Several times each hour, something Lunar thudded against our dirt roof and rolled into the yard. The dirt sifted down in droves between the cracks of the planks. The brandy my platoon was all trying to get drunk on - even Six-Fingers, the latter day saint - and Tristani-Firouzi, whose wife was president of the Sandusky Temperance Pledge Society - the brandy was as muddy as the Mare Frigoris.

"Gimme some more of that brave brandy of the Moon, there, Six- Fingers," I pleaded, rapping my empty tin cup. But Kelly woke up to my voice, stalked over, smelled our spicy breath, dumped the gourd in the dirt, and threatened us with a drubbing. "You drinkin'?" he accused me. "Now what would Ma say, boy?"

So I got to thinking about poor old Ma, having to marry smelly old Merlin Spooner who had horses and hired hands to help out on the farm. Merlin Spooner pretended to be a widower although everyone back in Chesapeake country knew that Ellen Spooner ballooned back to Great Deimos because there weren't bars of gold lying in every New World road and by-way. I guess she decided the clammy, crumbling old castle weren't so bad after all, as long as she kept dusting off the family heraldry.

I remembered how Kelly and I'd been all shivering glad to leave the cooped-up farm and hunt star-spangled ingots of glory in Indian Country. As soon as I'd told her the big news, she'd turned her back on me and walked out of the barn. Now she was rattling pans worse than Napoleon's cannons, and thrashing bread dough. I put down my buckets and followed her into the house. She pinched a face in the dough and slapped it - the Dough-Boy winced. But then she began talking of the chicken-coop, a kind of veteran of the wars -

"No Borginnis never joins no army, no matter whose - don't you know that, boy? You own grandma, she took to truck from Lobsterbacks nor George's Tramps, neither - as Grandma called `em - on account of they stole a pig and all her chickens. They jes' walked up and emptied out the coop, payin' her in worthless paper - Philadelphia script - which your grandpa then sold at twenty-five percent to Mr. Spooner's father, that old nabob squire... Well! Grandma called `em Buff `n' Blue Barleycorns, and worser - anything but Sons of Liberty. Well! Meself, I thought boys was sons of mothers. I suppose Liberty makes orphans of her soldiers, eh boy? Your own dear father, may he rest in peace, the scoundrel! - he fled with the rest of the Mechanic's Militia at the first sign of the Union Jack in the last one; and who could blame him? Didn't the President himself run and hide in our very own chicken coop? Now I promised Jemmy never to tell a soul about that; but seeing as you and Kelly done sold your soul to the devil of soldiers, I think I can tell you and maybe larn you a lesson.

"I was pregnant with your brother then, and in a foul mood - he was kicking like the devil - when Mr. Madison's gig clatters down the lane, and the President jumps out - `Mercy me!' I thought - his necktie a- flutter and his hair a mess - and he kept lookin' over his shoulder at all the smoke risin' out of Washington City. He bowed, seein' me, and asked a little favor, most humble-like - "

"`Mr. Madison,' I told him. "With all due respect, sir, you may very well get your own house burnt down, which we poor citizens will rebuild with your ungodly penny-tariffs; but who'll rebuild mine own house, when those Limy-devils come with their torches, lookin' for the unhappy likeness of you, sir - ?' He nodded, tried to smile, and shuffled over to the barn. "Oh no, no sir, not the barn neither!' I yellered. ` - The chicken-coop, if you please, sir!'

"Well! I was so worried `bout the old coop I stayed up all night pacing with Grandpa's blunderbuss. And in the morning, the well-rested President bowed to me a right fancy bow, like this. I brushed off a few feathers that stuck to his coat and wig. And then, in front of all his Secretaries and Officers, who finally found him, he kissed my cheek, like this - " And Ma kissed my cheek. (Now I understood why Ma was so fond of him, and even took the liberty of calling his portrait above the stove "Jemmy".)

But now she stopped beaming, and looked cross again. She picked up the dough and slammed it down. "What do you want with the army, son? Ain't you got courage enough to take wife? Ain't you got manhood enough to plant grandchillern? - Sluggards! Cowards! Reprobates! - A pair of Tomfools, you and your horsethief brother! Now, if we was invaded again, all right, maybe! But now? There ain't no need for an army. What a nuisance!"

"But Ma," I'd protested, pointing to the long line of smoke draggin along the horizon. "This is different. My generation's got to exterminate the Injunations so's there's room for the railroads and telegraph poles and balloon tethers!"

"Jack, your grandfather paid two cents in iron ax-heads for a dollar of pelts from the Injuns; why kill `em when you trade with `em two cents for a hundred? How stupid! And what's good from a railroad, but noise, smoke, and twenty-mile-an-hour hell-darin' haste? Everyone I know lives within a league or two - only nabobs and newspapers need that telegraph pole eyesore! And balloons! Isn't one planet enough?" She slammed the dough in a pan and banged the pan in the stove.

"Railroads bring churches, Ma!" I'd argued, using my trump card.

Ma shook her head. "Don't think I don't know the army's just an excuse for sinnin'. - Railroads and balloons," she scoffed. "I don't trust `em. I don't know why we need `em. They ain't natural. Why do we need `em? Has my country changed so much? What my country needs now is grandchillern."

"Ma," I'd pleaded. "This is different. This is for a higher principle - something Kelly calls Angry-Saxon glory. Anyway, I promise to be back by Christmas. Heck, Florida is just a week away by packet steamer. We ain't got to ride no balloons nor railroads at all."

Poor old Ma! Deserted by her rotten sons! Six horses sold for Kelly's six cents worth of gold braid! Gone, two good-for-nothings who would leave Maryland and steam in stinking balloons up to the Moon, in order to defend the peninsula of Texas! ( - A glorious cause, I admitted - but, with Lunar bombs falling all night, not getting forty winks, stuck in a hole with four-hundred fifty off duty men, bored, scared, and sober, neglected by the affections of my wife, who ran around like a chicken with her head cut off, bearing water, serving slops, sewing and cheering up her boys, forgetting her man, - let's just say I was looking mighty forward to going home by Christmas, as someone had promised, although I couldn't recall exactly who...)

So I stopped myself from thinking about Ma, Sarah, and women in general, which was making me a little loco-foco barnburning restless, and started to think about nothing. And as I was thinking about nothing, I got to wondering why was a general a general, anyhow? And I figured there were three ways for me to follow Napoleon's footsteps, one of my many idle ambitions (such as "Flyin' Jack Borginnis, Terrific Trigonometrist of the Trapeze"):

First:Wampum. Wave a little wampum, and quicker than you can say, "Bank of the United States" the President gives you the right to be called widespread, common, unexceptional - I mean general. Six horses worth of coin made Kelly a lieutenant, so I figured about sixty would do it, make me a general. But then again, if I had sixty horses, why, I'd be a rich man, wouldn't I, and could sleep as late as I cared to, couldn't I, so why the heck would I want to join the Army? The answer, of course, was that if ever I was going to get my particular uncommon profile stamped on a nickel, I'd have to reap plenty big heaps of the good ripe corn, glory. But if I had more than sixty horses -

Second. Spoils. If I had more than sixty horses - if I had six hundred and six horses, or a locomotive, say, why I wouldn't have to spend a cent to be made General Jack Borginnis, Uncommon Balloon Bourne Boll-Weevil of the Cotton Balers. I'd be so rich that quicker than you can say Andy Jackson, my Congressmen friends would get me made general as a birthday present any day of the year.

But, if I weren't so rich, as I wasn't, I'd have to get up early every morning and shake hands right and left, talk tariffs yea-or-nay, internal improvementizations, and other tiresome subjects, all the while lying that one party and not the other was our country's salvation - and I'd have to never ever be seen arm-in-arm with a tart nor even a hussy - and still I wouldn't become higher than a captain, like Dixon Miles did - in general, the spoils system was a lot of bother. Still, it was less bother than the third route.

Third. Elbow-Grease. The commander of Fort Slow-Polk, Major Brown, he earned his commission. Private Brown fought in the 1812 war and was a soldier ever since. And General Taylor earned his grade the rough and ready way, in half a dozen wars big and small. He was always pushing out the borders, too, fighting Limies in Maine, fighting Seminoles in Florida, fighting out west in Injun Country and now way out here on the Peninsula of Texas. Elbow-Greasing my way to the Napoleonship I so (I mean, so-so) desired wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the possibility that my head my be carried away by an errant cannonball.

And so, whether by wampum, spoils, or elbow-grease, it seemed more likely I'd be the Terrific Trigonometrist of the Trapeze than the Uncommon Balloon-Bourne Boll-Weevil of the Cotton Bailers, though more likely than not the frigate that flew my flag through the fickle foam-fraughts of fate would find this name tatooed on its gilded hind:The Sluggard, or The Tomfool, or The Minor Troublemaker.

Then I wondered what our friendly neighbor, General Lunarista, had done to become a "Jeneralee". I expect it was a large pot of wampum mixed with spoils of war, all stirred up good with a spoon propelled by elbow-grease. Probably he fought for Lunar Independence from the Martians, which, unlike our Revolution seventy years ago, his was only twenty years past. Probably he fought lots more battles during those brief twenty years of waxing and waning Mooner strife. Probably he looked forward to another medal, this one inscribed with something like,

Young Mrs. Frederickson, the Lieutenant's wife, came in with a bucket of reboiled old chicken bone soup, my favorite, I told her, to which she blushingly replied, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," which I took to mean, "It's fine stew, and so are you." As she ladled it out, I got over my spleeny dander a little and ogled her ankles, I am ashamed to admit. I was bit provoked by all the ladies (except my wife) because they all said (except Sarah) in a big theological debate (all of them against Sarah) that they were duty-bound to pray for the Moonmen as well as us. After that trick they pulled on Mayday, consecrating their cannon, I figured same as Sarah that we needed all the supernatural help we could get if there was any for the getting, strategic-wise. And we weren't the only ones who figured odds favoring the Mooners. We lost one of the Saint Patties - John Sheehan - during the night. He deserted. Worse, he swum the inlet...

The shells shrieked down and crackled. The roundshot swooshed and thumped, showering sand all around, and rolled a mile. Captain Lowd sent the news around that his boys had sent another Fort Paredes cannon into Smithy Heaven, cracking its muzzle off. Still that Lunar rain kept us holed up, and I thought I was a ridiculous looking prairie dog in my kepi. Staring up at the bomb-buckling boards, I heard poor Martha Mule brayed all night long; in the morning she started chewing on her tie rope. She wanted to desert us, too. That hurt my feelings.

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