Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-07-03
PRIVATE SIMMONS.

Corporal Slane OF the British regiment
stationed in India, was engaged to be
married to Miss Jhansi McKenna. He
had secured his colonel's leave, and, be-
ing popular with the men, every arrange
ment had been made to give the wedding
what Private Ortheris called "eeklar.
1t fell in the heart of the hot weather,
and after the wedding Slane was going
up to the hills with the bride. None the
less, Slane's grievance was that the affair
would be only hired carriage wedding,
and he felt that the ceklar Of that was
meagre. Miss McKenna did not care so
much. The sergeants wife was helping
her to make her wedding dress, and she
was very busy Slane was just then the
only moderately contented man in bar
racks. All the rest were more or less
miserable.
And they had so much to make them
happy, too All their work was over at
s O'clock in the morning, and for the rest
Of the day they could lie on their backs
and smoke Canteen plug and swear at
punkah-coolies. They enjoyed fine,
full flesh meal in the middle Of the day,
and then threw themselves on their cots
and slept until it was cool enough to go
out with their towny," whose vocabu-
larry contained less than 600 words, and
the Adjective, and whose views on every
conceivable question they had heard
many months before.
There was the Canteen. of course, and
there was the Temperance Room, with
the secondhand papers in it; but man
of any profession cannot read for eight
hours day in a temperature of So or 9S
degrees in the shade, running up some-
times to 1903 degrees at midnight. Very
few men even though they get pannikin
of fat stale muddy beer and hide it under
their cots, can continue drinking for six
hours a day. One man tried, but he
died, and nearly the whole regiment
went to his funeral, because it gave them
something to do. 1t was too early for
the modified excitement of fever or
cholera. The men could only wait, and
wait and wait, and watch the shadow of
the barrack creeping across the binding
white dust. That was gay lifel
They lounged about cantonments-it
was too hot for any sort of game, and al
most too hot for vice-and fuddled them
selves in the evening, and filled them
selves to distention with the healthy
heterogeneous food provided for them, and
the more they stocked the less exercise
they took and the more explosive they
grew. Then the tempers began to wear
away, and men fell a-brooding over in
suits real or imaginary. They had moth
ing else to think of. The tone of the
"repartees =" changed, and instead of
saying light -heartedly: "I'll knock your
silly face in, men grew laboriously polite
and limited that the environments were
not big enough for themselves and their
enemy, and that there would be more
space for one of the two in a place which
it is not polite to mention.
1t may have been Satan who arranged
the thing, but the fact of the case is that
Private Losson had for long time been
worrying Private Simmons in an aimless
way. 1t gave him occupation. Thetwo
had their cots side by side, and would
sometimes spend long afternoon swear
ing at each other, but Simmons was
afraid of Losson and dared not challenge
him to fight. He thought over the words
in the hot, still nights. and half the hate
he felt toward Losson he vented on the
wretched punkah-coolie.
Losson bought parrot in the bazar and
put it into little cage, and lowered the
cage into the cool darkness of the well,
and sat on the well-curb, shouting bad
language down to the parrot. He taught
it to say: Simmons, ye so-oor," which