"Better let me try my hand," said the Deacon. "You've bin away from the farm for so long you've probably lost the knack. I'm a famous milker." "You'll play fair?" said the milker doubtfully. "Yes; just hold her till I go inside and git my bucket, and I'll milk your cup clean full," answered the Deacon, starting inside the corn-crib. "Well, you're a cool one," gasped the milker, realizing the situation. "But I'll hold you to your bargain, and I'll play fair with you." The Deacon came back with his bucket, and after filling the man's cup as full as it would hold, handed it to him, and then began drawing the rest into his own bucket. Careful milker that he was, he did not stop until he had stripped the last drop, and the cow, knowing at once that a master hand was at her udder, willingly yielded all her store. "There," said the Deacon, "if anybody gits any more out o' her till evenin' he's welcome to it." Two or three other men had come up in the meanwhile with their cups, and they started, without so much as asking, to dip their cups in. "Hold on!" commanded the first-comer sternly. "Stop that! This old man's a friend o' mine, and I won't see him imposed on. Go somewhere else and git your milk." A wordy war ensued, but the first-comer was stalwart and determined. The row waked up Shorty, who appeared with an ax. "All right," said one of the men, looking at the ax; "keep your durned old milk, if you're so stingy toward hungry soldiers. It'll give you milk-sick, anyway. There's lots o' milk-sick 'round here. All the cows have it. That cow has it bad. I kin tell by her looks. We had lots o' milk-sick in our neighborhood, and I got real well-acquainted with it. I kin tell a milk-sick cow as fur as I kin see her, and if that cow hasn't it, no one ever had it." He made a furtive attempt to kick the bucket over, which was frustrated by the Deacon's watchfulness. "Better do something with that cow right off," advised the first-comer, as he walked off. "You can't keep her in camp all day. Somebody'll git her away from you if they have to take her by main force." "Are you willin' to risk the milk-sick?" asked the Deacon, handing Shorty a cupful of the milk, together with a piece of cornpone. "Yum--yum, I should say so," mumbled that longlegged gentleman. "I'll make the milk sicker'in it kin me, you bet. Jest bring along all the milk-sick you've got on hand, and I'll keep it from hurtin' anybody else. That's the kind of a philanthropist I am." "I see you've got a cow here," said a large man wearing a dingy blue coat with a Captain's faded shoulder-straps. "I'm a Commissary, and it's my duty to take her." He walked over and in a businesslike way began unfastening the rope. The Deacon shuddered, for he had too much respect for shoulder-straps to think of resisting. Shorty looked up from his breakfast, scanned the newcomer, and said: