The Young Sharpshooter at AntietamTomlinson, Everett T. (Everett Titsworth)
History
The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam
Tomlinson, Everett T. (Everett Titsworth)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
"And did he weigh about ninety pounds?"
"Not more than that."
"Well, that's Levi; that's Levi, all right," broke in Dennis. "Just
bring him here to me, and I'll make him forgit his fingers and his
pinsions."
"You may make him forget his fingers, but you never can make him forget
his pensions," laughed the chaplain. "That seemed to be the chief thing
in his mind. I think I'll try to find out if his name is Levi Kadoff."
"If it is," suggested Noel, "bring the fellow here, but don't tell him
what you are bringing him for or that we are here."
"I'll see what I can do," said the chaplain, and a moment later he
departed from the tent.
The fact that the kind-hearted officer had made three visits that day to
the boys showed his interest in their welfare, but somehow Noel was
unable to shake off his conviction that their friend was powerless to
aid them. Accordingly he was surprised when an hour afterward the
chaplain returned.
"No word yet," he said quietly, as he smiled and shook his head, "but I
have some other good news for you. You understand there is nothing to
back up the statement which you have made that you were sharpshooters
in the Peninsula campaign. Personally, I believe what you tell me. I
have at last secured permission for you both to go with an orderly and
four men to a place outside the camp where you may show what skill you
possess."
"That's the way to talk," spoke up Dennis quickly. His hope had now
returned with full force. Indeed, as he afterward explained, he looked
upon their discharge as already having been accomplished.
To Noel, however, the privilege was not one which was unmixed with
anxiety. In his own skill, in his quiet way, he felt confident, but to
make such skill a test of the truth of what he had spoken was another
matter. A gun with which he was unfamiliar would be thrust into his
hands and the very excitement of the test of itself might be sufficient
to prevent him from doing himself full justice.
The chaplain, aware of what was passing in the mind of the young
soldier, smiled encouragingly and did not speak.
Dennis, whose joy rapidly increased, had now arrived at a point where
his enthusiasm seemed to pass all bounds.
"I'll tell you what to do, yer Riverence," he said to the chaplain.
"Just put Noel and me tin yards apart. Let one of us fire and then the
other and you'll find Noel's bullet lodged in the barrel of my gun and
my bullet in his. That is, if we don't fire at the same time. If we
should fire at the same minute the bullets would meet midway and you
wouldn't find anything but two flattened pieces of lead."
"Do you often have an experience like that?" inquired the chaplain with
a smile.
"Oh, yis, very oftin," answered Dennis solemnly. "Sometimes Noel says to
me,' Dennis, me boy, I'm a bit tired this mornin'. Just put a bullet in
my gun, please'; and it's easier to shoot one in than it is to have to
go through the whole process o' loadin'."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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