The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1898-10-20

L
ENOUGH FOR Me-"
punch, and the whole crazy shebang III
come down with erase"
IS only wish old Bragg wasn't of sich a
retirin' nature" laziIy commented Shorty.
1.-THE shade o. this tree is good enough for
me. | don't want to ever leave it. Why
couldn't heve waited for me, and we could've
had it out here, coolly and pleasantly and
settled which WAS the best man The thing'd
bin over, and each Teller could've gone abont
his business"
Both relapsed into silence, as each fell into day
dreams, the one about buxom, rosy-cheeked
little maiden in the Valley of the Wabash;
the other of one in far-off Wisconsin, whom
he had never seen. but whom he mentally
endowed with all the virtues and charms that
his warmest Imagination could invest q
woman Neither could see woman without
thinking how inferior she was in looks, words,
or acts to those whose images they carried in
their hearts and she was sure to suffer greatly
by the comparison.
Such is the divinelv Transforming quality
of love-
Each of the boys had taken the first oppor-
tunitv, after getting enough to eat, shelter
prepared, and his clothes in shape and
toIerable rest, to write 4 long letter to the
not long on paper, but in the time it took him
to write it, He felt that he was making
some progress with the fair maid of Bad AK,
and this made him the more deeply anxious
that no misstep should thwart the progress Of
loves young dream.
Letter-wrting presented unusual diff
cuIties to Shorty. His training in the noble
art of penmanship had stopped short long be-
fore his sinewy fingers had acquired much
knacl at forming the letters. Spelling and
he had had permanent disagreement early
in life, and he was scarcely on speaking
terms with grammar He had never any
trouble conveying his thoughts by means OF
speech. People had very little difficulty III
understanding what he meant when he
talked but this was quite different from get
ting his thoughts down in plain black and
white for the reading of q strange young
woman whom he was desperately anxious to
please, and desperately afraid Of Offending
He labored over maEy sheets of paper before
he got Il letter that seemed only fairly salts
factory. One lie had rejected because Ct a
biz blot on it.; second because he thought
he had expressed himself too strongly;
third because of an erasure and unseemly
correction, fourth because of some new
born suspicious about the grammar and spell
ing, and so on. He thought. after he had
finished his letter, that he had carefully
gathered up all his failures and burned
them, together with number of envelopes
he had wrecked in his labor to direct one to
Miss Lucinda Briggs Bad Ak, Wis, suffici-
emily neatly to satisfy his fastidious taste.
He carefully folded his letter. creasing it
with very stalwart thumb nail, sealed it,
gave it a long inspection, rs he thought how
much it was carrying and how far, and took
it up to the Chaplain's tent to be mailed.
Later in the afternoon hilarious group was
gathered under large cottonwood 1t was
made up of Transfers, Quartermaster's men
and other bobtail of the camp, with the Off
GERS servants forming the dark fringe of an
outer circle. Grounding was the presiding
spirit By means best known to himself he
had become possessed of a jug of CommisSary
whisky, and was dispensing it to his auditors
in guarded drains to highten their apprecia-
tion of his wit and humor. He had come
across one of the nearly-completed letters
which Shorty had thrown aside and failed to
find when he burned the rest. Grounding
was now reading this aloud accompanied by
running comments to the great amusem mt
of his auditors, who felt that, drinking his
whisky, and expecting more they were bonnd
to laugh uproariously ut anything he said was
funny
Shorty, that lanky, two-fisted chump of
CO. Q, who thinks hisself a bigger man than
Jineral Rosecrans," Grounding explained,
8 has writ n letter to gal away off some
where up North. How i'll the kingdom he
ever come to git acquainted with her or any
respectable woman more'n / kin tell. But
he's got cheek enough for anything. It's
sartn though that she's never saw him, and
don't know nothin' about him, or she'd never
let him write to her. OF course, he's as
ignorant as a mule. He skeercely got beyant
pot-hooks when he wuz tryin' to larn
writin', an he spells like man with