and father last?"

Tom held up his hands in surrender; then, as he sat down on the edge of the
bedding, Bert took him by the shoulders and shook him. "They're all fine.
I'm here to enlist, Corporal. Will you have me in your squad?"

"You bet! Tell me about home."

Bert had been among the first to enlist, and, except for one furlough of
two weeks, he had not been able to return home. Many minutes passed before
Tom reached the point of his own departure from Cleveland; how he had
gained the consent of his father and mother to his enlistment; his trip to
Murfreesboro and all his adventures and misadventures en route. "And, by
the way," he ended, "the Captain said that I was to tell you that he'd be
here to see you soon. And what did you do to your ankle?"

"The Captain's coming to see me, eh? Humph! A lot of good that'll do me.
Was he talking with the doctor?"

"Yes."

"Humph!" Bert plunged into thought.

"How about the ankle?" Tom reminded him. "What did you do to it?"

"I was on a bridge detail yesterday," answered Bert gloomily. "We were
loading some pilings to be hauled up to a bridge, and I was on the wagon,
placing them as they were shoved up to me. They were all greasy with mud,
and I--well, I was thinking about some other things, and I stepped on a
slippery hunk of mud. I went down; then one of the pilings rolled over when