I saw he was holding back all he could to keep from crying, and I didn't blame him either, as we was to sail the next day and the old lady was his Ma. It's them good-byes that break a soldier all up. So I lit out and played with the dog and made him jump through my hands and fetch sticks and give his paw (he was quite a RE-markable dog, that dog, though his breeding wasn't much), while I could hear them inside, talking and talking, and the old lady's voice running on about the danger of drink and how he mustn't sleep in wet clothes or give back-talk to his officers--it was wonderful the horse-sense that old lady had--and how he must respeck the uniform he wore and be cheerful and willing and brave, like his sainted father who was dead--all that mothers say and sometimes what soldiers do--and through it all there was a pleasant rattle of dishes and the sound of the fire being poked up, and Benny asking where's the table-cloth, and was there another pie? By and by I was called in, and there, sure enough, the table was spread, and we were both made to sit down while the old lady skirmished around and wiped her eyes when we weren't looking. We had beefsteak, warmed-over pigs' feet, coffee, potato cakes, fresh lettuce, Graham gems, and two kinds of pie, and the next day we sailed for Manila. Them early days in the Fillypines was the toughest proposition I was ever up against. Things hadn't settled down as they did afterward, nobody knowing where he was at, and all of us shoved up to the front higgeldy-piggeldy; and, being Regulars, they gave us the heavy end of it, having to do all the fighting while the Volunteers was being taught the difference between a Krag- Jorgensen and a Moro Castle. It was all front in them days--for the Regulars! But we were lucky in our commissary sergeant, a splendid young man named Orr, and we lived well from the start and never came down to rations. The battery got quite a name for having griddle-cakes for breakfast and carrying a lot of dog generally in the eating line, and someone wrote a song, to the toon of Chickamauga, called "The Fried Chicken of Battery B." But I tell you, it wasn't all fried chicken either, for the fighting was heavy and hot, and a good many of the boys pegged out. If ever there was a battery that looked for trouble and got it--it was Battery B! But we took good care of our commissary sergeant--did I mention he was a splendid young man named Orr?--and though we dropped a good many numbers, wounded, dead, sick, and missing--we kep' up the good name of the battery and had canned butter and pop-overs nearly every day.