Ralph was very anxious to become proficient in their use, and while many of the older men grumbled at this work, he kept on, learning at each repetition something more of their actual value. “You'll have to know all about this,” said Lieutenant Hopkins to them, or you'll be in a nice hole when you're caught out in the field. “We don't know how soon we may be sent to the front, and then there won't be much time for this sort of practice. It'll be march and fight then.” Way down in his heart this quiet stripling, hitherto jealously guarded from a knowledge of the world by a fond mother and sisters, had his own dreams of fame burning brightly and steadily. What if he could plan or assist in some grand sortie, and be mentioned {034}in the dispatches as “the gallant private of Company K---- Mass. Volunteers, whose valor turned the tide and carried the day?” Then probably he would be summoned before the commanding officer, and honors would be thrust upon him. Perhaps, if he kept on, he might be a general! What would the dear ones at home say then? The picture was too brilliant; his head fairly grew dizzy at the prospect. “I'll tell you,” he said to a comrade, “we are in no danger of starving here in camp, at any rate, if we don't have much variety.” “That's so. What's the matter with pork, beans, soup, bread, molasses (here he made a wry face), rice and hard tack? If we get enough of these, we'll pull through all right,” his companion responded cheerfully. “And we sleep as sound as kittens in our wooden bunks, with plenty of straw for a bed, and our big army blankets over us,” continued Ralph. “The pillows might be a little softer,” said Harvey Phillips. “Overcoats doubled up ain't quite as easy shook up as feathers.” “No, but our captain tells me that we are living in clover just at present. Wait till we go into a battle. Perhaps we'll come out without any heads, then we won't need any pillows,” laughed Ralph. “That's true. Your easy times are right here just now,” said a “vet,” who had been in many a battle in the far West with the red men, and had “smelt powder” to his heart's content. “War looks very pretty on paper, with the big fellows at Washington moving the men like they're at a chessboard, but wait till the guns speak up on the field, and men to men are hurled against each other, to fight like demons. The real thing ain't so romantic, let me tell you youngsters.” “You can't frighten us,” said Harvey. “We are no three months' men. We enlisted for the war and we propose to see the war out.” “Boys, I tell you war aren't no pastime. It means work, and hardest kind of work, at that. It's a great thing to organize an army, and keep its various parts in trim. We don't usually {035}go out to fight the enemy with only a flask of powder, and a knapsack filled with soda crackers. There are men and horses and ammunition to carry along.” “Who takes care of all these matters?” asked Ralph. [Illustration: 0043]