"'Tain't right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to waste in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and make a right use of it." Like Indiana farmer boys of his class. Si Klegg was cleanly but not neat. Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always "respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to meet Annabel. He took his first bath for the year in the Wabash a week or two after the suckers began to run, and his last just before the water got so cold as to make the fish bite freely. Such a thing as a "dandy" was particularly distasteful to him. "Shorty," said Si, as he watched some of the boys laboring with sandpaper, rotten stone and oil to make the gunbarrels shine like silver, "what's the cense o' bein' so partickler about the outside of a gun? The business part's inside. Making them screw heads look like beads don't make it no surer of gitting Mr. Butternut." "Trouble about you folks on the Wabash," answered Shorty, as he twisted a screw head against some emery paper, "is that you don't pay enough attention to style. Style goes a long ways in this vain and wicked world," (and his eyes became as if meditating on worlds he had known which were not so vain and wicked), "and when I see them Kokomo persimmon knockers of Co. B hustling to put on frills, I'm going to beat 'em if I don't lay up a cent." "Same here," said Si, falling to work on his gunbarrel. "Just as' nice people moved into Posey County as squatted in Kokomo. Gang o' hoss thieves first settled Howard County." "Recollect that big two fister from Kokomo who said he'd knock your head off if you ever throwed that up to him again?" grinned Shorty. "You invited him to try it on, an' he said your stripes stopped him. You pulled off your blouse, and you said you had no stripes on your shirt sleeves. But I wouldn't say it again until those Co. B fellers try again to buck us out of our place in the ration line. It's too good a slam to waste." Tattoo sounded before they had finished their guns and accouterments. These were laid aside to be completed in the full light of day. The next morning work was resumed with industry stimulated by reports of the unusual things being done by the other companies. "This Tennessee mud sticks closer'n a $500 mortgage to a 40-acre tract," sighed Si, as he stopped beating and brushing his blouse and pantaloons. "Or, "'Aunt Jemima's plaster, "The more you try to pull it off the more it sticks the faster." hummed Shorty, with what breath he had left from his violent exercise. So well did they work that by dinner time they felt ready for inspection, careful reconnoissances of the other companies showing them to have no advantages. Next to the Sutler's for the prescribed white gloves.