Dan looked round with sympathy. “That's true; it's a shame,” he admitted smiling. “Look here, boys, has anybody got an extra pair of breeches?” A howl of derision went up from the regiment as it fell into ranks. “Has anybody got a few grape-leaves to spare?” it demanded in a high chorus. “Oh, shut up,” responded Dan promptly. “Come on, Pinetop, we'll clothe ourselves to-morrow.” The brigade formed and swung off rapidly along the road, where the dust lay like gauze upon the sunshine. At the end of a mile somebody stopped and cried out excitedly. “Look here, boys, the persimmons on that tree over thar are gittin' 'mos fit to eat. I can see 'em turnin',” and with the words the column scattered like chaff across the field. But the first man to reach the tree came back with a wry face, and fell to swearing at “the darn fool who could eat persimmons before frost.” “Thar's a tree in my yard that gits ripe about September,” remarked Pinetop, as he returned dejectedly across the waste. “Ma she begins to dry 'em 'fo' the frost sets in.” “Oh, well, we'll get a square meal in the morning,” responded Dan, growing cheerful as he dreamed of hospitable Maryland. Some hours later, in the warm dusk, they went into bivouac among the trees, and, in a little while, the campfires made a red glow upon the twilight. Pinetop, with a wooden bucket on his arm, had plunged off in search of water, and Dan and Jack Powell were sent, in the interests of the mess, to forage through the surrounding country. “There's a fat farmer about ten miles down, I saw him,” remarked a lazy smoker, by way of polite suggestion. “Ten miles? Well, of all the confounded impudence,” retorted Jack, as he strolled off with Dan into the darkness. For a time they walked in silence, depressed by hunger and the exhaustion of the march; then Dan broke into a whistle, and presently they found themselves walking in step with the merry air. “Where are your thoughts, Beau?” asked Jack suddenly, turning to look at him by the faint starlight. Dan's whistle stopped abruptly. “On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee,” he replied at once. “What's become of the waffles?” demanded Jack indignantly. “I say, old man, do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves at Chericoke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat--roast beef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey--” “Hold your tongue, won't you?” “Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver the Major a lecture on his extravagance.” “It isn't the Major; it's grandma,” groaned Dan. “Oh, that queen among women!” exclaimed Jack fervently; “but the wines are the Major's, I reckon,--it seems to me I recall some port of which he was vastly proud.” Dan delivered a blow that sent Jack on his knees in the stubble of an old corn field. “If you want to make me eat you, you're going straight about it,” he declared.