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On Picket Duty
by
“What is it, lad?” asked Thorn, pausing in his tramp, as if willing to be drawn from the disturbing thought that made his black brows lower and his mouth look grim.
“Thinkin’ of my wife, and wishin’ she was here, bless her heart! set me rememberin’ how I see her fust, and so I roared, as I always do when it comes into my head.”
“How was it? Come, reel off a yarn, and let’s hear houw yeou hitched teams,” said Flint, always glad to get information concerning his neighbors, if it could be cheaply done.
“Tellin’ how we found our wives wouldn’t be a bad game, would it, Phil?”
“I’m agreeable; but let’s have your romance first.”
“Devilish little of that about me or any of my doin’s. I hate sentimental bosh as much as you hate slang, and should have been a bachelor to this day if I hadn’t seen Kitty jest as I did. You see, I’d been too busy larkin’ round to get time for marryin’, till a couple of years ago, when I did up the job double-quick, as I’d like to do this thunderin’ slow one, hang it all!”
“Halt a minute till I give a look, for this picket isn’t going to be driven in or taken while I’m on guard.”
Down his beat went Thorn, reconnoitring river, road, and swamp, as thoroughly as one pair of keen eyes could do it, and came back satisfied, but still growling like a faithful mastiff on the watch; performances which he repeated at intervals till his own turn came.
“I didn’t have to go out of my own State for a wife, you’d better believe,” began Dick, with a boast, as usual; “for we raise as fine a crop of girls thar as any State in or out of the Union, and don’t mind raisin’ Cain with any man who denies it. I was out on a gunnin’ tramp with Joe Partridge, a cousin of mine,–poor old chap! he fired his last shot at Gettysburg, and died game in a way he didn’t dream of the day we popped off the birds together. It ain’t right to joke that way; I won’t if I can help it; but a feller gets awfully kind of heathenish these times, don’t he?”
“Settle up them scores byme-by; fightin’ Christians is scurse raound here. Fire away, Dick.”
“Well, we got as hungry as hounds half a dozen mile from home, and when a farmhouse hove in sight, Joe said he ‘d ask for a bite, and leave some of the plunder for pay. I was visitin’ Joe, didn’t know folks round, and backed out of the beggin’ part of the job; so he went ahead alone. We’d come out of the woods behind the house, and while Joe was foragin’, I took a reconnoissance. The view was fust-rate, for the main part of it was a girl airin’ beds on the roof of a stoop. Now, jest about that time, havin’ a leisure spell, I’d begun to think of marryin’, and took a look at all the girls I met, with an eye to business. I s’pose every man has some sort of an idee or pattern of the wife he wants; pretty and plucky, good and gay was mine, but I’d never found it till I see Kitty; and as she didn’t see me, I had the advantage and took an extra long stare.”
“What was her good p’ints, hey?”
“Oh, well, she had a wide-awake pair of eyes, a bright, jolly sort of a face, lots of curly hair tumblin’ out of her net, a trig little figger, and a pair of the neatest feet and ankles that ever stepped. ‘Pretty,’ thinks I; ‘so far so good.’ The way she whacked the pillers, shook the blankets, and pitched into the beds was a caution; specially one blunderin’ old feather-bed that wouldn’t do nothin’ but sag round in a pigheaded sort of way, that would have made most girls get mad and give up. Kitty didn’t, but just wrastled with it like a good one, till she got it turned, banged, and spread to suit her; then she plumped down in the middle of it, with a sarcy little nod and chuckle to herself, that tickled me mightily. ‘Plucky,’ thinks I, ‘better ‘n’ better.’ Jest then an old woman came flyin’ out the back-door, callin’, ‘Kitty! Kitty! Squire Partridge’s son’s here, ‘long with a friend; been gunnin’, want luncheon, and I’m all in the suds; do come down and see to ’em.’