Si Klegg, Book 3. John McElroy
I saw them whip John Morgan's cavalry at Green River. Clumsy farmer boys, but shoot like born devils."
"But who are you, and where did you come from?" repeated Si impatiently.
"I'm all right. I'm Levi Rosenbaum of Gen. Rosecrans's secret service. I got some news for him."
"You have?" said Si suspiciously. "Why didn't you ride right in and tell it to him? What've you bin hangin' around here all afternoon, watchin' our post for?"
"I wasn't sure you was there. I was told that the Yankee pickets was going to be pushed out to Cripple Deer Creek to-day, but I didn't know it for sure. I was afraid that the rebels was there yet. Jim Jones, of the secret service, had agreed to come out this afternoon and wave a flag if it was all right. I was waiting for his sign. But he is probably drunk. He always gets so when he reaches camp."
The Deacon joined them in the road, and gave a searching glance at the prisoner.
"Ain't you a Jew?" he inquired presently. "Ain't your name Rosenbaum? Didn't you go through Posey County, Ind., a year or two ago, with a wagon, sellin' packs o' cloth to the farmers?"
"I'm an American citizen," said the man proudly, "the same as the rest of you. My religion is Hebrew. I don't know and don't care what your religion is. Every man has the religion that suits him. My name is Rosenbaum. I did sell cloth in Posey County, unt all over Indianny. It was good cloth, too, unt I sold it at a bargain."
"It certainly was good cloth, and cheap," admitted the Deacon. "What in the world are you doin' down here in them clothes?"
"I'm doing just what these men are doing here in their cloze," answered Rosenbaum. "I'm trying to serve the country. I'm doing it different from them, because I'm built different from them. I hope I'm doing it well. But I'm awfully hungry. Got anything to eat? Just a cup of coffee and a cracker? Don't care for any pork."
"Yes, we'll give you something to eat," said Shorty. "I think there's some of our chicken left. You'll find that good."
"How did you cook that?" said Rosenbaum, looking at the tempting morsel suspiciously.
Shorty explained.
"Thanks; I can't eat it," said Rosenbaum with a sigh. "It ain't kosher."
"What the devil's that?" asked Shorty.
"It's my religion. I can't explain. Send for the Officer of the Guard to take me to Headquarters," answered Rosenbaum, sipping his coffee.
CHAPTER II. ROSENBAUM, THE SPY
THE Officer of the Guard was a long time in coming, and Mr. Rosenbaum grew quite chatty and communicative, as they sat around the bright fire of cedar logs and smoked.
"Yes," he said, "I have been in the secret service ever since the beginning of the war—in fact, before the war, for I began getting news for Frank Blair in the Winter before the war. They say Jews have no patriotism. That's a lie. Why should they have no patriotism for countries where they were treated like dogs? In Germany, where I was born, they treated us worse than dogs. They made us live in a little, nasty, pig-pen of an alley; we had to go in at sundown, unt stay there; we had to wear a different cloze from other folks, unt we didn't dare to say our souls were our own to any dirty loafer that insulted us.
"Here we are treated like men, unt why shouldn't we help to keep the country from breaking up? Jews ought to do more than anybody else, unt I made up my mind from the very first that I was going to do all that I could. The Generals have told me that I could do much better for the country in the secret service than as a soldier; they could get plenty of soldiers unt but few spies."
"Now you're shoutin'," said Shorty. "They kin git me to soldier as long as the war lasts, for the askin', but I wouldn't be a spy 10 minutes for a corn-basket full o' greenbacks. I have too much regard for my neck. I need it in my business."
"You a spy," said Si derisively. "You couldn't spy for sour apples. Them big feet o' your'n 'd give you dead away to anybody that'd ever seen you before."
"Spyin' isn't the business that any straightfor'rd man,"—the Deacon began to say in tones of cold disapproval, and then he bethought him of courtesy to the stranger, and changed hastily—"that I'd like to do. It's entirely too resky."
"O, it's jest as honorable as anything else. Pap," said Si, divining his father's thought. "All's fair in love and war. We couldn't git along without spies. They're as necessary as muskets and cannon."
"Indeed they are," said Mr. Rosenbaum earnestly; "you wouldn't know what to do with your muskets and cannon if the spies didn't tell you where the rebels were, unt how many there was of them. I go out unt get information that it would cost hundreds of lives to get, unt may save thousands of lives, unt all that it costs is one poor little Jew's neck, when they drop on to him some day, unt leave him swinging from a tree. But when that time comes, I shall make no more complaint than these other poor boys do, who get their heads knockt off in battle. I'm no better than they are. My life belongs to the country the same as theirs, unt this free Government is worth all our lives, unt more, too."
His simple, sincere patriotism touched the Deacon deeply. "I'd no idee that there was so much o' the man in a Jew," he said to himself. Then he asked the stranger:
"How did you come to go into the spy business, Mr. Rosenbaum?"
"Well, I was in St. Louis in the Clothing pizniss, unt you know it was purty hot there. All the Germans were for the Union, unt most of the Americans unt Irish seemed to be Secessionists. I sided with the Germans, but as nobody seemed to think that a Jew had any principles or cared for anything but the almighty dollar, everybody talked right out before me, unt by keepin' my ears wide open I got hold of lots of news, which I took straight to General Lyon. I got well acquainted with him, and he used to send me here and there to find out things for him. I'd sell gray uniforms and other things to the Secessionists; they'd talk to one another right before me as to what was being done, and I'd keep my ears wide open all the time, though seemed to be only thinking about the fit and the buttons and the gold lace.
"Then General Lyon wanted to find out just exactly how many men there was in Camp Jackson—no guesswork—no suppose. I took 2,000 of my business cards, printed on white, and 1,000 printed on gray paper. I went through the whole camp. To every man in uniform I give a white card; to every man without a uniform, who seemed to be there for earnest, I give a gray card. When I got back I counted my cards in General Lyon's office, unt found I'd give out 500 white cards unt 200 gray ones. Then General Lyon took out about 3,000 men, unt brought the whole crowd back with him."
"Then General Lyon," continued Rosenbaum, "sent me out from Springfield, Mizzouri, to see how many men old Pap Price unt Ben McCullough had gathered up against him from Mizzouri, Arkansaw, Texas unt the plains. Holy Moses, I was scared when I saw the pile of them. The whole world seemed to be out there, yipping unt yelling for Jeff Davis, drinking raw sod-corn whisky, making secession speeches, unt shooting at marks.
"I rode right into them, unt pretended that I was looking for Mexican silver dollars to take to Mexico to buy powder unt lead for the rebel army. I had a lot of new Confedrit notes that I'd got from my cousin, who was in the tobacco business in Memphis. They was great curiosities, unt every man who had a Mexican dollar wanted to trade it for a Confedrit dollar.
"There was no use tryin' to count the men—might as well have tried to count the leaves on the trees, so I begun to count the regiments. I stuck a pin in my right lapel for every Mizzouri regiment, one in my left lapel for every Arkansaw regiment, one in my vest for every one from Texas. I had black pins for the cannons. I was getting along very well, when I run across Bob Smiles, a dirty loafer, who had been a customer in St. Louis. He wouldn't pay me, unt I had to get out a writ unt levy on his clothes just as he was dressing to go to a quadroon ball.
"I left him with only a necktie, which was worth nothing to me, as it had been worn and soiled. He was very sore against me, unt I was not surprised.
"It made me sick at my stomach when I saw him come up.
"'Hello, you damn Dutch Jew,' he said. 'What are you doing here?'
"I tried to be very pleasant, unt I put out my hand unt said,