“Zeke, you lazy loon,” cried Nat Atkinson, “how many pipes have you smoked to-day?  If you’d smoke less and forage and dun the commissary more, we’d have a little fresh meat once in a hundred years.”

“Yes, just about once in a hundred years!” snarled Zeke.

“You find something to keep fat on, anyhow.  We’ll broil you some cold night.  Trot out your beans if there’s nothing else.”

“Growl away,” retorted Zeke. “’Twon’t be long before I’ll be eating chickens and pumpkin-pie in Opinquake, instead of cooking beans and rusty pork for a lot of hungry wolves.”

“You’d be the hungriest wolf of the lot if you’d ‘a’ been picking and shovelling frozen ground all day.”

“I didn’t ’list to be a ditch-digger!” said Zeke.  “I thought I was going to be a soldier.”

“And you turned out a cook!” quietly remarked Zeb Jarvis.

“Well, my hero of the smashed shovel, what do you expect to be—­ Old Put’s successor?  You know, fellows, it’s settled that you’re to dig your way into Boston, tunnel under the water when you come to it.  Of course Put will die of old age before you get half there.  Zeb’ll be the chap of all others to command a division of shovellers.  I see you with a pickaxe strapped on your side instead of a sword.”

“Lucky I’m not in command now,” replied Zeb, “or you’d shovel dirt under fire to the last hour of your enlistment.  I’d give grumblers like you something to grumble about.  See here, fellows, I’m sick of this seditious talk in our mess.  The Connecticut men are getting to be the talk of the army.  You heard a squad of New Hampshire boys jeer at us to-day, and ask, ’When are ye going home to mother?’ You ask, Zeke Watkins, what I expect to be.  I expect to be a soldier, and obey orders as long as Old Put and General Washington want a man.  All I ask is to be home summers long enough to keep mother and the children off the town.  Now what do you expect to be after you give up your cook’s ladle?”

“None o’ your business.”

“He’s going home to court Susie Rolliffe,” cried Nat Atkinson.  “They’ll be married in the spring, and go into the chicken business.  That’d just suit Zeke.”

“It would not suit Susie Rolliffe,” said Zeb, hotly.  “A braver, better girl doesn’t breathe in the colonies, and the man that says a slurring word against her’s got to fight me.”

“What!  Has she given Zeke the mitten for your sake, Zeb?” piped little Hiram Woodbridge.

“She hasn’t given me anything, and I’ve got no claim; but she is the kind of girl that every fellow from Opinquake should stand up for.  We all know that there is nothing chicken-hearted about her.”

“Eight, by George—­George W., I mean, and not the king,” responded Hiram Woodbridge.  “Here’s to her health, Zeb, and your success!  I believe she’d rather marry a soldier than a cook.”