Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other StoriesFox, John, Jr.
General
Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories
Fox, John, Jr.
Cumberland Mountains -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Mountain life -- Fiction
"You will please have it here next Monday," said the captain, with great
firmness. "It is necessary to the proper discipline of my troops." And
it was there the following Monday--a regimental coat, gray jeans
trousers, and a forage cap that Bill purchased from a passing Morgan
raider. Daily orders would come from Captain Wells to General Flitter
Bill Richmond to send up more rations, and Bill groaned afresh when a
man from Callahan told how the captain's family was sprucing up on meal
and flour and bacon from the captain's camp. Humiliation followed. It
had never occurred to Captain Wells that being a captain made it
incongruous for him to have a "general" under him, until Lieutenant
Skaggs, who had picked up a manual of tactics somewhere, cautiously
communicated his discovery. Captain Wells saw the point at once. There
was but one thing to do--to reduce General Richmond to the ranks--and it
was done. Technically, thereafter, the general was purveyor for the Army
of the Callahan, but to the captain himself he was--gallingly to the
purveyor--simple Flitter Bill.
The strange thing was that, contrary to his usual shrewdness, it should
have taken Flitter Bill so long to see that the difference between
having his store robbed by the Kentucky jay-hawkers and looted by
Captain Wells was the difference between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee,
but, when he did see, he forged a plan of relief at once. When the
captain sent down Lieutenant Boggs for a supply of rations, Bill sent
the saltiest, rankest bacon he could find, with a message that he wanted
to see the great man. As before, when Captain Wells rode down to the
store, Bill handed out a piece of paper, and, as before, the captain had
left his "specs" at home. The paper was an order that, whereas the
distinguished services of Captain Wells to the Confederacy were
appreciated by Jefferson Davis, the said Captain Wells was, and is,
hereby empowered to duly, and in accordance with the tactics of war,
impress what live-stock he shall see fit and determine fit for the good
of his command. The news was joy to the Army of the Callahan. Before it
had gone the rounds of the camp Lieutenant Boggs had spied a fat heifer
browsing on the edge of the woods and ordered her surrounded and driven
down. Without another word, when she was close enough, he raised his
gun and would have shot her dead in her tracks had he not been arrested
by a yell of command and horror from his superior.
"Air you a-goin' to have me cashiered and shot, Lieutenant Boggs, fer
violatin' the ticktacks of war?" roared the captain, indignantly. "Don't
you know that I've got to _impress_ that heifer accordin' to the rules
an' regulations? Git roun' that heifer." The men surrounded her. "Take
her by the horns. Now! In the name of Jefferson Davis and the
Confederate States of Ameriky, I hereby and hereon do duly impress this
heifer for the purposes and use of the Army of the Callahan, so help me
God! Shoot her down, Bill Boggs, shoot her down!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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