The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley — Volume 10Riley, James Whitcomb
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The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley — Volume 10
Riley, James Whitcomb
American essays; American poetry; Short stories, American
I heerd an awful funny thing the other day--ha!
ha! I don't know whether I kin git it off er not,
but, anyhow, I'll tell it to you. Well!--le's see now
how the fool-thing goes. Oh, yes!--W'y, there was
a feller one time--it was during the army and this
feller that I started in to tell you about was in the
war and--ha! ha!--there was a big fight a-goin' on,
and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big battle
and bullets a-flyin' ever' which way, and bomb-
shells a-bu'stin', and cannon-balls a-flyin' 'round
promiskus; and this feller right in the midst of it,
you know, and all excited and het up, and chargin'
away; and the fust thing you know along come a
cannon-ball and shot his head off--ha! ha! ha!
Hold on here a minute!--no, sir; I'm a-gittin' ahead
of my story; no, no; it didn't shoot his HEAD off--
I'm gittin' the cart before the horse there--shot his
LEG off; that was the way; shot his leg off; and
down the poor feller drapped, and, of course, in that
condition was perfectly he'pless, you know, but yit
with presence o' mind enough to know that he was
in a dangerous condition ef somepin' wasn't done fer
him right away. So he seen a comrade a-chargin',
by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called
him by name--I disremember now what the feller's
name was. . . .
Well, that's got nothin' to do with the story,
anyway; he hollers to him, he did, and says, "Hello,
there," he says to him; "here, I want you to come
here and give me a lift; I got my leg shot off, and
I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle"
--where the doctors always is, you know, during a
fight--and he says, "I want you to pack me back
there where I can get med-dy-cinal attention er I'm
a dead man, fer I got my leg shot off," he says,
"and I want you to pack me back there so's
the surgeons kin take keer of me." Well--
the feller, as luck would have it, ricko'nized him
and run to him and throwed down his own musket,
so's he could pick him up; and he stooped down and
picked him up and kindo' half-way shouldered him
and half-way helt him betwixt his arms like, and
then he turned and started back with him--ha! ha!
ha! Now, mind, the fight was still a-goin' on--and
right at the hot of the fight, and the feller, all
excited, you know, like he was, and the soldier that
had his leg shot off gittin' kindo' fainty like, and his
head kindo' stuck back over the feller's shoulder
that was carryin' him. And he hadn't got more'n a
couple o' rods with him when another cannon-ball
come along and tuk his head off, shore enough!--
and the curioust thing about it was--ha! ha!--that
the feller was a-packin' him didn't know that he
had been hit ag'in at all, and back he went--still
carryin' the deceased back--ha! ha! ha!--to where
the doctors could take keer of him--as he thought.
Well, his cap'n happened to see him, and he thought
it was a ruther cur'ous p'ceedin's--a soldier carryin'
a dead body out o' the fight--don't you see? And
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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