, and Mrs. Klegg was known far and wide for her housewifely talents. The snowy table linen, the spotless dishes, the tastefully-prepared food would have done credit to a royal banquet. Hungry as he was, the abashed Shorty fidgeted in his chair, and watched Si begin before he ventured to make an attack. The mother and girls were too busy plying Si with questions and anticipating his wants to notice Shorty's embarrassment.

Si was making a heroic effort to eat everything in sight, to properly appreciate all the toothsome things that loving hands were pressing upon him, and to answer the myriad of questions that were showered upon him, and to get in a few questions of his own at the same time. He just found time to ask Short............