TRYING TO LICK A BATCH OF RECRUITS INTO SHAPE.

FOR awhile the tumult of thought kept Si awake, but he was too young, healthy, and tired for this to last long, and soon he had his head pillowed on his blanket-roll, placed in the open car-window, and was sleeping too sound to even dream of Annabel, while the rushing train pelted his face with cinders from the engine and a hail of gravel from the road-bed. But what was that to a soldier-boy who had been home, seen his best girl, and had one of his mother's square meals?

When the train rolled into Jeffersonville in the afternoon, they saw Lieut. Bowersox on the platform anxiously waiting for them. His face lighted up with pleasure when he saw them, and eagerly coming forward he said:

"Great Cesar, boys, but I'm glad you've come. I've been waiting for you all day. Rush orders came last night to send everybody to the front. I guess they are in need of every gun they can get. I should have gone last night, but I managed to stave off my orders till now. If you hadn't come on this train, though, I should 've had to go on with out you. Hurry along, now. We are going right across the river."

Despite the Lieutenant's urgency, Si found time to hand him a jar of honey and a small crock of butter from their home supplies, which he received with proper appreciation, and handed over to the grinning negro boy he had picked up somewhere in Tennessee for a servant. They followed the Lieutenant to where he had his squad of about 100 recruits gathered. He said:

"Here, Klegg, you will act as Orderly-Sergeant, and Shorty and the rest of you as Sergeants of this detachment. Here is the list of them, Klegg. Make up a roll and call it whenever I order you to do so."

Si took the list and looked over the crowd. They were mainly boys of about the same age and style as himself when he first enlisted, but he thought he had never seen so green, gawky a lot in the world. Like him then, every one was weighted down with a bundle of things that would evidently be contributed to the well-being of the people along the line of march.

It seemed to him that they stood around the platform in as ugly crookedness as a lodgment of driftwood on a Wabash bottom after a freshet.

"Where on the Wea prairies," muttered Shorty, "did Old Abe pick up that job lot o' wind shaken, lopsided saplings? Must've bin pulled when green and warped in the dryin'."

"Well, we've got to git 'em into some sort o' shape," answered Si. "You must help."

"I help?" returned Shorty despairingly. "You'll need a West Point perfessor and a hay-press to git that crowd into soldier shape. I ain't once."

"Here, Sergeant," ordered Lieut. Bowersox, "line the men up, count them, learn their names, and give them a little preliminary drill, while I go to Headquarters and see the Colonel again about our transportation."

"Fall in, boys; fall in," commanded Si.

The crowd looked at him curiously. They knew that he wanted them to do something, they were willing to do it, but they hadn't the slightest idea what it was. They made a move by huddling up a little toward him.

"Fall in in two ranks, with the right here," shouted Si.

There was more inconsequent huddling, which seemed so purposely awkward that it irritated Si, and he spoke sharply:

"Gosh all Krismuss, what's the matter with you lunkheads? Don't you know nothing? You're dummer'n a lot o' steers."

"Guess we know 'bout as much as you did when you first enlisted," said the smallest of the lot, a red-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, who looked as if he should have been standing up before a blackboard "doing a sum" in long division, instead of on his way to the field of strife. "Show us how, and we'll learn as quick as you did."

Si looked at the fresh young boy. There was something actually girlish in his face, and it reminded him of Annabel. His heart softened toward him at once, and he remembered his own early troubles. He said gently to the boy:

"You're right. What's your name, my boy?"

"Abel Waite."

"Well, Abel, we'll make a soldier out of you in a little while. You are the smallest; you'll be the left of the line. Go and stand there at the corner. Now, boys, all lay your bundles down. Here, you tall fellow, what's your name?"

"James Bradshaw."

"Well, Bradshaw, you'll be the right of the line all the time, and the rest 'll form on you. Come, stand here."

Bradshaw shambled forward in a way that made Shorty call out:

"Here, Bradshaw, wake up! You ain't now follerin' a plow over the last year's corn-furrers. Straighten up, lift them mud-hooks livelier and drop your hands to your side."

The man stopped, raised his hands, and looked at Shorty with his mouth wide open.

"Come, Bradshaw," said Si gently, taking hold of him, "I'll show you. Now you stand right here. Put your heels together. Now turn your toes out. Throw your shoulders back this way. Close your mouth. Put your little fingers on the seams of your pantaloons that way. Now stand just so."

The poor man looked as miserable as if put in a strait-jacket, but tried to literally obey instructions.

"Now, what's your name?" Si asked the next tall est man.

"Simeon Wheelwright."

"Wheelwright, you stand behind Bradshaw, just as he does."

And so Si went painstakingly through the whole squad until he came to Abel Waite, whom he found did not need any instruction, for he had profited by hearing the lectures to the others, and was standing as stiff and correct as a veteran could have done.

"Great outfit," remarked Shorty, walking down the line, gun in hand, and surveying it critically. "Looks like a mourners' bench froze stiff. Here, you red-headed man there, take in that corporation. You won't have so much bay window after you've lived on army rations awhile."

"Now," commanded Si, "when I say 'Count twos from the right,' I want you to begin and count. The first man you, Bradshaw says 'one,' and the next man on your left says 'two' and so on. The men in the rear rank do the same. Count twos from the right Count!"

"One, two; four, six; seven, nine; ten, 'leven," shouted the boys, in all manner of tones and general bewilderment.

"Stop it; stop it!" yelled Si, his temper again rising. "Great day, can't you fellers understand plain English when it's talked to you? What's the matter with you, anyway? Here, Bradshaw, when I give the order to count, you count one. Wheel wright, you count one at the same time. Williams and Talbot, you each count two. Then Aldrich, you and Reynolds count one, and so on."

At last he got them to count to his satisfaction, and then proceeded to the next lesson.

"Now, at the command 'right face' everybody face to the right. The No. 1 men in the front rank stand fast. The No. 1 men in the rear rank take a side step to the right. The No. 2 men each take a side step to the right, and places himself on the right of No. 1."

"Great Jehosephat, Si," remonstrated Shorty; "it'll take 'em a month to learn all that."

"Don't care if it does," said Si desperately. "They've got to learn it sometime, and they can't learn no younger. Might as well begin now as any time. 'Tention! Right face!"

Si had hard work restraining the angry words which fumed up when he saw the execution of his command. Only a few had turned to the right. The rest had either stood still, turned to the left or were turning first one way and then another, to adjust themselves to those nearest them.

"Looks like a political primary just before the vote's called," remarked Shorty. "Better git red rags to tie around their right hands, so's they'll know 'em."

"It'll be a shame to take them across the Ohio river in this shape," said Si in deep vexation. "They'll shoot one another's heads off in the first fight, if they've guns in their hands."

"Don't worry," answered Shorty consolingly. "They'll pick it up mighty fast as soon as they see other fellers doing it, and 'll be in purty good shape by the time we git 'em to the regiment. We was just as green as they are."

Si repressed his petulant words with an effort, and started in to give them an ocular demonstration of the way to execute "right face," but was interrupted by the Lieutenant coming up and saying:

"Here, we've got to move right out to catch the ferryboat and the train on the other side. 'Tention! Pick up your bundles. Forward, march!"

The Recruits Lined up on the Platform. 186

Tactics were forgotten in a go-as-you-please rush on to the ferryboat, through the streets of Louisville, and on to the cars for Nashville. Everybody else was doing the same. The boat and streets were filled and the depot yard packed with men all pushing forward for the "front." While Si, walking alongside the Lieutenant, led, Shorty and the rest of the detail brought up the rear. After they had scrambled into the old freight cars and stowed them selves away, Si looked over his squad and counted it.

"Have you got them all aboard, Sergeant?" in quired Lieut. Bowersox.

"I've got the right number, sir," Si answered, saluting; "and if they ain't all the same men they're just as good."

"All right," returned the officer. "I had 103 put in my charge to take to the regiment, and 103 men I must have when I get there."

"You shall have the full 103, Lieutenant," assured Shorty, "i............