But the boys would wake up and step quicker and livelier for some time, and Arthur Fulghum would holloa out, "All right; go ahead!" and then would toot! toot! as if the cars were starting-- puff! puff! puff and then he would say, "Tickets, gentlemen; tickets, gentlemen." like he was conductor on a train of cars.

This little episode would be over, and then would commence the same tramp, tramp, tramp, all night long.

Step by step, step by step, we continued to plod and nod and stagger and march, tramp, tramp, tramp.

After a while we would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file leader, and after a while could make out the outlines of trees and other objects.

And as it would get lighter and lighter, and day would be about to break, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, would come from Tom Tuck's rooster.
[Tom carried a game rooster, that he called "Fed" for Confederacy, all through the war in a haversack.] And then the sun would begin to shoot his slender rays athwart the eastern sky, and the boys would wake up and begin laughing and talking as if they had just risen from a good feather bed, and were perfectly refreshed and happy.