"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."