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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, West Point Colors, by Anna Bartlett Warner
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: West Point Colors
+
+
+Author: Anna Bartlett Warner
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 30, 2020  [eBook #62275]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST POINT COLORS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by MWS, Val Wooff, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/62275/62275-h.zip)
+
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+      Images of the original pages are available through
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+      https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn
+
+
+
+
+
+WEST POINT COLORS
+
+
+[Illustration: THE FLAG]
+
+
+WEST POINT COLORS
+
+by
+
+ANNA B. WARNER
+
+
+_"My only regret is that I have but one life to give
+for my country."_
+
+NATHAN HALE.
+
+
+[Illustration: Colophon]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York Chicago Toronto
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+London and Edinburgh
+
+Copyright, 1903, by
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+(October)
+
+New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
+Chicago: 63 Washington Street
+Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
+London: 21 Paternoster Square
+Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER,                             PAGE
+
+  I.       THE BOY,                       9
+  II.      MEANS TO AN END,              14
+  III.     THE NIGHT EXPRESS,            21
+  IV.      READY FOR DUTY,               26
+  V.       THE FLAG,                     36
+  VI.      A LONELY CANDIDATE,           54
+  VII.     IN FOR IT,                    60
+  VIII.    RUBS THE WRONG WAY,           67
+  IX.      CAMP HARD,                    73
+  X.       BAND CONCERT,                 78
+  XI.      ON GUARD,                     88
+  XII.     _Off_ GUARD,                  92
+  XIII.    A BLUE CHRISTMAS,             97
+  XIV.     CAMP GOLIGHTLY,              106
+  XV.      SIGNALING FOR HELP,          112
+  XVI.     RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY,       117
+  XVII.    THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER,    124
+  XVIII.   HIGH SUMMER,                 129
+  XIX.     THE VISITORS' SEATS,         138
+  XX.      JUST THEE AND ME,            142
+  XXI.     ME ONLY,                     150
+  XXII.    GIRLS,                       157
+  XXIII.   THE GRIM GRAY WALLS,         167
+  XXIV.    NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE,    173
+  XXV.     FURLOUGH,                    180
+  XXVI.    CHERRY,                      189
+  XXVII.   OFF LIMITS,                  199
+  XXVIII.  ON EXHIBITION,               209
+  XXIX.    SKIRMISHING,                 218
+  XXX.     A MORNING TALK,              226
+  XXXI.    THE SUMMER GIRL,             238
+  XXXII.   LAYING FOUNDATIONS,          245
+  XXXIII.  BUILDING THEREON,            258
+  XXXIV.   AMBUSHES,                    272
+  XXXV.    OF COURSE,                   278
+  XXXVI.   SAN CARLOS,                  284
+  XXXVII.  RUSHED INTO CAMP,            288
+  XXXVIII. HIGH GROUND,                 293
+  XXXIX.   MORE GIRLS,                  299
+  XL.      ON FORT PUT,                 305
+  XLI.     UP CROWNEST,                 321
+  XLII.    CHRISTMAS LEAVE,             332
+  XLIII.   THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT,         343
+  XLIV.    PRESSING ON,                 355
+  XLV.     NOTHING SERIOUS,             360
+  XLVI.    TRYING LETTERS,              364
+  XLVII.   MRS. CONGRESSMAN,            369
+  XLVIII.  THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE,     376
+  XLIX.    FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES, 388
+  L.       FAIRYLAND,                   398
+  LI.      THE HOME STRETCH,            404
+  LII.     THE BIG RECEPTION,           414
+  LIII.    THE FIRST POST,              420
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, FACING PAGE
+
+
+  THE FLAG,                         _Title_
+  THE BARRACKS IN WINTER,                97
+  THE COLOR GUARD,                      109
+  MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON,  170
+  CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS,               300
+  PARADE REST IN CAMP,                  377
+  FLIRTATION,                           392
+  CADET BOAT AND CREW,                  401
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THIS TALE OF A POSSIBLE CADET
+
+Some of my friends in a certain cadet class beset me to write a West
+Point story; promising me incidents at will, a plot, a name, and a
+tactical officer for "the villain." Perhaps it was because I declined
+this last sensational detail that they backed out of all the rest, and
+having given my boat a shove into deep water, left me to row and pilot
+as best I might.
+
+However, help came from other men, in other classes. I was cheered on
+in my work, and given story after story, with full leave to use them as
+I chose; and so it falls out that my book is quite true.
+
+Not that all the happenings ever came to any one cadet, or within the
+bounds of any four years' course. But they have almost all, at some
+time, been part of somebody's cadet life at West Point. With what men,
+or in what years, it does not matter: the last decade of the nineteenth
+century nearly enough covers the whole.
+
+I have tried hard to have the small technicalities quite correct. Yet
+as rules do vary now and then, even at West Point, everything may not
+always _seem_ right, to this or that graduate. And, of course, I may
+have blundered here and there.
+
+Certain points in cadet life I was especially asked to handle; and if
+once or twice I have told only what _might_ have been, even there I had
+the warrant of cadet opinion.
+
+As for the fancy names, it was so hard to find plain ones that were
+not down in some Army List or Visitors' Book, that I made up a few,
+choosing rather to give caps which nobody would put on than others
+quite sure to be appropriated. Truly, I did not name Miss Dangleum: a
+young officer did that, and Cadet Devlin was also dubbed by one who
+knew.
+
+Since certain words of my story were written a few changes have come
+in. The cadet classes have pledged themselves to abolish hazing;
+the Hundredth Night (in its old wild glee) has been forbidden; the
+Cadet Howitzer is spiked. The shady nooks along "Flirtation" have
+been cleared up; Fort Clinton is a memory, the tents are brown, and
+Dade's white shaft now stands in the gayest and sunniest of all the
+thoroughfares. But human nature survives,--and "boodle"--and the girls,
+so that my book is declared to be still "absolutely true."
+
+Sometimes when I watch that grey throng in the Chapel, I have a great
+wish that I could see the other little army with whom they are to join
+hands. So much depends on them. For womanhood sets the standard for the
+world of men.
+
+    "She's like the keystone to an arch,
+      That consummates all beauty;
+    She's like the music to a march,
+      That sheds a joy on duty."
+
+Such she should be.
+
+  A. B. W.
+
+  MARTLAER'S ROCK.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE BOY
+
+ The lions, if they left not the forest, would capture no prey; and
+ the arrow, if it quitted not the bow, would not strike the mark.
+
+  --_Arabian Nights._
+
+
+The precise date of my story does not matter: the world strikes a much
+more even average than we are apt to think; and still, as of old, "the
+thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
+done, is that which shall be done."
+
+Once upon a time, then, there was a boy whose name was Charlemagne
+Kindred.
+
+"Magnus" was the home version. I think his two young sisters were
+perhaps rather proud of the royal-republican title, and would by no
+means let it come down to "Charley," and so lose itself in the crowd.
+Once in a while, when a longer lecture than usual was called for, Mrs.
+Kindred would say Charlemagne: but I doubt if it had much effect,
+unless to give Magnus some slighting thoughts of the ancestor who had
+first borne his name.
+
+Mrs. Kindred was a widow of ten years' standing; and she and Magnus,
+and the two young sisters, made up the family. There is nothing on
+earth sweeter than girls can be; and these two filled out the fair
+pattern, with few breaks or flaws. But no history or inheritance of
+even a name had been wasted on them, and they set out in life as plain
+Rose and Violet, named for their father's favourite flowers.
+
+Magnus had not at all, however, the same reverence for his sisters that
+they felt for him, which was a pity; for really I think they deserved
+it better.
+
+But another drawback to the perfections of my hero,--a common one
+enough with heroes, and which after all proved him the real thing,--he
+had not five cents to his name. And failing this, the question came up
+very naturally, what else he could have "to his name," to make that
+worth the carrying.
+
+"Mamma, he'd make a beautiful minister!" said Rose, who, enshrined in
+the very rosiest corner of her heart, had a faint, far-away picture of
+her father in the pulpit.
+
+"He would make a beautiful anything," said the mother, her eyes shining
+at the mere thought of her boy. "But he cannot be a minister, Rose, at
+least not in his father's church, without going to college."
+
+"And that takes money," said Violet. "Mamma, if I were Uncle Sam, I'd
+have free colleges. I can't see why not, just as well as free schools."
+
+"I do not like to hear you say 'Uncle Sam,' Violet. It is not
+respectful to the Government."
+
+"Magnus does."
+
+Mrs. Kindred might have answered that the bump of reverence was not as
+yet developed in that young magnate's head to any alarming degree, but
+no such disloyal words came out. She sat thinking.
+
+"The Government has one free college, you know, girls," she said; "at
+least, I suppose it may be called that. Two, in fact: the Naval Academy
+at Annapolis, and the Military Academy at West Point. I wonder it never
+occurred to me before."
+
+"West Point!" exclaimed both the girls, open-eyed.
+
+"Then he'd be a soldier, and wear a uniform," said Violet.
+
+"Yes, and then there would be a war, and he would get killed," said
+Rose.
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said Violet. "Catch Magnus letting anybody shoot
+_him_. He's a good deal too quick for that. Besides, people can get
+killed anywhere. Missionaries do, sometimes."
+
+"I wonder I never thought of West Point," Mrs. Kindred repeated. "Hush,
+girls; don't say such things. There is no war now, and maybe there
+never will be again. Magnus would like it, too."
+
+"He'd be splendid in uniform," said Rose, "he's so tall."
+
+"Too tall," said the mother with a sigh. "Magnus grows altogether too
+fast. Perhaps West Point would be just the thing for him, and make him
+spread out a little. You know, girls, what big fellows some of those
+army men are, in papa's book of officers?"
+
+"Yes," said Violet doubtfully, "big enough. But then Magnus never could
+be as broad as he is long, so we needn't worry."
+
+A cheery whistle, strong and sweet and clear, pierced through the
+summer air outside; and with one consent the three talkers hurried
+to the window to look out. It was a back window, commanding easily a
+woodshed, a small garden, and a barn.
+
+In the woodshed, hard at work upon a somewhat elaborate dog-house,
+stood the young future victim of mathematics and wave motion. Coat off,
+hat tossed down, hands busily chiselling out some bit of ornamentation;
+the head with its shock of brown curls bent low over his work. And very
+appropriately just then, for the thoughts that filled the air, Magnus
+was whistling "Yankee Doodle": his limber young tones going with great
+force and discernment into all the ups and downs of that delightful
+old melody. Do not mistake me and think the words ironical; I am
+extremely fond of "Yankee Doodle," myself.
+
+"How queer he should be whistling that!" said Rose. "Oh, Magnus!"
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Come up here. We were just talking about you."
+
+"Talk away."
+
+"But mother and all!"
+
+"Good I am down here, then," said the boy, eyeing a bit of board along
+the edge to see if it was straight.
+
+"Why?" cried Violet.
+
+"You know she doesn't like to praise me to my face," said Magnus,
+carefully planing the aforesaid edge.
+
+"Conceited boy!" said Rose.
+
+Well, I suppose he was that, just a little; but what can happen to
+average masculine nature, with three such bits of the feminine to stand
+round and gaze at its perfections? Magnus brought his board to a nicety
+of straightness, tossed off the shavings, gave another toss to his
+brown hair--then looked up at the sweet cluster of faces in the window
+and laughed.
+
+"All's safe up there, so long as I stay down here," he said.
+
+The three were silent.
+
+"He is such a beauty!" said Rose under her breath. "He grows better and
+handsomer every day."
+
+"But we want to talk to you!" said Violet.
+
+"I can wait."
+
+"Suppose we cannot?"
+
+"Front door's open," said Magnus, falling to work with his hammer, and
+once more lapsing into the sweets of "Yankee Doodle."
+
+"Mother, may we tell him?" said Rose. "May we ask him how he'd like
+it?"
+
+"Why, yes, dear; that can do no harm," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+So the girls went down to the woodshed, perching themselves on some
+hard places each side of their big brother.
+
+"Magnus, how would you like to be a soldier?"
+
+"When there's a war, you'll see."
+
+That was beginning at the wrong end; the two young faces grew suddenly
+grave. But, after all, there was no war then, and probably never would
+be, as their mother had said.
+
+"But we mean _now_," Rose went on. "How would you like to go to West
+Point?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Why, to learn to be a soldier!" said Violet impressively.
+
+Magnus laughed in high derision.
+
+"Soldiers!" he said--"Popinjays. Parrots and popinjays. There was one
+of those fellows at Clear Spring last summer, and he had airs enough to
+fly a kite with a tail a mile long."
+
+Again the two young sisters were silent.
+
+"But _you_ would not, Magnus, when you came home," said Violet. "Oh,
+Rose! just think of his coming home on vacation!"
+
+"And if all the rest are like that, you could be what mamma calls
+a 'beautiful example,'" said Rose. "I heard Cherry speak of that
+'fellow,' as you call him. She said his uniform was very interesting."
+
+"Cherry doesn't care a copper for such stuff!" said Magnus hotly.
+
+"I suppose she can admire a uniform," said Rose.
+
+But to that Magnus made no reply.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+MEANS TO AN END
+
+ The nightingale flew away, and time flew also.
+
+  --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+Charlemagne got his appointment. In a very commonplace way, after all,
+like most other boys; in spite of his long name and his longer list of
+qualifications. Some relative knew the Congressman of the district,
+had done business with him in the pre-official days, and in one of the
+intervals of home rest after Washington fatigues, young Kindred was
+taken over to the dignitary's whereabouts, and presented as one who was
+eager to serve his country in another line. There was nothing heroic
+about the whole proceeding, and the man was not an ideal Congressman;
+but he answered the purpose.
+
+The interview would have made a fine subject for a picture. The boy,
+on his dignity every inch of him, making believe that he did not care
+a continental about the matter; but too unskilled in dissembling to
+prove the fact, and keep down the quick flashes of eye and flushes of
+cheek. The introducer, the childless uncle to whom his sister's son
+was the one boy of all the world. Opposite them the old Congressman,
+with chair at an uncertain angle and hat ditto; tilting back in the
+cool shady porch, and listening with a scarce hid smile to the tale of
+Charlemagne's attainments.
+
+"Has he room in his head for anything more?" he demanded, when Mr.
+Thorn paused. "He'll want a little, over there."
+
+"I am ready to learn all they teach, sir!" said young Magnus, firing
+up. "You think I don't know anything now--and maybe I don't."
+
+"Maybe--" said the Congressman drily. "How about the _outside_ of your
+head? You'll get it rough and ready, at West Point."
+
+"I've got hands!" said Magnus with another flush.
+
+"True," said the Honourable Miles Ironwood. "Well, take good care of
+them."
+
+"And I have understood," put in Mr. Thorn, "that hazing is quite
+stamped out at West Point."
+
+Mr. Ironwood skilfully rocked his chair upon its two hind legs, a
+mocking smile upon his lips.
+
+"Ever see a bit of woodland that was half trees and two-thirds rocks?"
+he said.
+
+"I was brought up on just such a place," said Mr. Thorn.
+
+"Ever fight a fire there?"
+
+"Many a time."
+
+"H'm--I thought perhaps you hadn't," said the Congressman. "Well, Mr.
+Thorn, this district is not represented at West Point just now; last
+appointment resigned some months ago, and I suppose it had better be
+filled. And this young man doesn't look as if he would give the Tacs
+more trouble than common. And if they go for him, that is his lookout
+and not mine."
+
+"Who are the Tacs, sir?" inquired Magnus.
+
+"Men who come round every morning to see if you have washed your face,"
+said Mr. Ironwood, without moving a muscle of his own. "And every
+night, to tuck you up and bring away the light."
+
+Magnus coloured indignantly; but a certain twinkle in Mr. Ironwood's
+eye kept him silent.
+
+"What do they teach there, chiefly?" said Mr. Thorn. "What had Magnus
+better learn before he goes?"
+
+"Learn everything you can, when you are going _anywhere_," said Mr.
+Ironwood impressively. "They teach riding--a little--at West Point. And
+mathematics--some."
+
+"Charlemagne can ride," said his uncle proudly.
+
+"On his head?"
+
+"Why no!" said Mr. Thorn. "Will that be required?"
+
+"I've seen 'em on their heads, in that riding-hall," said the
+Congressman with an easy change of position.
+
+"They teach the classics, of course?"
+
+"He'll hear something about Achilles, like as not," said Mr. Ironwood.
+"Hector, too. Not so much of either as he will of Charlemagne."
+
+Again the suggestive gleam of the eye acted upon the boy as both spur
+and check.
+
+"And you have no general advice to give him, Mr. Ironwood, as to what
+he had best do to prepare himself?"
+
+"Prepare himself?" Mr. Ironwood brought his chair down on all-fours
+with considerable force. "If that boy wants to get ready for West
+Point, let him do every blessed thing he _don't_ want to do and not one
+that he _does_, between now and next June. Good-morning: I'll attend to
+it."
+
+"He's an old buzzard!" said Magnus as they walked away.
+
+"A little sudden, sometimes," said his mild uncle. "But he's a smart
+man--a very smart man. And now I think of it, he was there once
+himself, and didn't get through. That's what makes him so down on the
+place."
+
+"Must have been a very smart man if he couldn't get through West
+Point," Magnus said, with a boy's easy contempt.
+
+But smart or not, Mr. Ironwood was as good as his word. And so in due
+course it was set forth in the _Army and Navy Journal_, that among
+the candidates for the Military Academy the following June would be
+found one Charlemagne Kindred. And the local paper of Barren Heights
+(albeit not generally concerning itself with West Point) got hold of
+the item and copied it out in full. And so astonishing was it to see
+Charlemagne's name in print that the family copy of said paper would
+have been quite worn out with much study and handling, if Mrs. Kindred
+had not rescued it, and laid it safe away among the family archives.
+
+As for Cherry, after first privately breaking her heart because Magnus
+was going away, she then plucked up courage and common sense, and
+became the proudest little maiden that could be found among all the
+patient readers of the _Barren Heights View_.
+
+It is safe to say that Magnus reversed Mr. Ironwood's wise counsel
+at every point and every time. Having himself been a failure at West
+Point, the Congressman's opinion was counted a failure too; would have
+been, anyhow, I fancy; and Charlemagne Kindred got ready for West
+Point by doing every possible thing he wanted to do, and letting the
+things he did not want to do, alone. Even when the rainy days of May
+went weeping by, and the fateful June was close at hand, what that boy
+did--and was allowed to do--would not bear telling. "He is going away,"
+hushed every reproof; and "when I am gone," forestalled criticism.
+Refuse him? scold him?--the three gentle hearts at home were quite
+beyond all that.
+
+To be sure, he ought to have studied hard, the whole time; but then
+Magnus was so quick and bright it could not be really needful. And if
+Mrs. Kindred now and then sighed, and wondered what the end would be,
+if the beginning was so lawless, and what her husband the minister
+would have said to his only son becoming a soldier--the girls had the
+answer ready.
+
+"Why mother, it is to defend the Country! My father went to the war
+once, himself."
+
+"Yes, in time of need," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"But Magnus says that when there is no danger is the time to prepare,"
+said Rose.
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Kindred said again with a smile and a sigh, pleased at such
+wisdom in her boy; although it was a principle of sound business which
+Magnus had never been known to act upon, in any one single case.
+
+But even he sobered down a little, as the last home day drew on. When
+the new trunk was packed, and Magnus had said good-bye to all the
+neighbourhood, and taken his last walk with Cherry; cheering up her
+forebodings in various efficacious ways best known to himself and to
+her; when there was nothing left but the good-night, and the early
+breakfast, and the parting--then, indeed, things began to look serious,
+and the boy too.
+
+He sat that evening, taking the clearest sort of mental photographs.
+He saw the grief that lay back of his mother's brave words and tender
+smiles: saw it, as it were, on that other background of the older
+and deeper sorrow which never left her face. He noticed the white
+lines that marked the brown hair above her temples. He studied her
+hands: slender, white, but with that unmistakable character of use and
+usefulness which some hands have.
+
+He looked at his sisters: fair, innocent slips of girls as you could
+find, East or West: their tears coming and going, their smiles playing
+hide and seek. Who ever had three such blessed bits of womankind
+entrusted to him? and who would take care of them when he, tall
+Charlemagne Kindred, should be far away? Magnus registered in his heart
+some vows that night, which to his honour he kept.
+
+Then his eyes went down again to his mother's hands. They were quietly
+folded in her lap; but as Magnus looked, he seemed to see them busy
+in a hundred different ways, and always for him. Steadying his baby
+steps, cooling his aching head; binding up scratches and cuts; sewing
+on buttons, knitting socks, mending gloves. Now laid tenderly on his
+shoulder in some time of persuasion or entreaty--and now held out, both
+of them, to receive the penitent.
+
+But here Magnus jumped up and fled away, out of the room, out of the
+house; and poured forth his agony of tears in the old orchard, under
+the quiet stars.
+
+At his age, however, such showers are brief, and often end in a highly
+exalted state of mind. Magnus came back to the house protector of his
+mother, defender of his sisters, and knight-errant for all womankind in
+general--especially Cherry.
+
+Cherry would have given what coppers she had in the world, and some
+silver to boot, to spend that last evening and morning at the Kindred
+house, and the girls had entreated her to stay, but she was a very
+self-contained little damsel and said no. "Little" is not descriptive,
+however, for Cherry was growing up tall and straight as a plumed reed
+by the river side; with a wealth of dark brown hair, and large serious
+eyes, and delicate brows that, when they laughed, went into curves as
+lovely and mischievous as the proverbial bow of Cupid. The whole of the
+demure face laughed then, with dimples here and dimples there.
+
+Brought up until six years old with a frail, invalid mother, and since
+then by a student father, the child had early learned to keep herself
+to herself with severe decision. And keep herself hid according to
+her own ideas, Cherry feared she could not, if she was at hand to see
+Magnus Kindred go. Besides--Magnus himself had not asked her!
+
+"But why will you not stay, Cherry?" the girls persisted.
+
+"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise
+Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady
+steps toward her own gate, so soon as tea was over. To be sure, Magnus
+did see her and come bounding after; and, to be sure, she found out
+then that she was not really in such haste as she had thought: but
+still Magnus would never have got the sort of farewell he did, if
+he had not been saucy and taken it. Though, alas! I am afraid his
+after-memory of the parting was for a time less tender and true than
+hers.
+
+So there were only the three home faces about the boy that last
+morning, and only the three sore hearts to plan and prepare his
+breakfast and every other possible sort of ministration. And magnate as
+he was, Charlemagne found those three as much as he could bear.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE NIGHT EXPRESS
+
+  Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,
+  There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;
+  Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"
+
+  --LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down sentiment
+and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty and
+feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at the
+shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer a
+kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway"
+mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a
+good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines
+until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty."
+But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and
+you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round
+you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark
+line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across
+the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally
+ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than
+wait.
+
+Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and his
+setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being
+late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after
+the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but
+pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not go with him
+to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so much faster
+alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him loiter.
+
+So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and
+waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe
+indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the
+greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother,
+and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed
+to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's
+house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why,
+the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West
+Point. Nevertheless, he went on--
+
+    "For men must work and women must weep."
+
+Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic
+than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their
+tears.
+
+The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with a
+derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother, and
+the three girls.
+
+As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic
+to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you
+would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed,
+there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth
+remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly
+aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving
+for seats.
+
+Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly
+the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its
+exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new fact.
+
+The first day and the first night went by wearily enough. Magnus had
+decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his anxious
+mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And so he
+could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that long
+first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were softer
+(as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of the night
+express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car! What gruff
+voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him. Disgust,
+fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands, until, as
+the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He wondered what
+was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be ill: and never
+guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly homesick.
+
+The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a little
+country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been sitting
+far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had called forth
+no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and roar ceased
+for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes of the
+little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in the
+moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked down
+the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up the
+darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late
+fellow-passengers--then as the way opened, and the mother moved on,
+the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to that
+small, unknown world.
+
+"Dood-night, folks!" she said--and was gone.
+
+I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus
+quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch
+of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger
+than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was
+he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point to him? If
+indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should die by the
+way.
+
+He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down
+over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion,
+and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small
+stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place,
+where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally
+brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of
+viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out.
+Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides
+had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch
+_them_--look at them even--in his present mood, he could not.
+
+The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness
+and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors.
+It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too
+short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the
+passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest,
+and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had
+had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy
+could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A
+somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place
+of others left behind at the station.
+
+Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat, and
+only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the
+train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of
+a different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build;
+close shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and
+in order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and
+not from that tailor to all the crowned heads, High Style. Over the
+whole man was that look of absolute cleanness--mental, moral, and
+physical--which a smooth face always sets off to the best advantage.
+Step firm and businesslike, eyes quick and kind. A man "at leisure from
+himself," for all the work his Master might set before him. Was there,
+perhaps, work here?
+
+The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping off
+at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night drew
+on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there one
+by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car, and
+from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing that
+he would come and sit by _him_.
+
+That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of the
+chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another, "Run,
+speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no
+audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the
+car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by
+young Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+READY FOR DUTY
+
+    The man that wants me is the man I want.
+
+    --DR. EDWARD PAYSON.
+
+
+"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the
+stranger said as he sat down.
+
+"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the
+answer broader than the question.
+
+"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on softly
+to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul, wait
+thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"
+
+"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a
+minute or two.
+
+"They had supper at Beaver Junction."
+
+"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"
+
+"No, sir. I didn't want any."
+
+"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said Mr.
+Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They _used_ to stop
+at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the road."
+
+He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the conductor
+was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that another
+chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where they
+had to wait for the train from Combination.
+
+"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.
+
+"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.
+
+"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a closer
+survey.
+
+"No, indeed, sir."
+
+"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"
+
+"No, sir. It will not be near _me_ for two years," said Magnus, trying
+to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his travels, and
+far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and him.
+
+"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was almost a
+groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West Point?"
+he said the next minute in his quick way.
+
+"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his
+surprise.
+
+"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr. Wayne,
+smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get to West
+Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you will
+see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first
+thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd
+better do a little at it before you get there."
+
+If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the
+merry glance that went with them.
+
+"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"
+
+"Often."
+
+"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up in
+his interest.
+
+"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr. Wayne.
+"With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart to, and
+never get it back."
+
+"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.
+
+"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All sorts."
+
+"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.
+
+"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,
+
+    "Be it ever so homely,
+    There is no place like home."
+
+"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember
+varieties?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was waste
+time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get through."
+
+"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near
+home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"
+
+"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so
+everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.
+
+Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But here
+is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my guest, and
+when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you don't want to
+go, and eat when you are not hungry."
+
+And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly
+lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer
+railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from
+munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time
+seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came
+back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise
+and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into
+life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole
+little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.
+
+And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a
+sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and
+sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when
+Magnus roused up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and
+the young head sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back
+of the seat, then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had
+vanished, and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.
+
+"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the clear skin and
+pure colour, "and well brought up"--for unmistakable lines of truth and
+intelligence marked the face. "Warm-hearted--almost--as a woman, and
+wilful enough for two! What will he do at West Point? and what will
+West Point do to him?"
+
+The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that
+longing petition of the Lord himself:
+
+"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that
+thou shouldest keep them from the evil."
+
+So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep, until
+the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside world.
+
+"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two new-made
+friends went back to their car after breakfast.
+
+"Ordered to report to-day?"
+
+"No, sir, not until Friday."
+
+"Where will you stay to-night?"
+
+"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything at
+West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"
+
+"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in town
+with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."
+
+"Do you live in town, sir?"
+
+"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."
+
+Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred,
+and he entered into this plan with great alacrity; nor ever guessed,
+till he went home on furlough and put up at the same hotel, how large a
+part of his fare that night was paid by Mr. Wayne himself.
+
+It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least
+according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands
+on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two
+o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.
+
+Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him sleep
+a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened again
+until broad daylight.
+
+The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus,
+the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own.
+Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat,
+orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading
+his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and
+then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his
+own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came
+a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then
+Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone,
+which was all that could be wished.
+
+In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together. There
+their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road, while
+Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.
+
+"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said Mr.
+Wayne, as they stepped along.
+
+"Hard work, sir."
+
+"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you expect
+to keep yourself at it?"
+
+"My own will, sir."
+
+"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to its
+duty?"
+
+"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.
+
+"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and
+often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow
+up the whole concern."
+
+"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy with
+some quickness.
+
+"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the wrong
+things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to have the
+'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working order."
+
+"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be for
+four years."
+
+"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at West
+Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the United
+States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether you like
+it or not, whether you understand it or not."
+
+"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.
+
+"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing
+to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but
+that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and
+neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the
+least."
+
+"That sounds hard," said Magnus.
+
+"It _is_ hard."
+
+"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus
+with a boy's air of competent criticism.
+
+"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If the
+authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I would
+have that written up over your door in gilt letters."
+
+"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.
+
+"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the
+absolute needs-be."
+
+"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a wondering
+look at his new-found friend.
+
+"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and a
+few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may come
+to."
+
+Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.
+
+"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been _there_?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad I
+am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all
+that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got
+shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as
+much in grey as you ever will in blue."
+
+"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.
+
+"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls is
+the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else,
+from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders--sworn in to
+obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"
+
+"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.
+
+"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must have
+forgotten. He never _means_ to disobey.'"
+
+"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring, too.
+
+"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on
+this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name,
+it is a West Point tactical officer."
+
+"Who is he?" said Magnus.
+
+"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue,
+specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."
+
+"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see if
+you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that on
+me!"
+
+Mr. Wayne laughed a little.
+
+"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that you
+haven't got does not pay at West Point."
+
+"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with
+growing distaste.
+
+"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and that
+often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear to obey
+orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come out. From
+the time you get up till the time you go to bed,--and after."
+
+"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive
+lift of the brows.
+
+"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being asleep
+will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will come
+round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if you
+are not _too_ tired, I think you had better get up.'"
+
+It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that the
+boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.
+
+"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his
+self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"
+
+"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with
+corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it
+comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."
+
+"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that
+kind office for himself.
+
+"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have another man
+detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.
+
+Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house by
+his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was not
+all of enjoyment.
+
+"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"
+
+"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered
+Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you
+can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you
+must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and
+pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."
+
+"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up the
+other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I _am_ rather lazy."
+
+"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I want
+you to make friends with the flag."
+
+"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the
+time? That is glorious!"
+
+"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm flag
+in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What
+would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came
+by who did not like it?"
+
+"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said Magnus.
+
+"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to
+offend?"
+
+"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.
+
+"But Young America can _suppose_, for the argument's sake," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling.
+
+"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as you
+say. And I say, the man would come down, a long sight ahead of the
+Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending anybody, for the flag."
+
+Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.
+
+"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point.
+Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are open."
+
+So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train moved
+slowly out of the Grand Central.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE FLAG
+
+    What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
+    As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
+    Now it catches the gleam
+    Of the morning's first beam;
+    In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.
+
+    --FRANCIS KEY.
+
+
+It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you leave
+the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in the
+long passage under ever-arching streets; and whatever the Harlem end of
+New York may have been, it is not delightsome to look upon now.
+
+But the way to the turn is not long; and once round that corner, and
+racing along the river side, there is enough to see, well worth the
+seeing. And it was all new to Magnus. The wonderful rush of the mighty
+river, rolling its blue waves in endless curls and undulations; the
+stately Palisades, with their drapings of June green; the white-winged
+craft on the water, and the white-winged gulls in the air; all made the
+boy's heart leap. Here went a steamer, ploughing her crested furrows;
+now and then the train stopped for breath at some station with a
+strange name. It was all a wonderful new world.
+
+With his face close to the window Magnus looked eagerly out; sending
+his gaze as far up the river as the headlands and bends would let him;
+and at last in the distance beyond the narrowing waters of Haverstraw
+Bay, and above the nearer hillsides, rose lovely mountain-heads. Not
+towering and stupendous, such as he might have seen many a time in the
+Western States, but soft, rounded, exquisite; just high enough, in
+fact, to claim the dignified name of mountains, as distinguished from
+mere hills. What they were, and where they belonged, Magnus could not
+tell. They rose up, and stretched out, and locked in, in an impassable
+sort of way; as if they might be miles off from the river. He did not
+know whether West Point was near them. And yet, by his time-table,
+there was but one station more before he must leave the train.
+
+Now the engine rushed inland for a bit, losing sight of the river, and
+Magnus studied the time-table again, assuring himself for the twentieth
+time of the precise hour and minute when he was expected to reach
+Garrisons. Then as the train drew up at Peekskill, he gazed out at that
+dingy combination which gathers round a railway station. The engine got
+its quantum of water, darted on, and then--ah, what could be fairer!
+Magnus almost shouted with delight as they swept around the curve, with
+the full south view for a moment, past Anthony's Nose, and with the
+Dunderberg across the stream.
+
+"What are these mountains called?" he asked of a Peekskill passenger
+who had taken the seat beside him.
+
+"Highlands--Hudson Highlands," said the man. "You don't belong round
+here, likely?"
+
+"I never was here before."
+
+"You've come to the right place, then. Aint purtier mountings nowhere.
+Such a lot o' happenings, too. Now, right _here_,"--as the train rushed
+through a deep rock cut,--"just about here, was where Benedict Arnold
+sneaked off to find the _Vulture_. And earth nor water didn't nary one
+on 'em open and swaller him up."
+
+"Then this is Teller's Point!" cried Magnus.
+
+"Teller's Point it is. And up yonder, to your right, is where the
+scamp was livin', and gettin' his breakfast that mornin', when the
+Father of his country come, and all but cotched him. Tell you, these
+old hills has seen things! But now look this way a bit. See that crick
+over there, and the mill? Fort Montgomery's one side, to the north,
+and t'other side o' the crick is Fort Clinton; and down there, atween
+'em, is where they fit the battle and killed my great grandfather. They
+do say, the Continentals was that mad they pitched all the Hessians
+into the crick. Tell you what, young man, it's fine to have one o' the
+family die in the service. I aint partic'lar about its bein' me, you
+understand, but some one on 'em."
+
+"But you'd be ready to have it you?" said Magnus, eyeing his new
+acquaintance.
+
+"Likely I would, if the tug came. Life's life, howsoever, when there
+aint no special call to get along without it. They're tryin' to learn
+them boys at West Point how to fight; but la! this here sham work don't
+go for nothin'. Live in peace till the time comes, say I."
+
+"But you want to be ready for the time," said Magnus.
+
+"Ready?" the man repeated. "Take your pitchfork and _go_. That's ready
+enough for me. It did average well, in '76."
+
+"Garri-sons!" sang out the brakeman, flinging back the door.
+"Garrisons! Ferry to West Point."
+
+And in another minute Magnus was out on the platform, and heard the
+little ferryboat ringing her bell. He looked eagerly about him, found
+the right official to take his check, and following that bell, marched
+down to the _Highlander_, and went on board.
+
+A down train was nearly due, so there were a few minutes to wait; and
+Magnus pushed straight on to the little forward deck, and then forgot
+everything in what he saw.
+
+It was unearthly fair, this bit of the world that lay before him. The
+lovely green further shore, decked from river side to sky edge in the
+rich growth and colouring of early summer; the hills but hardly yet in
+their full depth of green, so that the dark cedars and hemlocks stood
+out markedly among the tender hues of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and
+maples. From the midst of the trees on the table-land rose up chimneys,
+pointed roofs, round roofs, and domes, which as yet meant nothing
+to Charlemagne Kindred. The river rolled placidly by, stirred into
+wavelets by the fresh, sweet breeze; close at hand he could hear the
+soft lapping of the water against the sides of the boat. All sweet, all
+strange; and between the two, Magnus very nearly let his head go down.
+
+But now came the thunder of the down train; the inviting ding-dong
+of the ferryboat made itself once more heard, a little throng of
+passengers came hurrying on board, and then they were off. Crossing the
+Rubicon, Magnus felt, if he did not say.
+
+For a few moments still he stood quite alone on the forward deck. How
+fast the little steamer parted the blue waters that lay between him and
+his new life! Hilltops to the north, hilltops to the south, Anthony's
+Nose cutting the river off on the one hand, Martlaer's Rock--the old
+"East Point" of the maps--closing it in on the other. Before him, West
+Point, "Tacs," and orders; behind him, the road by which he had come
+from home.
+
+Then the swing-door slammed, and a bevy of girls came rushing out
+to the front of the boat. Magnus turned to look at them, then
+instinctively took a stand further back, where he could gaze less
+visibly.
+
+Certainly he had seen girls enough to know the genus, but these were
+a new species. Such hats, such heels, such giggles, such bewildering
+dresses. Such knots of riband, such spots of velvet, such piles of
+artificial flowers, such very pretty faces. Not handsome, like Cherry,
+Magnus said indignantly, calling himself to order; and then began to
+wonder how Cherry would look dressed _so_.
+
+And even as the thought came, he heard one whisper to the other, "A
+candidate."
+
+And Magnus felt unreasonably angry. What business had they to pick him
+out? And how was he a marked man, anyway? But their notice of him was
+short.
+
+"Look at Jenny!" giggled one, half under her breath, pointing to a
+girl who leaned on the railing, and never took her eyes from the West
+Point shore. "He isn't on the watch, sweet child: it's one o'clock,
+and they're all in the Mess Hall. Don't send such wistful looks on
+ahead, or they'll mount the hill and spoil his digestion." And she half
+whistled, half sang:
+
+    "Come fill up your glasses, and don't stand back;
+            Vive la compagnie!
+    And drink to the health of our Captain Jack----"
+
+"You don't call him plain 'Jack' yet, do you, dear?"
+
+"If you _could_ talk a little sense!" murmured the girl at the railing.
+"I shall never call him '_plain_' anything."
+
+The girls choked with laughter, which half rippled out, and half was
+smothered. Then the talk went on, in the same undertones; not as if it
+was meant to be heard, and yet which Magnus could not help hearing.
+
+"She's such a Paul Pry! Said to me the other day when we were out
+walking, 'But you are not in love with any one of the class?' I said,
+'No; I'm in love with the whole class.' Oh, dear! it will be too
+dreadful when they all go!"
+
+"There are always candidates," whispered another, with a glance towards
+Magnus, and then the boat touched her landing, and the girls hurried on
+shore.
+
+Magnus did not hurry. He had no quarters to spend on omnibus fare, and
+no mind at all to be wedged in among those lively ladies. He picked up
+his bag and walked after the stage as it slowly climbed the hill. A few
+swift strides would have easily taken him beyond it. But he lingered
+and loitered, sat down on the tall stone curbing of the road, and tried
+to find out why he felt so uncomfortable. What if he was a "candidate"?
+There was Cherry, and the other two girls at home, on tiptoe over that
+very fact. Why should West Point feel so differently? He had come to
+learn to serve and to defend his country; to grace her ranks, wherever
+he might be.
+
+Magnus looked after his stageful of enemies, and seeing that they had
+turned down towards the south, he quickened his steps, and soon reached
+the top of the hill. There paused again, partly for strangeness, and
+partly for wonder. It was all so beautiful, so new.
+
+The grass, close shaven and vividly green, covered the ground on every
+side; up the slopes, and down in the hollows; with only the cavalry
+plain lying brown and bare in the sunshine. Buildings, with hardly two
+alike, were dropped down for the most part in a long, curving line,
+the end of which he could not see. No people, anywhere, for it was
+dinner time or lunch time all over the Post; only as Magnus crossed
+the road to get a nearer view of the buildings, he came upon a very
+distinguished personage with a gun on his shoulder, pacing aimlessly up
+and down the sidewalk. His uniform was blue, his "deportment" fierce.
+"He must be an officer," thought the boy to himself, "and this some
+special important point he must watch."
+
+Magnus found a seat under a friendly tree, and studied him. That slow,
+ceaseless, back-and-forth march, fascinated the quicksilver youngster.
+Orioles whistled over his head, sparrows sang, catbirds cried out
+in fear or shouted for joy. Further off was the whistle and roar of
+trains, and the bell of the ferryboat. In every pause the breeze
+rustled softly by, and the river plashed against the shore. He had
+never seen anything so lovely in all his life. But now, where were all
+those voices?--a mild roar of talk. Plainly, in that small grey stone
+castle just over the way.
+
+He strolled on again, passed the old Academic, and came out upon the
+plain. And then for a while he forgot everything but what his eyes took
+in.
+
+The smooth greensward, irregularly framed in with trees, and having
+here and there a slight undulation which only heightened its beauty,
+lay shimmering in the summer sun. On one side, behind the trees, the
+row of houses went its winding way; on the other, the trees drew
+together rather thinly in a little wood; but Magnus just then gave
+no heed to either. His eyes followed the green right on to a sort of
+jumping-off place, where the ground dropped suddenly all along the
+line. There too was a closer-set clump of trees; and from among them,
+white and slim, rose the tall flagstaff, bearing aloft the beautiful
+banner of the Stars and Stripes.
+
+There was not much wind, and the great flag hung in those half-way
+curves which are more picturesque than the full expansion. Softly
+twisting, turning, its mighty folds; the red, white, and blue seeming
+ever in playful strife for the upper hand, which should show most and
+which give way.
+
+Magnus looked at it, and then instantly bared his head. He had never
+seen so large a flag, nor ever one that floated with such clear
+assumption of its rights; such careless, easy grace in claiming and
+keeping them. "Make a friend of the flag," Mr. Wayne had said, and from
+this moment the boy took it to his very heart. Fight for it? Aye, that
+he would!
+
+He walked slowly across the plain, still watching the flag, until
+he stood close beneath it, and could hear the soft flapping of the
+halyards as they beat against the pole. But now it was fairyland
+everywhere.
+
+All about him, spotting the green grass, were guns: big guns
+and little guns; shining black and mouldy green; with piles of
+wicked-looking black shot. The guns themselves, like many other
+senders-forth of mischief, looked sleepy and innocent enough. Tall
+trees rose up, bordering the little platform, from which the ground
+fell off steeply towards the river; some younger and softer tree heads
+showing there and hindering the further view. But Magnus wanted no more
+views just then.
+
+He stood leaning back against the white flagstaff, and for the moment
+felt content. Over his head the lovely folds of the flag curled and
+drooped and stretched away upon the wind; and again, as Magnus looked
+up at it, he doffed his hat. Then he found himself wondering what they
+did to the grass in this part of the world, to make it so smooth and
+soft and even. Then two or three uniforms went by, and he wondered over
+them: it was in truth fairyland. Oh, if the folks at home could only
+see it! And then, suddenly, fairyland shifted its place, and fled away
+far out West, to the lonely regions of Barren Heights. Oh, if--not that
+they were here, but that he was there!--just back once more at home!
+The boy's hat came down low over his eyes. What did that old flag care
+for him? And what did he care for grass, or views, or uniforms, or
+anything else, but only just to see mother, and the girls, and Cherry?
+
+"Bracing up" is often so useful a process that one must not be too hard
+upon the agents that oblige us thereto; and this time the agents were
+very comely. A cluster of young girls, clad in all the pretty frippery
+of the day, came giggling along the walk towards the flagstaff. It
+was not, Say something and laugh at it--or, Say something to make the
+others laugh; but there was a chronic state of giggle, as if life
+were such a very droll thing that no occasional outburst could do it
+justice. The walk passed the flagstaff with some little green space
+between; and they came flickering along (I am really at a loss for
+a word); changing places, pulling each other, pushing each other,
+whispering, sometimes half-dancing, down the walk.
+
+It is needless to say that Magnus "braced up" immediately; and still
+leaning against the flagstaff, watched them from under his hat.
+
+These were not his fair foes of the ferryboat, whom he had supposed
+were rare specimens: now he was to learn that the species is widespread
+and common, in June. Again he heard the obnoxious word, "candidate."
+
+"Holding up the flagstaff, as usual," said the leading girl. "I do
+verily believe they think that's what they come for."
+
+"Hush!" said another. "Don't talk so loud. He might hear."
+
+"He'll hear worse than that, before he's been here many days," said the
+first. "I'll just break it to him by degrees. Say, girls, let's go and
+give him his 'technical,' and get the start of Devlin Fritz."
+
+"_Do_ be quiet!" said a third. "No wonder they all call you 'Miss
+Saucy.'"
+
+"It's something to have them _all_ call you anything," returned the
+young lady with much content.
+
+"Oh, that's true!" said another. "I declare, girls, I think it's too
+bad. Here I've spent ten pounds of candy since I came, and I haven't
+got one special cadet yet."
+
+"Huyler's?" demanded Miss Saucy.
+
+"Huyler's."
+
+"Get Dulce to hand you over Mr. Day. She bores the poor boy to death. I
+know he'd be glad of almost any change," said Miss Flirt.
+
+"Or she might try a 'candied date,'" suggested Miss Saucy with a
+sideway gesture.
+
+In the small babel of words and laughter that followed this, the girls
+drifted away out of hearing, and the sweet summer air was silent
+again. The leaves clapped hands softly, the folds of the beautiful flag
+curled and played as before over the head of the young candidate. But
+in the heart of Magnus himself, just now, the summer grace and peace
+found no foothold. Rather, his thoughts were like a November gale, with
+the air full of dust and rubbish.
+
+What if he _was_ a candidate? Men had to be, when they first came, he
+supposed. And what if he _did_ mean to hold up the flagstaff? who had a
+better right? Magnus looked up defiantly, and made a profound reverence
+to the Stars and Stripes. All the same, he edged away as he saw another
+party of girls approaching, and went and sat down on a long iron
+seat among the tree shadows. One thing was certain: his sisters--and
+Cherry--should never set foot here, if he could help it. He had been
+thinking--if only they could get money enough--how fine it would be to
+have them all come and see this beautiful place. Such walks as they
+could take! But West Point just _swarmed_ with girls already. And at
+this point of his meditations Magnus was quite sure that he heard
+"candidate" again, from another jocund voice.
+
+"Say, let's find out."
+
+"What for?" said a pink vision.
+
+"Fun," said the white one: "Oh, I know the regulation questions." And
+but half under her breath, the pretty tones sang out:
+
+    "See where he hails from--
+      What is his name;
+    Who was his 'pred.,'
+      And why he came."
+
+"Who cares?" said the other girl, hurrying her along. "Come, we are
+late."
+
+That party passed, followed, it must be owned, by some rather fierce
+looks from Magnus. Then, slowly strolling down the pathway, came two
+more: a girl, in the height of every fashion, and a tall fellow in
+close-fitting grey coat and the whitest of unwrinkled trousers. Over
+his head he carried the girl's scarlet and lace parasol, shielding
+himself as carefully as if she had brought it for that express purpose.
+As perhaps she had: who knows? At all events, the little lady gazed up
+at the dark sunburnt face, with its vivid background, as if nothing
+could be too good to screen such a complexion. And he looked down at
+her--well, women never get just what they give, but he did look very
+admiringly; as if the delicate face needed nothing, not even a parasol.
+
+Whatever was the reason, this couple made Magnus more irate than any
+that had gone before. There was an instant antagonism to the tall
+cadet. His uniform was so becoming, and fitted so well; the glancing
+buttons were so attractive; the gold bars on the upper arm had such
+a distinguished look; the young stranger set him down at once for a
+coxcomb. But there was a little envy in it all. How cleverly he cut
+down the military stride to keep step with the girl's mincing feet; a
+difficult thing, as Magnus knew.
+
+"Taking care of his own precious face, and letting hers burn!" quoth
+the young civilian; but all the same, he would have given more money
+than he was likely to have soon to be in just such guise himself, with
+Cherry by his side. He'd show that fellow a thing or two.
+
+He was getting homesick again. All these people, with their friends
+and their fun, made him feel so desolately far away from everybody. He
+slouched his hat down further, and wandered off again, not looking much
+where he went; just following the path beneath his feet. Slowly round
+the guns, then on along the bank, and there found more seats. There
+was no sound of voice or step here, and Magnus sat down wearily, and
+leaned his head on his arm, and tried to fight the homesickness. For
+the moment he despised the whole race of girls, Cherry, of course,
+excepted. "Simpering up into that fellow's face, as if there had never
+been a man before, nor would be again."
+
+Yes, there was certainly a twinge of envy in Charlemagne's heart. The
+tall cadet had carried himself with such careless, graceful erectness
+that there was no relief to be had out of calling him a "ramrod." And
+his white trousers were _so_ white, and so without a wrinkle.
+
+"I'd like to know how he manages that," thought Magnus, the envy
+passing into wonder. With him, white trousers had been always uncertain
+and short-lived things. And now his thoughts flew far away again,
+over hills and prairie land; and once more he was going through wild
+exploits at home; getting himself wet and muddy, and having the girls
+laugh at him from the midst of their intact fresh draperies. Magnus
+drew a long, heavy sigh.
+
+Then he roused himself and sat up; for again those measured steps, the
+peculiar tread of which he was just learning to know, sounded near by;
+and another cadet, from the opposite direction, came down the walk. He
+glanced at Magnus, then crossed the grass, and took his seat on the
+other end of the same bench; but said not a word, only gazed placidly
+up the river. And now, as one always looks whither another is looking,
+so also did Magnus.
+
+There were no trees in the way here, and the view was open. Close
+at his feet the ground fell sharply down to the level of the siege
+battery, where a dozen guns and mortars kept grim watch, their ugly
+black mouths pointed up-stream. Beyond the green parapet nothing made
+much show till you reached the river itself, which for ten miles here
+came flowing gently down, with no sharp turns; the whole of "Martlaer's
+Reach" lay full in sight. In the far, far distance, an irregularly
+broken line of blue peaks brushed softly against the sky. At their
+feet lay the green wooded slopes of the Newburgh hills, with Newburgh
+itself sparkling in the sun. The line stretched across so straight from
+side to side, as if there the river began.
+
+Nearer, and on either hand, rising in abrupt masses from the water's
+edge, lay Butter Hill and Breakneck, Bull Hill and Crow Nest; pillars
+of the north Highland gateway. All green, from brow to base, except
+where every now and then the granite framework of the mountains pushed
+itself through in crags and ridges. The green was exquisite, with all
+the lush hues of June.
+
+Between the hills the flood of the great river poured along unchecked,
+until where in the very foreground the grey-green bluff of Martlaer's
+Rock thrust itself out athwart the stream; bringing it with one sharp
+turn to its very narrowest and deepest part. For a little distance
+then, in front of Magnus, the river ran east and west--along the
+Rock; then took another short turn, and went racing south; the lovely
+"Shaw-na-taw-ty," that "flows toward the midday." Between the river and
+the homesick boy lay only the broken hillside and the silent guns.
+
+There were no human voices, either, but a chance medley of sweet sounds
+from other throats. Song sparrows in their rollicking glee, with the
+homespun twitter of a chipping sparrow, giving her brood their first
+outing. Robins kept up their changing chorus; crows cawed; among
+the distant trees you could hear the thrush bells now and then. The
+indescribable sighs and murmurs and trills of the summer wind, the soft
+touches of the mighty river along its banks, filled every moment of
+unappropriated time.
+
+Magnus forgot everything, as he looked and listened. June threw her
+warm spell over him, and for the minute again he was content.
+
+"Yes, that can't be beat," remarked his neighbour in grey, who had been
+watching him closely. "Look at it all you want to; now is a good time."
+
+"I think every time is good, for such a view," Magnus said, facing
+round.
+
+"When do you report?" asked the other abruptly.
+
+"To-morrow." Magnus answered the question, perceiving the next instant
+that again he was noted as a candidate.
+
+"Well, next week, if you are here, you'll find some other hills lying
+round promiscuous, and you won't think quite so much about these."
+
+"How did you know I was to report at all?"
+
+The cadet laughed.
+
+"No mistaking a candidate," he said. "You have the real all-overish
+look about you. And no need to huff up at it, either. I've been there
+myself, so I know."
+
+"Do you like it here?" said Magnus, the flush cooling down.
+
+"Fair to middling. When I'm up in math., keep out of Con., and don't
+get skinned too often."
+
+This was high Dutch to Magnus. But he was at the age when pertinent
+questions are far harder to ask than the impertinent; and nothing would
+have made him show his ignorance. He went back to the last subject.
+
+"You say you know, because you've been a candidate yourself; but who
+tells all these girls?"
+
+"Oh, the girls!" said the cadet. "Yes, there's a good many girls
+here; and what some of 'em don't know, and don't do, wouldn't fill a
+collar-box. Even Crinkem's head could hold it."
+
+"Who is Crinkem?"
+
+"My respected classmate. Absolutely worried along so far, and gone on
+furlough. Nobody can guess how he did it, either. Who are you?"
+
+"Charlemagne Kindred."
+
+The cadet gave a long, "Whew!"
+
+"Is that all you have for week days?" he asked.
+
+"Not quite," said Magnus, smiling in spite of himself. "They call me
+Magnus, at home."
+
+"Won't do you any good here," said the other, shaking his head. "Name's
+got to go down in full, if it was Beelzebub Nebuchadnezzar. You'll be
+rechristened for common use."
+
+"Do they always do that?" said Magnus, looking grave.
+
+"Mostly."
+
+Magnus reddened.
+
+"I cannot see what the Faculty have to do with my name," he said. "It's
+not their business."
+
+"Not the Faculty, as you call them, at all," said the cadet, "but your
+beloved fellow-students. They will take almost as anxious care of you
+as will the Com."
+
+"Oh, the other cadets!" said Magnus loftily. "I'll take care of them."
+
+"I would," said the man in grey with dry emphasis. "Not too many at
+once. There's quite a few of them."
+
+Magnus sat studying the north view without seeing it.
+
+"But how is this?" he said suddenly. "You say your classmate has gone
+on furlough--why aren't you gone too?"
+
+The cadet shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Some men leave their country for their country's good," he said, "and
+some stay in it, same at same. I lost my furlough. But anyhow Crinkem
+went ahead of time; folks sick at home. He's always in luck."
+
+"_Lost_ it," Magnus repeated. "How could you?"
+
+"Easy enough, if you run against the Tacs in a tight place. Lose
+anything here, except your heart and your appetite."
+
+But to these last words Magnus gave no heed; his whole soul was astir
+with this new idea. _Lose his furlough!_ Not go home even at the end
+of the two long years!
+
+"Can you do that?" he said. "Is it often done?"
+
+"Not so very. Oh, you can do it, fast enough, if you have a run of bad
+luck, as I did."
+
+"I don't believe in luck," Magnus answered him.
+
+"Don't you? Well, you will, when you've been here a month."
+
+And now a party of strollers came by the seat; another much-dressed
+young damsel, set in a framework of grey uniforms. As they passed, the
+lady bowed; Magnus's friend stood up and doffed his cap, the other
+cadets also touching theirs; and again (against his will) Magnus
+admired and envied the easy precision of every movement. He wondered
+if he could take off his hat with that peculiar swing?--and said no,
+to himself, at once. But he would have it before furlough--and how
+astonished Cherry would be!
+
+"Been round Flirtation?" demanded his new acquaintance abruptly,
+watching the three who went slowly on towards where the path left the
+brow of the hill, and ran down among the cedars.
+
+"Round flirtation!"
+
+The cadet laughed.
+
+"You needn't look so scared," he said--"it's only one of our walks. At
+least it isn't generally anything else. Come on, and I'll show it to
+you. I don't see what Fitch is after with that girl; cutting out poor
+little Day. And he can talk a dozen to Day's one. Come along."
+
+So they rose up, and stepped on at a good pace, till they had the
+others in full sight again; dropping then into the like easy saunter.
+At least it was easy to one, but for Magnus like being in bonds; and he
+was constantly getting ahead, checking himself, and falling back.
+
+"I'll teach them how to walk, when I'm once in," he thought. Then aloud:
+
+"We should call this slow doings out West," he said.
+
+"Yes," said his companion. "Generally want to get there, out West, I
+suppose?"
+
+"We certainly do."
+
+"All right. Well, those folks don't."
+
+It was such a self-evident fact about the three in front, that Magnus
+looked from them to the man at his side, and his eyes flashed with fun.
+They both laughed.
+
+"Do none of them ever want to get _anywhere_?" said Magnus.
+
+"Not often--on Flirtation. Spoil the fun, you know."
+
+"Well, you say that is Mr. Fitch, and the other is Mr. Day, then who
+are you?" said Magnus.
+
+"To be sure!" said the cadet with a lazy drawl. "I've been wondering
+how long a Westerner could get along without asking."
+
+If Magnus grew hot at this implied charge, he had no chance to show it
+then. A sudden drum-call, clear and loud, sent its racket through the
+still air. The cadet stopped short.
+
+"There!" he said; "that beastly review is to come off, after all."
+
+And without another word, he turned and darted up the hill. In another
+minute, Fitch and Day went speeding by, at the same keen, measured
+pace, which struck Magnus as unlike anything he had ever seen. A few
+bounds brought him up to the green level of the plain, where he could
+watch the three, as they hurried along to the grey barracks. Nor those
+three alone. From every side, from all directions, the grey and white
+came hurrying in. Hurrying--yet always with the same even, regular,
+swift step; the foot lifted just so high, the right arm swinging just
+so far; and with no seeming effort. Magnus saw one and another of them
+take off his cap to some lady as he flew by, but without the least
+pause or break. Only two or three very much belated men dropped into a
+walk as they neared the barracks. As Rosamund said, "It was too late to
+get up early."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A LONELY CANDIDATE
+
+    Nothing useless is, or low;
+      Each thing in its place is best:
+    And what seems but idle show,
+      Strengthens and supports the rest.
+
+--LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+Magnus strolled leisurely along, thinking first that he could show
+these cadets how to run, and then beginning to have grave doubts on
+the subject; and finally finding himself a seat under the trees, where
+he could look and listen in shady comfort. Eyes and ears had full
+occupation.
+
+There was a busy note of preparation everywhere, and especially among
+the drums. Beating there, and then beating here; the sound caught
+up and echoed back from the grey rocks on the green hillside. Then
+came out uniforms of various sorts (Magnus personified the dress, not
+knowing the men) and proceeded to mark off a certain space on the green
+in front of him, setting a gay little banner at the four corners of a
+large, large square.
+
+Then, at first slowly, but soon hurrying up from every point of the
+compass, a many-coloured crowd swarmed in and filled the seats--filled
+them presently so full that Magnus gave up his place to the next gauzy
+creature that came along. She fluttered down into the seat with much
+gratulation and no thanks, and Magnus gravely took his stand in the
+rear.
+
+He had no lack of company, even there. Officers in various uniforms,
+civilians in all sorts of coats, and girls in all sorts of finery,
+stood beside and around him.
+
+And now, also, there came straying in another small posse, whom Magnus
+instinctively knew as of his own kind. Yes, they must be candidates;
+partly, perhaps, because they could not possibly be anything else;
+no other class owned them. Yet how did _he_ know that?--to whom all
+classes here were strange. What possible connection between that dapper
+little fellow in straw hat and black alpaca coat, and this young giant
+who wore a cloth cap and a fluttering linen duster? Or how was his next
+neighbour in a Derby and long frock coat like the fourth man, who wore
+brown trousers, a cutaway coat, and a wide-awake? Yet even Magnus could
+see that "candidate" was written on them all. So plainly, indeed, that
+he stepped further back and put himself behind the tree. Anybody who
+looked at him standing there--and some did look--saw a tall, well-made
+young fellow in a neat and perfectly unobtrusive suit of brown-grey
+cloth. Very dark hair and with a wilful curl that tossed it about every
+way. Excellent features, ignorant as yet of life's moulding touch; and
+a sweet, mobile mouth, set just now in very grave lines indeed, and
+so hiding one of the great charms of his face. For nobody could watch
+Magnus Kindred when he smiled or laughed, and not notice the _clean_
+look: the utterly pure and true lines into which those grave ones
+changed. For the rest, hands and feet were well shaped and in excellent
+order; and the whole bearing was both self-reliant and unconscious.
+
+But it seemed as if the gayer grew the scene, the soberer grew that
+young face gazing out from behind the tree. For of all the lonely
+places, commend me to an unknown throng of pleasure-seekers, where
+everyone belongs to someone, is waiting for someone, or is waited for,
+and you belong to none. No eyes are watching for you, no heart stirs
+when you come in sight; and no one will miss you if you do not come at
+all.
+
+So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded
+almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between
+himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls,
+thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them
+was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and
+flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own
+dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the
+boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers
+he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He looks
+pretty homesick."
+
+"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German, Floy."
+
+"Oh, _he_ can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached
+the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a
+candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't
+wear chevrons."
+
+And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next
+neighbour.
+
+If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve
+to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him.
+These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken
+cords are strong.
+
+How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood where
+they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees, and made
+a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians, matrons,
+girls--and candidates. Little children dropped down on the green edge
+of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and hard-pushed people
+sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant came along, waving
+them off with his black wand. And the people jumped up, growling and
+frowning, and, as soon as they saw his back, dropped down again.
+
+As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening
+cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he
+would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations.
+Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit
+or change. Not to see home again for two long years.
+
+Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set
+himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all
+his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to
+someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the
+whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper.
+"Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"
+
+Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they could
+not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was so fine
+that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the great
+square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one elastic
+thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed. So they
+marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the double-timing.
+
+How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet officers
+leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally unerring
+footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away since
+he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed into the
+grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never lagged.
+The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry it was
+pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration; down
+to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it off.
+
+He was noticing every step; eyeing the black shoe-soles that came up
+as one, the bent-knee line of white trousers, the glitter of the guns;
+forgetting everything else, when again the hated word came full upon
+his ear.
+
+"Just look at that candidate, will you! It's as good as a play. I
+wonder he didn't join in."
+
+"Ya-as," was answered in a drawling tone by her escort. "There he
+stands. Study his perfections now, while you can, Miss Jenny. Next week
+he will have ceased to shine upon the polite world. Exit the candidate,
+enter the beast. That is, if he gets in, which is doubtful."
+
+A small thing may do the work where a large one fails; trains got no
+hearing, after that. That he would enter became instantly a fixed fact
+to that particular candidate.
+
+The girl was certainly pretty. How would Cherry look, sitting there,
+and with himself in a grey coat bending over her, and twirling her
+parasol? Cherry was handsomer--miles away--than this girl. Deeper eyes,
+tenderer mouth, more glowing cheeks, too, for that matter. Yet she
+would not look _so_, the boy honestly owned to himself, though fuming
+a little over the admission; the whole make-up would be different. The
+very idea of such shoes as this damsel thrust out into the sunlight had
+never entered Cherry's wholesome head. "Shoe pegs," Magnus called the
+heels, with great scorn, and set right in the middle of her foot. And
+scarlet stockings. And her dress--what was it made of? No, Cherry would
+not look so; and however he might frown, Magnus felt the glamour, as
+most men do, of city dressmaking and "the correct thing."
+
+"Country-made gowns look so different," said someone behind him.
+
+Then that girl further on, in fluffs of white lace and muslin, white
+shoes, white gloves, and her dainty head crowned with "an acre" of
+Leghorn, and "a half bushel" of roses. No, neither would Cherry look
+like her. And now the boy's fancy brought the little country maiden,
+in her country garb--even her Sunday best--and set her down beside
+these two. A plain white gown, with no setting off but the simple
+ruffles which Cherry had embroidered, and the exquisite laundry work
+which she had also done herself. Black shoes, which were made for
+walking ("but either one of those white ones could hold 'em both,"
+thought Magnus, in his hot fancy). Then a broad straw hat, round which
+Violet's deft fingers had twined a dark green riband; while the hands,
+which were small, indeed, and comely, but unwhitened with either
+idleness or lemon, wore only a pair of spotless Lisle thread gloves.
+
+Magnus looked at the pink, the white, the tan kids all about him, and
+drew a deep breath.
+
+"But she _shall_ sit there!" he said, with one of his fierce mental
+bursts. "She shall sit there, and look just so. No, not just so, for,
+if they try their prettiest, they can never any of them look like her."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IN FOR IT
+
+    With this hand work, and with the other pray,
+    And God will bless them both from day to day.
+
+    --_Old Vierlander Motto._
+
+
+Some little time after the foregoing events, the following letter was
+sent from the West Point Post Office:
+
+  "CAMP HARD, June --, 18--.
+
+  "MY DEAR FOLKS AT HOME:
+
+ "Well, I am in for it. Uncle Sam has me, body and soul. At least
+ the body is self-evident, and as I don't get time to say my soul's
+ my own, I suppose he claims that, too,--Mr. Wayne to the contrary.
+ Bought and paid for and sworn in; and earmarks enough for a drove
+ of pigs. Do you want to know what I look like, you girls? Just at
+ present I am a compound of grey and green in about equal mixture.
+ No, I guess the green has it. Hair cut short, army shoes, and a
+ brand new prison dress which might fit anybody else as well as it
+ does me, and better. I get up by a gun, and go to bed by a drum,
+ and have a bugle to tell me when to go to sleep, and as we are
+ young and tender in the ways of the world, at every meal the first
+ captain informs us when to stop eating. (He's nothing special to
+ look at, Cherry. Don't open your eyes too wide. But he's such an
+ old spoon that he's always in a hurry to get out and walk with
+ some girl or other)."
+
+ "We study straight lines in the morning, and play leap-frog
+ in the afternoon; and have girls come and make fun of us while
+ we're at it. Yesterday they enjoyed it more than was good for
+ themselves, and one of the officers ordered them off."
+
+ "There are two special prigs in chevrons, who have charge of our
+ thumbs and shoulderblades; and when you girls come to see me,
+ _one_ of 'em won't get an introduction, that's all. What do you
+ think he did yesterday? It was hot enough to melt down your ideas,
+ if you had any--hot as the middle line of the equator; and he had
+ been drilling us as if he had never been drilled himself, and
+ didn't know how it felt. So, when drill was over, he stood a lot
+ of us round his tent door in the sun, and then made iced lemonade,
+ and sat there drinking it with us looking on. Give us some? Not
+ quite. Go to the store and buy our own lemons, Rose? Why, we can't
+ get a shoestring without a special order. Corporal Mean smuggled
+ in his sugar from the Mess Hall; and I guess Miss Flyaway brought
+ him the lemons. If you want to know about Miss Flyaway, she's
+ one of the girls; a summer girl, as they say here, and we plebs
+ could spare her till winter just as well as not. She's as bad as
+ a third-class corporal--only we can laugh at her and we can't at
+ him. If we did, we'd be skinned in a minute. This is what I should
+ hear read out after parade:
+
+ "'Kindred--disrespect to superior officer, at about 4.30 P.
+ M.'--demerits according. Oh, well! we'll wear through somehow; it
+ takes a good deal to kill a man. And they're not all like that.
+ Cadet Captain Steady called me into his tent to-day and gave me a
+ whole lot of good advice that would have gone to mother's heart.
+ There's another Captain, too, Mr. Upright, who's as nice as he
+ can be; and some of the Tacs aren't very bad to take. But we've
+ got one in our company! I just wish you could see him. We call
+ him Towser--because he's always nosing round, and sniffing about
+ everywhere, to see what sort of a dry bone he can find to pick. He
+ hasn't hived any of mine yet, but he spied a whole square inch of
+ paper in front of Randolph's tent and reported him for disorder.
+ You have to polish your shoestrings to go down A Company street,
+ when he's in charge. So whoever sees him coming fires off a
+ volley, and then we all know. Bow--wow--wow--wow--wow--wow!"
+
+ "You'll like my tentmate, Rig. That's not his name, of course, but
+ we call him so because he's so B. J. about his dress. They don't
+ leave him much hair to brush, but what he has takes up half his
+ spare time."
+
+ "Now I know mother is aching to put in her questions--just waiting
+ till I get through writing stuff. Well, ma'am, you see, we just
+ _have_ to praise ourselves a little bit here, because if we don't
+ do it, it don't get done; and so I call myself a pretty good boy.
+ Whether I'd suit you exactly, I'll not say. I go to prayer-meeting
+ twice a week and once to Chapel (_have_ to go there, so you
+ needn't give me a credit), and I've not missed reading my chapter
+ one day yet. Mr. Upright came by the other day when I was at it,
+ and he stopped and walked in."
+
+ "'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he
+ said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as
+ much as you like; the more, the better. Remember:
+
+    "'He always wins, who sides with God.'"
+
+ "So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long
+ as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours
+ flying--a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here
+ sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he
+ declares: says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned
+ back, and so he has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says
+ there's no place in the course for religion; just as well give it
+ up first as last."
+
+ "So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her dictionary and
+ never taught me how to spell the words."
+
+ "Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years ago; though how
+ she can enjoy herself up there, with him going on as he does down
+ here, I can't see. Maybe she doesn't know."
+
+ "There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other all round
+ for me, beginning anywhere."
+
+  "MAGNUS KINDRED,
+  U. S. Corps of Cadets."
+
+ "You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow. But you
+ see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his feelings to look
+ like an acorn."
+
+This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped; went on the
+orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in due course, across
+the continent to the far-off simple home at Barren Heights. There it
+alighted with the force and precision of a bombshell. That is, if force
+may be measured by commotion.
+
+The strange phrases, the new ideas, the dim, vague vision of most
+unwonted doings--there is no telling what a stir-up it all was. The
+three girls had gone to the post office together in the course of their
+afternoon walk, and had taken turns at bringing the precious missive
+home. Now they sat about on the front steps, while Mrs. Kindred, in the
+porch rocking chair, opened and read the letter aloud.
+
+I think she never even thought of a hidden meaning in "Camp Hard,"
+passing it by as a mere name; but as she read on, even where the words
+themselves were perplexing, their intent was unmistakable. At the end
+of almost the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred took off her glasses,
+laid them down on the letter, and looked about her.
+
+"No time to say his soul is his own," she said. "Why, what does this
+mean?"
+
+Everybody else had felt the shock, but as usual they all crowded in to
+the rescue.
+
+"It must be just his way of talking," said Violet. "Don't you know,
+mother, that when Magnus gets excited he always goes on stilts?"
+
+"And of course, he is very busy," said Rose, "with so many new things
+to do."
+
+"And you can see he is talking in the air, Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry's
+sweet voice, "because he instances something for which he does _not_
+want time. Magnus has never called his soul his own, since he gave it
+to Christ to save and keep."
+
+"Dear boy!" said the mother. "Thank you, Cherry, for reminding me. Yes,
+I will not doubt,"--and she read on.
+
+"I cannot see why he says 'skinned,'" said Violet. "It's a very queer
+way to talk."
+
+"But just like him," said Rose. "Magnus always did talk wild--just a
+little bit," the sisterly censure softening down. "And you see they
+play games for exercise--so that is very good."
+
+"I suppose studying straight lines must mean drawing," said Cherry,
+looking down at the open letter. "Magnus will not care what they do, if
+they will only let him draw."
+
+"I am not so anxious about all _that_," said the mother thoughtfully.
+"Boys at school must have some hardships and do many things they do not
+like. And you see he does go to prayer-meeting and read the Bible."
+
+"But he says such strange things," said Violet, studying the letter
+from her side. "Do all people in the East have names like that? 'Rig,'
+and 'Mean,' and 'Upright'--it sounds like the Pilgrim's Progress."
+
+"And so it is," said the mother, smiling faintly, through two big
+teardrops, "and Magnus is going over a part of the road where we have
+never been. That must be, girls. But the Lord is as strong there
+as here in Barren Heights; and Magnus is no weaker than he was at
+home--bless his dear heart! He never could bear that word 'weak.' I
+wish he had told us what he means by 'a storm flag.'"
+
+"Why, it must be a flag that flies in all weathers!" cried Cherry. "So
+strong that the wind cannot tear it, and so deep-coloured that the rain
+cannot wash it out."
+
+Well for them all that she did not know enough to add, "And so small
+that it can hardly be seen."
+
+But no such thought cast its dark shadow. Mrs. Kindred looked at the
+sweet eyes, all aglow with the spirit of the martyrs; the lips in a
+quiver, the cheeks in a flush; then took Cherry in her arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"You are never anything but a blessing," she said, and went away
+to pour out tears and petitions in her own private room; with a
+heart-aching sense all the while that she wished some other boy had the
+glory and the brass buttons, and that her own Magnus was safe at home.
+
+Meanwhile the girls in the porch talked on.
+
+"I dare say you are right about the flag, Cherry," said Rose, "but
+there are other things I cannot understand."
+
+"It is dreadful about his clothes," put in Violet.
+
+"I do not mind _that_ so much," said Rose. "Mother always said Magnus
+was a fidget to fit. But what _can_ he mean by B. J.? Oh, girls, do you
+think it could possibly be some dreadful expression he has learned, and
+didn't like to write out to us?" And Rose put her head down, in great
+distress.
+
+"It _could_ not be!" said Violet, with a scared look. "Why, you are
+talking about Magnus! Rose, I believe you are crazy."
+
+"I think I must be," said Rose, lifting her head and brushing off the
+tears. "Of course, it is all my nonsense. Cherry, where are you going?"
+
+"Home," said the girl, pulling on her deep sun-bonnet. "I have
+something to do. I'll be down again soon."
+
+No one noticed how white the young face had grown while the other girls
+wept; no one guessed the cause of this sudden home-going; but as she
+went, Cherry clenched her hands for very anguish of heart. _Magnus_
+change like that? _Magnus_ learn words so bad that he would not write
+them home? No indeed!--it could not be; she knew it could not. All the
+same, that vision of possibility had come into her heart, and come to
+stay; and nothing stilled the aching until she had carried her burden
+to the feet of Him, "Who is able to keep you from falling, and to
+present you faultless before the presence of his glory."
+
+Cherry did not cry: she was not given to tears: but from that day on,
+two Bible verses answered to each other in her heart like a sweet chime:
+
+"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, that have not defiled their
+garments," and "He is able to save to the uttermost."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+RUBS THE WRONG WAY
+
+    Now don't go off half cock; folks never gains
+    By usin' pepper sarce instead o' brains.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+If Cadet Magnus Kindred knew in a general sort of way that all the
+simple, loving women folk at home were praying for him morning,
+noon, and night, "and watching thereunto with all perseverance," it
+was with a very easy remembrance of the fact, and not the faintest
+idea that anything but pleasure touched the case. And he would have
+simply shouted at Rose's panic over the unexplained "B. J." In fact,
+if anybody knows the origin of those two cabalistic letters, Magnus
+certainly did not.
+
+Indeed, he had scant time for running down questions. Drills began
+as soon as examination was over, and were pushed on "fiercely" (as
+Randolph declared), hot sun or no sun, rested or tired. Though Magnus
+had been used to such an active open-air life that all this came easier
+to him than to some others. As to the rest, he got along pretty well
+for a "pleb," having a certain sensible nature which made light of
+hardships, and was not quick to take offence. So when he was jeered and
+pointed at, chin poked in and toes pushed out, he rarely said anything
+stronger, even to himself, than, "Just you wait!" Good common sense
+everywhere befriended him, even when the drill masters abused their
+power, or first classmen showed their prowess by "jumping" plebs.
+
+So he brought in water and cleaned guns; stood attention, and stood his
+ground; and when the time came for that amusement, "advanced ghosts"
+in the most correct terms, but kept his musket against all attempts of
+Cadet Devlin and his compeers. Nay, on one such occasion, he gave the
+marauder the most accurate measure of himself upon the ground that the
+young man had ever had. Of course Magnus was reported, but he gave too
+straight answers for the charge to stand, and the upshot was that Mr.
+Devlin lost his chevrons "for hazing plebs." The whole account caused
+great consternation at home, only lulled by the assurance Magnus gave
+that if he had let anyone take his gun, he himself might have been put
+in "light prison" or sent home in disgrace. For to the bewildered mind
+of a pleb in those early days, anything might happen.
+
+Devlin swore vengeance, and in a small way carried it out. But young
+Kindred laughed off some things, ignored others, and now and then gave
+Mr. Devlin a blaze out of his honest eyes before which that gentleman
+rather shrivelled up. Nobody liked to exactly try to handle Charlemagne
+Kindred: there was about him "a look of unknown quantities"--as Mr.
+Upright remarked one day. Cadet Upright was a staunch friend; and it
+was a blessing to all the plebs in Camp Hard that year that he was head
+man over them.
+
+"Come and clean my gun, Mr. Kindred," he would say, adding, when Magnus
+was in the tent, "The gun is not very dirty, and there is no hurry
+about it, but you must be doing something, and in here is better than
+out there."
+
+A fact which Magnus realised when from the cool recesses of the tent he
+saw other plebs fetching water in the sun, or standing attention for a
+lecture from Mr. Devlin: teased and worried and laughed at by Mr. Prank.
+
+It was during the fervid days of that July that Rig ("poor Rig," as
+Magnus generally termed him in the letters home) went through a small
+bit of experience which, by his own account, made him "a sadder, if
+not a wiser, man."
+
+The morning was intensely hot. The plebs had been out at their early
+drill and now in the canvas shade were enjoying a few minutes' rest.
+Guard-mounting was just over, and for a brief space no one had anything
+special to do. The visitors' seats were nearly deserted, with only
+a few sentimentals from either side the colour-line still lounging
+there. The sentries paced up and down in full fatigue dress: the row of
+stacked arms shimmered in the heat.
+
+In his tent Magnus was devouring over again the last night's letter
+from home, and so did not notice what was going on, until the shadow of
+Cadet Prank in the tent door made him look up in time to see Rig (alias
+McLean) start to his feet and stand very stiff indeed.
+
+"Good-day, Mr. McLean," said the man with chevrons. "Don't disturb
+yourself, I'll not come in. I know you've been hard at it this
+morning, and I really hate to ask you to go out again,--but in such
+a case,"--and Mr. Prank gazed into the glowing sunshine in deep
+perplexity.
+
+Magnus, watching from the depths of the tent, saw the gleam which no
+effort of Prank's could keep out of his eyes, with the dangerously
+solemn lines about the mouth. But poor Rig at such honeyed words from
+an upper classman, lost what little everyday perception belonged to
+him. "He's just got to learn for himself, though," thought Magnus,
+looking on with intense amusement.
+
+Mr. Prank suddenly turned and glanced suspiciously down towards the
+listener; but Magnus was all quiet, behind his letter.
+
+"You see, Mr. McLean," Prank went on, dropping his voice a little, "I
+want a man I can trust, to do me a small service. If you are not too
+much fatigued--it would not take long."
+
+Visions of Mr. Prank for his bosom friend, and Camp Hard suddenly
+transformed into Elysium, floated before Rig's eyes.
+
+"Yes, sir,--no, sir," he answered, gathering up the points.
+
+"It is really but a minute's work," said Prank with another glance over
+Rig's head towards Magnus; "but a particular friend of mine has gone on
+guard without his gloves. Most absent-minded man alive! And if the Com.
+comes along, he's ruined. So I thought if you would just take them to
+him--you see _I_ should have to report him. He's on post No. 6."
+
+Mr. Prank held out a pair of immaculate white gloves. But now Rig drew
+back. To waylay a sentinel on his beat, was something so clearly beyond
+pleb limits that he took fright.
+
+"Yes, sir," he began; "certainly, sir. But you know, sir, it's against
+orders, I believe----"
+
+Mr. Prank drew himself up to all his inches.
+
+"That will do," he said. "Of course, I don't know much about
+regulations and never heard the orders. Very kind of you to instruct
+me, I am sure; I shall not forget it! Sorry to have disturbed your
+toilette, Mr. McLean, but I thought such a trifle could not seriously
+put you out. Someone else, probably, will be kind enough--whose hair
+curls easier than yours."
+
+And tucking the white gloves into the cadet pocket (his sleeve), Mr.
+Prank strode haughtily away.
+
+Rig felt miserable. He did not see that Magnus in his dark corner was
+shaking from head to foot. But to lose his character for obligingness!
+With a bound he was after the retreating chevrons.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Prank!" he said. "Of course I didn't mean that you didn't
+know, sir; and I have just thought of a way, if you think it will do. I
+can hang the gloves on one of the bayonets where the arms are stacked,
+you know, sir, and then he can get them for himself."
+
+"The very thing!" said Prank, with a well-kept face. "I see you are
+bright, Mr. McLean, as well as obliging. Take the gloves, my dear
+fellow, and be quick. And count upon me hereafter."
+
+With a swelling heart Rig stepped briskly up to the shining row of
+guns, where not an inch nor a line was out of the most spick-and-span
+state of military precision, and hung the white pendant on a glittering
+point of steel. And as he turned--alas! he was tapped on the shoulder
+and marched off to the guard tent "for tampering with the arms."
+
+"I shouldn't have minded that so much," he said afterwards to Magnus,
+"if I hadn't been such a double-distilled fool. And I'm not a fool
+really, you know,--but I'm not 'a gem of purest ray serene,' either.
+And I just lost my head with being told I was."
+
+Plenty of that sort of sport (to give it its common name) went on in
+Camp Hard, and even the most patient men grew tired of it, and the
+most good-natured got cross. It is monotonous when all the fun goes to
+somebody else. Even the straight shoulders sometimes rebelled against
+the perpetual bracing up; and many a poor fourth classman wished that
+his grey trousers had no side seam which could serve as a landmark to
+his weary thumbs: for in those days "finning out" was in full force.
+
+But indeed it was sometimes hard to take even what the law allowed.
+
+A strict order had been published that no cadet should ask a pleb to
+perform any menial service, but when Corporal Main remarked, "Mr.
+Stone, there are some very dusty shoes in my tent,"--no more was
+needed. Stone was just come in from drill, and ached in every inch; but
+he went at the shoes, and cleaned and rubbed and polished for dear
+life, while Corporal Main strolled off with Miss Flyaway, and told her
+the story.
+
+Again, another humane order was read out one day in the Mess Hall, to
+the effect that in that place of supposed relaxation plebs need not
+"brace," but might sit and stand "at will." But the minute the reader's
+back was turned Cadet Prank drawled out:
+
+"Boys, hadn't you all a great deal _rather_ brace up?"
+
+And so many hurriedly answered, "Yes, sir!" that the contrary noes were
+never counted.
+
+That was the way of it; and by dint of being laughed at and pointed
+at; drilled, straightened, pulled into shape, and called "beasts," the
+fourth classmen began to feel as if in truth the name fitted. They
+huddled together in corners, talked in whispers, and told endless
+stories of home.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+CAMP HARD
+
+ _Marcus Antonius._ Cæsar dear, is there no way this troubling my
+ dear little plebeian sentinels can be stopped?
+
+ _Cæsar._ There probably is, but we have not found it yet.
+
+  --_Colour Line Tragedy of 1890._
+
+
+Nor yet. And so, year by year, for a time, the new fourth classmen
+worked out pretty fairly Lowell's lines:
+
+    "Mis'ble as roosters in a rain,
+    Heads down, and tails half-mast."
+
+Magnus Kindred was speeding along through camp one morning, thinking of
+home, when he was hailed by an upper classman.
+
+"See here, beast, what's your name?"
+
+Magnus made answer, with what composure of face and voice he could call
+up at such short notice.
+
+"Where did you come from?" And again the reply came with fair coolness.
+
+"Got so few men out there, they give 'em long names to stretch out and
+cover the country. Who was your pred.?"
+
+"Mr. Dunn, sir. He resigned, sir."
+
+"Good example for you to follow in November," said Mr. Seaton, "but
+you've got to be taken care of in the mean time. Wipe that smile off,
+sir! What's your technical name?"
+
+"Haven't got any, sir."
+
+"Well, if anyone asks you that again, tell 'em it's Lorenzo Monkey,"
+said Seaton, and walked away.
+
+Magnus shook his fist at him (mentally), but what can a pleb do? And
+so to the next inquirer he answered (pretty ungraciously, it must be
+owned):
+
+"Somebody said it was Lorenzo Monkey, sir."
+
+"Can't have a monkey without a tail," said Mr. Danby. "Now remember,
+beast, you are technically called: 'Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not
+fame.' Take your eyes off me, sir!"
+
+Well, the tail grew--naturally; and every time the name was called for,
+to amuse one man or a dozen, somebody would add on a word, and then
+Magnus was bid to rattle the whole thing off, amid shouts of laughter.
+He was required also to write out his technical name in full, and hand
+the paper in under the guise of an official document: a half sheet of
+paper duly folded, and inscribed as follows:
+
+  Camp Hard,
+  West Point, N. Y.,
+  July --, 18--.
+
+  Kindred, C,
+
+  Cadet Private. Co. "A." 4th Class.
+
+  Subscribed Copy of
+  "Technical Name."
+
+Within, it ran thus:
+
+  Camp Hard,
+  West Point, N. Y.,
+  July --, 18--.
+
+  To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple. (Through the proper channels.)
+
+ _Sir_: I have the honour to submit the following,--my technical
+ name for the summer encampment, U. S. M. A. To wit:
+
+ I am Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not fame. It is tame: it
+ is lame: it is shame: it is blame: it is game. Yet I claim, a
+ Colonial dame was my flame, when I came. Same at same.
+
+  Very respectfully,
+  Your obedient servant,
+  Charlemagne Kindred,
+  Cadet Private, Co. "A." Fourth Class.
+
+  To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple,
+  Commanding Battalion of Crabs.
+
+Magnus chafed at all this stuff; growled over it, almost resisted; and
+yet it was wise to pass things by as quietly as he could. All the same,
+his feeling towards some of the upper classmen was getting to be a very
+fixed fact, indeed.
+
+Mr. Prank, for instance, was much given to hops,--also to prinking
+for the same: and it was in his heart to combine all the good things
+he could, and "crawling" plebs came in among the rest. So on hop
+nights, after supper, when Mr. Prank was shaving, dressing, and vainly
+endeavouring to curl his short hair, Magnus Kindred was frequently
+detailed as valet. The work being to follow Mr. Prank about the tent
+and fan him during these fatigues, and also to soothe and attune his
+feelings by singing "Annie Laurie" or some other lovelorn ditty. How
+Magnus did hate it!--and how he did secretly vow vengeance, if ever he
+himself should have half a chance with Mr. Prank's best girl! But then!
+Mr. Prank had a relay of "best girls," and could spare one or two just
+as well as not.
+
+On the other hand, the two men who "tented" with Magnus thought he had
+an easy time.
+
+"If you had to black Mr. Mean's shoes!" said Randolph.
+
+"Or clear up after old Seaton," said Rig.
+
+Rig's technical name taxed all his powers of memory and patience. It
+began:
+
+"I am the distilled quintessence of stuff, the double-dyed result of
+being dipped in the Styx,"--and so on, _ad infinitum_, and to Rig,
+certainly, _ad nauseam_.
+
+Homesickness had broken loose in the fourth class, of late, and become
+epidemic. These boys were but boys, and the manliest of them all
+would--many a day--have given up his hopes of being a brigadier just
+to lay his head down on his mother's apron, and have her pet him and
+comfort him, and make him feel that he was not a "beast."
+
+"But she'd not find any hair to stroke, now," said Magnus Kindred, in
+one of these spasms. And then he caught hold of himself again, set his
+teeth in his favourite fashion, and announced to himself that he meant
+to be adjutant.
+
+"And I'll not look like you, either," he went on, apostrophising Mr.
+Larkin, who just then came strolling by between two admiring girls,
+turning from one to the other with much the air of the exquisite who
+said:
+
+"Really, now, you know--won't somebody come and share me?"
+
+The young adjutant's buttons were very bright, and his waist was very
+small; and the red and white (brown) of his complexion left nothing
+to be desired. If he had been a girl, you might have called his walk
+"willowy," but I know not the masculine of that. And the barber had
+plainly been open to persuasion in his case, and had left almost a
+lovelock or two on the tall head.
+
+Magnus Kindred watched the party go by, but they did not see him. In
+one of the rocky, shady nooks on Flirtation, where the green leaves
+rustle and the river whispers softly to the shore, there he had hidden
+himself away with his sweet and bitter fancies. Hard, literal facts
+they were just then, for Magnus.
+
+The footsteps died away, and more came, quicker and brisker than the
+first; and two cadets went by his hiding place. Then another with his
+best girl (for the time being); and Magnus watched them all. As the
+silence fell again a wood thrush in the shadows behind him rang its
+liquid chime.
+
+Then a tall cadet with chevrons, and the dainty air and manner which
+had earned him the soubriquet of "Gentleman Joe," passed slowly by with
+his mother on his arm; he bending down to her, and she looking up to
+him, while a little white fidget of ten years old flitted about the two.
+
+But when these were out of sight, then Magnus Kindred threw himself
+face down among the moss and ferns, and gave no further heed to outside
+things.
+
+"Oh, mother!--and Cherry, and Violet, and Rose--and home!" It was very
+bitter for a while. And when at last, in answer to a distant drum-call,
+Magnus roused himself, and got on his feet, he knew that he hated that
+drum, and all it betokened, just as hard as he could.
+
+Gentler thoughts came, as he mounted the hill. The clear notes of
+the thrushes were all around him, but in their grave sweetness there
+were no faltering tones; and while it pierced the boy's heart it
+strengthened it, too. Yes, one day _he_ would be the tall man with
+chevrons, leading his mother along Flirtation; and she should be as
+proud of him as Mrs. Gresham was of her son. And, instead of that child
+in white, there would be--but here the drum became imperative, and
+Magnus stowed away all the rest of his thoughts, and double-timed every
+remaining step up to Camp Hard.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+BAND CONCERT
+
+   I cannot bear it any longer, said the pewter soldier as he sat on the
+   drawers; it is so lonely and melancholy here.
+
+   --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+It was the evening for band concert at the camp: a warm first of
+August. A red glow lingered over Crownest, the stars came out slowly,
+hazy with the heat; the katydids were publishing their arrival in the
+usual contradictory way. As the twilight deepened, the camp began to
+light up, and in front of the colour-line one especial burner shone
+full upon the concert programme, which was posted on a stick. Beyond
+this a small circle of lights marked the standing place of the band.
+
+Cadets were everywhere--half in a tent, or half out; walking,
+sauntering, standing, in twos and threes and half-dozens; some down on
+the grass where the lights shone full, and some hid away in the shadows
+towards Fort Clinton.
+
+Other figures were coming up, too, and dresses of every hue flitted
+across the plain. The dew lay sweet and fresh upon every grass-blade,
+but then the grass was short, and nobody minded dew when going to band
+concert.
+
+Often some grey uniform was escorting some dainty lady: these
+coming straight from the houses, and those others pausing, after a
+delightful tryst at Trophy Point, or a saunter along the upper bends of
+Flirtation. For, in those days, the concert night limits were--so far
+as you could hear and distinguish the music.
+
+The plebs kept together, and away from the gay throng; unless where
+some especially happy boy had a cousin on hand. But a great event
+had marked that day in Camp Hard; for the obnoxious "grey bags" had
+disappeared, giving place to the full uniform, bell buttons and all
+complete; and at last the plebs looked like cadets.
+
+Magnus Kindred had been as jubilant as anyone over the change, and
+nobody had given a heartier parting kick to the grey bag. But "a
+competency is what a man has, and a little more"--and so, then, the
+young man wanted someone to look at him. How his mother and sisters
+would have stroked the sleeve of that wonderful dress coat, and admired
+the buttons: how they would have studied out every turn of braid and
+quirl of adornment. And Cherry--no, they were not her little hands
+he seemed to feel on his arm: her hands were just folded in their
+pretty way, and she stood a few steps off, laughing at the others,
+and secretly admiring him. She never said so, but what innocent,
+true-hearted girl can quite keep it out of her eyes, when her hero
+stands before her? Or, if the eyes sometimes grew shy and turned away,
+the lips laughed, and told it still.
+
+"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus said, almost aloud, his own lips parting
+in a smile at the sweet vision. But then they closed again firmer than
+ever. Two thousand miles away (it seemed five thousand to Magnus), and
+two whole years before he could go there. And a weary sigh measured off
+both time and space, and found them endless.
+
+"Joseph," whispered Mrs. Gresham to her son (they were just opposite
+Magnus), "who is that boy?"
+
+"Kindred--fourth class."
+
+"He looks like a first-class fellow," said Mrs. Gresham, watching him,
+as he suddenly moved off and joined the grey circle around the band.
+"What a fine face he has! I noticed him yesterday before parade."
+
+"Good fellow enough," assented Mr. Gresham, who was just then
+"noticing" the arrival of Miss Saucy. "But he's so awfully homesick.
+Blue as Cat's eyes."
+
+"Well, you're not obliged to call me 'Cat,' sir, if you _are_ a
+captain," said the little girl, trying hard to make a pinch tell
+through the thick cadet cloth. "He's the one that was up among the
+rocks, Aunt Effie. I told you, and you wouldn't look."
+
+"Certainly not," said Mrs. Gresham. "Never try to see anybody who does
+not wish to be seen, Catty."
+
+Miss Catty pouted.
+
+"I knew he was a cadet," she said, "for I saw the bell buttons. And I
+thought cadets _always_ want to be looked at. They act so."
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the group that had gathered round
+Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"Oh, what a pity she's not a little older!" cried Miss Flyaway. "Your
+mainstay ought not to graduate for six years to come, Mrs. Gresham,
+that Catty might be up to the situation. But then, we poor damsels
+would have lost him. So it's best as it is. Things are generally best
+as they are."
+
+"Some few things might be improved," said Mrs. Gresham quietly.
+"Joseph, I wish you would bring up Mr. Kindred, and introduce him."
+
+"Now, ma'am?"
+
+"Yes, now. We can spare you so long as that."
+
+"Oh, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Miss Flirt, making a profound
+courtesy; while Miss Flyaway called after him: "Don't hurry yourself,
+we'll wait."
+
+"Tell him you wouldn't go away for _anything_," said the irrepressible
+Catty.
+
+"You saucy monkey!" said Miss Flirt. "You ought to be in bed and
+asleep."
+
+"I don't believe you were, at my age," said Catty, with better logic
+than she knew.
+
+"Hush, Catty!" said her aunt. "Mr. Carr, who is that officer talking
+with Mrs. Seaton?"
+
+"The arch-fiend, _we_ call him," said Carr, with a laugh. "He's the
+professor of confusion worse confounded, Mrs. Gresham. Do you want him
+brought up, too?"
+
+"Thank you, no: here comes Joseph. How do you do, Mr. Kindred?" And
+Mrs. Gresham gave Magnus a warm clasp of the hand that went to his
+heart.
+
+"Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for Magnus. "I suppose
+you enjoy these concerts very much?"
+
+"Sometimes," Magnus answered her. "They make a change."
+
+"Why don't you go to the hops, if you want a change?" said Catty,
+leaning her elbows on her aunt's lap, and gazing up at the new
+acquaintance. Magnus laughed in spite of himself.
+
+"How do you know but I do?" he said.
+
+"I never see you there when I go," said Catty.
+
+"I'll tell you, child," said Miss Flirt, coming to the rescue. "Mr.
+Kindred never goes to the hops in the hop room, because at this time of
+year he has no end of hops outdoors."
+
+Catty looked mystified.
+
+"I'm not talking to you," she said, turning her back. "But I never met
+you out walking either, Mr. Kindred. Don't you ever walk with anybody
+but your best girl? I never do, when my special cadet's on guard."
+
+Amid the little hubbub which this called forth, Mrs. Gresham rose up.
+
+"If you will give me your arm, Mr. Kindred," she said, "I should like
+to walk round the camp. The lights and shades show so differently from
+different points; it is pleasant to watch them. I have been in Europe
+for three years, and West Point is new to me. What is the band playing
+now?"
+
+"I'm not sure, ma'am. One of Moore's melodies comes next."
+
+"How lovely the shadows are! I used to be quite a painter in my young
+days," said Mrs. Gresham as they strolled along. "Is that one of your
+studies?"
+
+"Not this year, ma'am. Indeed we have no real studies 'in camp.'"
+
+"But still many things that deserve the name: I understand. What do you
+call the hardest thing you have to do?"
+
+"Sometimes, 'study to be quiet,'" said Magnus, with a look and tone at
+once so playful and so full of feeling that Mrs. Gresham opened her
+heart, and took him right in.
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can well believe it. And I am glad you have
+Bible words at hand for your hard places."
+
+"Do you care about them?" said Magnus quickly. "I thought nobody did,
+here."
+
+"About Bible words? Oh, yes they do!" said Mrs. Gresham, with her
+gentle smile. "You do not know many people here yet, Mr. Kindred."
+
+"And I am not likely to, very soon," said Magnus. "But I spoke too
+quick. Yes, I know there are some right here in the Corps who care.
+There's Mr. Upright of the first class. I do not believe he ever misses
+a chance of doing the out-and-out thing for a Christian to do. And Mr.
+True of the third, he's another. Oh, there are a lot among us that know
+enough--if we only hold out," he added soberly.
+
+Mrs. Gresham had listened for her son's name, but it did not come. He,
+too, "knew enough," but alas! only that very morning when he came in
+from drill, Magnus had heard him curse his horse, and the instructor,
+and the whole concern, in terms that would have wrung the gentle
+mother's heart. The girls did not know, as they hung upon his arm; the
+officers did not guess, seeing only the straight military figure and
+good face: only God knew, and the fellow-students to whom Gresham was
+setting his example. The mother felt the omission, sighed, waited, and
+sighed again; then silently locked up her fears and her disappointment.
+
+"But you _must_ hold out, Mr. Kindred," she said. "If you are a
+professing Christian, you have sworn it."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Magnus answered soberly, "and I mean it, too. But there
+are harder times here than you can guess."
+
+"It is the pinch that shows what a man is," said Mrs. Gresham. "If you
+must run, run before the firing begins."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"I'll remember," he said.
+
+"But remember, too," said Mrs. Gresham, "that here as everywhere else:
+on the Hill Difficulty of West Point, no less than among the Delectable
+Mountains at home, you are to be a witness for Christ."
+
+"Yes, ma'am--you would think so," said Magnus excitedly, "and so mother
+thinks. But how are you going to do anything _here_? Religion don't
+count, in this old camp."
+
+"Religion may come in and stay, even where she is not fêted and
+caressed," said Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"That is true enough," said the boy, colouring. "All the same, you
+can't guess, as I said, what a hard time she has. And now guard duty
+begins; and it'll be drill and walk post, walk post and drill, night
+and day. Your shoulders poked in, and your feet kicked out. Skinned if
+you don't skin somebody else, and nearly skinned actually if you do.
+Told forty things a day that you don't understand, and then given extra
+tours _because_ you don't. That's what they say. Why, there are six
+hundred and sixty-eight separate regulations that we are supposed to
+keep!"
+
+"Six hundred and sixty-eight!" said Mrs. Gresham. "Well, it must take a
+very lively imagination to 'suppose' that three hundred boys will keep
+six hundred and sixty-eight regulations."
+
+"They know we can't do it," said Magnus hotly. "But we're bid to, all
+the same. And they punish us if we don't."
+
+"Good-evening, Mrs. Gresham," said another voice, and Cadet Main (alias
+Mean) came up and shook hands. "What work of charity have you in tow
+now?"
+
+"Mr. Kindred has been telling me about the many regulations," said Mrs.
+Gresham.
+
+"Oh, regulations!" said Main. "Yes, there's quite a little many of 'em.
+Keeps a fellow busy to break 'em all; but some of us max it, every
+time."
+
+"Break them? You mean 'keep them,'" said Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"No I don't--not I!" said Main, laughing. "You'd better believe I
+don't. Why, the only fun I have in life is breaking regulations."
+
+"Breaking them?" repeated Mrs. Gresham, looking bewildered. "But you
+will get yourself into trouble, so, Mr. Main."
+
+"Will, shall, have, and expect to," said Main. "I'm bound to get some
+fun out of this old prison."
+
+"Suppose the walls open, rather suddenly, and let you out."
+
+"Make my best bow, and go. It'll be a great loss to the service. But
+you should talk to Lorenzo here, Mrs. Gresham; he's played good boy
+ever since he came. Regular pet of the Com.'s, he is. Why, he won't
+even help carry off Sammy from the Mess Hall."
+
+"And pray how comes 'Sammy,' as you call him, to need carrying off?"
+demanded Mrs. Gresham severely. But that brought such a chorus of
+laughter from the whole group of cadets (several more had gathered
+round), that Mrs. Gresham let her question drop.
+
+"We'll run it up to the hotel some day, and present him, Mrs. Gresham,"
+said Main.
+
+"If you 'run it'--to anywhere I am, I'll not see you," said the lady.
+
+"Why, you _can't_ keep all the regulations," said Devlin. "Not if you
+did your level best. You just _have_ to break them."
+
+"Then what is it all for--this Blue Book you tell of?"
+
+"Light reading for the Academic Board," suggested Mr. Sharpless.
+
+"Skinning made easy," said Main. "Every new Tac makes a new rule and
+tacks it on. They'll bring it up to a thousand presently."
+
+They had made the circuit of the camp, and now came round once more to
+the open space before the lights, with its shadowy border where the
+motley groups paused, moved on, went in and out. The camp points of
+flame flickered, and peered into the dusk; contesting now with a nobler
+light their right of search. For in the east the moon was rising;
+lifting her fair face above the hilltops, and pouring a flood of summer
+glory over river and plain.
+
+"Just so she will be rising at home," Magnus thought. "With the girls
+all sitting on the steps, and mother in her rocking chair in the porch."
+
+It is well for the homesick cadet that his surroundings are so fine,
+beguiling him with their beauty; but it is also a good thing that he
+never can do much "mooning" at once. Before Magnus had got to the
+middle of his third sigh came the sharp voice of the drum, calling him
+to order. And yet "sharp" is hardly the word; only neglected duty takes
+on that tone, but the drum-call was brisk, imperative, unmistakable.
+Yet fine, as well, and stirring; as duty attended to always is.
+
+It was pretty to see the grey and white figures coming out from the
+dusky shadows among the trees, and crossing to the tents. Some at a
+quick run, others slowly, as under protest: here and there one very
+lingeringly, with many a backward look and farewell word, to some
+white-robed vision that shewed angelic in the uncertain light.
+
+Meanwhile, the racket of drum and fife filled all the air, rattling up
+and down the company streets. The crowd scattered, the band tramped
+off; and still here and there a tardy cadet came hurrying in, but only
+in time to get a cold "late" or "absence."
+
+"Oh, it _is_ such fun to make them run!" said one fair creature
+delightedly. "I just kept Mr. Dunkirk fooling along after the first
+drum; and there he goes, for all he is worth."
+
+"Too late?" queried a quiet lady in a dark dress.
+
+"Not too late to get to bed," said Miss Saucy. "They won't make him
+walk post to-night, poor boy. But he'll be on the black list to-morrow."
+
+"Then you won't have him to walk with on Saturday," said another girl.
+
+"Have somebody else, _ma chère_. One gets tired of the same man too
+often. If I didn't trip him up now and then I should die of a surfeit
+of honey, and never have a chance at treacle and lumps of sugar."
+
+"But do you mean to say," said the lady in black, "do you really mean
+to say that you get these young men into difficulty _wilfully_? That
+_you_ are responsible for their being late?"
+
+"Well, I do everything wilfully," said the girl--"and I am never
+responsible for anything. So I don't know how you'll fix it."
+
+"I shall tell the Commandant to-morrow!" said the lady excitedly.
+
+"No good." said the girl. "He can't skin me--and he _will_ skin him.
+It don't hurt much: _he_ don't care. Says he don't."
+
+"He ought to care!"
+
+"Very likely he ought," said Miss Saucy. "Oh, he's not absolute
+perfection--won't be canonised till he's dead, I dare say."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ON GUARD
+
+    Twelve small strokes on the tinkling bell;
+    Midnight comes, and all is well!
+
+    --_Culprit Fay._
+
+
+Yes, with the new uniform came also new work, as Magnus had been
+warned. Guard duty put in its claim, and the plebs were promoted to
+walk post, and to learn what upper classmen could do to make that duty
+unpleasant. "Jumping plebs" went on with variations. "Crawling" seems
+to be the favourite word now, but probably the thing itself is not much
+slower than it was of yore.
+
+The first night on guard was a never-to-be-forgotten thing to Magnus
+Kindred.
+
+It was a quiet night enough, so far as disturbances went, for this
+time the tide of mischief seemed to set in some other direction. But
+that only left the power of the night itself unchecked. So still, so
+solemn, so sweet, and yet with such a bitter flavour. Strange beyond
+description, and beautiful past all telling.
+
+Charlemagne had gone on with the second relief, tattoo had beat, and
+taps had said its closing word; and now all private lights were out.
+The day had been hot, but the night came down dewy and cool; and the
+full summer moon was slowly flooding the world with glory, and lining
+out everything in clear black and white.
+
+Every tent wall was raised to let in the air. The prostrate men on the
+floors were as still as the white canvas above their heads. Sleeping
+off drills and difficulties here, and there plotting and planning; or
+perhaps gazing out into the night with wide-open, homesick eyes.
+
+A faint breath stirred the trees around Camp Hard; from across the
+plain one could just catch the sound of slow footsteps, where the
+enlisted sentry paced up and down the Officers' Row. Far below, on the
+river, boats went and came: a sloop, dreaming noiselessly along on the
+incoming tide; or two steamers, signalling before they met. You could
+hear the dash of the swell upon the shore, and the panting breath of
+the fierce little tugs, with the more stately beat of the paddles of a
+side-wheeler. Over all, the moon rode high and clear.
+
+And, for this night, the Western pleb was unmolested. Not a stray ghost
+crossed his beat. Up and down, up and down, in company with his shadow,
+the slow, measured step leaving his thoughts free: and they had all
+gone home. And so it was, that by degrees Magnus Kindred fell into one
+of his desperate fits of lonely homesickness, ready to fire off his
+musket, or do any lawless thing, if only so he might be arrested and
+dismissed to freedom, mother, and the girls. And on post you cannot
+throw your arms into the air and yourself down on the ground; not get
+even the smallest bit of any such slight relief.
+
+As Magnus turned on his beat, pacing now towards the western hills, the
+exceeding beauty of the bit of star-spangled sky to the north was full
+in view. The Great Bear and his associates held on their shining way,
+despite the moon, calm, high, lifted above all of earth's tears and
+turmoils. What was that his mother used to sing?
+
+    "Ye stars are but the shining dust
+      Of my divine abode;
+    The pavement of those heavenly courts
+      Where I shall see my God."
+
+Magnus remembered with another of his sharp twinges.
+
+"All right for her!" he thought, pacing back again to meet the moon,
+"all right for them all! But the folks that tread those pavements have
+gotten the victory."
+
+"I do not think, myself," Cadet Kindred went on candidly, eyeing the
+stars once more, "that I am fighting for it hard enough to hurt, just
+at present. 'Gotten the victory,'" he repeated to himself, "won it, and
+kept it."
+
+The dear folks at home might not even be thinking of him, just then;
+they were doubtless all peacefully asleep, each having laid down her
+heart's desire at the feet of Him "that keepeth Israel," so leaving the
+far-off young sentinel in His tender care. But Magnus knew, almost as
+if he had heard them, the prayers sent up for him that night.
+
+A sharp, resonant cry brought him suddenly back to Camp Hard and duty.
+From the post in front of the camp the sentinel gave the hour.
+
+"Number One! Half-past ten o'clock and all's--well!"
+
+Then it came to Magnus.
+
+Now the guard had been admonished, that very day, not to mumble the
+words, but to give each its full value, clear and strong. But this
+first man was sleepy, or lazy, and gave small heed to the order. His
+"All's well!" was loud enough, but seemed rather a matter of hope than
+of certainty.
+
+I am not sure that Magnus even supposed that he himself was working out
+the spirit of the order, but he was homesick and disheartened, as well
+as ignorant of military affairs; and with that a little bit reckless,
+and ready to do anything for a change. What did it matter, anyhow? And
+so, as it came to his turn, he shouted forth the call at the top of his
+voice, and to the closing notes of the retreat bugle call at parade.
+
+[Music: Num-ber two: Half-past ten o'-clock, and all is ... well!]
+
+And half the camp heard it.
+
+Of course there was a stir, and Magnus was reported for "calling the
+hour in an improper manner." But he went scot-free, after all, by
+reason, doubtless, of his short acquaintance with guard duty.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+_OFF_ GUARD
+
+    Are you shining for Jesus loyally,
+      Shining just anywhere;
+    Not only in easy places,
+      Not only just here and there?
+
+    --F. R. HAVERGAL.
+
+In such fashion days and weeks rolled by; as time-wheels will, over
+the roughest ground, and through the most uninteresting country. For
+without doubt, drills can become monotonous; and if the body yielded
+itself more and more easily to regulations, as the time went on, so did
+not always the mind.
+
+At first, in the strangeness of everything, details went for less, but
+now that he no longer wore the grey bag, to have his toes still kicked
+out set his blood tingling. He was so well made by nature, that "this
+extra regulation ramrod style," as he spitefully termed it, seemed like
+persecution. For some of the drill masters by no means slackened their
+demands as the need of them grew less.
+
+"Get your shoulders back, Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"_Get_ them back, sir!"
+
+"_Get_ them _back_!"
+
+"He had better take a sledge hammer and pound them in," Magnus declared
+one day.
+
+"You'll be pounded for disrespect," Rig warned him.
+
+"All right; it's a true bill. I don't respect that man, and I never
+shall."
+
+"But officers, you know," suggested Rig.
+
+"Oh, officers!" said Magnus loftily. "What business has he to be an
+officer, with the manners of a boot-black?"
+
+However, as I said, time did wear on; with parades, drills, gymnastics,
+and the rest of it. And in the intervals, when upper classmen walked
+with the pretty girls, and went to teas and picnics, the plebs drew
+together and eyed them from a distance, making many comments, uttering
+many groans; but, most of all, knitting up firm and strong the class
+bond which no after-years could break.
+
+This class bond is a most natural thing among boys who have faced
+hardships side by side; and in a way, it is very fine; but it has its
+danger, too.
+
+The stand taken by each one in the class for and with each other one,
+in those first hard weeks when they feel as if every man's hand was
+against them all, sometimes passes into a "Stand by the class!" which
+cramps the influence, and hinders the action of many an individual man.
+"The class, right or wrong!" is never a safe motto.
+
+One other little event in camp life that summer may be told over here,
+for its after-effect upon Magnus Kindred.
+
+There were two or three men in the pleb class who, by reason of a
+certain offhand brightness of thought and tongue, had more influence
+with the rest than they deserved, for either their principles or their
+brains. Men able to put the wrong thing into such brilliant words,
+that the real meaning was lost sight of in the fun and the glitter.
+And so, in the scarcity of amusements, Magnus fell into the habit of
+lingering where they stood; listening to their sayings, laughing at
+their sallies, and, to a certain degree, following their lead. And, as
+often happens, the light words, the smart speeches which were not true,
+won their way. He began to hearken more readily, and more easily lent
+himself to plans and projects he might better have let alone; getting
+into the swirl of a current not likely to land him on any good and
+fruitful shore.
+
+And then, as birds of a feather are apt to find each other out, some
+men of like tendencies in the first class made common cause, in a way;
+finding an admiring look of any sort quite pleasant, and a pleb a
+convenient catspaw, now and then. They made the musical ones come in
+for a chorus; and under such innocent cover matured their plans, and
+told their stories, to nobody's good.
+
+If one of these wits set forth the fact that "Muffti" was sure to
+lead the prayer-meeting that night, Magnus would perhaps stay in his
+tent, or wander off beyond sound of the hymns, which always pricked
+his conscience and his heart as well. Or if some smart man made fun of
+the preacher who was to fill the chaplain's place during the summer
+vacation, Magnus was careful the next Sunday to practise himself in the
+fine art of sitting bolt upright when fast asleep. He grew to be an
+expert at smuggling in "boodle": he took the loan of books he had much
+better have let alone.
+
+"Come round to my tent after dinner, Mr. Kindred," said Cadet Upright
+one day; and of course Magnus went; then stood attention in the
+straightest sort of way; very much wondering for what unknown breach of
+rules he was to be called to account by the first Captain.
+
+So he stood up to all his inches, just within the tent door, while
+Cadet Captain Upright sat on a camp stool facing him; a stray sunbeam
+working its way in to touch the chevrons, and lighting up the honest,
+sunburnt face. Mr. Upright was no beauty, but not a man in the Corps
+was more thoroughly respected than he. "Not much to look at," said Sam
+Weller of his hat, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear!"
+
+"Mr. Kindred," began Upright, "I asked you to come, because I wanted to
+talk to you."
+
+He paused, and Magnus responded, "Yes, sir."
+
+"You are in danger," Upright went on. "You are taking risks no wise man
+will shoulder."
+
+"What have I done, sir?" Magnus demanded, stiffening slightly.
+
+"Nothing special, to my knowledge," said the first captain, "But I see
+you in slippery places, where sooner or later a man must go down. And
+the mud often sticks for a good while to come, even after--and even
+if--he picks himself up and gets away."
+
+"I don't see, sir," Magnus began--"what risks are you talking of, Mr.
+Upright?"
+
+"The risk of being false to yourself, and to your Christian pledge
+and name; the risk of (practically) forgetting your mother and your
+mother's words."
+
+But now Magnus burst forth.
+
+"Forgetting my mother!" he said. Then checking himself:
+
+"Oh, well, sir, that proves you never saw her, Mr. Upright."
+
+Upright laughed, and his eyes shone.
+
+"Good for you!" he said heartily. "But, Mr. Kindred, you are training
+with the wrong crowd."
+
+And now Magnus coloured, and his eyes went down. Upright watched him
+for a moment in silence; then he took up a slip of paper, and held it
+out.
+
+"Here is a reminding text I wrote off for you," he said. "Take it with
+you up and down the post. 'He setteth a print on the heels of my feet.'
+That will do, sir," and Magnus saluted, and whirled away.
+
+"Might be the Com. himself, for the style he talks!" he grumbled, under
+his breath. But all the same, the words sank in. They were too true to
+miss a hearing, on the one side, and had been too kindly spoken to
+lose it, on the other. Yes, he was training with the wrong crowd, there
+was no doubt of that.
+
+Magnus winced under the confession. There was no one he so little liked
+to find fault with as himself, and to court-martial Cadet Kindred, on
+his own knowledge and belief, was extremely unpleasant.
+
+But the finding of the Court is rarely severe in such cases; and Magnus
+presently let himself off with a few admonitions to be more careful. He
+went to prayer-meeting regularly, boned discipline a little, and kept
+away from that crowd (what he called) "all he could."
+
+Then they broke camp, and marched into barracks, and that was a help,
+for work began at a rate that left scant time for lawless play. Magnus
+Kindred had studied before, studied hard, but never with the exactness
+of drill and discipline and pressure that now filled every day.
+Breakfast, recitation, study, dinner, study, recitation, drill; then
+dress parade, supper, and study. Some of the plebs resigned and went
+home, others talked gloomily of being "found" in January; before which
+wintry fear homesickness itself gave way. And again others drew the
+buckles of their armour tight, looked well to their stirrups, and went
+at the difficulties, lance in rest.
+
+[Illustration: THE BARRACKS IN WINTER]
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A BLUE CHRISTMAS
+
+    No age, no race, no single soul,
+    By lofty tumbling wins the goal.
+    The steady pace it keeps between;
+    The little points it makes unseen;
+    By these, achieved in gathering might,
+    It moveth on, and out of sight:
+    And wins, through all that's overpast,
+    The city of its hopes at last.
+
+    --MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+Of these true knights Charlemagne Kindred was one. Lessons, problems,
+questions, went down before his fierce assault. He had never enjoyed
+being headed off in what he chose to do; and had pledged it to himself
+that if ever anything did that kind office for him, it should not be
+West Point.
+
+"_You_ stop me?" he would say to some particularly obnoxious book.
+"_You_ get in my way?" and probably the hard-headed volume would then
+and there find itself pitched to the furthest corner of the room. But
+after that little expression of opinion, Magnus would pick the book up,
+and bone with all his might. Smith's "Conic Sections" got quite used to
+such short excursions, and Ketel's "French Grammar" grew old before its
+time.
+
+Rig's method was different.
+
+"Kin, I'm growing grey," he said plaintively one morning.
+
+"Grey as a goose."
+
+"No, but really," said Rig, laying down the book. "This thing's too
+hard, you know. Breaks a man all up."
+
+"You'd best stick yourself together again before two o'clock," said
+Magnus.
+
+"No good," said Rig, taking up another study volume from the heap.
+"I'll try this a while. Nobody ought to be expected to learn such
+stuff."
+
+"Put that book down!" Magnus thundered at him, from his own corner.
+
+"Oh, I can put it down easy enough," Rig said rather sulkily. "But I
+can't see what business it is of yours."
+
+"Now fold your hands, and spell zero ten times backwards," said Magnus,
+"and then take your Davies, and go to work. Unless you want to fess
+solid for the rest of your life."
+
+"Well--Say, Kin,--what a good fellow Mr. Upright is."
+
+"Mr. Upright's a cold max. Mind your business."
+
+Pushing and pulling did a good deal for Rig that winter. There was a
+little stir about the holidays, when the happy upper classmen who had
+won their Christmas leave went off for unlimited bliss in a limited
+time, and those who had lost it abused "luck." And there was also the
+mild interest of a better dinner than usual. But to the plebs, for whom
+no getting away was possible, and to whom no Point festivities were
+open, that first Christmas was a thing to live through as best they
+might. I think some of them despised even the dinner, with the flavour
+of their mother's cookery yet lingering and fresh.
+
+How hard it was! "The most miserable day they ever spent," as many a
+one has said since. And the letters and home trifles that arrived in
+the mail-bag were not much help in the line of bracing up. Magnus put
+Cherry's bookmark in his Bible, and his mother's picture up his sleeve;
+while the toilet cushion and cover on which the two girls had bestowed
+so many loving looks, as they wrought out the pretty devices, were hid
+away in his clothes bag; no such decorations being allowed in barracks.
+
+Then he wrote letters to them all, then he tried to study, but who can
+study on a legal holiday?
+
+So at last Cadet Kindred donned his grey fearnaught, wandered
+down among the rocks and snow-drifts on Flirtation, and listened
+to the grinding of the ice cakes in the dark river. The sky, blue
+with an unearthly far-away depth of colour, was pushed back by the
+whitened hills: all nature seemed locked up and unapproachable and
+unsympathising.
+
+    "Those fair blue heavens so distant are,
+    Their very clearness seems to say
+          How far, how far!
+    They lie above man's stormy way."
+
+And Magnus Kindred felt as desperately lonesome as he thought it was in
+the power of man to be.
+
+There were no loiterers now under the "Kissing Rock"; no echoing steps
+within "First-class Cave"; all the old seats and trysting places were
+snow capped and silent. Even the broad folds of the Post flag would
+have been some company, a little cheer to his sad eyes as he once more
+came out upon the plain. But the Post flag was safely folded away;
+and only a wee, wintry looking storm flag, whipped out in many a past
+gale, was abroad to brave the keen-edged airs that stirred round Trophy
+Point. Could anything exceed the dreariness and length of that wretched
+Christmas Day?
+
+Then such cake for tea--though I doubt if Purcell's best would have
+suited Magnus that night. He was glad when the drummers began their
+noisy tattoo, that he might unroll his mattress, go to bed, and forget
+his misery.
+
+New Year's Day was not quite so bad, perhaps because the coming
+examination lent at least a dash of red pepper to the monotony, and the
+first evening of the new year was full of study and talk, questions,
+fears, and surmisings. Blue letters home went off in troops, and many
+a man arranged definitely just what he would do after he was "found,"
+of which last fact he felt sure. With the great hop that graced this
+week, or the gay damsels who graced the hop, the fourth class had
+nothing to do.
+
+It was natural enough that the strain and fatigue of the examination
+should be followed by a certain dislike for work at all. The men who
+were "found" had vanished; the men who had gone up a section were
+quietly in place, while others had as quietly joined "the Immortals,"
+a better name than its popular substitute. And from now on until June,
+things would remain pretty much as they were.
+
+No wonder, then, if the reaction set in strong. Snow blocked the
+favourite cadet walks; permits for skating were cut. No parades, no
+stirring drills, except in the riding-hall, and the plebs had no good
+of them.
+
+Then there were stormy days when even the officers' row was gloomy, and
+things grew very tame indeed. The bent bows ached to spring back, and
+the pent-up steam was ready to blow off in any direction; for mischief
+at least makes a change, and to break regulations and not be found out,
+gave life a certain flavour. It was a pity, but not at all strange.
+
+And so, in some parts of the barracks, license, not liberty, was the
+popular word. The great point of interest by day and by night being how
+to defy the blue book, and not get caught.
+
+The leaders were bright men, some of them; personable, pleasant to talk
+to, fair mathematicians, and capital cooks over the gas-light. Several
+had friends who sent them money, sweets, mince pies, and tobacco: all
+smuggled in by unscrupulous outside hands. And these dainties were
+freely dispensed by the happy owners.
+
+As to the rest, they were light fingered enough for pick-pockets, and
+could abstract and convey to barracks anything--except "Sammy"--from
+the mess-hall table; and I have even been told that this one exception
+lost its place that year.
+
+But so far, you could charge things pretty fairly upon fun, and the
+delightful exercise of skill. If, as was alleged, they carried off two
+pounds of sugar for every lemon they got hold of, still, one must do
+something; and as they said, "the sugar was all paid for out of their
+own allowance."
+
+A much graver thing--perhaps the worst in the whole business--was the
+bribing enlisted men. Some free lances, indeed, were much too fond of
+"chancing" it, to do their frisky deeds by proxy. They fetched for
+themselves what they wanted, with a daring of which I may not tell.
+But others would get the sentry at the gate to pass things in; or a
+bandsman to bring all sorts of contraband goods from the Falls. Other
+people helped, but a mess-hall waiter could only lose his place and run
+away, while the sentinels were in trust.
+
+Now Magnus Kindred had not been so brought up, and the sight and
+hearing of certain things at first made him indignant. But they looked
+lighter coloured the fifteenth time than the first. The memory of Mr.
+Upright's words also faded out, and when springtime came, and days grew
+long and nights were bright, he had fallen back into much the old way,
+and was training with (or training) the wrong crowd. And he was so
+agile and wary that he never got caught, which was perhaps his loss.
+
+"I don't see how you work it, Kin," Rig complained one day. "You do
+everything you have a mind to, and yet even Towser will swear you in
+for sweet cream every time. But as for me, if both my shoe toes aren't
+blacked exactly alike, I'm skinned to a certainty."
+
+I am not sure that Magnus relished the compliment,--one has a choice
+about praise,--but he made no answer, and did not change his too
+successful ways.
+
+And thus that pleb winter did much work for him in more lines than one.
+For you cannot keep hard at hard studies, as he did, without a swift
+and increasing rate of progress; the Hill Difficulty of West Point, as
+Mrs. Gresham had called it, yielded better and better footing, week by
+week. But alas, it is also true that you cannot constantly fling even
+small stones at the law, without that fine pillar of strength's being
+chipped and frayed, and in a sort defaced. Magnus Kindred did not call
+his doings by any such dignified name, but all the same, freedom and
+lawlessness were getting very much mixed in his mind. While the right
+of the authorities to command, and his own right to disobey, were in a
+worse tangle still. The wise, dignified, and wholesome rule of "Honour
+to whom honour, fear to whom fear," was much dethroned in those days.
+
+So the course of the days and the drift of the ways went on. Winter
+slid early into spring. Company drills began, and the full tide of
+everything set in, especially walks. Bright parasols appeared on the
+sidewalk, and the old seat at Gee's Point once more received its guests.
+
+A general stir of preparation was in the air; grass was dressed,
+branches trimmed, and rubbish burned. Cleaning house was on hand, and
+dressmakers; and always drills, drills, drills. To the Post in general,
+these signs meant the coming of the Board of Visitors, and all the
+whirl of examination week: but to the cadets, chiefly June.
+
+All that spring, in spite of much work, Magnus Kindred wrote home very
+regularly; long, amusing letters. Telling less of his inner life than
+the hearts at home would have liked; but the strangeness of what he
+said of the outer partly covered this up. And I doubt whether Magnus
+knew how little he told.
+
+Of one thing, however, he was dimly conscious. At first, his mother's
+expressions of trust and hope, given in Bible words or her own, had
+been a comfort and help to him; they seemed to bring her nearer and to
+make him stronger. But of late he had been often inclined to slur over
+those parts of her letters, and to hurry on "to get the news first"--as
+he put it to himself. He never stopped to ask why; and it was again Mr.
+Upright who opened his eyes, and showed him how quietly they had been
+closing and falling asleep.
+
+There are tears as well as smiles, on that fateful day in June. Here is
+a mother, who, having had her son within easy reach for the last four
+years, knows that now, after the short graduation leave, he will be
+whirled away beyond her ken. To Barrancas, it may be, or Huachuca, or
+Indian Territory. So the mother breaks down and cries visibly.
+
+And here are roommates, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in all
+sorts of hardships, now henceforth, until, they are grey-haired men,
+to live as far apart as this broad country can put them; and it is a
+sobering thought.
+
+Then, this pretty, timid girl, who has ventured her heart on the
+insecure ground of cadet soft speeches; or thought out her wedding
+dress after one particular walk around Flirtation; or tried the class
+ring on one of her own slender fingers, without being asked to keep it
+there.
+
+"Oh, it is too dreadful!" she cries, stamping her little foot, and with
+the tears all ready, when that heartless band fall off into "The Girl I
+Left Behind Me." "I can _not_ see what they find in that old tune."
+
+It goes hard with her, sometimes, poor child, in matter of health.
+
+And sometimes a like hope is laid down with the grey, and the
+blue must seek another charmer; and earth is--henceforth and
+comparatively--a desert. All sorts of things happen at graduation; and
+when you hear an eager, "You will be sure to come back in August," it
+does not follow that he will, or that she will wait for him if he does.
+
+But there was no shallow sentiment about Mr. Upright. On the day of his
+graduation, the young first captain, having put off his cadet honours
+and come out in plain "cits," went down to the mess-hall dinner to look
+round the old place once more, and to speak farewell words to his own
+company and the Corps. Magnus Kindred caught his eye and smile, and
+started a yell for Mr. Upright, which quite cut short that young man's
+power to say much; but every word had the resonance of true metal.
+
+"'Quit you like men! be strong.' 'Strong in the Lord, and in the power
+of his might,'" he said; vainly trying to shake all the hands held out
+to him. But if the tones faltered, the meaning was full strung, and
+Magnus once more opened his eyes, and looked at himself and his doings.
+And the more he looked, the less he liked it.
+
+It was a good day for feeling blue. The sudden quiet, the cut-down
+numbers; envy of the furlough men, and to a degree, of the graduates,
+made men restless and dull. No drill, no parade, and not even "a plank"
+left of the Board of Visitors. Not even many girls to look at; for half
+the Post, and three-tenths of the visitors, had sailed away with the
+gay throng on the down boat, and candidates swarmed everywhere.
+
+Magnus Kindred strolled off by himself to the river edge, sat down and
+looked himself over.
+
+"Absolutely getting used to things!" he confided to his favourite oaks
+and cedars. And then he began to see what was the character of those
+things. Of course, a boy could not grow up anywhere, alas! in this
+poor world, and not now and then hear men swear; but oaths from his
+_comrades_ had at first shocked him exceedingly. There was one man, for
+instance, who for a low mark in the section room, a bad ride, a rainy
+Saturday, would have his mouth so full of cursing that it seemed hard
+to get it all out. He lived near Magnus; and many a time had the boy
+secretly stopped his ears to shut out the terrible words. Rig said the
+air was "blue" with them.
+
+But quick and keen it came to Magnus now, that he had long ceased to
+take any such precautions. Ah! only last night, after the reading of
+the black list, he had wondered idly to himself, whether Carr would
+find something new to say.
+
+Some hot, unwonted tears sprang up at that, with some very pricking
+thoughts of the four pure hearts at home keeping watch for him. And the
+thoughts grew and piled up, and sharpened their edges.
+
+I should have said that when the new cadet officers were read out on
+Graduation Day, Magnus found himself promoted to the rank of corporal.
+Soon after this the Corps went into camp.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+CAMP GOLIGHTLY
+
+    As 'twixt the silences, now far, now nigh,
+    Rings the sharp challenge, hums the low reply.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+Yearling Camp was wonderfully unlike the dreary pleb camp of a year
+ago. The special hazers, drill masters, and tormentors of last year
+were gone away on furlough, or gone for good, and there was a new first
+class to take the lead. And if everyone was sorry to lose Mr. Upright,
+"many a dry eye followed" Mr. Devlin and Mr. Prank.
+
+Now the yearlings threw off their reserve, came out of hiding, and were
+introduced to the ladies. Some wore chevrons, some were drill masters,
+some frequented the hops, and almost all of them learned to play the
+cavalier and to win fair companions for walks before breakfast and
+after drill; for band practice, for band concert, and the delightful
+wanderings on O. G. P. The long winter months of work were in the dim
+distance, the next big milestone was marked furlough, and at hand were
+summer and the summer girl. Sisters came, and cousins; introductions
+were many, flirtations not a few.
+
+"It's the most delicious place!" cried Nina Dangleum one day. "You are
+always falling in love, and it never comes to anything."
+
+It was not to be supposed that amid such breezes Magnus Kindred could
+keep himself unfanned. To give him his due, he had no particular taste
+for flirting, and did not often mean it; he was too earnest a fellow to
+like half-way measures, or to go into anything only skin-deep. And I
+think his own blessed cluster of womankind at home had set the standard
+too high for him to enjoy drawing a girl on to be silly, even if it
+was amusing to see. He had also not much taste for talking unmitigated
+stuff, or much knack at doing it, and at this time of his existence
+would have nearly endorsed Mr. Weller's words:
+
+"Wot's the use o' calling a young 'ooman a Wenus? Just as well call her
+a griffin, or a king's arms."
+
+But the gales that stirred about West Point just then were very
+perfume-laden; and almost any woman might seem like an angel, when you
+first come out of the double shadow of pleb year and barracks, where
+tactical officers were your chief glimpses of the outside world.
+
+The soft, "Mr. Kindred, I saw you coming clear across the plain,"
+smoothed down very pleasantly the plumage which had been so roughly
+stroked the wrong way. The "Tac" might have reported those very bell
+buttons that very day as in need of rubbing up; but if Miss Flyaway
+could see them as soon as the man left camp, you perceive it took off
+the effect.
+
+In matters of discipline, however, and of military precision Magnus
+was, on the whole, a careful fellow (Rig spelled it "lucky"), and so
+when other men had their freedom tied up, he was often detailed to walk
+with the friend or the cousin and give her "a good time." Thus he came
+in for rather more than his share of sweets.
+
+It was charming to wander almost anywhere in those fair days, and well
+nigh as good to lie in the shadow of the trees about Fort Clinton, with
+a book or without. The "without" was Rig's style.
+
+"Kin--I'm no end comfortable!" he declared one day, lying back on the
+green with his arms above his head.
+
+"Same at same," responded Magnus, from behind his home newspaper. Rig
+suddenly sat up.
+
+"Say, Kin, I want to go to artillery drill to-morrow night as chief of
+caissons."
+
+"All right. If you're detailed for guard, shall I take the girl?"
+
+"Steady!"
+
+But after all, so it fell out; and when the Band concert began, Magnus
+escorted Miss Dangleum through the shadows to where the light battery
+guns stood ready, helped her to mount a caisson, and was in close
+attendance till the drum beat. One of these old caissons was quite a
+favourite "box" with the girls.
+
+"Beastly!" Rig declared it all, when he came off guard next day.
+
+"I saw him having the spooniest sort of a time," said Randolph
+maliciously. "Chappy and the Kitten were on the next gun. I say, I'm
+tired walking post. I'm going to bone colours."
+
+"Go in and win," Magnus admonished him.
+
+"Well, you'll see," said Randolph. And to be sure, such a polishing of
+buttons, and rubbing up of arms, as followed were unknown before in
+Randolph's tent. Magnus declared that the buttons made him wink clear
+across A Company Street.
+
+Just at the last possible moment before the critical guard-mounting,
+Randolph rushed in upon his two friends.
+
+"Say, boys, lend me a pair of white trousers. I can't find any of mine
+that are fit to go with my buttons."
+
+"Well, I've only one pair fit to go with mine," said Magnus. "Sorry!
+but they'd be too long for you."
+
+"Rig's will do," said Randolph, making a dash at the pile of trousers.
+"Thanks awfully. My, how they shine!"
+
+[Illustration: THE COLOR GUARD]
+
+Well, they certainly did. Spotless, unwrinkled, as if they, too, had
+been "boning" colours. Randolph marched out on higher heels than
+those prescribed in the regulations, and later on presented himself
+fearlessly as a candidate for honours. And the inspecting officer's
+face seemed to say he had reason; Randolph could see approval in every
+look and gesture. Gloves, buttons, gun were scrutinised; the trousers
+were dazzling and smooth. Then the officer passed round for a back
+view. Hair right length, collar right height above the grey, belt and
+buttons adjusted to a nicety.
+
+"Mr. Randolph," said the cadet adjutant, as he came round in front, "I
+would have given you colours but for those trousers."
+
+And when Randolph got in and scrutinised himself he found that the
+borrowed trousers were deeply frayed at the ankle! After which the
+young man professed himself blue and bored.
+
+"Just my luck," he said. "But I'll get even with him, see if I don't.
+They were only fringed behind."
+
+Two or three days after this, Randolph accosted Magnus.
+
+"Say, Kin, want some fun? Like to see Coxy scared within an inch of his
+life?"
+
+"No sort of objection on my part; rather B. J. in you to propose it."
+
+"It's more than propose," said Randolph. "Just you hang round my tent
+about nine o'clock."
+
+Then after supper Randolph took his stand at the foot of A Company
+Street, where the plebs were busily going back and forth between the
+hydrant and the tents.
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" he said, hailing a D Company pleb, but keeping his voice
+well down.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The pleb slackened his pace a little, but did not look round, and
+Randolph stood glancing carelessly about, as if thinking of nothing in
+particular.
+
+"When you have carried in that pail come at once to the darkened tent
+at the head of the street."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What is your name, sir?" to another.
+
+"Mr. Ummerstot, sir."
+
+"Mr. Upstart! I would like to know, Mr. Upstart, if you have no
+superior whose pail needs tilling as well as your own? Go home at once,
+and then report at my tent. The one with no light in it."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+When six more were under orders, Randolph strolled back to the front
+of his tent, and as fast as the plebs came up, he passed them in. They
+might stand at ease, but must not talk above a whisper. When they were
+all in hiding, Randolph spoke through the closed door of the tent.
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" in a low undertone.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Your special technical name for this evening is _Hippotherium_. Do you
+hive it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Mr. Upstart! Your special name till tattoo is _Semnopithereus_."
+
+"Mr. Parboil!"
+
+"Mr. Carboil, sir," said the poor pleb, with a mild preference for his
+own name.
+
+"I said _Parboil_. Your name will be _Cereopithereus_. Mr.
+Cereopithereus, you are first cousin to Mr. Semnopithereus, and
+according to Darwin, you each bear the same relation to a man that a
+pleb does to his superiors."
+
+So the eight names were given, and then Randolph began again:
+
+"Mr. Ichthyosaurus, you and your fellow animals will answer to your
+special technical names at roll-call, by a growl. You, sir, are an
+extinct reptile. Did you ever hear an extinct reptile growl?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You other animals, stop that unseemly snicker. Where have you lived,
+sir, all your life to know so little?"
+
+"In Massachusetts, sir."
+
+"The very headquarters of fossil life. Well, sir, if you have any
+imagination at all, growl as nearly as you can in the hypothetical
+voice of that extinct reptile called an Ichthyosaurus."
+
+A low growl, ending in a suppressed chuckle.
+
+"Order there, in the zoölogical museum! Mr. Hippotherium!" and another
+growl followed in a different key.
+
+"How," said Randolph, when the roll had been gone through, "the
+countersign is: 'Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!' Do you
+understand?"
+
+The painful general growl that answered him was cut short by a
+smothered laugh.
+
+"Attention! When you hear the countersign and see the tent flap lifted
+you are to growl all together, with your deepest and heaviest roar."
+
+A few minutes passed silently by. Randolph loitered about near the
+tent, as one might do who found the evening air refreshing. Then
+suddenly Adjutant Cox passed down the colour line.
+
+"Say, Cox," Randolph hailed him, "come and see what I've got in my
+tent."
+
+Thinking only of boodle, for which he had a soft spot, Mr. Cox came up,
+and pushed back the tent flap.
+
+"Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!" cried Randolph, and from the
+darkness poured forth such a horrible and very prehistoric roar that
+the tall cadet made one spring across the company street, demanding in
+no gentle tones of Randolph "What on earth he had got there?" Then,
+"hiving" the joke, he walked rapidly away. Only one such roar could
+be risked, and after a little more hectoring the plebs were let out
+quietly one by one, and Randolph sought out Magnus and Rig to receive
+their compliments on his success.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+SIGNALING FOR HELP
+
+    All common things, each day's events,
+      That with the hour begin and end,
+    Our pleasures, and our discontents,
+      Are rounds by which we may ascend.
+
+    --LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+It was a new experience to be on guard as corporal; and instead of the
+tedious pacing up and down, to go round the camp at set intervals,
+posting the reliefs, and then to sleep or lounge in the guard tent. No
+more sounding out the "All's well!" in proper, or improper, style; but
+it seemed to Magnus that he never missed hearing it.
+
+But whereas in the old days he used to wish every time he called the
+hour that the beautiful, serious, and weird cry could reach across the
+continent, even to his mother's ears, now, on the whole, he was content
+that it did not.
+
+"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's
+well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now,
+somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all well with the camp, all
+well with the Post; was it all well with him? Would the words bear a
+true report as _she_ would understand them?
+
+Cadet Kindred studied the point a good deal as he lay there in the
+guard tent looking himself over, or stole a solitary walk now and then.
+And I say "stole" advisedly. Short of stealing away, a solitary walk
+was hard to get.
+
+If, at the risk of his neck, he slid down some sheer cliff to the
+river's edge, few indeed would follow him, but a cadet boat might come
+along shore with a barge-load of girls in tow. And sometimes he was
+quick enough to dodge behind the bushes, and sometimes he sat still and
+let the shower of exclamations come.
+
+"Oh, there's Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"Just _see_ Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"Mr. Kindred, _please_ get right into the boat."
+
+"Haven't a permit."
+
+"There's nobody round," said the Kitten. "Jump in quick. You _never_
+can get back up there without being dashed to pieces."
+
+"Hardly _with_. Then there'll be one less 'additional' in the way."
+
+"How dreadful! I thought you were better brought up than to talk so."
+
+"I was."
+
+"Were you really so very well brought up?" said the Kitten, with her
+head on one side. "Do you know, I should never have thought it."
+
+Magnus rose to his feet, and doffed his cap profoundly.
+
+"Now you've done it, Puss," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Why, I don't see how," said the Kitten. "I hate well-brought-up
+people; that's why I spoke."
+
+"Better hate Kin as fast as you can, then," said Chappy from the boat,
+"so's there'll be a chance for some of the rest of us. Why, he don't
+sleep in chapel more than every other Sunday."
+
+"How can he help going to sleep, poor boy?" said Miss Saucy. "Such
+sermons!"
+
+"Well, come now," said another cadet, "that last sermon wasn't half
+bad. And not more than twice as long as was necessary."
+
+"Yes, but for these times!" quoth Miss Saucy. "Why, it was just like
+saying 'Be good,' don't you know?"
+
+"Hard upon the times, wasn't it?" said Magnus.
+
+"Well, row on," said the Kitten with a deep sigh. "I see by his face
+nothing _I_ can say will do any good. But it is such a pity! I never
+guessed he was that sort. A new fad, isn't it?" she said in a loud
+aside, as the oars dipped and rose. "Good-bye, Mr. Kindred! I hope your
+meditations will be very profitable."
+
+"Thank you," Magnus answered, standing up again, "I think they will."
+
+He watched the boat as it went on over the dimpling water, then changed
+his place a little, and began on a new end of his thoughts. This girl
+had "never guessed he was that sort."
+
+Maybe she was only telling society fibs, but Magnus would not let
+himself off so. For what reason had he ever given her to think him a
+Christian? Where had his colours been, in all these walks and talks and
+meetings? Up his sleeve, in hiding?
+
+"But I cannot flaunt them in people's faces," Magnus pleaded for
+himself.
+
+No, and no more did the flag its stars and stripes; only waved them
+joyously overhead.
+
+He had been ready to say that the constant frolic with the gay crowd
+was not good for him, but how about his side of the influence? Had
+he ever tried talking sense to girls whom he condemned for talking
+only nonsense? "Ye are the salt of the earth," but salt refreshes,
+stimulates, purifies; how far had he been like that? Without being
+priggish, without setting up for a preacher, could he not show in
+every way that the service of Christ was better than all else, and the
+knowledge of Him the most joyful thing in all this world? "Ye are my
+witnesses," said the Lord Jesus; and what sort of testimony did Cadet
+Magnus Kindred give from day to day? No matter how other men did, what
+had he done?
+
+The final outcome of all these cogitations was a letter.
+
+  "CAMP GOLIGHTLY,
+
+  "July --, 18--.
+
+  "MY DEAR MOTHER:
+
+ "I don't see why you don't come East and look after your boy. How
+ do you know what he is about here? Better come and see whether
+ you want him home on furlough; that is, if that time ever comes,
+ which I don't believe it will. Three, six, well nigh eight months
+ yet before it will even be 'One hundred days to June.' Besides,
+ they may find me in January, and then, instead of going home, I
+ should go as straight to the Antipodes as if they'd shot me out of
+ a catapult."
+
+ "Don't be uneasy; I'm not skinned more than twice a day on an
+ average; skins grow fast here, and skinning is nothing when you
+ get used to it. So the eels say. And I'm sure to take daddy's
+ scalp when we get back to barracks. Not much of a possession,
+ either, I must own."
+
+ "Do you realise, ma'am, that your son is that much detested and
+ overworked and maligned being a yearling Corporal?--wearing
+ chevrons, and sporting dignity enough for three Major-Generals?
+ Come and see me drill the plebs; best fun you ever saw in your
+ life--when you aren't one of 'em."
+
+ "But now, mother, this is serious. Do bring up our three girls
+ respectably, so that when they come here for first-class camp,
+ they'll know how to behave. But first of all, you've got to come
+ yourself and brush me up. Buy your ticket for West Point, stop at
+ Garrisons, cross in the ferryboat, and take the omnibus up the
+ hill. Look out both sides all the way up; and the minute you see a
+ grey uniform throw up his cap, get out. I suppose I might run it
+ down the hill, but then if I get in con. and couldn't see you all
+ the time you were here, it wouldn't pay. And Towser'd be sure to
+ be round with his patent magnifiers."
+
+ "So I'll go to the edge of limits, and as you don't know where
+ that is, look out. If you get lost, I'll put Towser on the track
+ and he'll know where you are before you know it yourself. I wonder
+ the Phil. Department don't set him to work on the lost Pleiad."
+
+ "Heigh-ho! I wish you were here this minute--with your bag full
+ of gingercakes. I was on guard last night, and had nothing to eat
+ but those old cast-iron sandwiches. So we put 'em in the reveille
+ gun and they went off that way. Love to the girls. Don't bring 'em
+ this time, but come yourself."
+
+  "Your (very) third class Corporal,
+  CHARLEMAGNE KINDRED."
+
+ "I enclose a picture of myself which you may like to see."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY
+
+ Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes
+ choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours
+ assez de moyens.
+
+  --ROCHEFOUCAULD.
+
+
+"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say that
+never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits of
+boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so
+received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at
+things cannot wear them out.
+
+At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke down
+and cried. Partly for joy--for how handsome he was! and how those bell
+buttons did set him off!--partly for the wild longing it stirred to
+have him in their arms again. But with this came in another feeling:
+that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was their own wayward,
+careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away behind that perfectly
+buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point makes a wonderful change,
+which even accustomed eyes find marvellous; what wonder that these
+unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He had graduated from the
+mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.
+
+If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it may
+be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that really
+belonged to it. _This_ exact, stately young man, _her_ Magnus, who used
+to catch her in his arms and whirl her off her feet. _This_ soldierly
+fellow _their_ brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the
+apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the
+window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the
+smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.
+
+"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said
+Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will
+say?"
+
+"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak
+calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added,
+feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point
+and a soldier and look like my little boy still."
+
+"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.
+
+"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of
+my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow
+seen, anywhere?"
+
+"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed
+one bit. Just see how they laugh at you----" But that look stopped the
+words.
+
+"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window. "What
+are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came through
+the hall and into the room.
+
+"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager
+whisper.
+
+"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for you."
+
+"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing
+themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place
+behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's
+cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.
+
+But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at
+first sight of that wonderful presentation of her hero, but then she
+stood quite still; her fingers interlacing each other, the red and
+white playing hide and seek on her young face. That undefined change
+which they all felt came to her with a difference. For Magnus had
+never been hers to have and to hold, but only to gaze at from a safe
+distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become more wonderful than ever.
+Whether this put him further away or not gave Cherry no trouble just
+then; she had forgotten herself and the whole world at first sight of
+this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said plaintively;
+and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in the most
+matter-of-fact way:
+
+"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."
+
+"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you
+always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her
+face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor
+Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she
+had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it
+that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look
+inside; _could_ Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by
+the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was
+just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest
+Miss Fashion.
+
+Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.
+
+"You are strange people not to like it," she said.
+
+"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad
+because it looks different."
+
+"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the
+hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying
+open, in the Army."
+
+"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young
+soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat
+and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."
+
+There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot
+cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the
+picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very
+first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her
+with bewildered eyes.
+
+"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I
+thought he had the whole Government to do that."
+
+"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I
+am sure," said Rose.
+
+"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick,
+Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."
+
+"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.
+
+"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back
+again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his
+mother." Her voice choked a little.
+
+"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing
+to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look
+so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought
+to be."
+
+"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then you
+can tell us all about him and the place and everything."
+
+"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities with
+their young feet, were too much for her.
+
+"Why, girls, I haven't the money."
+
+"You shall have my new winter bonnet--which was to be," said Rose.
+
+"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were not to be," said
+Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong box."
+
+"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her hand.
+
+"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She sat
+looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of her.
+
+"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is as
+still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."
+
+Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to
+read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such
+a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading
+began again.
+
+"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he says,"
+pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard. Every
+sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the two faces
+that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's shining
+eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always in sight.
+Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which the others
+missed; and so now and then retired into her own private meditations.
+"Bring up _our_ three girls" and "when _they_ come." Clearly, then, she
+also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever that might be.
+
+"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean about
+their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the
+Antipodes?"
+
+"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the girl,
+too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he says
+all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't really
+changed him one bit."
+
+"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at the picture.
+"I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to the dress a
+little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you really think
+I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"
+
+With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that
+nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the
+railway companies would do the rest.
+
+"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for your
+getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody could
+keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just fly
+out."
+
+"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes the
+two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.
+
+"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you. Read
+on, mamma, please."
+
+So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the
+real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"--third-class corporals and
+the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not clear
+up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully twice
+through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly announced
+that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get ready.
+And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they could go
+too.
+
+And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn not only
+bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the conductor. The
+girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the gingercakes
+there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief embroidered
+with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small pincushion "to go
+in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent him her last little
+drawing of the old apple tree which had been his own special private
+gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they
+all went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours
+joining in.
+
+"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good
+woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth
+and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went,
+we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless
+feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in
+any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for
+West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest,
+and then he'd he provided for."
+
+Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went home
+and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly away,
+very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she was
+going to see her boy.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER
+
+    'Twas morn, a most auspicious one:
+    From the golden East the golden sun
+    Came forth his glorious race to run,
+      Through clouds of most splendid tinges.
+    Clouds that lately slept in shade,
+    But now seemed made
+    Of gold brocade;
+      With magnificent golden fringes.
+
+    --HOOD.
+
+
+Yes, it was a royal August day. The last summer month has a very
+different character in different places. In town, where, instead of
+
+    "Three months of sunshine bound in sheaves"
+
+you have the same stored up in pavements and glowing from brown stone
+fronts, it is a time which men naturally enough choose for their
+vacation, and leave the city home behind them as fast and as far as
+they can. September rains may clear the air, but till then, away.
+
+But in the Highlands, with here and there a rare exception, August
+is one of the very loveliest months of all the year. We say of a
+human face that it is finer after life has given its touches and done
+somewhat of its fine chiselling, and a little so does the last summer
+month surpass the two that went before. More sedate than jocund June;
+far calmer than July with its tempests and fervid heats, the shadows
+fall differently, the changed lights give you a new insight into
+things. The days are so exquisite partly because they are shortening;
+the flowers hurry out in troops. And nowhere in all the year do we
+have such a succession of wonderful sunset skies as in August. Then
+the temperature is for the most part perfect; the cool mornings and
+evenings only the fairer for the midday heat. It is a time when you can
+sit out, dine out, and well nigh take leave of the house altogether.
+
+One wise thing inexperienced Mrs. Kindred remembered to do. From point
+to point as the miles rolled by, she sent postals to the girls at home,
+and one at the outset to Magnus. He knew just when to look for her. And
+so, when the day came, and dinner was over, Cadet Charlemagne reported
+his absence at the guard tent, and strolled away to Trophy Point, and
+seated himself to wait and watch. Too early yet by an hour; but he was
+restless and could do nothing else.
+
+The day was cloudless now; the noon heats still in the air; the hazy,
+lazy hum of the locusts thrilled out on every side. Perhaps lazy is not
+just the word--but there are no inflections; they fight it out on one
+line, as few tired workers ever can.
+
+A suspicion of real haze hung over Newburgh; the more distant hills
+looked faint and dreamy. Far up the river a long tow wound silently
+down, leaving its trail upon the quiet water; nearby a sloop or two
+went softly on, spreading their white wings to the breeze. There was
+just enough air stirring to lift and drop, lift and drop, the bunting
+on the flagstaff.
+
+Magnus sat looking and listening, drawing a deep breath now and
+then. How long it seemed since he first saw Trophy Point and that
+flagstaff!--and it was really but fourteen months. He glanced up at the
+flag, just then shaking out its lovely folds. That had not changed. And
+he knew his mother had not; she would be just the same blessed person
+she had always been. But how about himself? and what would she think
+of him? And now, studying that question, Magnus took out mentally
+his own private stand of colours and looked at them, matching them
+with the flag overhead. It hung very still just then; and yet he could
+see a star here, a touch of the stripes there. Storms might beat it to
+ribands, but they could not change the colours nor make the flag come
+down.
+
+"That weak strip of bunting!" thought Magnus, with a certain
+interlining of words not complimentary to himself. And other words
+written above his father's grave came quick and clear: "The world
+passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
+abideth forever."
+
+Magnus stood up and walked slowly along the little path to another
+point, whence he could see the "Central" road.
+
+"I'm no end glad she's coming!"--so ran his thoughts. "But I just
+wonder how she'll like her boy? And there she comes!"
+
+For now a puff of white smoke rose up at the mouth of the Breakneck
+tunnel and then fell into a long, curling line, and began to wind its
+way rapidly along the curves of the river road.
+
+Magnus watched it, jumped on the seat to see it better still, and then
+tossed his cap into the air like any boy let out of school.
+
+"Hurrah, old flag!" he cried; "there she comes! Now you'll see somebody
+worth looking at."
+
+The white line rushed on, paused at Cold Spring, whirled along over the
+north bay and hid itself in the green Island woods, while Magnus, again
+waving his cap and this time so recklessly that it was near going down
+the hill, hurried away to Battery Knox, ran up on the green parapet,
+and stood to watch. The engine came puffing over the south bay as if
+the fate of the nation hung on its speed, dived into the Garrisons
+tunnel and slowed up.
+
+How long it stayed!
+
+"Just to put off mother and her little trunk!" thought Magnus, laughing
+to himself, and then getting such dim eyes that he could not see a
+thing. But he felt as if he could hug even the trunk.
+
+And now, puff, puff, the train slowly moved away from the station, and
+the little ferryboat rang her bell. Of course, his mother was there, in
+the small, dark throng that came down to the river, and of course he
+must therefore really see her, but--Oh! it was too tantalising! I think
+at that minute Magnus would have given anything (except furlough) for a
+good glass.
+
+The boat was off, steering across the river in a pretty curve to suit
+the tide; the smooth water turning back in two long lines of wrinkles
+in her wake.
+
+Magnus leaped down from the parapet and was speeding away up the path
+at a great rate when there came a hail:
+
+"Mr. Kin--dred!"
+
+Magnus paused to see.
+
+Clustered about the pathetic white column that looking calmly down on
+the silent river, tells in such vivid fashion its terrible tale of
+struggle and death, were three or four very summery looking girls: Miss
+Fashion, Miss Dangleum, and another whom Magnus did not know.
+
+"_Do_ come here, Mr. Kindred," pleaded Miss Dangleum.
+
+Well, a cadet is nothing if he is not a squire of distressed damsels.
+Magnus turned and jumped down to where they stood.
+
+"What's the matter?" he said; "has a fan gone down the hill? or is a
+parasol in trouble?"
+
+"There, isn't that just like you!" said Miss Fashion. "No, nothing so
+serious as that."
+
+"Miss Beguile has come," said Miss Dangleum, "and she asked you down to
+a private view of her eyes."
+
+"Oh, _Nina_!" said Miss Beguile, in soft expostulation.
+
+"We also wanted her to see yours," said Miss Nina daringly. "She
+doesn't believe cadets have any under those caps."
+
+Magnus doffed his own particular cap, as in duty bound, but the view
+Miss Beguile got of his eyes was very short and unsatisfactory.
+
+"Now find us a nice seat," said Miss Dangleum. "We've got lots of
+boodle."
+
+"Certainly--at any other time," began Magnus, "but now----"
+
+"You don't mean to say you've got a previous?" cried the girls.
+
+"Very previous, indeed. I am just going to meet my mother."
+
+"Your mother?" said Miss Beguile with the sweetest air of interest.
+"How charming!"
+
+"Dear me, where does _she_ come from?" drawled Miss Fashion.
+
+But now Mr. Kindred's eyes came to the front and declared themselves.
+
+"She comes from _home_," he said. "Excuse me, I am late"; and with
+another touch of his cap Magnus sprang away up the path about as fast
+as a man could go and not run.
+
+"He has magnificent eyes," said Miss Beguile.
+
+"Yes, but no use," said Miss Dangleum. "I cannot bring that man to
+terms, do what I will."
+
+"Flinty, is he?" said Miss Beguile. "Well, I mean to get hold of him,
+girls, I give you notice. He's the sort of man I like."
+
+"Is there any sort you don't like, Bessie?" said Miss Fashion.
+
+"Oh, it's always great fun to have men round, no matter what sort they
+are," confessed her friend. "But the unapproachable is my dearest
+choice, every time."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+HIGH SUMMER
+
+    Far through the memory shines a happy day.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+Magnus meanwhile went speeding on; leaping over space, and chafing at
+the lost minutes in terms not very flattering to his fair disturbers.
+But he was in good time, after all. The stage had waited for a West
+Shore train, and when Magnus reached the furthest and nearest point
+to which he might go, the horses with their light load were but just
+nearing the riding hall.
+
+Slowly, slowly--how that stage did creep along. Magnus crossed the
+road, went back again, darted from one point to another; if only he
+could get a good glimpse inside! Now the lumbering thing turned a
+little; ah, it was just empty. No; surely that was a bonnet on the
+further seat; and now at this window looking out for him! And surely if
+ever a forage cap went high in air, one went then. But the moment it
+was within reach again Magnus pulled it far down over his own eyes. He
+had been at West Point more than a year, looking at tactical officers,
+professors, dignitaries of all sorts; with wild cadets and all kinds
+of girls; and now this was his mother's face, and like nothing else in
+all the world. The boy's heart gave a bound fit to burst something less
+elastic than a young heart always is.
+
+As for poor Mrs. Kindred, when she saw that cap go up in the air, of
+course you know what happened to her. But she would not look away,
+even to cry, and sat gazing at that tall figure in grey and drawing
+the long sobbing breaths that bear such a very mixed freight. She even
+forgot to pull the check string, and would have been driven straight
+on if Magnus, in a voice stern enough for the first captain, had not
+bidden the driver stop. And it seemed so natural and fitting that her
+boy should pay her fare that when he pulled out a hidden quarter and
+passed it up to the driver no qualms of fear that he might be "skinned"
+for so doing disturbed her mind. Of course cadets have no more business
+with pocket money than they have with pockets, but she did not know
+that.
+
+Magnus got one hand on his arm, gripping it with the other hand as if
+he thought she might run away; and drew her rapidly along through the
+nearest byways to a nook among rocks and trees that he deemed his own
+private discovery. Once there, hidden away in the sweet, cool shadow,
+with the river plashing softly far below, and a wood thrush ringing his
+chimes near by, Cadet Corporal Kindred threw his cap down on the grass,
+put his arms round his mother, and hid his face in her neck as if he
+had been six years old.
+
+It was just what the mother needed. For at first sight, this tall,
+splendid fellow with braid and buttons and chevrons, straight as a
+line, and with all the saucy curls cut away, laid her under a spell.
+Except the first meeting kiss she had had hardly a sign from him unless
+that grip of her hand. But now, with her boy in her arms, he was her
+boy still, and she quite too happy for this lower world.
+
+"Child," she said at last, "what have they done with your hair? Have
+you been sick?"
+
+Then Magnus looked up and laughed; the old shine in his eyes making her
+heart leap.
+
+"Regulations," he said. "I am nothing any more but a bundle of
+regulations, mother. Might about as well be a convict labeled 379."
+
+"Regulations!" Mrs. Kindred repeated. "I wish I had the making of them."
+
+"I wish you had, mother. And there are some three hundred and odd more
+boys here, who would confidingly hand the job over to you. Then we'd
+have pie every day for dinner and cake for supper, Saturday in the
+middle of the week, and no Monday morning recitations."
+
+"But Magnus," said Mrs. Kindred, bewildered over this very mixed lot of
+grievances, "don't you have cake for supper?"
+
+"Now and then a mysterious compound which goes by that name," said
+Magnus. "We are having it scientifically analysed to see whether it is
+all new-process granite, or whether one part mud comes in."
+
+But here the innocent, perplexed face was too much for him. He almost
+shouted with fun, tossing his cap up higher than it had ever been.
+
+"You blessed mother!" he said. "You haven't changed one bit--not a
+pin's point. There was one on your shoulder just now to scratch me,
+exactly as there always used to be."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" cried poor Mrs. Kindred. "I did not mean to leave that
+pin there. I just stuck it in last night in the sleeping car."
+
+"But you always did 'just stick it in,' you know," said Magnus
+disrespectfully; "and I never remember the time when it didn't just
+stick out. It wouldn't be you without a pin on your shoulder."
+
+"It wouldn't be you if you were not a saucy boy," said the mother, and
+then they looked in each other's eyes and laughed; how happy they were!
+
+"All right, mammy," said Magnus. "That pin gave me a welcome nothing
+else could. How are the girls?"
+
+"The girls are lovely," said Mrs. Kindred. "Cherry has tried to fill
+your place, Magnus, ever since you came away."
+
+"H'm, I don't know about that," said Magnus. "Tell her she can't have
+but half of it, fair and square."
+
+"Oh, well, you know how I talk," said Mrs. Kindred. "She could not
+really, dear, nor anybody else. But she is the dearest girl, Magnus,
+and so wise. We have to get her to explain all the queer things in your
+letters."
+
+"Do I write queer things?"
+
+"Very; or they sound so to us. And I get quite worried sometimes.
+And then Cherry will say in that pretty way of hers, 'You know it is
+Magnus, Mrs. Kindred, so he could not mean _that_.'"
+
+If two sparks flew from Cadet Kindred's eyes at these words, only the
+green moss at his feet was witness thereto. But, then, a very grave
+look came over his face. His mother watched him anxiously.
+
+"You do not think I really _meant_ that, dear?" she said. "No one on
+earth could fill my boy's place with me, Magnus."
+
+"No, no; I understand," he said, without looking up. "But she deserves
+it so. Cherry is a great deal better than I am, mother."
+
+The mother smiled contentedly. Very small improvement did her boy need
+for her. But she would not say that; just as well for him not to know
+how high he stood on the general merit roll. And it was a fine new
+West Point development, if Magnus was inclined to underrate his own
+perfections. Which, by the way, was not at all what that young man was
+doing. But Cherry's simple, unquestioning faith in him suddenly touched
+up his memory of certain things which (in spite of being "Magnus") he
+had done, and the recollection was not pleasant. Not very bad things,
+Oh, no! but by no means up to Cherry's standard.
+
+"It's not worth while for her to come on before furlough," he said,
+thinking aloud.
+
+"Her?" Mrs. Kindred repeated questioningly.
+
+"Yes, any one of the girls," said Magnus. "You see, the winter journey
+is one thing; and then in the winter there's such a beastly lot of
+studying to do. And in the spring I shall be boning every minute. But
+wait till first-class camp. Or you might all come back with me from
+furlough--just for a first sight of the place."
+
+"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred. "Why Magnus, you talk as if we had
+the Bank of England at our back."
+
+"No, only me in front," said Magnus with a gleam of his bright eyes.
+"You don't suppose I am going to worry through the last two years here
+without a sight of you all? Wouldn't pay to bone rank if nobody came to
+see my chevrons. Just as well go on and get rattled like some of the
+rest of them."
+
+"But my dear!" said poor Mrs. Kindred. "'Rattled' and 'bone' you've
+said twice. And you called your studies 'beastly.' I thought they
+taught English at West Point."
+
+How Magnus laughed!
+
+"There are Tacs over yonder," he said, "with a party of summer girls;
+and one of the girls offered me a lot of boodle. And the Com.'s out
+riding, and the Supe's gone to town, and the Arch-fiend is at the
+seaside."
+
+"Now Charlemagne, stop!" said Mrs. Kindred. Magnus gave her another
+delighted hug.
+
+"Oh mammy!" he said; "this is you, and no mistake. I didn't quite
+believe it was at first." And kissing first one hand and then the
+other, Magnus put them both back in her lap, and laid his cheek down
+upon them. The mother got one hand away and softly stroked the fine
+head.
+
+"I do not understand about your hair, yet," she said.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"And why do you wear such a thick coat this warm day, Magnus?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Why my dear! Well, you might unbutton it at least," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+Mrs. Kindred was silent a minute.
+
+"I took my dinner in Poughkeepsie," she said, "because I was not sure
+of getting here in time for yours; and I know it is not good for you to
+wait."
+
+"No ma'am, it isn't--here," said Magnus.
+
+"But we can have supper at any time you like."
+
+Magnus, without raising his head, gave a groan and wished they could.
+
+"Well, we can," said Mrs. Kindred. "I can wait till late, or have it
+early, Magnus, just as suits you. What do you mean by sighing like
+that? What is in the way?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Oh well!" said the mother, trying to smother her disappointment; "you
+have some other thing on hand? Never mind, dear, then we'll be together
+at breakfast."
+
+"No, we sha'n't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Regulations. We cannot have one single meal together while you are
+here, mammy."
+
+And now, indeed, Mrs. Kindred had no more to say; the bands of red
+tape seemed to be winding all about her heart, and drawing very tight
+indeed. She had so pictured to herself the joy of once more handing her
+boy his cup of coffee. But it must be best for him, she said bravely to
+herself; or else they would not make such rules. And, whatever was best
+for him--
+
+"What _can_ you do, dear?" she said aloud, but with a plaintiveness
+that went to the boy's heart. He sat up and took her in his arms.
+
+"I can do lots, mammy!" he said. "Never you worry one bit. I can't
+do it for breakfast, and I can't do it to-night, but some other day
+I'll cut supper, and we'll have it down here together. And we'll have
+picnics instead of dinner. And I'll walk with you every minute of
+release from quarters."
+
+"Release!" The word jarred on the mother's ear; to what had she sent
+her boy? But then, whatever it was, it agreed with him splendidly;
+never had she seen Magnus in more jocund health and strength; life at
+its best was in every look and motion. And the eyes that flashed and
+sparkled at her were not the least in the world careworn or overworked.
+So Mrs. Kindred locked up all her dismayed pangs and questionings, and
+once more stroking her boy's cropped head, remarked that it was said to
+make the hair grow to cut it.
+
+"I'll have a mop when I come out, then," said Magnus. "How does Cherry
+wear her hair now? same old way?"
+
+"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Kindred; "only it's never twice just the same. You
+know her curls arrange themselves--as yours used to, Magnus."
+
+"Disarrange was the word for me. If anybody cuts hers off, I'll shoot
+him."
+
+"I think somebody did cut one off once, without being shot," said Mrs.
+Kindred. Magnus coloured.
+
+"That was only one," he said. "Why didn't you bring them all along? The
+girls, I mean."
+
+"Why, you unreasonable boy," said his mother; "you expressly bade me
+not."
+
+"I had been here so long, I forgot that you always minded," said
+Magnus, with a saucy look.
+
+"Well, I did _not_ always," said Mrs. Kindred; "but the girls could not
+have come off in such a moment, Magnus; they were not ready."
+
+"Girls never are. They'd learn, if they had a week or two in camp.
+Bang goes the reveille gun--and in just two minutes you have to be
+dressed and out in line, swearing that 'Kindred, C.' is present and
+accounted for."
+
+"Swearing, Magnus?"
+
+"Well, some of the men make the statement pretty loud. I am one of the
+mild kind, and 'roar gently.'"
+
+"Yes, I know what your gentle roars amount to," said his mother
+derisively. "But Magnus, do they really make you dress in two minutes?"
+
+"By my watch."
+
+"But you haven't got a watch," said the perplexed mother.
+
+"And therefore am subject now and then to miscalculations."
+
+"Well, West Point has not changed you yet, to hurt," said the mother,
+smiling at him. Magnus took her tender hands and put one on each side
+of his face.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "it is the jolliest thing to see you sitting there,
+puzzling your dear head over my grinds. I could cry, if I wanted to.
+But I say, when you do bring the girls, don't give 'em time to get
+ready. They shan't come here looking as if they'd never had anything
+before, but had got it now, sure."
+
+"But our girls have always had enough, you know, Magnus, and they are
+not likely to have any more," said Mrs. Kindred, cutting both knots.
+
+"They are worth all the girls I have seen here, multiplied by twelve
+dozen," said Magnus. "Oh, mother, why didn't they come! But I tell you,
+you'll have your hands full when they do. Violet will make a sensation.
+And Rose--I think True will be fathom deep at first sight of Rose; he
+likes quiet, sweet, strong girls."
+
+"I should think most people would," said Mrs. Kindred. "And how about
+Cherry?"
+
+"I said nothing about Cherry."
+
+"Am I not to bring her?"
+
+"Oh yes! she had better come too," said Magnus. "Mammy, it is as good
+as a month of Saturdays just to look at you. You are the handsomest
+woman on the Post."
+
+And now pink tinges came upon the sweet pale face; and Mrs. Kindred was
+certainly the happiest woman anywhere about.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE VISITORS' SEATS
+
+    With whom doth Time gallop withal?
+
+    --SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Alas. Time did not slacken his pace for those two people. After that
+very first day, when Mrs. Kindred really took in the astounding fact
+that she was _there_, she began to count almost the seconds as they
+ticked away, and grudged even those spent in sleep.
+
+She would sit far on into the night, looking over from her window to
+where her boy's tent rose up sharp and white in the moonshine; and with
+the first drum-beat in the morning was at her post, sending off her
+heart and her blessing to that grey line where Magnus stood. If he was
+on guard she watched for glimpses of his tall figure as he went up and
+down, posting reliefs, and in a sort loved the whole white battalion
+that marched away to dinner because one particular white helmet rested
+on his head. And never was there a more devoted frequenter of the camp,
+as she waited there on the visitors' seats for his moments of leisure,
+happy between whiles that he was at least nearby.
+
+Then she steadied her nerves to bear the sharp reports in the Light
+Battery drill, and watched manœuvres and evolutions as eagerly as
+if she understood them all. How stately Magnus looked in his various
+trappings; how nimbly he tumbled in and out of the caissons. And when
+the sergeant shouted out at parade:
+
+"Company A, one corporal absent!"--how thankful that particular mother
+was that it could not possibly be _her_ son.
+
+It was astonishing to see such honours and cares resting upon his young
+head; drilling plebs, posting sentinels; no wonder he had changed.
+Was the change in him all for the better? The mother could not quite
+tell. When Magnus was with her that joy swept everything else away; but
+sometimes, as she sat alone, her thoughts worked hard, and many things
+came in to tangle and perplex them.
+
+Loitering about the camp in this way, and never missing a formation,
+Mrs. Kindred also could not miss a good deal else. The Point was
+not crowded; but the summer girl--and the summer girl's supposed
+chaperon--were in sufficient force; and as young people nowadays think
+their words worth hearing, Mrs. Kindred did not need to strain her ears
+nor give undue attention to know much that was said and done.
+
+It was a glimpse into a life unguessed before. Her own had been simple,
+earnest, and useful, from her youth up. The three girls at home were as
+merry as crickets, and overflowing with fun and frolic; but the cricket
+fun--if fun it be--was not more guileless and true-hearted than theirs.
+
+But now, sitting under the trees and watching her boy from a distance,
+Mrs. Kindred would sometimes hear, close at hand, some word or
+sentiment that made her start and look round, with a great wish that
+the girl's mother were there; and behold, quite often she _was_. Then
+this mother would get up and change her seat.
+
+Small use. Near the new place sat a tall young lady in tennis rig set
+free, while her waist was drawn in until playing must have been hard
+work. A game had been on, for Miss Viny's cheeks were flushed, and she
+still brandished her racket. She was talking over her shoulder to a
+semi-young officer.
+
+"I think you have a great deal too much to do with Captain Chose, Miss
+Viny," said this gentleman. "You know he is in a very peculiar position
+with regard to his wife."
+
+And the handsome girl, flashing round at him her daring eyes, made
+answer:
+
+"That only makes him the more interesting!"
+
+Mrs. Kindred shivered slightly, and once more changed her seat.
+
+And _now_ she got among a bevy of girls who were talking of Magnus;
+they fluttered in and settled down all around her, too eager over their
+subject to know or care who heard their talk.
+
+"I'll get hold of him somehow. I'm bound to do it," said a dark girl in
+very extreme costume. "I told you I would, and I will."
+
+"Not worth the bother," said a plump little damsel in pink. "There are
+plenty more."
+
+"Not plenty with eyes like his; there's not such another pair in the
+Corps. They're just heavenly."
+
+"Yes, aren't they?" said the plump girl. "When he looks at you it makes
+you feel queer all over."
+
+"I was afraid you were going to say, all through," said Miss Beguile;
+"and you know there isn't any 'all through' to you, Kitten."
+
+"Now I call that _too_ bad," said the Kitten. "When I am universally
+known to be all heart."
+
+"Good you are," said Miss Saucy, "for you give everyone a piece and
+the supply might fail. But there's a good deal of you, such as it is,
+Kitten. You'll turn the three F's, if you live long enough."
+
+"_Some_ people don't think there's too much of me," said the Kitten,
+pouting.
+
+"About half the Corps, I should judge. Now I believe in one grand
+master passion, don't you know. I think it's dear."
+
+"It's a passion for a master--if you're in love with Mr. Kindred," said
+a fourth girl. "He'll manage you, Bessie. Make you behave."
+
+If anybody had had time to notice the quiet little mother sitting
+there, he would have seen a very perceptible start, and a pair of eyes
+as indignant as such tender eyes could be. _Those_ girls after her
+young magnate? Mrs. Kindred was fit to go that moment to headquarters
+and demand a cordon of red tape to surround her boy. But she could do
+nothing; could not speak to the girls, could not (alas) even shake
+them. Then she seemed to remember seeing him bow to these very ones;
+and with a certain dress-coat air, which now Mrs. Kindred marked as one
+of the new things about Magnus that disturbed her.
+
+What if Cherry had seen and heard it all? And suddenly Mrs. Kindred
+knew why it was Cherry she thought of, and not Rose or Violet.
+
+Here was a new and difficult complication. Yes, of course, it was all
+natural, the mother felt, and plain enough now she thought of it.
+Whether Cherry herself yet knew, or not, she _would_, just as soon as
+Magnus took a fancy to somebody else. Could he do that, after having
+once known her? Mrs. Kindred waited till the next relief went on, and
+Magnus within the guard tent was quite out of sight, and then went to
+her room to think and to pray.
+
+Should she talk to Magnus?--no; skating is generally safer than
+navigation in broken ice. And the next day but one she was to go home.
+
+No further sight of her boy could be hoped for that night, and Mrs.
+Kindred shut herself in and watched the silent camp long after the
+sweet "curfew" bugle had cried to every light:
+
+"Put it out! Put it out! Put it out!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JUST THEE AND ME
+
+    Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,
+      And minuting the long day's loss,
+    The cedar's shadow, slow and still,
+      Creeps o'er the dial of grey moss.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+The next day rose fairer than ever. Magnus came off at eight o'clock
+with "old guard privileges," and having also kind permission from the
+authorities to dine with his mother in the woods.
+
+Now the ordering and preparing of this dinner had been a great joy to
+Mrs. Kindred; what though the correct dainties could not be had. Green
+corn to boil was an impossibility, even if a kettle could be found; and
+home-made rolls were far out of reach, and not all the canned things
+that were ever turned out could replace her own home-fed chickens and
+home-cured ham. The supplies from the baker were fresh and clean and
+well looking--yet Mrs. Kindred sighed, thinking of Violet's loaves of
+cake, and Cherry's pies.
+
+Magnus, however, was not so critical, he did not see even such as these
+every day, and so enjoyed everything to his mother's heart's content.
+And as she feasted on her boy there was really no lack anywhere. The
+fair August lights and shades chased each other among cedars and oaks,
+the locusts hummed; the birds that had nestlings sped swiftly to and
+fro, bringing food. Fall after fall of rocky woods and winding road lay
+at their feet; below all, the white camp in its green setting, then the
+river--never twice the same. Far up in the north the Catskills lifted
+their blue, changeless heads.
+
+It was all so wondrous and so new to Mrs. Kindred that she was watching
+it, taking it in, even when she thought she had no eyes but for Magnus.
+The hills bewitched her; the distant blue, the nearer green; on all
+sides she seemed to hear the silent chanting of her favourite psalm:
+
+"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
+
+Surely this was a place wherein to grow "strong in the Lord"; a place
+where to remember:
+
+"Thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures."
+
+"Mammy, you don't eat," said Magnus, beginning on another small pie.
+"You might venture--just a little. I think there'd be enough left for
+me."
+
+"My dear, I have too much," said the mother. "Magnus, don't eat any
+more of that pie; it is not Cherry's make, remember."
+
+"Don't I know it! But her pies are across the continent, worse luck.
+It is good the know-nothing girls here don't try their hand. Shade
+of Scipio Africanus, what a poisoning of cadets there would be! Dr.
+Senna says that if it wasn't for Pretty Newcomb and her candy--with a
+sprained ankle now and then--he shouldn't have a man on the sick list."
+
+"Well, that is good," said Mrs. Kindred heartily; "the place must agree
+with you all. Magnus, do you know many people here?"
+
+"Three hundred cadets, more or less, and too many officers quite
+intimately," said Magnus, trying the cake. "Besides the bugler and the
+orderly."
+
+"Any ladies?"
+
+"Quite some."
+
+"I really do wish they taught English here," said poor Mrs. Kindred.
+"You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."
+
+"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the
+mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.
+
+"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"
+
+"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."
+
+"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."
+
+"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"
+
+"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."
+
+"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously
+quoting Portia.
+
+"You do know her then?"
+
+"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she talks,"
+said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the Kitten?"
+
+"I am interested in anyone you know."
+
+Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast into
+the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that did
+their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first one
+hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips. And
+Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap,
+softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out here,
+nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."
+
+"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."
+
+"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller already."
+
+"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:
+
+    "It is not growing like a tree
+    That makes man better be."
+
+"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a whole
+half-inch. Call it three-quarters."
+
+"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory, and
+tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute
+they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."
+
+"You are a _very_ saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look grave.
+
+"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last June.
+Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"
+
+"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I think
+she could not be sweeter--and then the next day I think she is," said
+Mrs. Kindred warmly.
+
+"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.
+
+"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really
+believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every
+chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class,
+and for two hours every day they study together."
+
+"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are extremely
+developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have grown
+enough."
+
+"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred,
+taking her turn at the irony.
+
+"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books are
+on hand, but the pocket is wanting."
+
+"No pocket?"
+
+"No'm. _Now_ you have an idea of desolate destitution." And Magnus
+raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white handkerchief from
+his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air, tucked it back
+again.
+
+"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder
+I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I
+couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what
+preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no
+Tacs up overhead,"--and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene blue.
+
+"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no pockets--why,
+I never heard of such doings!--then where do you put anything?"
+
+"Up my sleeve."
+
+"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."
+
+"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally _not_ spoken of.
+In winter we have a resource--a small one; but in summer we should be
+hard up if it wasn't for the girls."
+
+"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred rather
+severely.
+
+"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and
+empty them at our feet."
+
+"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk in
+that way at home, and I do not like it now."
+
+"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after me
+yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted the
+men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a man
+do? You must speak of people as you find them."
+
+Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.
+
+"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens aren't lions,
+mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail of an angel
+stayed by him,--and mine comes--and will go!" And Magnus brought the
+beloved hands up to his face again.
+
+Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing and
+delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That
+touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to
+be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas
+came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of
+order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too
+much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out,
+and the standing sure.
+
+"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering in
+spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after you."
+
+"He _has_," put in Magnus.
+
+"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for loyalty
+to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew that was
+true of you."
+
+How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of
+the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird
+notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows,
+the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came
+to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing
+words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they
+sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless
+prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else.
+Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed
+eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and
+lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down
+into her lap.
+
+"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"
+
+"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing off
+at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me. But
+mother, you don't know how hard it is."
+
+"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places, nor
+is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had
+always at least a storm flag out?"
+
+"Did you guess what I meant?"
+
+"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your flag
+down, even on the stormiest days."
+
+"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine
+anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean--and what it
+_does_ mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The toughest wind
+that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from reveille to retreat.
+And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a touch of blue and a
+gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of the old pole."
+
+"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to fly
+my storm flag in fair weather."
+
+There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to speak,
+and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her again,
+found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face was
+grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond him.
+
+"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company Christians?"
+
+"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."
+
+"Or all your special associates?"
+
+"Why, no! Not by several and many."
+
+"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled with aliens,
+and not an American left but the one in charge of the colours. What
+should he do?"
+
+"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.
+
+Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+ME ONLY
+
+ "Everything goes away," said the Dryad: "goes away as the clouds
+ go, never to return."
+
+  --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+That was the last long talk they had together. A brief walk next
+morning before eight o'clock; another--ah, how short--to the brow of
+the hill where they had met that first day; and then Magnus pulled his
+cap over his eyes and strode away to his hidden nook, and the mother
+went quietly sobbing down the hill. Alas! how fast the minutes flew now
+that had seemed so loitering when she came.
+
+As for Magnus, he watched the ferryboat every foot of the way over;
+waved his cap frantically to the cluster of dark spots that went up the
+sloping path to the station; then listened for the roar of the coming
+train with an intensity that made him start when he heard it. With
+a great pang he saw the pliant black line wind out from between the
+cloven rocks and swing along to the station, almost holding his breath
+in the minute's hush that came next. Hardly a minute; then puffs of
+black smoke curled up into the air, the engine gave its usual snort at
+such trifles as love and life and parting, and the train glided on into
+the tunnel, flew out across the bay, and past the Island; the trail of
+smoke fainted and faded away on the sweet summer air, and Cadet Kindred
+shook his fist at the whole thing.
+
+What right had that black engine to carry his mother off before his
+very eyes? And what business had he to be lingering there behind her?
+If it could have been done suddenly and quietly, I believe Magnus
+would have resigned on the spot, and taken the next train home.
+
+But red tape has its use. What letters and papers and statements such
+a step would involve; what answering of official questions; and Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred did not feel prepared to state publicly that
+he, who had survived to be a yearling corporal, must now resign for
+homesickness. A drum-call in the distance also lent its persuasions.
+The usual is generally, after all, the easiest thing to do, so Magnus
+put his cap in position, and set his face towards camp and duty. But
+taking off the cap again, he first bowed very low towards the steadfast
+old hills through whose cuts and chasms his mother had just vanished,
+kissing his hand to her in mute farewell; then resolutely walked away.
+
+There was a pleb drill that afternoon, and with the way one has of
+being good by proxy, Mr. Kindred kept his little set of men to their
+work most unflinchingly, with small allowance for mistakes, and none at
+all for inattention. Such zeal bestowed upon himself would have wrought
+wonders. To hear him, you would have thought a mathematical line the
+only easy position, and any sort of twist or bend that might be ordered
+merely a pleasing variety of the same. "Brace up"--the poor, distracted
+fourth classmen felt sure he must have done it in his cradle.
+
+Miss Dangleum came by and paused to look--and Magnus was sublimely
+unconscious of her presence; the Kitten held out a box of bonbons--and
+he went by at the double-quick. Then Miss Saucy joined the group, with
+Miss Bessie Beguile, and finally, that young lady's mother came slowly
+on the scene.
+
+"What's the matter here?" said the panting chaperon. "How you girls
+do run! What are you looking at? Who's fainted? These drills are
+positively barbarous!"
+
+"Oh, don't you just wish he _would_ faint?" cried the Kitten. "Such
+fun! Then we'd all rush in with our smelling-bottles, while Mrs.
+Beguile ran for water!"
+
+"While I--ran--for water!" quoth Mrs. Beguile, with a thought of her
+rather stout proportions.
+
+"But you'd be the only one, you know, mamma," said Miss Bessie sweetly.
+"Because _we_ couldn't invade the guard tents alone."
+
+"Nor in company, either," said Miss Saucy. "Nobody's going to faint,
+Mrs. Beguile, unless it's me, because we can't get Mr. Kindred to look
+at us."
+
+"My dear!" said Mrs. Beguile. "I am surprised! _Never_ show such
+special interest. Why, you will turn the young man's head."
+
+"Just what we're after," said the Kitten. "And what we'll do, too. I'll
+_make_ him look at me--I vow I will!"
+
+The words were spoken half aloud, but the young lady got not a glimpse
+of the eyes in question. Corporal Kindred's words of command rang out
+minus let or hinderance; and if the girls put themselves in the way, he
+led his men straight on, and they had to get out of it.
+
+"I don't mind," said Miss Saucy, after one of these raids. "It's fun.
+And he can't _help_ seeing us!"
+
+"It's ravishing to hear anything in such a voice," said Miss Beguile.
+"If I were going to be shot, I should like to have him give the order."
+
+"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow
+music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from
+the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a
+prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus
+walked slowly down the road.
+
+"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness, in these
+his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum. "They are so
+pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and experimentally).
+Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill
+it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"
+
+And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the corporal
+turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no sign.
+
+"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a box
+of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently deep
+abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.
+
+"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could
+knock his cap off, I should die radiant."
+
+And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in the
+fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position; the
+peach fell harmlessly at his feet.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+The plebs started, and so did the girls.
+
+"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left to
+make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it
+up." But he did not.
+
+Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in the
+cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What
+pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This
+time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's
+witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from
+some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the
+group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.
+
+"Say, Kin, Miss Dangleum wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."
+
+"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in the
+mood."
+
+"What shall I tell her?"
+
+"What you like!"
+
+"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and have
+left a bear to keep house."
+
+Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went up.
+
+"Oh, do bring him!" cried a pretty voice. "I do so dote upon bears. Oh,
+I think they're dear! Which one is Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"You'll know by his eyes, when he turns round," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"But that's the only way I can ever tell cadets apart--by their eyes,"
+said Miss Midget. "Is that the reason they order 'Eyes front' so
+much?--so that the officers can know which one to report?"
+
+Another laugh followed.
+
+"You'd better believe old Towser would know, if they hadn't any eyes at
+all," said Randolph, "or if he hadn't!"
+
+"Well, he hasn't, much," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Stands to reason," said Rig, "because he's got 'em all over--diffused.
+In the back of his head, and on his shoulder-straps, and the white
+stripe down his trousers, and the point of his nose."
+
+"That's awfully funny!" said Miss Beguile. "Must make it awfully lively
+for all of you."
+
+"Just does. The only enjoyment he has in life is skinning cadets. So
+it's 'Skin 'em! Skin 'em!' all the day long. Too much shirt-collar at
+breakfast, and too little coat above belt at drill."
+
+"And too much hair," said Mr. Carr. "I declare, when Towser comes
+rubbing up and down the back of my head, I feel as if I was a baby
+getting washed and dressed."
+
+The girls clapped their hands in applause.
+
+"Such pretty hair, too," said the Kitten, "or would be, I'm sure, if
+one could see it." Mr. Carr made a profound reverence.
+
+"Thank you so much," he said. "Awfully good of you. Wish you'd give
+Towser a hint."
+
+"Wherever did the poor man get such a name?" said Miss Beguile.
+
+"Simple and descriptive," said Mr. Carr.
+
+"Look here, D. T.," said Rig, "I wouldn't be as funny as I could, not
+every time, don't you know. You might get the blues for disrespect.
+He's sure to be round."
+
+"And why do you call _him_ 'D. T.'?" demanded another girl.
+
+"Doubletimes it every day," said Rig. "Gets a late in the morning, and
+a cold absence at night."
+
+"But what _can_ we do to rouse Mr. Kindred from this awful
+abstraction?" said Miss Dangleum.
+
+"Let's give him homeopathic treatment," said the Kitten. "D. T.,
+double-time it over to the band and bid them play 'Love Not.'"
+
+"I'll go," said Rig. "He won't get there till the drum beats. 'Love
+Not'--I never heard of such a tune in my life."
+
+"You will--first time you make love to the wrong girl," said Miss
+Saucy. "Now go!"
+
+"They won't do it for him," said Carr; "they _can't_--unless the Com.
+or the officer in charge says so. You'll have to go yourself. Towser's
+in charge."
+
+"Send the Kitten," said Miss Dangleum. "That will just fit. Here, Puss,
+draw in your claws and stretch out your paws, and go get an order for
+the band to play 'Love Not.'"
+
+So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep
+interest.
+
+"He won't do it," said Randolph.
+
+"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole
+canine contingent."
+
+And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand, took
+their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.
+
+And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it so
+long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.
+
+Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but
+slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been
+a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows
+came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet
+rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the
+old words kept sounding in his ears:
+
+      "Love not! Love not!
+    The thing you love may change."
+
+"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved people
+at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers did
+write!
+
+He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then began
+the simple air again; and the words would come:
+
+      "Love not! Love not!
+    The thing you love may die."
+
+A great pang shot through the boy's heart. _Could_ such things happen
+to him? How had his mother looked? Magnus turned away from the band and
+hid himself in the dark recesses of his tent.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+GIRLS
+
+ Rien de trop est un point Dont on parle sans cesse, et qu'on
+ observe point.
+
+  --LA FONTAINE.
+
+
+So Miss Dangleum failed for that time. But "To-morrow is also a day,"
+says the proverb. And it is not in human nature to be always insensible
+to blandishments. Mr. Kindred found himself scanning his wonderful eyes
+in the small glass quite oftener than was needed. He could also pick
+out Miss Dangleum's red parasol clear across the plain from all its
+compeers; and knew at least half of Miss Beguile's fans by experience.
+She declared that he had broken a quarter of them, but this statement
+is plainly incorrect.
+
+The Point filled up to crowding as the encampment neared its close, and
+introductions, walks, picnics, were multiplied, and every cadet who
+liked the fun could have enough of it.
+
+Magnus Kindred, for one, had about all he could manage, Rig's favourite
+cousin was always on his hands when Rig himself was on guard or in
+confinement. This happened pretty often, and as Rig was his "wife"
+Magnus could not object. Chapman's sister was often turned over to him
+because Chapman's best girl was also at the Point.
+
+Then there was every now and then some plain, unnoticed girl whom
+Magnus in his chivalry would look after and take out, giving her a
+royal good time. There were guests at some of the houses where the
+young cadet had been made welcome, and he must help amuse them. And
+finally (for my hero was every inch a man), there were wits and
+beauties with whom he liked to stand at least as well as the best. It
+was all very enticing, and he was so lonely when his mother had gone
+that petting of any sort felt good.
+
+So that last part of August was one grand whirl, in which common sense
+and right ways got drawn in and danced a breakdown. At least that
+was what Cadet Kindred said of it himself in his calmer moments. For
+"Kindred--late at roll-call," "Kindred--absent at supper," had been
+read out too often from the blue list after parade.
+
+Magnus was on guard the last night but one of Camp Golightly, and
+between reliefs took time to foot up his accounts. What had he to
+show for those weeks since his mother went away? Or (excepting only
+her visit) for the whole of "Yearling Camp"? Not much, he thought to
+himself with a curl of his lip. The little pleasure he had given was
+easy and cheap; the pleasure he had had--well, it did not look very
+bright to him now. Not very satisfactory.
+
+It seemed rather small business to take all the sweets he could get:
+compliments, flattery, and boodle, from girls to whom he neither would,
+could, nor should, give more in return than a walk or two; perhaps only
+the convenient phrase:
+
+"Thanks, awfully."
+
+And that very phrase was his mother's aversion.
+
+And it was no end mean, to laugh at a thing and then afterwards score
+it sharply. Was he still "training with the wrong crowd"--only of girls
+this time?
+
+Then he changed his ground and came up on the other side. How far had
+he been a power for good in all those weeks? How much stronger or purer
+had any company been for his presence? Who had learned to think sweeter
+things of religion for his glad life? Whose doubts had weakened in the
+light of his faith? Was anyone more ready to swear fealty to Christ
+for _his_ constant witnessing to the blessedness of the service? Nay,
+Cadet Kindred knew, now that he took time to think, what had ailed some
+of the merrymaking. It jarred his conscience. And sometimes he had felt
+it at the time.
+
+That Sunday afternoon, when he had walked about with Miss Dangleum, and
+smiled at her vapid infidelities, the twinge had been so sharp, as he
+thought of his mother in the old porch at home, drawing strength and
+knowledge from her open Bible, that he never did _that_ thing again.
+But he had laughed at Miss Beguile's jests about church and church
+service, and the very next day, in chapel, had taken the sugar plums
+she offered under cover of her fan.
+
+He had been indignant when some girl, displeased with the sermon, shook
+her fist at the preacher then and there. But perhaps she had never been
+taught any better--and what had been his own criticisms of that very
+sermon? Just as open as he dared make them.
+
+Cadet Kindred felt rather sick of himself, on the whole.
+
+"That's a large place in which to keep your colours!" he said, looking
+down into his grey sleeve.
+
+In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold of
+at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the
+great excitement of a nest of young squirrels. And the first bonbon
+drugged with rum followed: first, and last.
+
+"But, easy and cheap!" he repeated to himself. "I was not going to be
+tricked into taking that stuff. I had said I wouldn't."
+
+What else had he "said"?
+
+Coming off next morning with O. G. P., Magnus got leave to go to the
+trunkroom, and hunted out a little copy of the Church covenant which he
+knew his mother had packed in with his other things. Then, under one of
+the shadowing trees of Fort Clinton, he lay on the grass and read it
+over.
+
+"Unto Him, the Lord, you do now give yourself away, in a covenant never
+to be revoked, to be His willing servant forever."
+
+Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his
+Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was
+lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long
+would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always
+wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?
+
+"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself. "And
+these are but catspaws that come to me."
+
+Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff,
+where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and
+looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.
+
+"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a
+reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last
+letter?
+
+"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus
+Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position, Magnus
+found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of which
+Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing
+pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either
+entreaty or dismay.
+
+"Oh, there's nothing the matter, is there?" she said. "I was _so_
+afraid you'd had a sunstroke, or something. And you know you promised
+me a walk this morning."
+
+"Did I?"
+
+"Yes, and it's very rude of you to forget it."
+
+"Well, it is not too late for the walk," said Magnus, slipping the
+little book up his sleeve, and putting himself by the young lady's
+side. "Which way?"
+
+"Round the plain. I mustn't get out of sight, because I have to walk
+with Mr. Chapman at twelve."
+
+"'Have to' expresses it."
+
+"You shan't make fun of him," said Miss Saucy. "Of course, he's not
+some people,--but then he never forgets his walks, which some people
+do. What was that book you were studying?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Blue book?"
+
+"No, white."
+
+"Then it was the black one. Boning discipline! I don't believe it. Not
+you."
+
+Magnus bowed.
+
+"Let me see, then," she said. "I know it's just some old thing with a
+love letter inside. Give it to me!"
+
+Magnus drew out the little book and handed it over, but Miss Saucy was
+a very bewildered girl indeed, as she turned the pages.
+
+"_What?_" she said. "I can't make head or tail of this thing. What sort
+of stuff is it, anyhow?"
+
+"Stuff that will wear."
+
+"It'll wear you--wear you out," said Miss Saucy. "You are at least two
+years older than you were last night. Oh, I don't know anything about
+religion, except the outside of course, don't you know; but that's
+enough. So the Chaplain has given you the points, and you're going to
+pose; Cadet Kindred, the serious man. Well, it'll be a variety. Come,
+let's go; I'll be the first to have a walk with him, anyhow. Will
+this do-o-o?" said the girl, drawling out her words, and bringing the
+corners of her little mouth as far down as they would go. "Mr. Kindred,
+what will be a profitable subject for us to discuss, as we take our
+solemn way under the brooding trees that shadow the path once called
+Flirtation? The low state of grace in the Corps, and what to do about
+it? Then when we've settled that we might turn our brilliant light upon
+the girls and go for them."
+
+"You said you wanted to walk on the plain," Magnus answered her.
+
+"Plain's too gay. Do you think, Mr. Kindred, you could lend me your
+lovely book just till to-morrow? It might do me no end of good. And you
+know how much I need it."
+
+"The book would do you no good at all," said Magnus, trying to keep
+cool. "If that is what you want, you had better read your own Bible."
+
+"Haven't one to my name,--so there!" said Miss Saucy. "Oh, I never dare
+read the Bible, for fear of what I might find. I suppose you see me
+there quite often, all done up in black, and labelled like old letters.
+'To be----'"
+
+"Stop!" Magnus said, so sharply and suddenly that Miss Saucy did stop
+for sheer amazement.
+
+"Well, I vow!" she said. "I wonder what right you have to speak to me
+so, Mr. Cadet Kindred."
+
+"No right at all," said Magnus. "Only, if you play with Bible words,
+you will cut your own fingers; and I'm not going to stand by and see
+you do it. That is all. So if I should leave you and go back to camp,
+you'll know why." And Magnus strode on at a pace quite beyond the usual
+Flirtation saunter.
+
+"I never--was--so talked to--in all my--many years of existence," said
+Miss Saucy, pretending to whimper. "I know I'm an awfully bad girl--and
+it's awfully sweet of you to tell me so. Such a nice time, too, when
+there's nobody round to take my part. Really looks as if you _cared_,"
+added she, with soft intonation. "Don't go so fast, Mr. Kindred,
+please! I won't say another word--not half a word. Not if we meet a
+procession of snakes. Or my best man with another girl. Or your best
+girl with another man."
+
+"You will not meet her," said Magnus. "She is too far away."
+
+"Well, that is abominable," said Miss Saucy, as a turn of the walk
+brought them face to face with another couple. "That is awfully,
+savagely cruel. Oh, Nina Dangleum! Here is Mr. Kindred telling me he is
+engaged to be married! How are we all to live on and smile?"
+
+"Excuse me; I said nothing of the sort," said Magnus.
+
+"Awfully of the sort, I should say," retorted Miss Saucy. "Ought to be,
+if you're not. With a faraway girl that hides all the rest of creation."
+
+"Then we are not to congratulate _both_ parties?" said the second man
+in grey, Mr. Short.
+
+"Yes, me, by all means--that I'm not the other girl," said Miss
+Saucy. "We've been having the awfullest quarrel! I never guessed
+Mr. Kindred had such a temper: he always struck me as one of the
+sweet-milk division. Like the Zulu's dog, you know, that eat up all the
+missionary's Bible and could never fight any--more."
+
+"Naturally," said Magnus.
+
+"Well, the dog didn't die--if that's what you mean," said Miss Saucy.
+"Only his popularity."
+
+"What do you know about missionaries?" said Short, with a laugh.
+"That's a story made to order."
+
+"It isn't! I guess I can hear things; I've got ears."
+
+"Two pink shells," Mr. Short suggested. Miss Saucy made him a sweeping
+courtesy.
+
+"Positively, the first decent word I've had said to me this morning.
+Mr. Kindred has been simply savage. But, do you know, Nina," she went
+on, half aside, "I think he believes it suits his style. Very fetching,
+don't you know. Why his eyes just glowed! If I wasn't so awfully afraid
+of him, I vow I'd make him angry every day."
+
+"Nothing left for you two, that I see, but coffee and pistols," said
+Short. "I suppose you can shoot, Miss Saucy?"
+
+"I suppose I can't."
+
+"Shall I take the job off your hands?"
+
+"Oh, no use!" said the girl. "Mr. Kindred can't fight. He's the Zulu's
+dog."
+
+Magnus coloured; but with a quiet steadiness of face and voice that
+held the essence of bravery, he said:
+
+"True, Oh, Miss Saucy! So, as it is to be peace and not war, shall we
+walk on?"
+
+And Miss Saucy actually behaved herself, for the rest of the way;
+and declared afterwards that she never _had_ known Mr. Kindred so
+fascinating.
+
+Late in the afternoon, Rig coming into the tent was much astonished to
+find Magnus with his arms on the locker, and his head on his arms.
+
+"Whatever's to pay now?" he said. "Just seen Pretty Newcomb go by with
+Carr? I wouldn't mind, Kin! There's several girls left."
+
+"Rig," said Magnus, looking up at him, "if you bring all your brilliant
+intellect to bear in September, I'm afraid the Institution will blow
+up."
+
+"Couldn't get the old thing started. Well, what is it, then? What
+are you at, all by yourself here? We've been having lots of fun in D
+Company."
+
+"Good place for it," said Magnus; "your sort."
+
+"What are you about, anyway?"
+
+"Adding up two and two, and trying to make them six."
+
+"Talk of blowing things up!" said Rig; "if _that_ isn't inflation!
+You'll find it a quicker job, Kin, to fetch in two more, if time is any
+object to you."
+
+"When you want sense," said Magnus, "go straight to the man who hasn't
+got any, and he'll give you his whole stock. I'll pit you against the
+world. Clear out and curl your hair; I've got something to do."
+
+And Magnus took from his Bible the slip of paper Mr. Upright had given
+him a year ago, then turned over to the fourth chapter of the first
+epistle of Peter, and put it in there for a mark. But he looked long
+and steadily at the staunch words:
+
+"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."
+
+After a little Rig came and peered over his shoulder again.
+
+"Hard at it yet?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Magnus, "and like to be. Just look at this! 'If ye be
+reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.' And I don't feel
+happy, worth a cent. I feel just as cross as two sticks."
+
+"But you can't take that as a _command_," said Rig, looking puzzled.
+"Folks don't feel happy to order."
+
+"Not a command, no; it merely states the case. How I should feel if the
+cause were as dear to me as it ought to be."
+
+"Well, I'd like to know what you're cross about," said Rig gloomily.
+"All the girls at your feet, and never twitted with anything by the
+Com. If it was me, now! You know how I shone in the blue list the other
+night."
+
+Magnus nodded.
+
+"Well, I hadn't really done anything," said Rig; "not worth mentioning,
+you know; and so I put in an explanation. And it was disallowed."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"What do you mean by 'naturally'?"
+
+"The way of the world, or the tactical part of it."
+
+"But I wasn't going to stand it, if it was, you know; and I polished up
+my buttons, brushed the top of my head, swept my face, and went to see
+the Supe."
+
+"Submitted your explanation to him?"
+
+"Another, Kin, another, with variations. Told him I didn't really know
+the act was against rules. Which I didn't, except by hearsay; and
+that's not evidence in law."
+
+"Haven't you a copy of the blue book?" demanded Magnus.
+
+"Always sleep with it clasped to my heart, so as to know when to wake
+up," said Rig. "But now, Kin, what do you think the Supe did? Passed
+right over my innocent face and guileless bearing, my spotless gloves
+and inky shoes, and went for me like a Bengal tiger."
+
+"'Mr. McLean,' he said, 'ignorance in your case is no excuse, sir.
+You have been reported for breaking almost every rule known to this
+Institution. That will do, sir.'"
+
+"And you came away, as usual, sadder and wiser?"
+
+Rig heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"Yes," he said, "'sadder and wiser' will be my motto, Kin, as long as I
+stay here."
+
+Magnus laughed and held out his hand.
+
+"I mean to make you better that, this year," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE GRIM GRAY WALLS
+
+    I'm older'n you,--and I've seen things a many;
+    And my experience,--tell ye what it's ben;--
+    Folks that worked thorough was the ones that thriv;
+    But bad work follers ye's long's ye live.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+Next day the tents were struck; and the manifold delights of Camp
+Golightly drifted away beyond recall. But how pretty--and how gay--the
+scene was, that last morning.
+
+A perfect day to begin with; the air crisp enough to herald the coming
+fall; everything at its best, and the crowd at its largest. Mothers,
+brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and strangers, the whole Post,
+and half the neighbourhood. The groups are always very varied, often
+picturesque.
+
+Here stands a tall first classman, perfectly hemmed in by the dear
+people from home. His cap is off, and his face aglow; and lifted
+high up in his arms is the pet of the family; the little girl's hand
+straying round his neck, her soft childish dress and his gleaming
+chevrons setting each other off in a very perfect way.
+
+Beyond them is a many-coloured group of girls and dresses, but the
+girls look sleepy, and the muslins a trifle tired. The small hours of
+the hop last night have been too much for both. They are languidly
+talking over supposed conquests, rousing up now and then to say
+good-bye to special cadet friends, with many promises to come back
+next June for graduation. Under another tree is another party in the
+freshest of dresses, but themselves in the dumps.
+
+"Why, Amy!" says one of the calmest of the group, "you are almost
+crying!"
+
+"Oh, it is too awful to have it all go!" said Miss Amy, never taking
+her tearful gaze from the white tents. "I asked Ella this morning
+how she could possibly sit there and eat all that chicken and egg. I
+couldn't touch a thing!"
+
+And beyond these again stands a camera and its attendant genii, where
+a half-dozen mothers and their cadet sons are getting photographed
+together.
+
+Great army wagons pass back and forth between camp and barracks,
+bearing away bedding, lockers, brooms, and looking-glasses; and over
+the same short road go men in grey, with private effects too precious
+for the wagon, or perhaps only a belated broom.
+
+Out in the company streets there gathered and grew the while, this day,
+an array of rubbish; old shoes and gloves, old boxes that had once
+held boodle, white jars that _must_ have known tobacco, and yet had
+baffled (somehow) all tactical noses. White handkerchiefs--this one,
+indeed, duly marked "Smith, J." but this other, alas! filmy and fine
+with embroidery and lace. Once coveted and begged for and hid away,
+now tossed out among mess-hall spoons, stray towels, and broken glass.
+Had it even, perhaps, belonged to the fair damsel now weeping over the
+coming wreck of Camp Golightly? Take warning, young ladies, and do not
+waste your pocket handkerchiefs.
+
+As time went on, the grey element gradually faded out from about the
+seats, and the white canvas began to shrink and fall from its smooth
+shapeliness, with cadets clustering in and about every tent.
+
+The drummers came, and the first drum sounded. The tents shivered and
+swayed, the cadets took new positions, the breeze played over their
+heads and threatened to strike the tents at its own pleasure. Another
+drum, and now every eye and hand are needed to maintain even the
+semblance of a camp. Another--and the pretty little white town falls
+prostrate, and the grey men have the field.
+
+Then fold and bundle up, with some cheers for the quickest; the full
+band marches in, the Commandant leads off on horseback--and away goes
+the grey-and-white host, plumes waving, arms glancing, all down the old
+road to the officers' row, and so on to barracks. And over the plain
+in all sorts of groups and combinations, goes a motley crowd of the
+sovereign people, vainly striving to get there first.
+
+Poor little Miss Amy! Your cambric handkerchief lies limp and low in D
+Company street; and the man who was to keep it "always" marches past in
+the battalion, his head high in air.
+
+A day or two of freedom follow, for getting settled; a few last
+bewitching walks are taken by some, while others peep into their study
+books and try to brush off a little of the summer's dust which dims
+that respected pile. And so comes the 1st of September.
+
+I think Magnus Kindred was glad to get back to barracks, if only to
+tackle the year which should bring in furlough, and the yearling course
+certainly gave him enough to do. But who could not work with furlough
+before him? and of late another thought had taken new hold of his
+heart. He was but one, yet the honour of the name he bore was just so
+far in his keeping. If he stood high, it would be one answer to the
+taunt that religion made muffs of men. That would surely be said, if he
+were low in discipline, careless in dress, idle in studies.
+
+So for one cause and another, Magnus worked with all his might; stood
+one in discipline, and in other things went steadily up. And his
+example told; there was a strong, sound atmosphere about him that other
+men could feel.
+
+His dose of bitter-sweet thoughts about himself had done him good; and
+though he could not help hearing and seeing many things he did not
+like, join in them he would not, even if people laughed at him. More
+stringent orders than any blue book shows had taken new hold of the
+boy's heart, drawing him back from evil, speeding him on to good. "I
+have sworn unto the Lord, and I will perform it." Magnus and the flag
+had a good deal to say to each other in those days.
+
+What busy days they were! New studies, new drills, riding among the
+rest; but that was a delight. The days shortened, the girls drifted
+away to less studious regions, the leaves fell--then the snowflakes;
+and the winter settled down into the long, steady stride which brought
+furlough nearer with every step.
+
+January's first week sifted out several men from the yearling class;
+Mr. Carr among the rest. But as for some reason Mr. Carr took up his
+abode in the neighbourhood, he was still at least as useful an ally in
+helping them break regulations as he had been while in the Corps.
+
+"If you want some fun," Rig said to Magnus one day, "just hang round
+the west wall of the Academic after supper."
+
+"What about? I'm not going to put my fingers into a dark pocket."
+
+"Nobody wants 'em in. There'll be enough without yours," said Rig. "But
+Carr is going to bring up a grocery store, and I thought you might like
+to see it."
+
+"Bring up a grocery! Look out it doesn't turn into light prison for
+some of you."
+
+[Illustration: MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON]
+
+However, groceries being rare in that particular locality, when Magnus
+went out for his evening walk he did stroll towards the old Academic.
+The night was moonless, and not overbright with even stars; but the
+white spread of snow made things quite plain enough. And presently, as
+Magnus stepped down the walk, he saw a dark huddle of figures near the
+appointed west wall. A small sled and a very big box, with a half-dozen
+cadets playing stevedore.
+
+Then an officer came along the walk, meeting Magnus, who saluted and
+passed on. The officer glanced rather curiously down towards the dark
+group, but, with his mind full of something else, he merely took a
+short cut across the area, and so through the sallyport from the inside.
+
+It was at a critical moment. Box after box of chickens, mince pies,
+cakes, ham, sweets, celery, and so forth, had been pounced upon, stowed
+in bags, and carried off. Rig's turn came last.
+
+"I believe it's a mistake, you all going the same way," he said, as he
+seized the last bag of chickens. "I'll slip round the corner, and come
+in from the plain."
+
+So round he went in the dusky light and met Lieutenant Benton in the
+very mouth of the sallyport. Rig saluted, and slipped in. But dark
+as it was under the grey arch, the officer's practised eyes found
+something unusual about the cadet outlines, and the next moment he
+turned and gave chase.
+
+Rig had the start, and would have got off out of sight in another
+second if Mr. Benton had not suddenly shouted:
+
+"Cadet, halt!"
+
+Then it was all up.
+
+"What have you there, sir?"
+
+"Chickens, sir."
+
+"Go to the guard-house and turn them in."
+
+Crestfallen and sour, Rig crossed the area, set his bag down at the
+door of the guardhouse, and went in with his report. Being promptly
+ordered to produce his plunder, Rig stepped to the door--and behold!
+one chicken only was left. The light-fingered, light-footed boys in
+grey had in that two minutes rifled the bag and vanished. And Rig felt
+smaller than his own chicken when he turned it in, with the big bag, to
+the officer of the day.
+
+"Just my luck!" he said gloomily. But he never knew who ate the
+chickens.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE
+
+                        The bargain must be,
+    That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.
+    For this is a sort of engagement, you see,
+    That is binding on you, but not binding on me.
+
+    --_Nothing to Wear._
+
+
+It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a
+two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home
+group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time
+the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of
+excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count
+the hours.
+
+A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and
+freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all
+alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective
+laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure.
+They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do
+not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are
+good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just
+perfect--except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers, scented
+air, and in the distance--June.
+
+For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class,
+graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges;
+for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings,
+and call themselves the happiest of all.
+
+As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men with
+samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords,
+hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs,
+canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most
+perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four
+years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether
+you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a
+plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep
+debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against
+another's.
+
+With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but over
+one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit" clothes
+in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that very
+account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them home.
+So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just what he
+would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness, he thought
+he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it to himself
+gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the sallyport in
+open day.
+
+It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised
+West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed
+until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.
+
+Magnus tossed the coat up to the ceiling, regardless of what might
+happen to the plaster, and joined the shopping band that very day.
+
+It was delightful now, in the soft spring weather, to go out at every
+release from quarters, for a stroll round the plain, or down by the
+river. How lovely Flirtation was! An army of "Dutchman's breeches" held
+all the best posts among the rocks by the wayside, scaling the cliffs
+even down by the landing. And in the deeper shade north of Battery
+Knox, whole beds of dog-tooth violets filled the spots of damper
+ground, lifting their elegant heads like the highbred beauties that
+they are.
+
+Among the tougher growths, iron wood and black birch were charming
+with their tresses, and the young tufts of maple and oak and hickory
+leaves were a joy to see. Shad blossoms and dogwood "picked out" the
+green; from some far-down hidden corner the spice bush spiced the air.
+Saxifrage spread whole sheets of bloom; and Lowell's "dear common
+flower" gleamed everywhere.
+
+And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh from
+Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows. The
+company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not
+always games of solitaire.
+
+Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs. Granton,
+with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other people--Miss Bee
+and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just average damsels, but, of
+course, having a gay brother in the first class, they went everywhere,
+and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an heiress and played ditto, ditto
+upon yet stronger ground.
+
+In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just
+funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either
+wealth or beauty.
+
+She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant eyes
+and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of herself
+in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination. No poppy
+leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead, no foreign
+coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of home
+growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world than
+she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were large
+enough to button all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a
+trick of saying nothing she did not mean.
+
+No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point; cadets
+are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of all I have
+told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in the public
+interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one missed her,
+or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never scowled at
+each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what she had on.
+Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted every crumb of
+pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had had so little of it
+in her life, poor child! This was her first real outing. No wonder West
+Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born prince in disguise.
+
+At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious, perhaps,
+of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that changed a
+little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily as ever,
+when some grey uniform came up with:
+
+"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this
+morning?"
+
+But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay
+whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton,
+this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many
+a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade,
+and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody
+guessed it, and she never told.
+
+It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus
+suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all
+romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell
+buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy
+individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred, with no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In
+truth, it was some time before the child picked up a dictionary of
+herself, with definitions.
+
+But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with keen
+eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile, and
+a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may
+happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl
+rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see
+and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk,
+when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion,
+right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it)
+enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he
+came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far
+too much of a gentleman--too much of a man--to try to draw her on for
+his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though he did pick
+up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and then he
+took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a "previous"
+against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all the while he
+was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his own mind so
+befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and surely one poor
+little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.
+
+Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel the
+bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even
+though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does
+not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the
+distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus
+a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl
+_must_ have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding
+at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too
+often played pilot, to that he never gave a thought. All _that_ was in
+the realm of impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.
+
+It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own
+counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask
+Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some
+others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time
+came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all
+parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.
+
+There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now than
+ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his life but
+home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about three lines,
+telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day, and in all
+the other between-times he was either freshening up his knowledge of
+some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks with June, and
+June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or caught a glimpse
+of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off, scaling the rocks
+or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck spot, quite beyond
+reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he would lie on the
+moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of the thrush; listen
+without hearing, as he planned his journey home. He would take such
+a train, and make such a connection, and jump off at the old station
+at just such a time. He would not tell them quite when to expect him,
+because they would be sure to come to meet him, and some of them would
+cry--right there before everybody. And it was a bother to attend to
+your luggage with three girls round your neck. But then Magnus laughed
+and coloured too. There could hardly be _three_--yet somehow two seemed
+even more objectionable. And still if he sent no word, and they did
+not meet him, there was a good half hour lost from that end of his
+furlough.
+
+So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss
+Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight.
+She _must_ have displeased him somehow.
+
+"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one
+night.
+
+"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said Clive.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+FURLOUGH
+
+    Den away, away, for I can't wait any longer.
+        Hooray! Hooray! I's goin' home!
+
+    --_Old Shady._
+
+
+It is strange how some event towards which you have been working, and
+which seemed to fill earth and sky till you reached it, at once then
+sinks down and becomes hardly distinguishable from the plain. So passed
+by the examination to Magnus Kindred.
+
+In fact everybody is so fagged out by the 12th of June, tired with
+work, with gaiety and excitement, that feeling seems swallowed up of
+high pressure. This may be one reason why the bad success of other men
+affects so little those who have won through. Exceptionally strong as
+class feeling is at West Point, the dropped names seem to make very
+slight impression. And in some cases, of course, there is no surprise.
+When a man bones nothing but mischief, and tries to crowd into the
+three weeks before examination the study which should have filled six
+months, June is not always kind to him. Unless, indeed, he be one of
+those men who are pure mathematics--and even then the discipline column
+may cut him down. So it was with small surprise that Magnus heard
+Chapman's name among the "found deficient." Chapman did not whimper,
+but he took it hard.
+
+"It's that beastly calculus!" he confided to Magnus, in the hurried
+moments of parting. "Oh, yes! I know what you mean by raising your
+eyebrows, but a man couldn't live here if he didn't run it now and
+then."
+
+"But you see a man can't always live here if he does," said Magnus.
+
+"Bosh! Yes, he can. Only they don't all run against old Towser every
+time, as I did. No, it wasn't that at all, it was the calculus."
+
+And doubtless, in great measure, it was. Another boy, from far away,
+fairly came to tears.
+
+"I don't see how I am to go home!" he said. "I don't know what my
+mother will say!"
+
+While another, who had got a turn-back, liked so little what his mother
+_did_ say that he gave her a sharp little lecture on the Graduation
+ground.
+
+"I can't tell what makes you go on so!" he burst forth. "I'm only
+turned back. Lots of men are sent away altogether. Why do you talk like
+that? What's the matter?"
+
+Poor mothers! It is often pathetic to hear them explain the case to
+other people.
+
+"He's a good boy, Miss Smith; but you know he has always been delicate.
+Hard study never agreed with him." (True, this last.)
+
+"You see, Mrs. Brown, he has had such trouble with his eyes that I
+wonder he has kept up at all. I really must speak to the Superintendent
+about the study lights. Then these early recitations. Why, at home we
+never thought of waking him up till eight o'clock, and then gently, you
+know, and by degrees. And now he says that gun just goes through his
+head without a word of preparation. I suppose, really, that is what
+ails his eyes."
+
+"Everything here is so wretchedly mismanaged!" commented a wise and
+sympathetic damsel. "The cadets are abused at every turn. I don't see
+how they stand it. It is the meanest place!"
+
+"Well, I've done what I could to straighten things," said a beaming
+matron. "Look at this bag,--absolutely worn out in the service. It has
+brought Tom _everything_--from cigars up. And when he wants money, he
+has only to say so."
+
+Strange, that with such care Tom should ever grumble at
+anything--especially regulations.
+
+But graduation has come and gone, the graduates have scattered; some
+for home, some for Europe, some to be married "on graduation leave."
+For three months they have "the world before them, where to choose."
+
+The furlough men, too, are scattered, yet more widely and individually,
+speeding away on the spider's web of railways that covers the country.
+Class supper was over, changed from a gay revel to a less brilliant
+memory, and Magnus Kindred went whirling along towards home. And the
+great question of taking them all by surprise was still unsettled.
+
+The home folks, however, had their own ideas on the subject, and for at
+least two days before Magnus could possibly come, they had met every
+train from the East; Mrs. Kindred, Rose, and Violet. Cherry went the
+first time, but after that absented herself on one plea or another. And
+so on that sweet June afternoon, when the train slowed up to let off
+the one passenger and the one trunk, the three were in hiding behind
+the station.
+
+No one could ever describe what that first home-coming was to Magnus.
+For miles and hours the excitement in the boy's heart had been working
+itself up to white heat, as point after point rose up to give him
+welcome. Here a cliff and there a hill; the schoolhouse near by, the
+church further off; if he had only had a dozen straw hats, I think
+eleven of them would have gone out of the window, for pure joy.
+
+But the little platform was empty, save of officials; not a creature
+got out of the train but Magnus, and not one was waiting to get in.
+Not a figure broke the broad June sunlight that filled the old road
+towards home. But when he had hurriedly tramped down the steps, he
+found himself in his mother's arms, with the two girls sobbing for joy
+on either side.
+
+Of the next few minutes, I think no one of them could afterwards give
+much account. Then Magnus, with one arm round his mother, gave that
+hand to Violet, and the other to Rose, and so they walked along. How
+they talked!--with tongues once set free; but most of all, how they
+looked at each other. Mother and son had met within the year, but the
+two girls gazed at their handsome brother with a surprised delight that
+could never have enough.
+
+"But I had forgotten that you were so brown, Magnus," said Rose.
+
+"Drills."
+
+"You always were straight," said Violet, "but now----"
+
+"Bracing up."
+
+"And your hair is _so_ short," said Rose.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+Then how they all laughed and hugged each other over again, for there
+were only the wild birds to see.
+
+"Well, certainly, if brevity be the soul of wit, you have improved in
+one line," said Rose.
+
+"They teach it out there," said Magnus. "'Mr. Kindred, your head is on
+one side, sir!'--'Yes, sir. Which side, sir?'"
+
+"And what did you get for being so saucy?" asked the mother, as the
+laugh died away.
+
+"Nothing that time. Even Towser can't skin a man unless he gets hold of
+him. But wherever is Cherry? When you all came out of the first bush, I
+thought she would jump out of the second."
+
+"She's at home," said Rose. "We wanted her to come, and she wouldn't."
+
+"But she did the first time," said Violet eagerly; "the first day we
+thought you might come."
+
+"Oh, ho!--and as I didn't show up then she put on her high-heeled
+shoes," said Magnus. "Girls are all just alike the world over."
+
+"No, they are not!" cried both the charming specimens then present.
+"And you shall not say that of Cherry. She is like nobody else--and
+nobody else is like her."
+
+And privately, Magnus thought his own two sisters very unlike most
+other girls. With their fresh, unjaded faces, undoctored complexions,
+untrammelled feet and waists, and unspoiled minds, they made a
+wonderful sweet contrast to Miss Dashaway and Miss Flirt. Magnus had
+not known how his estimate of women had run down among the crowd till
+he found it mounting up again, ten degrees at a time.
+
+Even Cherry's absenting herself--it provoked him heartily, and he felt
+himself much injured, but it was after all a refreshing change after
+Miss Dangleum's ways. Yes, demonstrations were the man's business, and
+in his present mood Magnus felt quite equal to them, could he but get
+hold of the right person.
+
+No half-grown girl in half-long dresses appeared, however, as they
+reached the house, but for a few minutes Magnus had all he could
+manage. The old dog (prudently left at home) was nearly as wild over
+the meeting as his young master; jumped upon him, clung to him, danced
+round him, whimpered, whined, and barked for joy. It was not five
+minutes before the two were rolling down the grass slope together,
+then running a sharp race, and then flying all over the old house from
+room to room. Magnus shouldered his trunk and rushed upstairs with it,
+and Plato dashed after him, wakening all the echoes that were anywhere
+about. The two girls, putting rolls in the oven and setting on cream
+and butter, almost danced in their tiptoe joy; the mother in the small
+sitting-room hid her face in her hands, and cried and gave thanks. Just
+to hear that boy's step overhead, what was it like? And then to have
+the pair come racing down the old stairs when supper was ready, Plato
+barking in a perfect scream of delight;--do you wonder that the prayer
+for a blessing was spoken low and falteringly? or that a hush filled
+all the room for some moments thereafter?
+
+Then the three busied themselves earnestly about their boy's supper,
+and the boy also lent his assistance; Plato lying on the floor and
+winking at him. The old dog was afraid to really go to sleep lest he
+should lose sight of his young master.
+
+"I suppose her High Mightiness expects me to put on my war paint
+to-morrow, and to go and ca--ll," said Magnus, drawling out the last
+word with ridiculous intonation.
+
+"Who? Cherry? Now, Magnus, you shall not call her that," said Rose.
+
+"Shall not, hey? I will call her anything I like," said Magnus.
+
+"Well, go on, then, and do it," cried Violet, with a laugh, "for here
+she is."
+
+And in more confusion than he expected from himself, after this
+bravado, Cadet Kindred started up from the table and found himself face
+to face with his old playmate.
+
+Cherry had the advantage of him; she had seen the photograph, and was
+partly prepared for what she saw now--not quite. But to Magnus, with
+eyes full of the gleesome, outspoken girl of sixteen, this vision of a
+tall, slender maiden of eighteen summers, with something of a woman's
+shy reserve floating round her like the daintiest filmy veil, was
+altogether new. He had seen nothing like it. She was so lovely, so
+dainty, so sweet--if any epithets presented themselves, they died on
+his tongue.
+
+And the girl, too, had caught her breath; the living presence is always
+so far beyond the picture. All her nicely prepared words of welcome
+took to their heels, and Cherry held out her hand and said simply:
+
+"How do you do?"
+
+Magnus got hold of the hand, and kept it; held it fast while he pushed
+and pulled chairs about to give her a place by himself. The hand was
+something tangible--especially as it was not quite ready to be held.
+
+"How do I do?" he repeated, as she took her seat: "you don't care. Why
+didn't you come to meet me?"
+
+"I think you had enough at the station."
+
+"And you had enough at home, I suppose."
+
+"Enough to do--yes."
+
+"Well, how can you spare the time to be here now?" said Mr. Kindred,
+pursuing his inquiries. A girl who did not wear even the semblance of a
+heart upon her sleeve was something new of late, and exasperating. "It
+is very frivolous work to sit by and see me eat supper."
+
+"It will be less so, when I get something to eat myself," Cherry
+answered demurely. "But I can wait still longer, if it is not certain
+the supply will hold out."
+
+"There! now you have got it," cried Rose, clapping her hands; "and
+good for you, too. Hectoring her in that style! Give her some berries,
+Magnus, before you eat another one. Cherry picked two thirds of them
+with her own fingers."
+
+"She did!" said Magnus, reddening in spite of himself under Cherry's
+fire; second classman on furlough and presumptive first sergeant though
+he was. "That explains why I've had to empty the sugar bowl. I'm sorry
+I have made such a raid, Cherry, but you shall have what is left."
+
+And swiftly he drew everything as near the girl's plate as the dishes
+could find room. Bread plate and butter plate, cake basket, cheese,
+cream pitcher, water pitcher, and the wreck of the broiled chicken.
+Then seizing the berry bowl Magnus began to pile the sweet wild
+strawberries upon her plate, adding slowly and skilfully till they ran
+down to the very edge and rose up in the middle a red fragrant cone.
+
+"How will that do to begin?" he said. "Will you have some sugar?--but I
+suppose not, as you picked them yourself and put all the tartness into
+mine."
+
+The other three looked on, laughing and interested; but now Cherry
+was out of her depth. She looked down at the strawberry hill, at the
+dishes, then glanced round at Magnus. What did he mean? Was he really
+vexed? Could he really think? It was the fairest kind of a look, so
+earnest and questioning. What do you mean? it said.
+
+I think Cadet Kindred knew very promptly what he meant, and saw some
+things clearly which had been hanging about in a sort of uncertain
+haze. And thus in answer to her shy questioning, Cherry met a look so
+keen and merry and full of mischief, full of she hardly knew what, that
+her eyes fell and the pink flushes came hurrying over her face.
+
+Then Magnus laughed. He had the vantage now which belonged to him, and
+he felt better.
+
+"Cherry," he said, "you are a transparent humbug! Mother, will you give
+me a cup of tea?"
+
+"I think you are an extremely rude boy," said Mrs. Kindred, putting
+in an extra lump of sugar the while. "If these are your West Point
+manners, you will need a few terms at some other school."
+
+"West Point manners are all packed away with my dress coat. This is the
+original Magnus variety."
+
+"It is good to know," said Rose. "Here we have all been rubbing _our_
+manners up, to receive you properly."
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Magnus, turning to gaze at Cherry. "Good
+to know, as you say. I did suspicion it was something got up for my
+express benefit."
+
+"Let her alone, and finish your supper," said Mrs. Kindred. "That is,
+if you ever intend to finish."
+
+"Emphatically I do!" said Magnus. "If I didn't, I could never begin
+again, and that would be a loss out here. Cherry, give me just a few
+berries off your plate. I am bashful about taking any more out of the
+dish. The sugar has given out, too," he added, dropping his voice; "and
+these will not want any."
+
+Poor Cherry!--she literally found not a word to say, but sat looking
+down at her plate in helpless silence, as the hands she remembered
+so well conveyed away part of its contents. Then Rose came with a
+replenished sugar-bowl and set it down by him. But Magnus waved it away.
+
+"Thank you, no," he said. "These are too sweet for sugar. How do you
+suppose Cherry worked it, to get them all on her plate?"
+
+"Crazy boy!" said Rose, "you put them there yourself. Magnus, is your
+dress coat here?"
+
+"Truly. Had to bring it along, lest a war should break out before I get
+back. May need it yet----" with an indescribable inflection which only
+Cherry caught.
+
+"Then if you _have_ done, as mother says," said Violet, "go straight
+upstairs and put it on, and come down and show yourself."
+
+"Put on my dress coat, after such a supper," quoth Magnus. "I think I
+will!"
+
+"Don't be foolish," said Rose. "Go at once, if you want pancakes for
+breakfast."
+
+"Make it waffles----"
+
+"Very well, then, waffles," cried both the girls, laughing at him. "Now
+Magnus, go! While your hair is short."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+CHERRY
+
+    'Tis the middle watch of a summer night.
+    The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
+    Naught is seen in the vault on high,
+    But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky,
+    And the flood that rolls its milky hue,
+    A river of light, in the welkin blue.
+
+    --_Culprit Fay._
+
+
+And thus it was, that in ten minutes or so there entered upon the scene
+a fine presentation of a West Point cadet: short hair, white collar,
+bell buttons, and all the rest.
+
+Just inside the door Magnus paused, drew himself up, and gave a
+comprehensive military salute; then came on with quick, regulation
+step, halted in front of Cherry, and took off his cap with the true
+cadet swing.
+
+"Thought you'd be out, Miss Reserve. I saw you clear across the plain.
+Now Cherry, you must ask how I could possibly see so far."
+
+"What would you answer if I did?" Cherry said diplomatically. This
+photograph in person was not easy to talk to.
+
+"I should remark that I can always see some people, across the world.
+Then you must put your head on one side and say: 'But you know you have
+_such_ eyes, Mr. Kindred!'"
+
+"Well, I certainly shall not say _that_," Cherry declared, venturing a
+look.
+
+"Magnus, you are a young peacock," said his mother.
+
+"Fine feathers, mammy. How do you like West Point, Miss Reserve? Is
+this your first visit? Very warm, isn't it? What do think of our view?"
+
+Oh, how they laughed at him, Cherry and all! Magnus kept a grave face.
+
+"Will you walk with me after supper?" he went on. And Cherry's sweet
+eyes opened full on him, to see what he meant.
+
+"That is not the way at all," said Magnus (approving it highly, all the
+same). "You must put your head on the other side now and say: 'Really,
+Mr. Kindred--he! he!--I'm awfully sorry--but I've given all my walks
+away.' Then I shall answer fiercely: 'Tell me one of the men, and I'll
+go fight him and get it back.' Now, Cherry, clasp your hands and say
+pleadingly: 'Oh, no! Please don't, Mr. Kindred! I remember now--there
+is one walk just before breakfast. Would that be too early for you?'
+And I answer practically: 'Nothing is too early for me, Miss Reserve,
+after you have opened your eyes.' And then you must give me an admiring
+glance and say: 'Oh, don't talk of _my_ eyes, Mr. Kindred!' Then the
+drum-beats, and I double-time it into camp."
+
+"You need not say 'you'--I should never say such things," Cherry
+declared; this vision of other girls acting as a tonic, though she
+laughed with the rest.
+
+"Of course not! You do not say anything to me," retorted Magnus.
+
+"She is too polite to interrupt you," said Rose. "Do you mean to say
+that West Point girls talk like that?"
+
+"Some of the girls. Cherry will when I have walked with her a few
+times."
+
+Cherry glanced up in quick denial, meeting then the aforesaid eyes
+looking so handsome and competent and full of frolic and power that her
+own beat a hasty retreat.
+
+"And you walk with such girls?" demanded Violet.
+
+"Oh, yes--" Magnus said easily. "One cannot be uncivil just because
+they are complimentary."
+
+"But before breakfast!" said Rose. "Is there no other half hour in the
+day that would do?"
+
+"My dear girl, it's not _that_ half hour in particular; it is every
+half hour they can get. You wouldn't have them pink and white their
+cheeks for nothing."
+
+"Pink their cheeks?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Magnus. "Pink them--frost them. I'm sure I don't know
+how it's done."
+
+"You are telling traveller's tales," said Mrs. Kindred gravely.
+
+"Well, I like that!" said Magnus. "Why, mammy, they _all_ do it.
+Clinker says so. At least not all, I suppose. Of course, there are
+exceptions."
+
+"Charlemagne"--began Mrs. Kindred. But at this word Magnus turned
+to her and "stood attention," bracing up to the fullest extent, and
+saluting with such profound gravity and respect that the rest all
+shouted, and the mother's face gave way.
+
+"There is no doing anything with you," she said. "You must give them no
+end of trouble at West Point. Go upstairs and take off that toggery,
+and see if you can be a reasonable boy."
+
+"I've got to give Cherry her walk first," said Magnus. "She has never
+walked with a real live cadet; and she may as well practise on me
+before she undertakes the rest of the Corps next summer."
+
+"I look like that," said Cherry, with some scorn.
+
+"Very much like it, I should say," responded Magnus. "I know how it
+will be. 'Say, Kindred, who's that awfully nice girl you've got on
+hand? Introduce me, won't you? Your sister, aint she? Well, don't let
+her promise all her walks to those spoony fellows. You want her to have
+a good time, you know.'"
+
+Magnus hit it off with excellent mimicry, and the room was in a buzz of
+amusement.
+
+"Then I shall say," he went on, "that my sisters are in quite another
+package, and that to ensure her having a good time, she has promised
+all her walks to me."
+
+"She hasn't at all," said Violet.
+
+"She will--by that time," said Magnus confidently; enjoying the
+pulsating colour in Cherry's face, and comparing it with the unmoved
+tinting of poppy leaves. "Why, even to-night she'll not walk home with
+anybody but Cadet Kindred, in full canonicals."
+
+"Magnus!" said his mother, "I think you are absolutely beside yourself."
+
+"Do cadets all talk in that style?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Not all so brilliantly as I do, by any means, but in the same general
+way."
+
+"Then I think they need a professor of common sense at West Point."
+
+"And I think you had better go to bed and to sleep," said Violet.
+"We'll walk home with Cherry. Your brain is getting overexcited."
+
+"Silence and solitude will calm it down," said Magnus. "If you all go,
+there will be a chatter, but Cherry and I know each other so well that
+there is no need to speak. She will not try to keep me, mammy; I'll be
+right back."
+
+There is no doubt but Cherry was laughing when they set out, partly
+for nervousness, but also in part for the mere infectious atmosphere
+of frolic. She gave no sign, however, being much under the spell of
+the tall, erect figure at her side. Whenever she looked up and tried
+to throw off the glamour, one glint of the bell buttons brought it on
+worse than before.
+
+"Aren't we walking very fast?" said Magnus mildly.
+
+"But you told your mother you would be right back," said Cherry.
+
+"From your front door--not from ours." The laugh rippled out at that,
+as Cherry moderated her pace.
+
+"No use, you see," said Magnus, falling into an easy saunter. "I can
+do the double faster than you can. I knew you meant to scoot away by
+yourself, the minute I went to change myself into a cit."
+
+"Who told you?" said Cherry.
+
+"You."
+
+Silence fell upon this; then Magnus began again:
+
+"You see, I really wanted to have you alone awhile--I wanted to ask
+tidings of an old friend of mine. I thought perhaps you could tell me
+where to find her; girls always seem to know about girls."
+
+"Oh, I do not!" said Cherry hastily, running over in her mind all the
+girls she had ever heard of. "You should ask Rose."
+
+"Rose doesn't know everything. I dare say you can tell me if she has
+moved off. I thought so much of her!" said Magnus pensively, gazing
+up at the stars. "We used to be very intimate. I left my heart in her
+keeping--whatever she did with it. Why--you will hardly believe me--but
+she used to live here, in your house. And when I was going away to West
+Point she kissed me right at this very gate."
+
+"She didn't!" cried Cherry hotly, and then hung her head.
+
+"Oh, you do know her then?" said Magnus. "Why didn't you say so before?
+And where do you suppose she probably is now?"
+
+Cherry resolutely stopped and faced him; what though the full moonlight
+effect well nigh swept off her self-possession.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "you are talking great nonsense. It may be the West
+Point fashionable way of talking sense, but we are plain folks out here
+and have not had your advantages."
+
+And here Magnus made a bow so profound that it sent Cherry's words to
+the right-about.
+
+"What next?" said Magnus. "That is all more or less true, so far, but
+well begun is only half done."
+
+"Oh, it is no use to talk to you!" said Cherry. "And it never was, for
+that matter."
+
+"_My_ talking is of some use, however," said Magnus. "I have quite
+succeeded in bringing myself back to your recollection. What more did
+you want to say, pretty girl?"
+
+"That you are extremely silly," said Cherry, with the laugh getting
+into her voice.
+
+"There is no contenting these women of sense!" said Magnus. "If I fib,
+she scolds: if I tell truth, she flouts me. If Derby drill will only
+handle this line of approaches, I shall learn how, in time. Don't walk
+so fast, wise damsel."
+
+"Will you come in and see papa to-night?" said Cherry, not slackening
+her pace in the least.
+
+"Well, hardly," said Magnus. "I like to make it all safe with the
+daughter before I rush into the paternal presence."
+
+If Cherry had been that sort of a girl, I think she would have lent
+him a very earnest and hearty little cuff. As it was, she gave him
+one hopeless glance and slipped through the little gate, as her next
+neighbour would have said, "spryer'n an eel."
+
+But quick steps were play to Magnus, and before Cherry's foot had
+touched the doorstone he was beside her. His hands met round but not
+touching her, putting the girl in a charmed circle of space; and the
+strong, clear voice chanted out an old playtime couplet:
+
+    "Open the ring and let her in,
+      And kiss her when you get her in."
+
+"Oh, Magnus! do hush!" Cherry said desperately. "You are altogether
+wild to-night. And everybody will find it out!" she added, as if that
+doubled the case. She made a quick motion to dive under "the ring" and
+get away, which was quite fruitless.
+
+"Stand still," Magnus admonished her. "Unless you want the prison walls
+to converge, as in that old tale of the Inquisition. I am going to put
+you straight through the catechism. First of all, will you confess that
+you are a humbug and a fraud?"
+
+"I am only myself," Cherry faltered, but standing so still now that she
+hardly dared breathe.
+
+"Only yourself--a very good answer. Well, I never want you to be
+anything else, more or less. Do you understand?"
+
+"The words are tolerably plain," said Cherry.
+
+"Then if you are 'only yourself,' why didn't you welcome me home?"
+
+"What did you want me to say?" said Cherry, with again a little break
+in her voice.
+
+"Say?" repeated Magnus. "You should have thrown up your hands and eyes,
+and then taken down the dictionary and used every word there was in it."
+
+But now Cherry laughed.
+
+"You would have had a pretty mixed dose, if I had," she said.
+
+"Well, that is past," said Magnus; "you can't do it now. So you must
+have the catechism. Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"You are delighted?"
+
+"Yes"--a little slower.
+
+"Out of your wits with joy?"
+
+"No," said Cherry; "you are the only person out of his wits."
+
+"Ready to do anything I ask you?"
+
+"In reason"--again slowly.
+
+"Out of reason?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You will dream of me to-night?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"You will go wherever I want you to while I am here?"
+
+"I--think so."
+
+"And you will walk with me three times a day at West Point and with
+nobody else?"
+
+"I shall not be at West Point. Magnus, do stop fooling and let me go."
+
+"Bid me good-night, then."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+"I mean the way we said good-bye."
+
+"That is the way I said good-bye," Cherry answered.
+
+"It wasn't the way _I_ said good-bye," said Magnus. "_This_ was
+the way. And this is the way I say good-night. Cherry, you are a
+transparent fraud."
+
+"But you must go," Cherry urged, very grave and quiet now. "If you do
+not go, you never can come again!" she added, as a last argument.
+
+"What a wise girl! I believe she could tackle warped surfaces."
+
+"Are they any harder to manage than you are?" said Cherry. "You
+know"--but she checked herself. It would not do to mention her father
+again, even to save his being waked up by all this talking under his
+window.
+
+"Know what?"
+
+"Less than you think," said Cherry coolly.
+
+"The professors have been trying to din that into me for the last two
+years," said Magnus, "but I never thought to have you take it up. What
+were you going to say?"
+
+"I shall not tell you."
+
+"Sugar and spice," quoted Magnus. "Shows what I have to expect at my
+first wild frontier post."
+
+"I can tell you what to expect before that," said Cherry. "If you stay
+here moonshining any longer, you 'will be pale to-morrow,' like your
+namesake in Dickens."
+
+"Then you can hand over some of your pinks," said Magnus. "Besides,
+my dear, I must inform you of a well-known West Point fact: truth
+misapplied ceases to be useful. Mr. Peter Magnus was storing his good
+looks to propound a certain question next day. Whereas I, having
+settled it to-night----"
+
+But just there Cherry made a quick movement of her pretty head, stooped
+under the enclosing arms, and was out of sight in a second.
+
+Magnus ran down the hill, whistling at the top of his power. I am not
+sure that Cherry knew what he whistled; and I doubt if he knew himself;
+but I think it was "The Girl I Left behind Me."
+
+"My dear boy," said Mrs. Kindred, as her cadet came in, "you forget
+that it is night in these Western regions. Have you been round the
+neighbourhood whistling people up?"
+
+Magnus threw himself down on the floor at her feet.
+
+"Mammy, if you'd not been allowed to whistle for two years, you would
+know how good it feels."
+
+"Not allowed to whistle? What could comfort you?" said the mother,
+laying her hand caressingly on his head. "Well, I suppose if three
+hundred boys got to whistling, the effect might be rather powerful."
+
+"What kept you so long, boy?" said Rose.
+
+"Cherry. She is a rather slow girl, sometimes."
+
+"She isn't!" cried Violet. "_Never!_ She is just the quickest girl
+going."
+
+"Cherry--as I have found her," said Magnus gravely.
+
+"Do all cadets tell fibs?" inquired Rose.
+
+"Unless I am a shining exception, they do."
+
+"Well, do they all look like you?" said Violet.
+
+"Making allowance for the difference of men," said Magnus, with easy
+assurance.
+
+"What are those things on your arm for?"
+
+"Rank, power, and responsibility. They are not 'things,' they are
+chevrons."
+
+"What's the sense of cutting your hair so short?"
+
+"So as to see better how to skin us for 'too much shirt collar,'"
+replied Mr. Kindred.
+
+"Girls," said the mother, "you must really let him go to bed. I do not
+think he half knows what he is about."
+
+"Don't I, though!" cried Magnus, springing up. "Just one hour and a
+half ago tattoo beat, and I wasn't there to hear it."
+
+And once more the cap did duty in the air, as Magnus gave a tolerably
+quiet version of the class yell.
+
+"Go, child," his mother repeated, smiling at him.
+
+"Yes, I must," said Magnus. "Cherry said I should be pale to-morrow. It
+is worth while going to sleep, with no reveille gun ahead."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+OFF LIMITS
+
+    Forgotten the sounds of drum and fife,
+    Forgotten the winter days so drear;
+    But all was keen with the glad new life
+    That throbs in the veins in the furlough year.
+
+    --_Howitzer of 1891._
+
+
+It was just like the cross grain of human nature that without a sound
+but the singing of birds to rouse him, our young soldier should wake up
+at precisely reveille gun time. In fact he did it for three days, to
+his great disgust; and then, as he said of himself, learned to know how
+happy he was.
+
+Of course, this first morning at home, with everything before him
+except drills and regulations, going to sleep again was impossible.
+
+So with the sublime unconsciousness of other people's slumbers which
+marks young men of his age, Magnus lay still and began to whistle. And
+with that other line of forgetfulness which shows the inferiority of
+the feminine mind, there was not a woman in the house but would have
+given her best sleep to hear him.
+
+They were not asleep, however, but up and stirring; and it was perhaps
+some closing door or opening window, or the long unheard voice of the
+coffee mill, which reminded Cadet Kindred that in these regions there
+was no preparatory drum; and that such a noise as he had been making
+would quite rule out the thought of any private suggestions at his
+door. Wherefore, he had better get up. But what fun--to dress as he
+liked, in what he liked, and be as long as he liked about it.
+
+With these thoughts came another to hasten his motions: would Cherry
+come to breakfast? And if she did, then just when would she come? And
+here Magnus paused before a piquant illustration of the young lady
+herself, drawn from memory--or, as the _real_ novelists put it, "which
+had been photographed on his heart in one brief moment." And thus it
+seemed:
+
+A tall, delicately formed girl, with dark hair, which did not crinkle
+and curl like his own, but parted in shining waves and rings; a
+complexion colourless in general, but where the rosy tints came and
+went like a pink cloud, in swift pulsations. The eyes--no, Mr. Kindred
+thought he had not a fair look at her eyes last night, and that was one
+thing to do to-day. Also her hand was a soft and fresh thing to touch.
+And at this point Magnus opened his door and passed out.
+
+On the way downstairs he peeped into his mother's room, but no one
+was there, and he went straight on to a small room on the first floor
+which was a sort of offshoot from the house, and hardly bigger than a
+good-sized bay window.
+
+But the picture he found there Magnus never forgot.
+
+The room had been his father's summer study. Too cold for winter use,
+but in June perfection, with every window open to the air. Roses and
+honeysuckles climbed up and ran across and strayed in; amid the tangle
+birds sang and twittered and builded. Further off were cattle and
+chickens, with an old drum major of a turkey cock strutting before the
+barnyard throng. The scent of hayfields was mingled with the yet rarer
+fragrance of new-mown grass.
+
+If the room had been larger, the minister's old library would have made
+small show; but as it was, the strips of wall between the windows were
+quite well covered. It was a very old affair in every way; leather
+covers much worn with handling, shutting in truths that were but the
+brighter for much believing. Very old-fashioned books. You could not
+find a copy of "Why I am a Doubter"; nor a single treatise on "The
+Eternal Equilibrium of Things." The glad toiler in Christ's vineyard
+had had no use for "The Trammels of Faith, and how I Got beyond Them";
+and as little for "The Proper Sphere and Limit of the Bible, Set Forth
+and Defined."
+
+But there was Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," which the minister
+himself had also preached; with Bunyan's "Holy War between Diabolus
+and the Town of Mansoul," the which he himself had also waged; there
+was "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," upon which he now had entered.
+There was also old Matthew Henry's "Commentary" in its six volumes,
+which gave people so much to do on the plane of the lower criticism,
+that they had small chance to wish for the higher; with Fox's "Book of
+Martyrs," and "Lives of the Port Royalists," and Doddridge's "Rise and
+Progress of Religion in the Soul."
+
+Only two chairs were in the room: one, where inquirers had so often sat
+and troubled hearts found peace, was pushed back now, its service done;
+but the minister's chair still stood by the minister's table where lay
+the minister's Book of books; and in the chair sat the minister's widow.
+
+She was not reading at the moment: I think she had been listening to
+the gay sounds upstairs; and a tender, happy smile was on her lips,
+in perfect keeping with the words on which her eyes had been. But
+everything in that room was in keeping, to Magnus: his mother's cap
+looked to him not a whit purer than her face; nor was the shine outside
+the windows more gladsome than the look she turned to him. The young
+cadet was at her side in an instant, down on his knees with his head on
+her shoulder.
+
+"What waked you up so early, child?"
+
+"The echo of that reveille gun came clear across the Continent for the
+express purpose."
+
+"Hardly. I heard you whistling some time ago."
+
+"Did I disturb you?"
+
+"You could not do that," said the mother.
+
+"But you were reading."
+
+"Thoughts of you are never far away from the Bible, nor the Bible from
+thoughts of you. Where have you been reading this morning, Magnus?"
+
+"I've not been reading anywhere. Mother, do you think I had better run
+up for Cherry? or will she be here all right on time?"
+
+"Time for what?" said Mrs. Kindred, rather opening her eyes at this
+very rapid transit.
+
+"Breakfast."
+
+"Did she say she would come?"
+
+"Why--no," said Magnus. "I took it for granted."
+
+"Never take anything for granted about Cherry, except that she will
+do just what is right. She never goes anywhere, Magnus, until she has
+given her father his breakfast and seen to his morning comfort in every
+way."
+
+"I should think she might come," Magnus said discontentedly. "It's my
+first morning home. He could get along for once."
+
+The mother smiled a little at the wide space demanded by the young
+people in these days, and the side corner deemed enough for the elder;
+but the usurpers are too lovely and beloved to be resisted. And
+besides, there is a sort of "while they can"--that checks many a word;
+the tender, pathetic force of Dr. Bonar's thought:
+
+    "Take thou my place, and be thy feast
+      Sweeter than mine has been!"
+
+"Cherry will not come, Magnus," she said. "She never gets free before
+ten or eleven o'clock. So tell me why you have done no reading to-day."
+
+"Out of the habit," said Magnus. "I never do it in the morning."
+
+"What is your Bible time?"
+
+"Well, if I can be said to have one, it is more apt to be at night,"
+said Magnus. "I don't always read then, but most generally I do."
+
+"At night?" said the mother, carefully hiding all signs of the
+underground shock that made her heart tremble. "I like to read at
+night, too. But then, dear, if you do not read in the morning as well,
+you have no fresh heartful of the blessed words to live by through the
+day." And she looked round at Magnus with such eager, anxious, pleading
+eyes as went straight to his heart. Which truly was not far to seek,
+that morning. He jumped up and put himself in the other chair, drawing
+it up to her.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "let me tell you about it. It's this way. The gun
+wakes me up. And I tumble downstairs half dressed, and declare at the
+top of my voice that I am myself, and nobody else. That is, the first
+sergeant calls 'Kindred!' and I yell back 'Here!' Then I rush in again,
+and tumble into bed, clothes and all, and get the very best nap you
+ever dreamed of."
+
+"Another nap? For how long?"
+
+"Two minutes and a quarter, drum time. Then I finish dressing and go
+to breakfast. And after breakfast, we don't have very much time before
+recitation."
+
+"Cannot you read then?"
+
+"Once in a while I do," said Magnus. "Not always. Maybe I do a little
+boning in math. Maybe I take a walk with the nicest girl there is
+round."
+
+His mother could not help smiling.
+
+"Can you always get the nicest?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes!" Magnus answered easily; "unless she happens to be somebody
+else's best. Sometimes then. You see, so long as she doesn't look me in
+the face, she can fancy I am her 'best' man."
+
+"Why, Magnus!" his mother said, half laughing now, but really anxious;
+"how do you behave, to make that possible?"
+
+Magnus laughed too, with great delight.
+
+"Sure enough," he said, "how do I? Maybe I go through the motions."
+
+And now it was Mrs. Kindred who, after a moment's pause, changed the
+subject.
+
+"Look, dear," she said, laying her hand on the open Bible, "I was
+reading just here: the parable of the sower. And my thoughts had been
+going back and forth from the seed which the fowls of the air were let
+pick up, to that other which fell in an honest and good heart, and
+'with patience,' brought forth an hundred-fold."
+
+Magnus ran his eyes over the passage.
+
+"There are lots of fowls of the air at the Academy," he said.
+
+"Maybe no more than elsewhere. But they have no business in _your_
+life, Magnus."
+
+"No, mammy, they haven't," he said, hesitating a little with the
+difficulty of making his case plain. "All the same, they come in. I'll
+go to a right down good prayer-meeting Sunday night, and come back
+meaning to be the joy of your heart from that time on. Think I'll go
+straight to bed, so as to be sure and keep good till morning. Well,
+the moon is coming up as I get back to camp, and there is Randolph
+with pink and white gowns in tow; and I stop to speak, and they all
+say: 'Oh, come for a little walk!' I don't want to, and I half turn
+away--and then I go. The prayer-meeting isn't all gone by the time I
+get back, but there has been more of it picked up than you'd like."
+
+"Yes," the mother answered, thinking in her heart that she had not
+prayed half enough for her boy in his hard places.
+
+"Why, I've seen a man stay to Communion," Magnus went on, "and when
+we came out, there was Pretty Newcomb waiting for him in the rain, at
+the foot of the Chapel steps. Just walked him off alongside of her
+umbrella--or under it. And what are you going to do?"
+
+"I see. But, Magnus, you said 'Sunday' night. What sort of girls are at
+the Camp Sunday night?"
+
+"Summer girls," said Magnus briefly.
+
+"Well, dear," said the mother, the cheerful tone coming back to her
+voice, "the Lord is 'able to keep you from falling,' even in the most
+difficult places; and to make you 'fruitful to every good work,'
+in spite of all the fowls of the air that ever fluttered down. But
+remember, that on your part the word is: 'Hold fast that which thou
+hast, that no man take thy crown.'"
+
+"I know." But then Magnus remembered something else, and was suddenly
+silent.
+
+And now came a soft, imperative call to breakfast.
+
+"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as the
+mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up at
+him with her true eyes.
+
+"Magnus, _never_ 'go through the motions,' as you call it, with the
+wrong woman. _Never_, as a sham. It dishonours the woman and degrades
+the man, and robs the other woman--the right one--of somewhat that
+belongs to her alone."
+
+"Well, I never really have, mammy," said Magnus gravely; "so make your
+mind easy. And I never shall--unless the right one throws me over. I
+don't know what I'll do then."
+
+And in spite of all previous warning Magnus looked round the breakfast
+room for Cherry, and not finding her, felt very much aggrieved.
+
+There was no lack of talk and laughter, however; the joy of those four
+people in being together was extreme, and of course, the others did not
+miss Cherry, not having expected her, but Magnus did. The reserved,
+dainty girl had taken him by storm. They had always been inseparable
+as children, and as true boy and girl, though never with any freedom
+on her part, even then, that passed the prettiest bounds. Now she had
+stepped off a little, regarding him from a safer grown-up distance,
+and Magnus was wild to annihilate both time and space, and whatever
+else came in his way. She had bloomed out into something much rarer
+than he knew could be in the world, and Cadet Kindred surrendered at
+discretion, and without a summons. I believe he found that last fact
+the crowning charm. If Cherry had held forth her little finger to draw
+him on, or had in any way shortened that new indefinable distance
+between him and her, I think Magnus would have struck off a percentage
+from her perfections. It vexed and bewitched him equally.
+
+So the young man sat opposite the open window, where the smoke from the
+other house curled softly into view, and thought himself ill-used and
+happy in about half and half mixture. He watched the winding path, but
+it remained empty. Then he looked at his sisters; how handsome they
+were, too! Splendid girls, both of them; and wouldn't they make a stir
+in first-class camp? Of course his mother had always been perfection.
+And here his eyes came round to her, with a smile of such joyful love
+and content that poor Mrs. Kindred was very near making a goose of
+herself, as she would have phrased it. What it was to have her boy home
+again!
+
+"But I cannot see why they don't move down here!" Magnus broke forth
+irrelevantly. "Living on there all by themselves in that stupid old
+house."
+
+"Stupid?" cried Violet. "Why, it's the very prettiest house in all the
+State."
+
+"You had best not let Cherry hear you say such things," remarked Rose.
+"She loves that house with all her heart."
+
+"Stuff!" said Magnus. "She'll have to leave it some time."
+
+"She will not while her father lives," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Why, mother, girls do it every day."
+
+"Girls--but not Cherry," the mother answered; and Magnus was so charmed
+with the saying, and the fair little pedestal on which it placed his
+heart's delight, that he adopted it for a private phrase of his own;
+used many times afterwards, it may be said, when "girls--but not
+Cherry," were around.
+
+"Then, when she will not come, you go to her?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, she always comes," said Violet; "some time in the day."
+
+"Some time in the day!"
+
+"According to what she has to do. Only letter days she always came
+early, and left the work till she got back."
+
+"Some of it," corrected Rose. "But there's no letter due from Magnus
+to-day, you know, so we cannot tell when she will be here."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" said Mr. Kindred, pushing back his chair.
+"Coming to hear my letters, and not coming to see me!"
+
+"Well, the letters were very interesting, you know----" Violet began,
+and then thought it prudent to vanish.
+
+"But, my dear," said Mrs. Kindred, "as you must of course go up there
+this morning yourself before you pay any other visits, I do not see how
+it really matters."
+
+"No, of course," said Magnus briskly. "Oh, mammy, I wish you'd pick out
+a lot of such easy duties for me."
+
+"We cannot go with you," said Rose, "because we also have something to
+do; but we will come after you. You must wear your cadet clothes for
+Mr. Erskine."
+
+So Magnus put himself in trim, and charging his sisters not to hurry on
+his account, and promising faithfully to wait till they came, began to
+mount the hill. Good for him the girls were busy--and yet, suppose that
+other girl were hid away in some part of the house to which Rose and
+Violet could go, while he could not?
+
+Magnus whistled his thoughts down the wind, as he went on, and then,
+with a sudden fancy to approach unnoticed, hushed his tones and even
+his steps, and went in, seeing nobody. Through the hall to the back
+door--and there got another picture to think of in barracks.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+ON EXHIBITION
+
+    Wise men always
+    Affirm and say,
+    That best is for a man
+    Diligently
+    For to apply,
+    All business that he can.
+
+    --SIR T. MORE.
+
+
+The Red House had been set very near the branch road by which he came
+up, and in front there was only a short path and a bit of greensward,
+but at the back lay a big old-fashioned garden, sloping gaily down
+towards a bit of woodland and a talkative brook.
+
+Overlooking all this was a very wide porch with sashes on all sides
+which could be shut, but which on this warm still morning were all slid
+back. The porch within was full of flowers, with various rustic holders
+to hang and to stand and to rest on the sills, a wonderful basket of
+lilies of the valley being the centre piece on the breakfast table.
+
+There were traces in the house of other days and more Eastern regions,
+and the little spider-legged table was dark with long years of service,
+the spoons were slim-stemmed and delicate, the dishes of exquisite blue
+and white.
+
+But the dishes held very simple viands: bread, milk, wheat, with fruit
+and flowers, were about the whole, for some hurts or injuries dating
+back to the war time had slowly brought Mr. Erskine to a semi-invalid
+state, and Cherry wanted nothing but what her father had.
+
+I have told you nothing about Mr. Erskine--and yet he was a very
+noticeable man. Hair whitened more with sorrow than years (it had
+changed suddenly upon the death of his wife), cheeks where the native
+red still lingered, setting off the look of extremely delicate health,
+with features refined and above-board in every line. The eyes were both
+soft and flashing, the smile--once the merriest in the world--now never
+lost its shade of pathos. Everything about the man was refined, the
+daintily cared-for hand, the plain, scrupulously neat dress. Across one
+edge of the placid brow a red scar swept down and hid itself among the
+thick locks of frosted hair, and now, as you looked further, you could
+see that the right hand had lost its mate, and the left sleeve hung
+empty.
+
+With one hand resting lightly on that shoulder and kneeling at her
+father's side, Cherry read to him from a book laid open on the table,
+while Mr. Erskine was slowly finishing his plate of strawberries,
+dipping them, one by one, in the white sugar. Now and then a word of
+question, of comment, of explanation, passed between the two, with
+heads lifted and eyes meeting each other, then the reading went on
+again.
+
+This was what Magnus saw; and though he made out no words, the mere
+tones of Cherry's voice seemed to him as sweet as any bird or brook
+or leaf-stir in the whole morning concert; and I know not how long he
+might have stood there in the shadows of the hall, if little Snip, the
+terrier, being officer in charge and scenting mischief, had not rushed
+in from the garden on a tour of keen inspection coupled with much
+comment. Cherry rose quickly to her feet, Magnus stepped out upon the
+porch, and catching hold of her hand, as he went by, dropped down upon
+one knee by Mr. Erskine, in laughing glee at his astonishment.
+
+"Magnus!" he cried. "My dear boy, is this you? Can it be possible!" The
+one arm came round the boy and drew him close.
+
+"So this is what made you stumble over your report of last night," Mr.
+Erskine went on, turning to Cherry; "you were hiding a secret." Cherry
+blushed scarlet.
+
+"Did I stumble, papa?" she said, carrying off the dishes.
+
+"Very much, for you. Well, my boy, there is no need to ask you how you
+are. Stand off there, and let me have a good look."
+
+"I didn't mean to come in war paint, sir," said Magnus, as he obeyed;
+"but they said at home you would want to see it."
+
+"Of course I do. Well, they certainly turn out--showy fellows over
+there." Mr. Erskine hesitated over his adjective, as if to choose a
+safe one. Cherry bit her lips, Magnus laughed and coloured too.
+
+"They try for it," he said; "but we hope to be useful also, some day,
+Mr. Erskine."
+
+"Of all the 'some days' for being useful, I have ever found to-day the
+very best. Sit down and give an account of yourself. Let the cloth
+wait, Cherry. I suppose you want to hear it all, too. Unless you heard
+it last night."
+
+"No, indeed, sir," said Magnus. "I did not have a chance to tell her
+half." This with a glance at Cherry, which she did not mean to see.
+
+"Papa," she said, "it will take but a minute to finish the table, and
+then we can listen so much better."
+
+"Have your own way, love," her father answered, smiling. "My dear
+love!" he said under his breath, watching her. Then he turned to Magnus.
+
+"Of course we know a good deal about you," he said, "for we have read
+and reread your letters, but I think I can understand them better now.
+And so these are the famous bell buttons?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the regulation sort."
+
+"Truly, they are pretty bright," said Mr. Erskine, with an amused
+smile. "Are the coats still pocketless?"
+
+Cadet Kindred disclosed the hiding place of his handkerchief.
+
+"I should call that hard lines," said Mr. Erskine. "Your mother gave us
+a description when she came home, and I rather think Cherry cried over
+it. 'What _will_ Magnus do without pockets?' she said. 'Because, you
+know, papa, if there was ever anything he did _not_ have in his pocket,
+it was only what he could not find.' Do you remember, love?"
+
+"Papa," said Cherry, much abashed at both the story and the laugh it
+brought, "I think it is enough to have said silly things without having
+them repeated."
+
+She fetched her work basket, and placing herself at the other side of
+her father, took out some bit of white stuff, and began to fold and
+hem with great speed and dexterity. Magnus watched her, wishing it
+were something for him. He had now and then seen a girl with a crochet
+needle in these two years, or straining her eyes over a piece of mussed
+unhappy looking drawnwork, but everything about Cherry and her basket
+was as fresh as the morning. Her strip of muslin might have just come
+from the shop, and have gone straight back there again, for all the
+disturbance it had from her neat handling.
+
+"Yes, she's a busy child," said Mr. Erskine fondly, noting where the
+eyes were bent; "busy and sweet as the day is long. But come, Magnus,
+draw up your chair, and let us have the story. Of course, as I said,
+we have heard a great deal, but we want the whole thing now, don't we,
+love? Do you wear all that finery every day?"
+
+"Yes sir, except when nobody is supposed to see us. We have an ugly,
+comfortable blouse for study, and meals, and recitations. With fatigue
+suits, of course, for drills."
+
+"Look your worst at recitations, hey? I should think it good policy to
+look your best."
+
+"Wouldn't make any difference with those old buffers," said Magnus.
+"They don't care if you fess perfectly frigid. They'd just as soon give
+you zero as anything else."
+
+Mr. Erskine's mouth took on a quizzical look.
+
+"Sounds like cold weather, doesn't it, love?" he said. "But let us go
+on regularly. Suppose it was term-time, how would your day begin?"
+
+"With the gun, always, sir. Unless I am boning math. and have waked
+myself up for early study. I'm too much of a sleepyhead to do it often."
+
+"Best not; you need the sleep."
+
+"Yes, but when you want to max it, and have been getting two-nine for
+three days running, you see that will not do," said Magnus. "And I will
+not bugle; and I can't fudge worth a cent."
+
+The comical look passed into a laugh this time, low and very pleasant,
+Cherry joining in, after a vain attempt to keep herself quiet.
+
+"Next in prominence to the gun comes breakfast, I suppose," said Mr.
+Erskine.
+
+"Yes, breakfast--slumgudgeon stew, and the rest of it," said Magnus.
+"But the bread and butter and milk are always good. They've taken
+to calling the roll after breakfast, as well as before, in case
+slumgudgeon should have laid some slain man under the table. Then comes
+a bit of release from quarters. If I've been fizzling lately, maybe I
+put in the time on French; but I am more apt to take a walk."
+
+"That is well," said Mr. Erskine. "A brisk walk puts the brain in good
+order."
+
+"It's not always a brisk walk, though," said Magnus. "Most often I go
+dawdling along with some girl."
+
+And now Cherry was so still that only the swift-flying needle seemed to
+move. Mr. Erskine looked amused.
+
+"I should think that a poor preparing for the section room," he
+said. "Can't be helped if it is," said Magnus. "There's such a lot
+of girls--and summer girls--about, it takes every minute you can get.
+Chappy comes up and says: 'Kin, just give my sister a walk, will you?
+Awfully nice girl, but if I don't bone a little I'll be found in
+French, sure guns. And besides, my best girl is here.' So I go. Then
+Miss Beguile says: 'Oh, Mr. Kindred! I've _never_ seen Fort Putnam.
+Please take me!'"
+
+How they both laugh at him--Cherry holding back a little, then letting
+her merry notes ring in.
+
+"That sounds stringent," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you notice, love, his
+fine distinction between 'girls' and 'summer girls'? That is something
+we simple people know nothing of. By the way, I suppose _you_ must be a
+summer girl--as he never sees you in the winter."
+
+"If anyone ever dares call her a summer girl," said Mr. Kindred
+promptly, "I'll knock him down quicker than he ever had it done before."
+
+"Hands off! I'll not call her so," said Mr. Erskine, laughing. "She is
+an everyday girl, and better each time. But Magnus, suppose _your_ best
+girl happens to be also on hand?"
+
+"She never is, sir. She has not been at the Point since I went there."
+
+"Hard on you, if she went there before; you speak as if she were a
+fixed fact. Do you know, Magnus, I am rather sorry to hear that."
+
+"Why, sir?" demanded Magnus, noting the pulsating colour in the fair
+face bent over the needlework.
+
+"Well, when I thought of it, I hoped you would keep clear of all such
+entanglements till you knew what you wanted."
+
+"I did, sir."
+
+"Oh, of course! I beg pardon; I should have said till you had seen a
+little more of the world."
+
+"Do you think the world is the place to choose, sir?"
+
+Mr. Erskine smiled, half sorrowfully.
+
+"I have only an old matchlock," he said, "and cannot cope with you
+young sharpshooters. But my boy, what I meant was this. When the boy
+goes off to college and grows into new mental strength and riches,
+and the girl stays at home and gets not half a chance, poor child, to
+do anything but wash dishes or (now do not glower at me) perhaps does
+not wish for higher things, then the man comes home raised to a plane
+where she is not fitted to stand by his side, and she can never be the
+helpmeet for him that she should."
+
+Magnus listened respectfully; watching that lovely, flitting colour, it
+was not hard to sit still.
+
+"You think," he said, "that some girls wouldn't amount to much at a
+one-company post. When a man was hard up for comrades?"
+
+"Not unless they were 'best girls' in truth."
+
+"Oh, well, mine is," said Magnus confidently, "the very bestest sort.
+I don't know how much she knows--but if I stay at the Academy two
+years longer I shall have a stuffed head, full enough to lend on every
+occasion. Besides, it's not needful for a man's peace of mind that his
+wife should understand wave motion, is it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Erskine laughed at him, and Cherry laughed too, though now
+colouring furiously.
+
+"I suppose it is not needful," her father said, not noticing her,
+"unless in practice. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you.
+I had a friend, Magnus, who got entangled, as I call it, very early,
+went away to college, and when he came back with all his honours, his
+mother forbade the bans on that distinct plea; she said the girl was
+too ignorant. I think my friend would have gone straight on through it
+all, but the girl was not of that sort. She refused to enter any family
+by the side door. So they waited, the engagement was virtually broken,
+and years went by. Then the mother died, the man sought his old love
+and married her. But Magnus, the girl had spent those years not in
+lamenting, not in flirting, but in solid, hard study. So that when at
+last they went forth in life together she had passed him, and was the
+better educated of the two."
+
+What was Cherry laughing at? For while the cheeks had not all cooled
+down, the lips had parted in but half-controlled curls of fun.
+
+"Well, if she was proficient in warped surfaces, I hope they enjoyed
+talking it over in their play-spells," said Magnus. "I've no use for
+some of those things, they sift out too many good men. We all felt bad
+to have Chuck go."
+
+"Finished his course?" said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"At West Point, sir; graduated at the wrong end, dropped. He did
+everything to stay; ran a light after taps, cut society, and sat night
+after night with his feet in cold water and his hands in his hair
+(what there was of it)," Magnus added in parenthesis. "But nothing did
+any good; he'd go next day and fess on a clean board. 'Mr. Simpkins,'
+the instructor asked him one day, 'are you as stupid at drill as you
+are in the section room?' And Chuck turned with the blandest face and
+answered: 'Nigh on to it, Lieutenant!' And he was."
+
+How the listeners laughed again.
+
+"But that was Simpkins," Cherry remarked. "You said 'Chuck.'"
+
+"'Chuck' was his cadet name."
+
+"Do they name everyone?" asked Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Very generally. But some names go with the office. The fattest man in
+the class is 'Tubs,' and the oldest 'Daddy'; while the cleanest-face
+man in all the Corps may be 'mud,' because his pred. or his resemblance
+owned the name. 'Deacon' and 'Squire', 'Mile-High' and 'Shorty',
+'Pretty Jones' and 'Lady Crane.'"
+
+"What is yours?" said Cherry.
+
+"Only 'Kin'; sometimes with the 'Kith' added. Do you see?"
+
+"I see that you are a very wide-awake set of boys," said Mr. Erskine.
+Cherry slowly pulled off her thimble.
+
+"Papa," she said, "I sent word that they must all come here to dinner,
+and it is time for me to go and see to things."
+
+"I will come and help," said Magnus.
+
+"Thank you, no," Cherry answered him gaily. "Housekeeping is one of the
+few things you have _not_ studied. Stay and talk to your mother, she is
+just here."
+
+So while the two girls followed Cherry, the other three people sat
+talking over many things, the two elders closely scanning the young
+cadet; and he, all unconscious of their scrutiny, showing himself
+just as he was in truth. Certainly the stories and pranks he rattled
+off were full of mischief, and as surely they gave small token of a
+reverent respect for regulations. But there was no taint of anything
+mean or low, no word that savoured of "conduct unbecoming an officer
+and a gentleman." The mother breathed freer with every new light thrown
+upon his West Point life, and felt that her boy had come back to her
+pure as he had gone away. The eyes of the two old friends met in
+joyful sympathy time and again, as Magnus talked and told, and their
+laughter had no reserve of anxious questioning. And when at last Magnus
+detailed himself to go and look after the girls and dinner, Mr. Erskine
+stretched out his hand to the happy mother.
+
+"He is a splendid fellow," he said; "a grand boy! I congratulate you
+with all my heart."
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+SKIRMISHING
+
+    O wha can prudence think upon,
+      And sic a lassie by him?
+    O wha can prudence think upon,
+      And sae in love as I am?
+
+    --_Old Song._
+
+
+Magnus, meanwhile, with quite as much of the "boy" as the "grand"
+about him, despite his inches, tiptoed off along passages and through
+doorways that he knew by heart, following the hum of voices. So
+presently came out into the small summer kitchen, where a pleasant
+smell of good cookery steamed and puffed and whiffed from various
+vessels within and upon the stove. Dishes stood ready on the table,
+with white-covered pans of rolls just waiting to be baked, but save the
+old cat, winking and blinking by the oven door, there was nobody in
+charge.
+
+Magnus gave her a toss up in the air for old times' sake, peeped
+cautiously out at the broad back steps, then let himself easily down
+through the open window and came round the other way upon the scene of
+the sweet chatter that was going on.
+
+The three girls were on the steps, Rose and Violet hulling
+strawberries, while Cherry in a wide check apron, sat on the lowest
+step of all with a basket of lettuce at her side, picking over the
+fresh green leaves, and dropping them into a pan of cold water. A thick
+clump of lilac bushes served as a screen.
+
+"Do you know," Rose was saying, "I cannot believe it, yet. I think I
+cried for joy a little bit, when I waked up in the night and remembered
+that Magnus was really here."
+
+"And doesn't he look well?" said Violet; "and isn't he a beauty?"
+
+"Do not tell him that," Cherry answered with discretion. She would have
+given a ready enough answer a week ago, but somehow, with the continent
+no more between them, the young damsel had grown wary.
+
+"I'm afraid everybody else will tell him," said Rose. "But he is not
+spoiled a bit _yet_. Don't you think so?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+It was a very mild way of giving her estimate, and Cherry scolded
+herself that she could not answer freely, as she had always done;
+called herself to account for the shyness which had sprung into life
+with, indeed, the very first coming of that photograph.
+
+"I am such a goose!" poor Cherry thought, bending down low over the
+lettuce basket. "What shall I do to myself? If only he had not acted so
+last night!"
+
+And just here, by way of composing matters, two hands came softly round
+her head, and were laid lightly and respectfully upon her eyes. It was
+one of his old teasing ways with her.
+
+Cherry's start passed almost into a tremor. She put up her hands to
+remove the obstruction, and they were taken and held fast; and what
+more Magnus might have dared had there been no witnesses, will never be
+known.
+
+Cherry lifted her face, trying to speak sternly.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "you have not improved one bit. I thought West
+Point was to make a man of you--or a better man--or something."
+
+"It has made 'something' of me," he retorted, gazing down at her. "Give
+you three guesses."
+
+"Too much else to do. Set that pan of lettuce on the table, please.
+Don't you see how busy I am?" And Cherry drew towards her a basket of
+green peas and began to shell with all her might.
+
+"I see it--to the depths of my heart," Magnus answered as he did her
+bidding. "Here, Viola, give us your apron. If I don't sit down and help
+this girl, I shall have her fainting away on my hands."
+
+"No, you will not," Cherry said very decidedly.
+
+But Magnus spied a spare apron on a nail, and, tying it carefully round
+his neck, he put himself down on the doorstep, and dived in among the
+pea pods. Always taking, if he could, the very one of which Cherry had
+laid hold, and then dropping that and seizing her fingers, and then
+mysteriously scattering the peas from his own hands or shaking them
+out of hers, so that the rolling things had to be sought on all sides.
+Which last process Cadet Kindred pursued so zealously that more than
+once his face and Cherry's shining locks came very near together.
+
+The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two
+had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough
+to play, and to see it all go on again in the old fashion was too good
+for anything. Of the subtile difference that had crept in, their young
+eyes took no note. And Cherry herself tried hard to ignore it, laughing
+with the rest, and very well holding her own, but dimly conscious all
+the while that things she would have ventured once, she did not venture
+now.
+
+"Boy, why do you tie that string round your neck?" said Rose. "Have you
+forgotten how aprons are worn?"
+
+"A lost art. But this is the improved style, which I mean to introduce
+at West Point. I cannot see how the Tactical Department has overlooked
+aprons so long. We're too young to know when to wear overcoats, so
+aprons to keep our trousers clean would be just the thing. I'll
+introduce them."
+
+"When you go back, I suppose," said Rose sarcastically. "I'll lend you
+mine for a pattern."
+
+"When I go back as Com.," Magnus answered with dignity. "When I am Com.
+and Cherry is Supe. _then_ you'll see."
+
+"You could see now, if you would look," said Cherry, as a podful of
+peas rolled down the step.
+
+"I am looking with all my eyes.--And they dare to call you a summer
+girl!" Magnus broke forth, watching the lovely pink cloud of colour
+that came and went with such swift changes.
+
+"Will you _please_ tell us what a summer girl is like?" said Violet.
+"She has danced about a good deal in your letters, but we everyday
+people don't know what she is. Come, boy, describe her."
+
+"Her!" Magnus repeated. "She is to the full as plural as she is
+singular."
+
+"Many of them at West Point, are there?" said Rose.
+
+"Car loads; stunning, too, as they can be, some of them. Take your
+breath away. Say, girls, where's the old banjo? In existence yet?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes," said Rose. "Only no one has played it since you went
+away."
+
+"And it is here, too," said Violet. "Mother made us bring it this
+morning, because she was sure Mr. Erskine would like to hear you sing."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew _she_
+couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss
+Erskine first. About her namesake--and some other things."
+
+He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the
+doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the
+peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was
+softly beating to a stiff froth. The other girls had finished their
+berries, and sat near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed
+over clover and mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen.
+Behind him, Magnus could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went
+on within the house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long,
+plaintive moo, and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the
+wealth that came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head
+against the doorpost and listened.
+
+"That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold of
+him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls
+watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose
+bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and
+scents from hayfields and hills--it came upon Magnus Kindred like a
+spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the
+graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then
+sang out from the depths of his heart:
+
+    "Home, home! Sweet, sweet home,
+    O there's no place like home!
+    There is no place like home."
+
+Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had indeed
+never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices which can
+never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two years he
+had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and sweetened
+it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls.
+
+The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before;
+Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat
+in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there
+came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music,
+and--and--everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her breast
+as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at the
+singer, and then could not take her eyes away.
+
+As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his wont,
+being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things. From
+"Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"--back and forth as the band had done--so
+went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up some special
+association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful eyes that were
+fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their handkerchiefs.
+
+    "We twa hae paidlet in the burn,
+      Frae morning sun till dine;
+    But we've wandered mony a weary fit,
+      Sen auld lang syne."
+
+"That is just what we did, Cerise--do you remember? And just what I
+have done, since."
+
+"But oh, Magnus!" she cried, "were you so homesick as that?"
+
+"Homesick? Your blue apron is rose-colour to it."
+
+"I am glad we did not know," Cherry said with a long breath, beginning
+slowly to beat her cream. "You were very good not to tell."
+
+"And did nobody help you or speak to you?" questioned the two young
+sisters, coming up nearer to sit at his feet.
+
+"I had help enough," said Magnus, softly twanging the strings of his
+banjo. "Everybody from the Com. to the third-class corporals bade me
+brace up. And if I wanted a lonely walk in the open air on Saturday, I
+had only to wear my hair long and dishevelled as a sign of grief, and
+they'd give to me without asking. And if I dead-beat and went to the
+Hospital to get a chance to mope a little, Dr. Pestle would give me
+some compound to _make_ me sick, lest I should lose my time and be down
+there for nothing. The Tacs were so afraid I should 'wet my couch with
+briny tears' that they made me keep the old thing tight rolled up till
+bed time. I was too tired to cry, then."
+
+"Queer help," said Rose.
+
+"The best that could be, Rosy. They made me mad, and then I was all
+right."
+
+"I should call that poor comfort," said Violet.
+
+"Nothing like it, however," said Magnus. "Dries up your feelings
+quicker than fourteen pocket-handkerchiefs. You owe the world one, and
+you mean to live till you pay it. So suicide can wait."
+
+"Magnus, I wish you would not talk so," Cherry said appealingly.
+
+"Now there is Cerise," Magnus went on. "If I could once make her
+thoroughly angry with me, she wouldn't mind anything else that
+happened. The thing is how. I haven't found out yet."
+
+"And you never will," said Rose. "You cannot do it."
+
+"I cannot, hey? That is good to know. Gives me great freedom of action.
+I'll store up the information for future use."
+
+"What makes you call her Cerise?" said Rose.
+
+"Practising my French. Of course I never thought of her in common
+English when I was away."
+
+"Cherry, he cannot be with you five minutes without beginning to
+tease," said the girls, laughing. "He is the very same boy he always
+was."
+
+"I think he has made good progress in the art of telling fibs," said
+Cherry in turn.
+
+"Fibs!" Magnus repeated, with much unworded scorn. "You'll see about
+that. I mean to tell the truth while I am home now, if I never do
+again." And with the most funny, rollicking tone Mr. Kindred caught up
+his banjo and dashed off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me"; rattling it
+out, throwing in recitative here and there, and putting such spirit
+and vim into the performance that now the girls all laughed till they
+nearly cried again; but this time Cherry kept her eyes on her cream.
+
+Then quick and easily as the band had done, Magnus dropped once more
+into the plaintive burden of:
+
+    "Home, home; sweet, sweet home;
+    There is no place like home,--
+    There is no place like home."
+
+But now, when he stopped playing, his two sisters came round him
+caressing him, hanging upon him, and even Mrs. Kindred looked in from
+the other room and said:
+
+"Magnus, don't play that any more. You break my heart. I shall never be
+able to let you go back again."
+
+Magnus laid the banjo aside.
+
+"Don't fret now, mammy," he said. "It has been pretty tough, but the
+worst is over."
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+A MORNING TALK
+
+    Hope rules a land forever green:
+    All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
+      Are confident and gay.
+    Clouds at her bidding disappear;
+    Points she to aught? The bliss draws near,
+      And fancy rules the way.
+
+    --WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+That was a wonderful day. But it may be remarked, that Mr. Kindred went
+home more than ever discontented with the length of the hill.
+
+"Living up there," he said, "when we are all down here. It is too bad.
+How many times a month does Cherry walk down here in the sun?"
+
+"She need not walk in the sun," said the girls, laughing at him. "There
+is shade all the way if she wants it. Why, she comes every day, you
+foolish boy."
+
+"At what hour, generally, you foolish girl?"
+
+"Oh, all sorts of times," said Violet; "after breakfast, and before
+dinner, and after tea. But they are both coming down to-day to dine
+with us."
+
+"I think I will just go up and make sure they understand that," said
+Magnus. "Cherry does not always take up an idea as quick as she might."
+
+And away he dashed out of the house and began to double-time it up the
+hill, the three women at home watching from the window in admiring joy.
+
+"He is the best looking fellow that ever was," said Rose. And the
+mother answered as Cherry had done:
+
+"Yes, but do not tell him so."
+
+Then the girls laughed.
+
+"Oh, mother," they cried, "you do it, every time you look at him."
+
+Magnus meanwhile sped lightly up the hill. He had his reasons for
+liking to go at this particular time; the picture yesterday was too
+lovely for him not to long to see it again, and it might be that
+Cherry read to her father every morning. Then what was the book?
+Cherry had closed it so suddenly upon his coming, that he caught no
+glimpse of the inside; but the outside stirred his curiosity. It was
+an old book, bound in the dainty old-time vellum, once marked and
+embossed with gold; but that was much faded and worn away. It did not
+look like a Bible, and yet that, Magnus felt, was the correct thing
+for Cherry--such a girl as she was--to be reading to her father at
+breakfast time. Other people's duties are marked out in such very
+distinct lines that even colour blindness is rarely doubtful over them.
+
+But no murmur of voices met him, as he paused at the front door; and
+something warned him to go quietly round the house to the steps that
+ran down into the garden. And sure enough, he had his picture, but a
+different one this time.
+
+A little white-covered tray on the upper step held bread and milk and
+berries, and on the step below sat Cherry, with a book in her lap. She
+jumped up at the sound of his footfall, and put the book away, coming
+back instantly to her place.
+
+"Mr. Erskine out?" Magnus asked, as he took position at her feet.
+
+"Oh, no, not out. It is one of the days when that old bullet wound
+gives so much trouble that the best thing is to keep quite still."
+
+"You don't read to him, such days?"
+
+"He has had the reading--and he had his breakfast," said Cherry; "but
+he made me come down and take mine in the fresh air."
+
+"And instead of doing it, you fall to reading again," said Magnus,
+reaching up his hand to the milk pitcher and filling her glass. "Please
+to begin at once."
+
+"Please to have some too, then. There are more strawberries on the
+table inside."
+
+"Two breakfasts to-day, against some other morning when I shall have
+none," said Magnus. "What are you waiting for? Something else I should
+get?" For Cherry sat lingering, and had not touched her spoon.
+
+"Well?" Magnus repeated, watching her. He had a spoonful of berries on
+the way to his mouth, and still her hands had not stirred.
+
+"But Magnus--you haven't--will you ask the blessing?" Cherry said.
+
+The berries came down with a rush.
+
+"Go on," he said, with an odd change in his voice. And Cherry bent her
+head and spoke the few sweet words as simply and gladly as if they were
+but a breath of native air. Magnus was stirred more than he cared to
+own.
+
+"Heaven and earth come pretty close together where you are," he broke
+out, eating his berries and forgetting the sugar.
+
+"Where anybody is," said Cherry. "Heaven must be near when the Lord is
+close by, 'with you,' and 'at your right hand.'"
+
+She was all changed this morning; so quiet, so self-possessed.
+
+"Well, you see," Magnus went on impulsively, "one gets out of practice.
+I've not heard a blessing asked for two years, till I came home. Except
+when mother and I had our picnic."
+
+"Not in your Mess Hall?"
+
+"Well, I should say not!"
+
+"But, Magnus----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You can always ask one silently for yourself."
+
+Magnus gave a long groan.
+
+"I believe your flag is sixty feet long," he said. "What do you suppose
+the other three hundred men would say to me?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Not care, I dare say. Well, to begin, they'd give me a silence, just
+as like as not."
+
+"A _what_?"
+
+"A silence. That's what we give a Tac who oversteps bounds, or a
+party of women who are brought in to see the animals feed. There's a
+universal din up to that moment, and then every man drops his knife and
+fork, stops his tongue, and looks. You don't know what silence means
+till you've heard that."
+
+"What a very queer custom! And that is what they might do to you? But
+it could not last long, I suppose, because they would have to eat their
+breakfast."
+
+"No, it would not last long!" said Magnus ironically. "First Rig
+begins: 'Hello, Kin! Most through? Lose your breakfast?' And Crane:
+'Say, Kin! Come and bless what's left on our table.' And Crinkem would
+yell: 'Shut up, and let him alone! He's praying for strength to eat the
+steak.'"
+
+The girl's colour flitted back and forth as he spoke; then her eyes
+lighted up.
+
+"It does not sound pleasant," she said; "but Magnus, if I were you, I
+think I would try it."
+
+"I don't doubt you would," said Magnus, thinking his own thoughts.
+"Sixty feet long in all weathers. But Cerise, besides all that, there
+isn't time. We have but just so many minutes for breakfast, anyhow; and
+while I had my eyes shut, somebody else might get my roll. No great
+gain, but still a loss."
+
+"That would be very sad," said Cherry, with a comical smile. "But
+then, you would enjoy the rest so much better. Magnus," she went on
+seriously, "did you ever think how many faint-hearted Christians there
+may be in the crowd who would take courage from you to do right?"
+
+"And so help me face the silence?"
+
+"It is grand to face wrong things for right reasons!" said Cherry, her
+eyes like two opals, showing their hidden fire. "'And they departed
+from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
+shame for his name.'"
+
+Magnus looked at her.
+
+"Yes, talk to me," he said. "I want all the talking to I can get. But
+I can tell you, Cerise--do you mind my calling you so?"--he broke off
+abruptly.
+
+"Why, no," the girl answered. "It does not sound quite natural."
+
+"Not like old times--no, of course not. Well, would you like Chérie
+better? I think I should," said Mr. Kindred, watching the pink tinges
+with a delightful sense of having the reins in his own hands again. "It
+is more closely descriptive, and just as good for my French."
+
+"You are without question the most absurd boy this side of West Point!"
+said Cherry. "Have you emptied your strawberry basket? I must put these
+things away."
+
+"We must, indeed," said Magnus, handling dishes and bearing them off
+into the house. "You know I have come to take you back with me?"
+
+"Have you! It might have been wise--not to say civil--to state that
+before."
+
+"But I don't want to go," said Magnus. "I'd rather have you all to
+myself here."
+
+"Well, will you please stop practising your favourite wave motion,
+and keep out of my way?" said Cherry, much hindered in her progress by
+finding Magnus before her at every turn.
+
+"Haven't studied it yet,--so there. Now, Cherry, you surely did not
+mind what I said about wave motion?"
+
+"Why should I mind?"
+
+"I mean what I said about women's not needing to learn it."
+
+"If all the men understand it through and through, that might leave
+the women free for other work," said Cherry critically, as if she were
+weighing the case.
+
+"Ah!" said Magnus; "now you are beginning to talk like yourself. I
+haven't half known you since I came home. Tease away, ma Chérie."
+
+"Magnus, don't you want to run upstairs and get papa's tray? He must be
+done with it by this time."
+
+"Why, of course," said Cadet Kindred. "Only--this is the second time
+you have sent me to him,--and as I remarked the other night----"
+
+"I declare!" Cherry exclaimed, giving him a good sight of the fire
+sparks. But then she turned and darted away up some back staircase so
+fleetly and softly that he could not even tell by which way she had
+gone. And when the pursuer by ordinary routes had reached the room,
+Cherry was in calm conversation with her father.
+
+Mr. Erskine was sitting by the window, and certainly looked rather
+surprised at the headlong style in which Magnus rushed in; but smiled
+and shook hands very cordially.
+
+"Cherry sent me to get your tray, sir," the young man explained; "and
+she was so high-strung over my seeming hesitation that, after that, I
+stumbled upstairs as fast as I could."
+
+"I see--chaffing each other as usual," said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Papa," Cherry put in, safely ensconced now behind her father and her
+work basket, "you must not believe one word these cadets say."
+
+"These cadets!" Magnus retorted. "Please to be more personal in your
+remarks. I stand up for the veracity of the Corps."
+
+"And represent it, no doubt."
+
+"I wonder who is wandering into fib-land now," said Magnus. "Mr.
+Erskine, if you take her at her word, and never believe anything I say,
+I shall live to see the day when, with tears in her eyes, she will
+assure you of my perfect truth and reliability."
+
+"Indeed you will not," said Cherry. "Unless you live to be a hundred
+and ten."
+
+Mr. Erskine laughed heartily. Just so had those two been sparring ever
+since they were in leading strings; perfect inseparables, but never
+together ten minutes without getting up a skirmish of some kind.
+
+"I am sorry this is one of your bad days, sir," Magnus went on; "but
+the sun is very bright, as you can see, sir, and the air is soft--you
+can _feel_ that. I like to back up my words when I can. And perhaps you
+will kindly take hold of my arm, sir, and judge if it is likely to give
+way under the weight of your hand down the hill."
+
+"All which means," said Mr. Erskine, "that I am expected by the dear
+people down there?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And I think mother will be disappointed if you don't
+come--but I'll scoot down and get a note from her to say so. And Rose
+will cry out, 'Oh, dear!' and Violet will exclaim, 'Dear me!' At
+least," said Magnus, correcting himself, "it will be something like
+that. Even warped surfaces cannot always help a man to know just what a
+woman will say."
+
+And Cadet Kindred stood back with the air of one who, having just sent
+a shell from the siege battery, and seen it hit the mark, feels that he
+deserves well of his country.
+
+"Why 'warped surfaces'?" said Mr. Erskine, laughing up at the handsome
+young fellow, whom he loved next to his own daughter.
+
+"Uncertain, sir. And incomprehensible. Greatest puzzle I know," said
+Magnus.
+
+"Well," said his friend slowly, "you are a good persuader, Magnus.
+Cherry, you are going, of course."
+
+"If you do, papa."
+
+"Not else? Then I must try. I know you want to see all you can of your
+old playmate. It is better than letters, isn't it, love? I can tell
+you, Magnus, there was no keeping her at home letter day, no matter
+what the weather was."
+
+If Cherry sighed inwardly, "Oh, papa!" she gave no sign.
+
+"I am very happy to hear it, sir," said Magnus, in his stateliest
+tones. "It was beautiful filial devotion in Cherry. Of course she knew
+how anxious you were to know that, as yet, I was out of light prison. I
+hope she never took cold, or injured her health in any way, going out
+in all weathers to relieve your anxiety."
+
+"Truly, it was not all for me," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you remember,
+love, the week when the track was snowed up? and the overdue letter
+that never came at all? Magnus, those were dark days. I believe Cherry
+went down to the other house six times between sunrise and sunset; and
+then when at last the mail-bag came, our letter did not."
+
+"It was very beautiful of her to take so much trouble to quiet your
+mind, sir," said Magnus, watching the swift, pulsating colour in
+Cherry's fair cheek.
+
+"Nay, I took very little of it to myself," said Mr. Erskine, going
+calmly on, as men will, through they know not what. "My heart ached
+for her that day when she came back with her pale face, and said so
+patiently, 'We must wait till to-morrow, papa.' Then at night they all
+came up here; and I had to say over everything I had ever known or
+heard about trains, letters, and--boys. You ought to be a good fellow,
+Magnus, with four such women-hearts watching over you."
+
+"Yes, sir. Don't you think it might further the cause if they told me a
+little more about it?" said Magnus, with an innocent face.
+
+"Papa--he knows quite enough for his good," Cherry remonstrated.
+
+"Yes, and he might not like to hear it all," Mr. Erskine went on, in
+the same unconscious fashion. "Poor little girl! How her voice shook
+when she began to read to me that morning!"
+
+"What did she read, sir?" Magnus questioned, with an odd change in his
+own.
+
+"I think we were in the Revelation just then. Were we not, love?"
+
+"Yes, papa,"--very low.
+
+"Yes, I remember. 'The sea of glass,' and 'them that had gotten the
+victory.' Cherry read it as if she was ready to have the time come."
+
+"Papa!"--it was almost a cry. "Why will you go back and bring that all
+up again? Cannot you find pleasanter things to tell him?"
+
+"No, he cannot, and you know it very well," said Magnus decidedly.
+"Leave fib-land to me. I wish you would show me the very chapter,
+please, Mr. Erskine."
+
+"Hand me the book--there it is, love, on my table."
+
+"I'll bring you another, papa,--" and Cherry went swiftly to the next
+room.
+
+Magnus, however, had his own private reasons for thwarting her whenever
+he could, if it was only in the choice of a book; and before she could
+get back he had brought the other volume to Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Papa, this is better," Cherry said, coming in; but Magnus shook his
+head at her, and she silently came down to her seat again. Then came a
+surprise.
+
+Magnus had been so busy watching her that neither book had had much
+notice. Now, as Mr. Erskine turned the leaves, saying: "Here, this is
+the place," Magnus bent down over his friend's shoulder to look, and
+behold! he could not read one word. It might be the Revelation--but it
+was also Greek. At least, so he supposed.
+
+"Well, which was the book she was reading from that day?" he said,
+looking at Cherry, who now sat perfectly still, with the other
+Testament in her lap and her hands folded upon it. And if it had not
+been impossible, he would have thought she was biting her lips hard to
+keep back a laugh.
+
+"This is the very one," said Mr. Erskine, all unconscious. "She always
+reads in this--we both like it better. It is worn on the outside,"
+he went on, turning the book over and giving the vellum affectionate
+touches, "but I like these old bindings, don't you? The time-stained
+cover for the things which time can neither stain nor wear out. This
+was the book and the place where she read that morning."
+
+"I should like to hear her read it now," said Cadet Kindred, feeling
+considerably dazed.
+
+"Read it to him, love," said Mr. Erskine, giving the old book to her;
+and without raising her eyes Cherry obeyed, but in tones so low, that
+but for their clearness, the eager listener could hardly have caught
+one word. Understand one word he did not.
+
+"Magnificent, are they not?" said Mr. Erskine. "But the English version
+holds its own," he added musingly.
+
+"'And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them
+that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and
+over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of
+glass, having the harps of God.'"
+
+"Yes, that was it. You see, my boy, if you had indeed gotten the
+victory, and passed on into the exceeding glory and the joy, it did not
+so much matter if, for a little space, we broke our hearts down here."
+
+It was a strange, wholesome ten minutes for Cadet Kindred; and I think
+as he stood there looking down at Cherry, he took the measure of his
+smallest storm flag more accurately than he had ever done before. In
+fact he could hardly find it to measure, but seemed to hear the empty
+halyards whipping against the staff. And that girl had been staying her
+heart with the thought of his victory and crown!
+
+"That was the first hard day," said Mr. Erskine; "and the letters did
+not come for a week. What was our next reading, love? Magnus would like
+to hear them all."
+
+But now Cherry's answer burst forth:
+
+"Papa--I cannot!"
+
+The father's hand came tenderly on her head.
+
+"That is too much to ask," he said. "Those days are better out of
+sight. Go and get your hat, love, and we will try to reach our dear
+friends down the hill. Poor little girl!" he said, as Cherry sprang
+away; "it was a very hard time for her. And everybody looked to her for
+comfort. Violet would come up and cry on her shoulder, and Rose would
+beg her to go down and talk to your mother; and Cherry went and came,
+and reasoned and hunted up possible causes, and cheered everybody but
+herself. With a smile always ready, but pale as the winter sunshine.
+You see the lines were down, so that we could not telegraph, and when
+the first train broke through, even then there was no letter. She is a
+brave heart."
+
+"She is the very dearest girl in all the world!" Magnus said eagerly.
+
+"About that," her father answered--"well, love, here you are. Now we
+shall see what this brave young shoulder that is so ready to be useful,
+can do."
+
+"Then, as you will not need me, papa, I will run on ahead," and Cherry
+slipped in among the trees, and was out of sight directly.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE SUMMER GIRL
+
+ No man has complained that you have discoursed too long on any
+ subject, for you leave us in an eagerness of hearing more.
+
+  --DRYDEN.
+
+
+The other two walked slowly on. They had always been cronies, as a man
+and even a small boy can be; and now Magnus found his old friend full
+of the keenest interest in all the new life and varying work of which
+the young cadet had so much to tell. Slowly down the pretty hill they
+went; Mr. Erskine taking from Magnus what help he could for his lame
+side, and the cadet trying to make the regulation step know its place.
+And it was so pleasant to see, so like the dear old times, that the
+four at the cottage dropped everything to watch them as they came. Then
+Mrs. Kindred hurried out to welcome her guest, the two sisters got hold
+of Magnus, and Cherry went quietly back to finish setting the table.
+
+I doubt she was not minding her business too closely, smiling to
+herself over the words and laughter that came past the half-open door
+of the closet where she was sorting out spoons; for she never heard
+what stealthy steps drew near, and her first warning of danger was the
+sudden darkening of the closet by the shutting of the door. Cherry
+sprang towards it just in time to hear the bolt shot and the key
+withdrawn. Then came a struggle outside.
+
+"Oh, Magnus, stop! Cherry is in there!"
+
+"Safe as possible."
+
+"Give me the key! She wants to be out here."
+
+"Then why did she go in?"
+
+"She went for the spoons, you intolerable boy," said Violet.
+
+"Do to talk of," said Magnus coolly. "No, my dear; she went because
+this intolerable boy was around. So you perceive it is very kind of me
+to keep her where she cannot see him. Come, chicks; let's get the old
+banjo, and I'll sing you the 'Song of the Summer Girl.'"
+
+"If you sing one single note when Cherry is not by to hear, we will
+stop our ears," said Rose.
+
+"Then you will not be able to tell her about it afterwards," said
+Magnus. "Come along."
+
+"Well, you cannot have your dinner till we get the spoons," said Violet.
+
+"At West Point we eat with forks--when we have them," said Magnus.
+"When we do not, we take our fingers. Where is that banjo?"
+
+The girls followed him, talking and scolding and threatening to tell
+Mr. Erskine, but Cherry had no idea of waiting for outside help. She
+was a girl of resources, and the case in hand was not very hard. For
+this was an outside lock, simply screwed on; an old knife made a fair
+screwdriver; and, when Magnus had just reached the next room, a soft
+chink made him look round, and there was Cherry, calmly putting the
+spoons in place.
+
+"Where did you come from?" he said, turning back.
+
+"The spoon drawer. Do I understand that West Point cadets scorn both
+spoons and forks?"
+
+"I'll teach you something about West Point cadets, before I go," Magnus
+asserted, stepping towards her.
+
+"How good of you!" said Cherry mockingly, as she slipped round the
+table. "We're such an ignorant set out here. Magnus, if you would
+announce a lecture on warped surfaces, I really think it would draw."
+
+What Magnus would have said or done, and how Cherry might have
+suffered for her temerity, does not appear. Rose came in, bearing
+a dish of such chicken pot-pie as Magnus declared never grew on a
+reservation; Violet followed with potatoes and peas and beets--the
+pretty red, white, and green of the summer garden; and they all sat
+down to dinner. Then Magnus found that he had neither spoon nor fork.
+
+"Why, Violet, how careless," the mother said, as he made known the fact.
+
+"No, mamma, not I."
+
+"Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry, "Magnus said that West Point cadets could
+eat with their fingers, so I thought if he enjoyed it, we should like
+to see how it was done. And it would be one less to wash. And the
+chickens are cut up," she added gravely. Mrs. Kindred laughed.
+
+"If you two are having a fight, I'll keep out," she said. "Go and help
+yourself, Magnus." And this he would have done from Cherry's plate, if
+that young damsel had not laid fast hold of her property; so he took
+Violet's instead.
+
+But it was a delightful dinner: what though the courses were few and
+simple, and the trained waiters only the three girls. Then the two
+elders carried Magnus off to the porch for another talk while the girls
+cleared the table, and then they also came out, bringing the banjo.
+
+"Now for the summer girl!" they cried, and Magnus left his place for
+one on the steps at Cherry's feet.
+
+"_She_ has been called 'a summer girl,'" he said, "and I want to see
+how she likes her portrait. This lay is named: 'The Idle of the Summer
+Girl.'"
+
+"Your writing?" said Rose.
+
+"If you admire it, yes."
+
+"Dear me, child," said Mrs. Kindred, "do they waste your time out there
+writing poetry?"
+
+"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better
+believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what time means if I didn't
+filch a little for my own use, now and then. This is: 'The Idle of the
+Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,' Cadet Rig being the other
+party. All the weak lines are his. There's another touching ditty on
+the same theme, much sung in camp at the time of full moon, but it
+takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from a specimen verse."
+
+Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing
+voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in
+his own:
+
+ _1st Cadet_: "O the Summer Girl has come to town."
+
+ _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
+
+ _1st Cadet_: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail--ing gown."
+
+ _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
+
+ _3d Cadet_: "Steady on that, you haven't got any."
+
+At least four voices cried:
+
+"Go on! Go on!"
+
+"Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony."
+
+"Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet.
+
+"Very much the way."
+
+"And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?"
+inquired Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her
+justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork
+quilt:
+
+    "I sing the song of the Summer Girl;
+      She feels for the lonely cadet.
+    Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams
+      I seem to taste them yet."
+
+("N. B.--The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station probably.")
+
+    "The peaches she threw at my head at drill,
+      The apples she dropped at my feet;
+    The little pound cake that she made me take,
+      First biting, to make it sweet."
+
+"Magnus--she didn't!"
+
+"Rose--she did!"
+
+"And you eat it?"
+
+"Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on Chappy. Robins
+aren't fetched up particular, as I was. Why, that's nothing!"
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of sugar between her teeth
+and comes round offering everybody a bite, that is rather steep."
+
+    "And yet, long life to the Summer Girl!
+      Far be it from me to flout her.
+    She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top,
+      But what could we do without her?
+
+    There were two spoons and a single dish,
+      Two hearts that beat as one;
+    When we sat by the wall before recall,
+      Eating ice cream in the sun."
+
+A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who had
+grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles."
+
+"Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose.
+
+"Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his
+mother.
+
+"Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row?
+Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted
+for one of the blackbirds?"
+
+"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.
+
+"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out of
+anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally
+careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the
+partition wall grows thin."
+
+"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got
+ice cream."
+
+"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets
+gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a
+summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature
+smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country
+store up in business."
+
+"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Contraband sweets of life, sir."
+
+"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.
+
+"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would
+confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em.
+Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the
+hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I do
+not like to have you breaking rules."
+
+"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not make
+'em so fragile."
+
+"If they are fragile, keep off."
+
+"Just can't, mammy. Here we've had breakfast at half past six. Then
+we go head over heels into math. and heels over head into tan bark;
+and not another regulation mouthful to be had till one o'clock. Flesh
+and blood can't stand it, you know. We just _have_ to have a barrel of
+apples handy, and a box of crackers; and any other trifles we can pick
+up."
+
+"A barrel of apples!" said Rose. "And 'smuggled' in! Wherever in the
+world do you keep them?"
+
+"You are going to be such a favourite with the Tacs next summer, I
+think I will not tell," said Magnus.
+
+"Poor starved boy!" said Rose. "And he has been home two whole days,
+and not even half a dish of ice cream, yet."
+
+"I have had all the ice I want, thank you," said Cadet Kindred, looking
+up at Cherry, who as I said, had been very silent while all these other
+girls filled the air. "_Cream_ has been scarce. Perhaps if you two
+would stir up some sort of stuff to-morrow, Cherry would come down and
+freeze it."
+
+"You shall freeze it yourself," said Violet.
+
+"Agreed--with her to help me." And laughing up at her with mischievous
+eyes, Magnus finished his song:
+
+    "But never you trust the Summer Girl,--
+      Or you will find to your sorrow,
+    That just as she smiled on Tubs to-day,
+      She'll smile on Daddy to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+LAYING FOUNDATIONS
+
+ There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to
+ pronounce in any language, but which no man or nation that cannot
+ utter, can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I
+ was wrong.
+
+ --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+The early tea was over, and long shadows were falling as the little
+party broke up. The three girls were still debating what sort of ice
+cream they should make, when just beyond the gate a neighbour, driving
+by, offered Mr. Erskine a seat in his buggy. Then Magnus turned to his
+sisters.
+
+"Stay here, you girls," he said. "I have to speak to Cherry very
+seriously; and I doubt if she likes to be lectured before people. Run
+in."
+
+The girls laughed and obeyed; but perhaps Cherry did not choose to wait
+for lectures, nor mean to have them, for she spoke first. They were
+going slowly up the hill, Magnus falling into the West Point saunter,
+to which Cherry rather unwillingly conformed.
+
+"We are walking very slow," she ventured. "And you used to walk so
+fast."
+
+"West Point style. The very first day they impressed it upon my mind
+that fast walkers want to get somewhere. And, Cerise, just now I do
+not."
+
+"Magnus," she said suddenly, "what did you really mean by a 'storm
+flag'?"
+
+"Ah!" said Cadet Kindred, in a tone of deep satisfaction, "now I have
+got it. I thought it could not be long before Cherry would take me in
+hand."
+
+"But whatever did you mean?"
+
+"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path
+to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what
+was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"
+
+"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get
+it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag
+flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."
+
+Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.
+
+"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never came into
+your true heart. You know what it means to strike your colours?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!"
+
+"And what it is to keep them flying,--for you do it every day."
+
+"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You did not
+like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely flying."
+
+"I meant more than that--or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a storm flag
+is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you think, and so
+you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run up another
+that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that hardly shows it
+is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a good light, you can
+see the colours; but that is about all. It does not encourage the world
+much, and tells of hard weather more than of victory and joy. Do you
+understand now, dear girl?"
+
+Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations of
+colour came and went.
+
+"But, Magnus," she began.
+
+"Yes, Chérie. Say whatever comes into your heart to say."
+
+"Then there is a little short time every now and then when the colours
+are really down?"
+
+"Yes. And the harder the gale, the longer it takes to get them
+up again. It is often slow work, anyhow," said Magnus, with some
+bitterness at himself.
+
+Cherry sat silent, looking down.
+
+"What would happen to the other flag--the big one--if you left it
+flying?" she said.
+
+"In a gale? Go to ribands, probably--the real one."
+
+"Yes, the real one. But that is just what the bullets do to it!" said
+Cherry, her eyes glowing and deepening. "And everybody only loves such
+a flag the better."
+
+"And you love me the less."
+
+The girl started slightly, with the sudden transfer of the subject to
+herself, but she made no answer.
+
+"Speak!" Magnus said, getting hold of her hand and giving it a little
+shake. "Cherry, you've _got_ to speak. Do you?"
+
+"No," she answered slowly; "you know that could not be. We have been
+friends too long. I was a little disappointed, that is all."
+
+I suppose there are few wholesomer views a man can get of himself than
+through the eyes of the right sort of woman; but the wholesome is not
+always the sweet. Cadet Kindred said to himself just then that it was
+extremely bitter. He had been disappointed in himself, of course, more
+than once, but that was another matter. One gives little softening
+touches to one's own private lectures; excusing and explaining. Now,
+this true heart, which he well believed would never flinch in the
+direst extremity, had counted the minutes when the colours were down,
+measured the storm flag, and been "disappointed."
+
+If she had said sharper things, he could have borne it better. Was this
+weak girl going to sail away from him on every tack? This morning she
+had read pages where he knew not a word; this afternoon she was ready
+for the forefront of that life battle where he had at least _thought_
+of dodging behind a tree.
+
+He sat looking down, slowly swinging her hand back and forth, thinking
+of the days and times when he had trained with the wrong crowd, giving
+countenance to what at heart he disapproved. Nothing so dreadfully bad,
+perhaps, but very small work for him, a servant of the Great King; not
+loyal, not dauntless.
+
+True, he had afterwards called himself to order; had "braced up"
+spiritually, and even for a time won the title of "saint"; but
+"steadfast, immovable," he had not been. And in that swift way in which
+thoughts work, there flashed upon him the story of one of the battles
+of the Wilderness, when, as the young colour-bearer was shot down,
+another caught the banner from his hand--and another from his, until
+for a few minutes the colours just fell and rose, fell and rose--but
+never allowed to touch the ground; not once.
+
+"Magnus----"
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+"Will you please to look up and speak?" The tone was deprecating, the
+dark eyes wistful and grave.
+
+"There does not anything please me just now, except holding your hand.
+No, you cannot get it away. You see, Cherry, this is how it is: there's
+a strong tide there, setting the way you shouldn't go."
+
+"Everywhere," put in Cherry.
+
+"So mother says; but I speak of what I know. When you first get to
+the Academy, you are so homesick that you'd like to pray and read the
+Bible all the time; it seems more like home than anything else. Then
+you are plagued, and get provoked. Then upper classmen drive you to
+prayer-meeting, and of course you don't want to go. Then you get so
+tangled up in the work and the hazing that you'd give your own dog two
+cents to tell you who you are. You can't keep Sunday,--at least, you
+think you can't,--with guard-mounting in the morning and dress parade
+at night, and in barracks a lesson a mile long for eight o'clock Monday
+morning."
+
+"But Magnus, you do not study on Sunday?" Cherry said anxiously.
+
+"I did once--and maxed it straight through, had a splendid week, and
+saw visions of Willet's Point. So I thought I'd try it again. And that
+week I just went down; got the worst marks I ever had, and, instead
+of the doughty Engineer Corps, had the Immortals in full view. So I
+concluded to get back into the good old ways and stay there."
+
+Cherry laughed, but her eyes glistened. "That was one of the Lord's
+gentle rebukes," she said.
+
+"Well, it lasted," said Magnus. "I haven't done that thing again."
+
+"And they make no allowance for the day before's being Sunday?"
+
+"Not a bit. Why, one of the instructors advised us to have our
+prayer-meeting early Sunday night, that there might be more hours for
+study."
+
+"But if you told them, Magnus?"
+
+"They would just think I was shirking. You see we could not ask in
+numbers enough to be a power, for many of the men do not care. That's
+another thing in one's way; see a first classman as meek as Moses at
+prayer-meeting, and then in camp have him just as hateful as Pharaoh
+and all the Egyptians."
+
+"To you yourself, Magnus?"
+
+"I was a pleb once, you know. And nothing was too bad to do to a pleb,
+for the best of men. No, I take that back; we had--and we have--some
+splendid upper classmen; men who dose you with good counsel. It is not
+always pleasant to take, Chérie, but it did me lots of good, for they
+lived up to it themselves. They help, too, in other ways. Get a pleb
+in out of the sun, and give him some play work in a tent, and so keep
+him away from the hazing parties and give him time to breathe. Mr.
+Upright was always doing such things."
+
+"I should think everyone would love him very much."
+
+"Yes, but you mustn't," said Magnus, giving her hand a little swing.
+"You are not to love anybody but me. However, Upright isn't there now;
+graduated, and gone to make enlisted men good and happy, wherever he's
+stationed. Trueman is such another; and Starr, in our class. Ugliest
+little man you ever saw, and the best."
+
+"Then I do not believe he is the ugliest," said Cherry decidedly. "But
+it was not like that last year, Magnus?"
+
+"Oh, no! Yearlings have leave to step out and show themselves. Get
+invited to picnics, some of them, and go to the hops, most of them, and
+are wild for fun, all of them."
+
+"Well, Magnus?"
+
+"Well, Chérie, you see how it was. I have not been as bad as I might,
+nor anything like as good. They think me a pretty reliable fellow over
+there, but I'm not by any means what you would call a shining light.
+Six in studies, and one in discipline, and a double-first at all sorts
+of mischief."
+
+Cherry could not help smiling.
+
+"The very same boy you always were," she said.
+
+"Pretty much. Only this is mischief that tells. Chocolate parties in
+rooms after lights are out."
+
+"After lights are out?"
+
+"Supposed to be. Explosions on the area coming from nowhere and
+nothing; and post dogs, painted to admiration."
+
+"But, Magnus!"
+
+"What, my lady?"
+
+"_You_ do not do such things?"
+
+"I drank the chocolate--should have got skinned for it, too, only I
+stood behind something when Towser came in. And I looked at the dog.
+And I did not go out of my wits with astonishment at the explosions.
+Queer, too; for when you get together a bell button, a match, a white
+feather, a little powder, and a second classman, they make more noise
+than you would suppose possible."
+
+"I thought they kept such watch of you," Cherry said. "We have wasted a
+great deal of sympathy."
+
+"No you haven't, and yes, they do; that's the fun. Some of the men will
+tell you that breaking regulations is all the fun they have."
+
+"Not you, Magnus?"
+
+"No, not I exactly. I never can quite get rid of a certain respect for
+law and order. But you would laugh yourself; you couldn't help it, to
+see a solemn-looking Tac inspecting for apples, and know that they were
+within an inch of his nose, where he couldn't find them."
+
+"And you all kept grave?"
+
+"Stood attention, like the sweet boys we were, till he was gone,--and
+stood on our heads afterwards."
+
+Cherry did laugh, but rather doubtfully. "I suppose it must be fun,"
+she said, "but I wish you would let the other boys have it."
+
+"That is not the only sort, by any means," said Magnus. "One day Miss
+Flirt had brought Crinkem a basket of pears. Well, he stored them
+skilfully in parts unknown, till friendly darkness should come to help;
+had to go to drill, and told Carr (who hadn't) to keep an eye on the
+basket. Which Carr did. Wasn't a pear there when Crinkem got back."
+
+"Who is Crinkem?"
+
+"First classman, then."
+
+"And who is Miss Flirt?"
+
+"A summer girl who stays all the time, and flirts with everybody."
+
+"With you?"
+
+"No, because she can't. She jeered me when I was a poor candidate, and
+I vowed revenge."
+
+"I should say revenge lay in the other direction," remarked Cherry.
+
+"Not for her. She's been on tiptoe to rope me in, ever since I wore
+chevrons. I did half think I would teach her a lesson when I got to be
+first captain."
+
+"Oh, Magnus, don't!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help even
+the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately of the
+dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you know how
+salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and ready to
+spoil?"
+
+Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he held.
+
+"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if I
+can. But Cerise, I only said _thought_. And I have not thought it any
+more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for me."
+
+"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the
+subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."
+
+"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some of
+the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that; I'd
+like to forget it."
+
+She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest look
+which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched her
+for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been
+holding, and turned half away.
+
+"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you
+should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any
+shape, while they are at the Post?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote
+taken by each class,--'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall they
+have wine--or shall they not? I have heard of one class who fought it
+through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority protest;
+but so really a minority that the other was counted as the class vote;
+and their names should be gold-starred in every register. Our class had
+no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the usual results
+followed."
+
+"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to
+look at her.
+
+"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."
+
+"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so
+highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant----"
+
+"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely.
+"They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get
+upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible
+persuasions to keep some of them down."
+
+"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have gone
+to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus, what did
+the minority do?"
+
+Magnus glanced up at her.
+
+"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some did not. And
+of those last, Cherry, I was one."
+
+"_You_, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that the young man felt
+as if he had been struck. Not another word followed, but he could see
+that she was trembling from head to foot.
+
+"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in any
+open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first, and
+for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."
+
+And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's
+self-control. She exclaimed once more:
+
+"Oh, Magnus!"
+
+But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly
+as only those women who rarely cry at all can do--silently,
+uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which
+had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look
+up nor speak.
+
+And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after a
+minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in its
+distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort
+of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of
+himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another
+man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But
+he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the
+scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!
+
+Would Cherry ever speak to him again?
+
+And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress had
+slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus looked
+at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.
+
+There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be hindered,
+Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was taken
+possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.
+
+"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the
+summer girl's eyebrows?"
+
+"They are not always her own. What are _you_ about, chicks? wandering
+round at this time of night."
+
+"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you were
+coming."
+
+"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast will
+be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said Rose.
+
+"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said Magnus
+absently.
+
+"But what were you at, sure enough?"
+
+"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."
+
+"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.
+
+"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us go."
+
+And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had,
+Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their
+young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and
+true.
+
+This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should _he_ ever mar the joy of
+these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for
+him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's
+head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to
+the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and
+of course he must take his place.
+
+There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will do;
+and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she
+read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as
+soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked
+the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could
+he even think out anything clearly.
+
+How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days had
+confused everything.
+
+He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go,
+to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have
+nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see
+the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their
+vote. Why had not he?
+
+It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought the
+word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of
+standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very
+much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more
+open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth"
+heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand,
+flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.
+
+As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the servants
+in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters and against
+the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there, and with no
+one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could find, from
+her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.
+
+Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to the
+Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing; had
+not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely ever
+tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and forth
+progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily
+growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the
+wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but
+that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.
+
+Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of her,
+whether or not. If the joy of his life was gone, and sometimes Magnus
+felt that it was, yet honour and truth remained. "What shall it profit
+a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
+
+Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts
+passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and
+when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his
+noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+BUILDING THEREON
+
+    Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
+      Ever made by the Hand above?
+    A woman's heart and a woman's life,
+      And a woman's wonderful love?
+
+    You have written my lesson of duty out;
+      Manlike have you questioned me:
+    Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,
+      While I shall question thee.
+
+    --MRS. BROWNING.
+
+
+But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew
+would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a
+restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst--if worst
+it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill after
+breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus went off
+with the most eager alacrity.
+
+He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr. Erskine
+greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling hand, and
+no look at all.
+
+"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you sit
+down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"
+
+Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if
+Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went
+straight on with her reading.
+
+But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and fell; more
+than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at last, midway
+in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a moment's brave
+struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.
+
+"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head. "She
+is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a
+white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words
+and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."
+
+"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.
+
+"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg pardon.
+This was it,--a grand passage:
+
+"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the
+Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall
+see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"
+
+"But you should not break down there, love. _That_ is all victory."
+
+"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said Magnus.
+
+"Perhaps--dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do you be
+one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field. 'As a
+good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"
+
+"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that girl
+needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with me,
+I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do you
+want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"
+
+"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly displays
+your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus is right."
+
+"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently. "I wish I
+could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then you see
+she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come back."
+
+"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old.
+'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine
+accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."
+
+"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her
+this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I
+came in."
+
+A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment, as
+Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was too
+well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at it.
+
+So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid
+hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of
+the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on
+the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but
+notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of
+the tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor
+did she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted
+the deep quiet of his face--very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear
+steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's
+face now, a boy's no longer.
+
+Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching her,
+for he caught the look.
+
+"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here is
+a good place for you."
+
+But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close at
+her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap down
+on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.
+
+"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in your dear
+heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only do me
+good."
+
+Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for at
+first she could bring nothing out.
+
+"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with
+effort.
+
+"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see what
+sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"
+
+"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I
+suppose."
+
+"I suppose they may--and I have been looking at you. Cherry, have you
+been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might as well go
+and drown myself at once."
+
+Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help
+matters.
+
+"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.
+
+"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry,
+trying to speak lightly.
+
+"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus; "you
+don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it,
+Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation,
+and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry
+over _him_."
+
+Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at him
+with her eyes full.
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my heart."
+
+"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."
+
+"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.
+
+"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came
+in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I deserve it, but that does not
+generally make things much easier."
+
+"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."
+
+"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a thing
+to me."
+
+"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.
+
+"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like
+sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."
+
+"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."
+
+"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling what I
+may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at once,
+and have them off your mind?"
+
+"But, I thought it was to cure my _head_ you brought me here?"
+
+"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out with
+you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave me
+your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."
+
+"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling that
+detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.
+
+"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns don't
+go off."
+
+"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"
+
+"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on by
+myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth
+straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night
+I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any
+woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the
+world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody
+else--and never shall. Never could, for that matter. And I've been
+a fool, and a poltroon, and anything else you like; and so she has
+thrown me off, and has no use for me any more. And it makes me just mad
+to sit here and think that I have lost her. And some day I shall get
+her wedding cards, with the name of some nice man who never tied his
+shoestrings in a hurry."
+
+"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other
+feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"
+
+"That."
+
+"What has come over you?"
+
+"This."
+
+"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching her
+breath a little.
+
+"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus. "We
+always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I knew I
+loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I saw you
+again, that first night, I knew that I never should--never could--love
+anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and ninety-nine, and
+you got in love with forty other men."
+
+Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer
+nervousness.
+
+"I think that would cure you," she said.
+
+"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through all
+night."
+
+"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said very
+low.
+
+"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and
+never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you
+last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there
+was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew I
+didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very
+reason I wanted it so much."
+
+"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that
+'could' is in the past."
+
+"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life and
+a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its work."
+
+"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"
+
+"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."
+
+"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus, I
+did not mean it!"
+
+"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If there
+were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men. Why,
+half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat. Give
+it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't know
+what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty hard
+not to swallow it."
+
+"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse it
+altogether."
+
+"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they look,
+for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever happen
+to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know who it
+is."
+
+Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."
+
+"Looks like it."
+
+"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take
+heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"
+
+"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there
+are men enough there now who never touch anything stronger than water.
+And I never did, till that unlucky night. But I've been in lately,
+somehow, with the other crowd."
+
+"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.
+
+"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do you?"
+
+The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they began
+to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.
+
+"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your
+mind, and bid me go? What do _you_ want of such a Derelict?"
+
+"Magnus, you are very hard to me."
+
+"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My beauty,
+and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all the
+world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything else. I,
+hard to _you_? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in her keeping.
+And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was anything but
+true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I did not care
+a red cent for the whole lot."
+
+"No--" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you were not
+true to yourself."
+
+"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you for a
+missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled specimen
+that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything about me
+except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I have told
+you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing to work
+it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and you
+brushing the mud off with your own little hands--you can say that, too."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."
+
+"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there
+was? We can't have the marriage service made over just for us two,
+I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and better, every day I
+live--but you've got to _take_ me 'for better, for worse.'"
+
+I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have
+her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals,
+unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection.
+To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked
+"human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A
+good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better;
+letting the woman down--or up--to her proper station of helpmeet.
+Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow, her eyes
+dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of dreams and
+imaginations.
+
+Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to the
+hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life
+lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in
+the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome--and the
+old words of the apostle confronted her:
+
+"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."
+
+Could she do that? For suppose--
+
+Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even to
+herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted
+once--what if it happened again, or again?
+
+And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell out
+the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning, eager;
+a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he could
+do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again, and
+dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never
+cried before.
+
+"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling with himself.
+"You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho or the moon,
+as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could you want
+with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame you,
+Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to be
+killed two ways at once. Cherry--stop! Do you hear?"
+
+With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up, pushing
+the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long clearing-wind
+breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A breath at once
+of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain, but telling of
+courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a time been followed
+by a shout of victory.
+
+Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes
+turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still,
+after all: the young head with its short, curling hair, already showing
+that West Point barbers were far away; the smooth cheek giving faint
+tokens of what soon would be. The very hands looked so young. They were
+not clasped nor folded, but lay absolutely still, with that air of
+intense waiting which the whole figure wore. Cherry gazed at them, one
+and another scene of her young life wherein those hands had played a
+part coming up before her. Played it so well and so kindly that she had
+every line of them by heart; sledding, strawberrying, nutting, riding;
+the broken toys they had mended, the strong help they had been in many
+a rough place. Always gentle and patient for her, always ready to do
+her bidding; the tenderest hands when she was hurt, the most untirable
+for her need.
+
+Cherry almost cried out aloud, for the sudden stricture of heart, but
+she kept herself in hand, and now her look went up to the face again,
+and she found that Magnus was watching her, with the intensest, hungry,
+longing eagerness. He did not stir, but sat still in that attitude of
+waiting.
+
+"Magnus--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why do not you speak?"
+
+"I have nothing to say, Cherry."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Nothing. I have said all I can. I might promise never to grieve you
+again; might promise all sorts of beautiful things; but you know--and I
+know--that something stronger than mere love of you, dear, must do the
+work, and that the work must be done, whether you ever love me again or
+not. I believe I did not know I could be tempted--and I have been left
+to find it out. If I tell you that I have sworn unto the Lord and will
+not go back, it is not to plead my cause with you, Cherry; but because
+I know that just for old-time's sake, your dear heart will always care
+that your old playmate should grow into a man and not a beast."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, in that same sudden way.
+
+"Well, that is what it amounts to. That was what I called myself next
+morning. And then with the joy of getting home and among you all
+again--and the wonder of seeing what you had grown into--everything
+else went out of my head. I was so eager to have you that I took it for
+granted you would have me. Then I remembered that for two whole years
+you had seen nothing of me, and the more I loved you the more that
+thought kept coming up. So then I gave you the whole story, and lost
+all I care for in this world. But it had to be done--and I should do it
+again. You needn't look at me so, dear, and try to hide how you feel.
+You could not help being disgusted. I do not blame you in the least,
+Cherry."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried again. "How can you use such words about me?"
+
+"What words shall I use? You were disgusted, and you know it."
+
+"No, oh, no!"
+
+"What then? Choose your own words, and tell me."
+
+"I thought my heart was breaking," the girl said, pressing both hands
+upon her breast. "That was all."
+
+"Was that all?" Magnus said, with a sort of quiet rage at himself. "Had
+I done nothing but that? Only broken the truest heart that ever beat?
+Nothing more?"
+
+"Please, please!" Cherry pleaded. "Magnus, I cannot talk to you if you
+say such things."
+
+"Go on then, you, and do the talking. Didn't I tell you I had nothing
+more to say?"
+
+Cherry hesitated a moment, and then she put out her hand and laid it
+softly on that other which had grown so brown with handling guns and
+pontoons. Magnus winced, as at the touch of sharp steel, but his own
+hand never stirred.
+
+"What is it?" he said rather shortly.
+
+"Magnus--does your mother know?"
+
+"I am going to tell her."
+
+"No, no, do not! There is no need," Cherry said earnestly.
+
+"Not much use, perhaps," he answered in a gloomy tone. "She's bound to
+be my mother, through thick and thin."
+
+"Promise!" Cherry said.
+
+"What have you got to do with it?" Magnus asked her, looking up. "What
+business is it of yours, anyhow? You have washed your hands of me and
+my concerns."
+
+"Magnus, you _know_ that is not true."
+
+"I hope it will not take more tears to do the work," he went on in the
+same tone. "There have been enough shed now, to clear away fifteen
+years of memories."
+
+"You do not think so, or you would not say it," poor Cherry protested.
+"You are just trying to make me contradict you."
+
+"Am I?" said Magnus, with a half laugh. "Well, go ahead and do it,
+then. Say nothing could ever make you forget me."
+
+"Nothing ever could."
+
+"Say you did love me with all your heart when I went away."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And all the time I was gone."
+
+"All the time."
+
+"And when I came home."
+
+"Yes," the girl answered in her grave, sweet tones.
+
+"So little while ago!" Magnus said, with a deep breath. "Cherry, you
+were very distant to me at first--have been, all along."
+
+"You were a little bit of a stranger."
+
+"And now you know me too well. So it goes. If I had not told you--but
+it is better so."
+
+"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are terrible
+things between people who--care for each other."
+
+"How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same hard
+way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares."
+
+"Magnus, that is not true."
+
+"Didn't you stop to think what to say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then."
+
+"People stop to think for different reasons."
+
+"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."
+
+"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me why."
+
+"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus; "and as
+tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could, and hurt
+me the least."
+
+"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry,
+her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at
+all."
+
+"Why, then?"
+
+"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.
+
+"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is
+just what I said."
+
+"Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little
+impatiently.
+
+"No need to play it."
+
+"Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am going
+home till you come back to your common sense."
+
+"No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down
+and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while
+longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the
+world throw you off."
+
+She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face telling
+all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well read in
+girls.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl
+in the world'--but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not do
+that. Unless----"
+
+"Unless what?" he said eagerly.
+
+"Unless I knew you had _chosen_ such ways," the girl said, growing very
+white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+AMBUSHES
+
+    Soft silken hours,
+    Open suns, shady bowers;
+    'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
+
+    --CRASHAW.
+
+
+Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though Cherry
+was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away the
+effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare say;
+but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused, till she
+appeared again.
+
+But he gave not a hint of the morning's work; about that, both parties
+most interested held their peace. I think they both craved silence
+for a while, and so kept in hiding; not ready yet to hear common
+tongues discuss the new-found wonder of the world. Cherry had been too
+shaken and bruised--there were too many sharp details still vividly
+in sight--for her to go straight to her father, as perhaps at another
+time she might have done; she needed to steady her own thoughts first.
+And for Magnus, too, the morning had been a hard one, even with its
+culmination of joy. Besides, counting Cherry his own from that time
+forward, the small ceremony of asking for her could well wait. Probably
+Mr. Erskine needed no telling how things stood. And if it were indeed
+a secret, what fun to keep it such! He wanted no words on the subject,
+just now, save from Cherry herself. Not yet.
+
+All the family from the other house came up the hill to tea next day,
+but saw nothing new. If Cherry was more quiet than usual, that was
+not strange, after such a headache; and if Cadet Kindred, on the other
+hand, was as full of pranks as the veriest boy could be, it was not
+such an unheard-of thing as to draw any special attention. One thing
+they might have seen, that his mischief and frolic never came near
+Cherry; towards her his manner was a silent devotion of the most tender
+and serious sort, but he kept everyone else in such a breeze that no
+one gave heed.
+
+Speeding back from the post-office with a handful of letters, Magnus
+announced that Messrs. Twinkle and Rig--alias Cadets Starr and
+McLean--were coming to make him a visit in the course of their furlough
+wanderings, and everybody at once went into committee on the proper and
+possible means of delighting them.
+
+Magnus, indeed, turned off the matter very easily.
+
+"It is done to your hand," he affirmed. "Mother's cake and pies and
+bread and butter--with two girls--would make the average cadet almost
+too happy to support life."
+
+"Two girls!" Rose commented. "You seem to leave Cherry out."
+
+"I did--that's a fact," Magnus said, with a queer gesture. "But then
+you also leave me out, and I am a third cadet; so it's all right.
+She'll not stand in the cold."
+
+"I do not think she will, if the others have any sense," said Rose.
+
+"The average cadet has not much, when there are girls around," said
+Magnus. "He has such hard rubs all day from the Profs and Tacs that
+their soft ways get the better of him."
+
+"We have no soft ways, here," said Rose decidedly.
+
+"Not for me, I know; but wait till Twinkle comes along."
+
+"Twinkle--what a name!" said Violet.
+
+"He couldn't miss it, being a small man called Starr," said Magnus.
+"And he's not a blazer, by any means; keeps down well near the horizon,
+and never even poses as a first-magnitude man. Sometimes when he fesses
+more than usually frigid, we sing him to sleep with:
+
+    "Twinkle! Twinkle! little Starr!
+    How I wonder what you are."
+
+"I think that is perfectly mean!" said Rose indignantly. "Making sport
+of each other's misfortunes."
+
+"We should die if we didn't make sport of something," said Magnus. "And
+you laugh easier when you take another man's scalp, than when he takes
+yours."
+
+"Well, of all the lingo that ever was heard, I think your cadet slang
+is the queerest," said Violet.
+
+"Glad it meets your approval," Magnus said, with a bow. "Say, Cherry,
+just promise you'll walk with nobody but me, while those fellows are
+here. Have a previous every time. These girls are so keen-set for
+brotherly kindness that they'll be sacrificing themselves on me to let
+you have the strangers. You're too tall for Twinkle, and Rig will turn
+your head."
+
+"Or she will turn his," said Violet.
+
+"I suppose that is it. But it wouldn't do for Rig to get rattled. The
+poor boy has got to go back and bone for dear life. Rose will keep him
+up to his duty; talk geometry to him, and make his life a burden."
+
+"Rose will?" said that young person, lifting her eyebrows. "Well, I
+wish Cherry would talk some sense into you."
+
+"Nobody can do it half so well," said Magnus, with a change of tone.
+"And she is going to try; she is to give me a special private lecture
+every day I am here. So that it is really quite providential to have
+Twinkle and Rig on hand, for they'll keep you two girls amused and out
+of the way."
+
+"Indeed! And who is to amuse mother?"
+
+"Cherry and I."
+
+And Magnus stooped down by his mother, with arms about her neck, and
+laid his face close to hers.
+
+"Cherry and I, mammy," he said softly. "Do you understand? Cherry and
+I?"
+
+Only Cherry saw the little start, the eager look at him, and the slight
+nod with which Magnus answered. But Mrs. Kindred was a wise woman,
+and said no word. Perhaps she prayed a little more for the two after
+that; though really I do not know whether she could. There sprang up an
+instant wish in Cherry's mind, however, that no word should be said to
+anybody else until the two strange cadets should have made their visit
+and gone. Magnus was quite wild enough, even with this slight check
+upon his proceedings. And an unconsciously deprecating look went over
+to him, which the young man caught, read, and answered with a profound
+bow.
+
+"Yes, lady," he said; "your commands shall be obeyed. Even to the half
+of my fortune. Or, as I haven't any at all, perhaps the whole will not
+be too much."
+
+"By the way," said Mr. Erskine, noting (and somehow resenting) the pink
+tints that came up in Cherry's cheeks; "what has become of that 'very
+best sort of a girl' you talked so fast about last week?"
+
+"What has become of her?" Magnus repeated, standing involuntary
+"attention."
+
+"Yes. Where is she?"
+
+"At home, sir."
+
+"I will not ask where that is, as I have not permission," said Mr.
+Erskine, smiling now; "but what does she say to your coming here first
+and staying so long?"
+
+"She has made no objection as yet, sir. So I do not think she will."
+
+"Well, she ought, if she cares enough for you," said Mr. Erskine.
+"Boy, I'm afraid you have got yourself tangled up in a foolish thing."
+
+"What should you call 'enough,' sir?"
+
+"Well--all she can," said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"How much _could_ any first-best girl care for me, sir?" said Magnus,
+moving a step or two for a better view of Cherry.
+
+"Oh, you need not try the modest game here," said Mr. Erskine, laughing
+at him. "It is too late in the day for that. If she only cares a
+little, let her go; and find one who will love all there is in you,
+and a good deal more that she thinks is there. I wouldn't give a
+counterfeit five cents for a tepid girl."
+
+Mr. Erskine spoke with such disgustful energy that everybody laughed
+out.
+
+"But what girl is this?" Rose demanded. "Someone you never told us of?"
+
+"There are fifty girls I never told you of."
+
+"And besides, Rose, he is only attitudinising," said Mr. Erskine. "I
+do not believe the girl is in existence that could get him away. He is
+just young man enough to like the part of an easy-minded lover."
+
+Magnus remarked with some energy that it was better than the part of
+an _un_easy-minded lover, every time. But now the fun of the thing got
+hold of him, and sealed his lips in earnest. No, if really people could
+not see, they could wait.
+
+Several other things came in to further and abet the silence.
+
+First of all, the neighbourhood waked up to the fact that a prospective
+brigadier was among them, and the inroads to see Magnus, and to hear
+him tell his experience, were many--and "a nuisance." So he himself
+declared, making wry faces over his popularity.
+
+Then, Mr. Erskine had one of his suffering weeks, when troubling him
+with questions was not to be thought of. Magnus detailed himself as
+head nurse, taking all the night work, sending Cherry off to bed, and
+gathering up the reins generally in his own hands, proving himself
+most tender and efficient as well as strong. Of course, things must
+be talked over before he went back; but even Cherry herself could not
+think this a good time.
+
+On the back of all these hinderances, and just as Mr. Erskine began to
+be about again, came the other two cadets.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+OF COURSE
+
+    Admire my daughter! Sir, you're very good.
+
+    --_Tales of the Hall._
+
+
+There followed such a round of teas on the hill and dinners at the
+cottage; of picnics, walks, drives, and berry-scouts, that the days
+gave up their ordinary rate of progress, and flew. June had long been
+out of sight; and now July was ending, and August close at hand. Magnus
+indeed closed his ears to the soft flutter, as the days winged by; but
+not so Mrs. Kindred, and not so Cherry. The girl began to look forward
+with absolute dismay to the drawing out from her daily life of this
+gold-twisted silken thread. What should she do, when Magnus was away
+again?
+
+If I say that she was getting bound to him in deeper and finer trust
+and love, with every new day's experience, it is no more than the
+truth; and no more, I think, than he deserved. Love for the right sort
+of woman puts a man at his best, and brings him out wonderfully. Count
+the minutes? Ah, yes! two hearts at least did that. In just so many
+days more Magnus must leave them all.
+
+Then suppose Mr. Erskine--no, it could not be; and yet, after every
+such decision, one always goes back to say the "suppose" over again.
+
+"Magnus, I do wish you would have your talk with papa," Cherry ventured
+one day.
+
+"You recommended that at first--twice, if I recollect right," remarked
+Cadet Kindred.
+
+"I did nothing of the sort. But I should think you might have commended
+it to yourself by this time."
+
+"It is such fun to puzzle him."
+
+"But it will not be fun to grieve him," Cherry said.
+
+"Is he going to be grieved? Then it will all come upon your hands. You
+know you can wheedle any bird off any bush at any time."
+
+"'Wheedle' papa!" Cherry said with some energy. "Not I, I promise you."
+
+"Well, I know you mean to keep all your promises to me," said Magnus.
+"But come along, and see me throw myself at his feet. Then he can save
+time, and give us his blessing together."
+
+"No, I am not going," Cherry said, pulling her hand away and trying not
+to laugh.
+
+"You are worse than Lord Ullin's daughter," said Magnus. "She plunged
+into all the danger there was around. Chérie, will you send me a letter
+every single day?"
+
+"Oh, do not talk about letters yet!" Cherry said, in such a pitiful
+tone that Magnus forgot all about Mr. Erskine, and gave himself up to
+the task of comforting her. And it was the father himself who at last,
+unawares, brought on the talk.
+
+"Only twenty days left," he said one morning, when Magnus came into his
+study and sat down, with an absent-minded air.
+
+"Nineteen, sir."
+
+"Then you settle down to hard work again."
+
+"For two years, sir."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I take my diploma and a three-months' leave, and come back here."
+
+"Three months--till October."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That is better than nothing," said Mr. Erskine; "but we shall all
+think it very short."
+
+"I cannot stay until quite October," said Magnus, "but towards that."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I take Cherry and go to my post."
+
+But now Mr. Erskine sat straight up, grasping the arm of his chair.
+
+"Take Cherry!" he repeated. "My baby! It is _Cherry_ you want to take
+to San Carlos?"
+
+"It may not be San Carlos, sir. Of course, I must take her wherever I
+go."
+
+"Well, you need not get up before gunfire to bone assurance," said
+Mr. Erskine. "My Cherry! And what do you suppose she will say to this
+brilliant plan for her happiness?"
+
+"I do not think she much cares where we go, sir," Magnus answered, with
+easy confidence.
+
+It was an indescribable pang that shot through the father's heart. His
+one treasure, his pearl of all the world, already did not "much care"
+where she went, so long as she could be with this youngster--put her
+hand in his, and go!
+
+"It may happen that I shall care," he said huskily. "What makes you
+think I will give her up to go anywhere?"
+
+"But you can go, too, you know, sir," Cadet Kindred answered, with that
+same calm tone which ignores the hard and cuts through the impossible.
+"We have talked about it a great deal."
+
+"It strikes me that a little of the talking should have come to me."
+
+"Yes, sir; but then you are so seldom alone--always reading or
+something on hand--it was hard to find a chance. And then you were
+sick. And I thought you must see for yourself. And then, if you
+didn't, it was such fun to puzzle you," Magnus said honestly.
+
+"So seldom alone," Mr. Erskine repeated rather bitterly. "I suppose it
+will be often enough in the future. No, do not say another word to me
+now. Take yourself off, young man, and get out of my sight, and give me
+a chance to draw my breath. My Cherry!"
+
+It was perhaps just as well for everybody that the two guests were
+still there, and the fun and frolic at high-water mark; the best
+intentions thereto, or even the justest cause, could not make anybody
+look grave or stiff or anxious. Therefore Mr. Erskine had time to study
+up his hard question unnoticed.
+
+"Question," indeed, it hardly was. Mr. Erskine knew, without thinking,
+that he loved Magnus Kindred like his own son; and it took very little
+awakened observation to show him that, on Cherry's part, the old
+childish affection had passed into the deepest and strongest that a
+woman can know. Reserved and self-contained as she always was, her
+father could see a hundred little tokens which he marvelled he had
+never noticed before. He watched Magnus, too, with very keen-set eyes,
+studied him, weighed him in all sorts of scales, and, on the whole,
+was well content. Just about as much of a boy as ever, only more of
+a man; gay, saucy, absurd, and sensible; but through it all now, in
+whatever touched Cherry, there was an indescribable tone of reverence
+which became him well, as it does any man who has won for himself the
+priceless trust of a true woman's love. His own love and devotion were
+patent enough. Magnus had certainly "taken it hard," as people say. The
+father noted it well, and judged it all of a quality that would wear.
+
+Once making up his mind to the situation, it was amusing enough; and
+the two elders of the party had many a quiet laugh at the skill with
+which Messrs. Twinkle and Rig were headed off, and never allowed to
+improve their acquaintance with Cherry. It was always somebody else
+with whom they were fated to walk, and to whom they might make pretty
+speeches; and with all a man's recklessness about possible damage to
+other hearts, and lest his tactics should be found out, Magnus hunted
+up other girls--old acquaintances of the neighbourhood--to share the
+burden which at first Violet and Rose had borne alone.
+
+"But, Magnus!" Mrs. Kindred protested one day, "you go on like crazy
+boys, you three. Girls about here aren't used to young fellows who say
+everything they do not mean. My dear, I fear you are sowing mischief.
+Jenny Mott went home last night with her head more than half turned."
+
+"Easy job for Rig to finish, then," said Magnus. "Never mind, mammy;
+keep up your spirits. We're not so unlike other boys as you seem to
+think. It _is_ getting to be rather serious with Twinkle and Viola."
+
+"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Kindred said, with her hand on his arm; "now,
+Magnus! you must not put any nonsense into that child's head!"
+
+"Couldn't if I would," said Magnus; "not an inch of room. You couldn't
+get a grain in sideways after Twinkle's been talking to her. He's a
+right good fellow, mammy; don't drink, don't smoke, don't flirt--much;
+and if his light isn't of the very biggest, it's always there, which is
+better. She might do worse."
+
+"But, Magnus, Violet is hardly grown up."
+
+"Why don't you tell Twinkle so, and ask him to wait?" said Magnus, with
+a very grave face. But then he laughed.
+
+"Oh, mammy!" he said, "when cadets are about, it's 'all luggage at the
+risk of the owners.' I _had_ picked out somebody else for Vio, if only
+he's not gone before she gets there. What a thing it is to have me well
+settled in life before your anxieties over the girls come on!" And
+then Magnus kissed her, and set his face towards the other house.
+
+"But Magnus!" said Mrs. Kindred, calling him back, "you have not told
+me what Mr. Erskine says. Do you know yourself? He knits his brows so
+sometimes, when he is looking at you, that I never dare ask him. Is he
+willing, do you think?"
+
+"He will be, before I get through with him," said Magnus confidently,
+and he went whistling up the hill, as though that small task were done
+to his hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+SAN CARLOS
+
+ Mix up a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions
+ and rattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat
+ the stones red hot; and set the United States army loose over the
+ place chasin' Apaches; and you've got San Carlos.
+
+  --U. S. SOLDIER, _in Harper's Magazine_.
+
+
+And I suppose so it was; the task was really ended when the idea came
+in. A strong protector for his darling when his own care should fail,
+had been the longing in Mr. Erskine's heart for many a day, and Magnus
+Kindred had always been second only to Cherry in his heart. Yet to give
+her up before the time, and, instead of leaving her, to have her leave
+him, it was sharp enough. No wonder he knit his brows now and then in
+the midst of all the gaiety, and almost put out a hand between his
+child and this youngster who claimed such rights and took them with
+such assurance. No wonder if he frowned a little now, to-day, as Magnus
+came whistling up, and throwing himself down on a lower step of the
+porch, waited for the older man to speak.
+
+But for a while the silence was unbroken, as Mr. Erskine made a sort
+of final examination; obliged to come back to the judgment he had
+given weeks ago, that Charlemagne Kindred was "a splendid fellow." The
+critical eyes could find no fault.
+
+Very serious the face was now, as he sat there looking off, schooling
+himself to patient waiting, once in a while almost starting up at
+some sound of Cherry's voice or step within the house. I am afraid
+Mr. Erskine took a malign pleasure in keeping him where he was. The
+malignity was not deep, however, for once, when some scrap of a song
+floated down from an open upstairs window, there came a look over the
+face of Cadet Charlemagne Kindred--a sudden light and love and joy--to
+which the father's eyes gave such sympathetic answer that he was fain
+to screen them with his hand.
+
+"Well, young sir," he began at last, "I suppose you want to know what I
+have to say to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Furlough ends next week," Magnus answered, without looking
+round.
+
+"Then back for two years more?"
+
+"Back for two years, sir."
+
+"Magnus, what sort of an inner life have you lived at West Point? They
+have made a soldier of you outwardly; we can all see so much; but it is
+possible for a man to be that, and yet have no soldier's heart within."
+
+Magnus coloured deeply.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said. "I know it. And that has been true of me a few
+times, Mr. Erskine. Never but once in any great thing."
+
+"There are no little things in right and wrong, boy."
+
+"No, sir. I should have said, in what people call great."
+
+Mr. Erskine was silent with sudden pain; he had not looked for such an
+answer. Then Magnus turned round, and sat facing him, looking full up.
+
+"I have told Cherry the whole thing, straight through," he said; "and
+now I will tell you, sir, if you wish."
+
+Mr. Erskine drew a breath of relief. If he had told Cherry, it could be
+nothing very bad; and that he _had_ told her half cleared it away.
+
+"No, do not tell me," he said. "If Cherry knows, that is enough. But,
+Magnus, I never expected _you_ to lack the soldier heart!"
+
+The boy's eyes flushed, and his lips were unsteady as he said:
+
+"Nor I, sir. You cannot possibly be half so disappointed in me as I was
+in myself."
+
+There was a long pause. What that bit of schooling was to Magnus it
+would be hard to describe; but he said not a word to shorten it. With
+head well up, and eyes looking gravely off at the fair landscape, of
+which they saw not a thing, so he sat; and Mr. Erskine watched him. His
+whole heart went out to the boy in tenderness and up for him in prayer.
+Not a hero in his own right, perhaps, but a better, stronger thing is
+the man whom God keeps, and who trusts the Lord for all power to keep
+himself.
+
+"The people that know their God, shall be strong and do exploits."
+
+"You told Cherry," the elder man began at length. "And what did Cherry
+say?"
+
+"Broke my heart into little pieces," said Magnus briefly.
+
+It was Mr. Erskine's turn to have wet eyes, though he smiled too.
+
+"So!" he said. "My boy, did you ever realise that you might break _her_
+heart?"
+
+"Don't ask me to realise it any more than I do, sir," Magnus answered,
+with a troubled voice. "You see she minds things that some people call
+trifles."
+
+"Like a true woman," said Mr. Erskine. "I am glad she does."
+
+"So am I!" said Magnus, with hearty emphasis. "There is not a thing
+about her that I am not glad of. But I have told her everything, Mr.
+Erskine," he added, "and she forgives me."
+
+"Like a woman again," thought the father. "And she is ready to go with
+you to San Carlos?"
+
+"I don't know why you will persist in sending me there, sir," Magnus
+said, with just a touch of impatience. "That seems to be your
+favourite post. We have not spoken of San Carlos."
+
+"No, I suppose all your talk has been of Fortress Monroe, Governor's
+Island, and West Point," said Mr. Erskine, in a mocking tone. "Those
+are the usual first posts for young second lieutenants."
+
+"West Point!" Magnus repeated scornfully. "If you had the faintest
+idea, Mr. Erskine, what West Point is _without_ Cherry, you would know
+that San Carlos will be the ranking post in the country when she gets
+there!"
+
+And the young man sprang to his feet, as if tenter hooks were restless
+things.
+
+Mr. Erskine held out his hand. "Forgive me, my boy," he said. "I will
+not tease you any more. Go and find my treasure--and take her for
+_your_ treasure, and guard her with your life. I do not mean in the
+common sense of dying for her, but in the nobler, costlier way of
+living for her. Shield her from any touch of shame, from any sense of
+loss, from any shadow of pain or sorrow that is not Heaven-sent. Live
+so that she will be prouder of you every day. Magnus, my darling is a
+_trust_."
+
+There was something very sweet and solemn too in the way Magnus took
+the extended hand, and dropping on his knee kissed it earnestly.
+
+"As such I take her, sir. My most dear trust, for every hour I live."
+
+But then he sprang up again, threw his arms round Mr. Erskine with a
+hug like a young bear, and with a joyous shout of "Ho for San Carlos!"
+darted away into the house to find Cherry.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+RUSHED INTO CAMP
+
+    Whither I must, I must.
+
+    --_King Henry IV._
+
+
+If love does sometimes contrive to do for itself what the poet wished,
+and "annihilate time," over the "space," alas! it has generally no
+power. Those last days at home were to Magnus only quarter-days; but
+once in the cars, and the miles drew out a lengthening chain that
+fairly seemed to clank in his hearing. Two years now, almost, away from
+those dear faces; two years more without Cherry.
+
+To be sure, she was coming to first-class camp; that was something. She
+had not said she would, but she must; or he should simply die, and the
+authorities would have to send him home.
+
+As the train flew on, tossing everything behind its back, classmates
+began to straggle in, catching the express from one point or another;
+each State giving up its contingent of much-disgusted men, all equally
+gloomy and rebellious. What was the use of the old concern, anyhow? So
+they grumbled, keeping down each other's low spirits, and ever and anon
+launching forth upon the departed joys of the last eight weeks; opening
+their hearts less or more, according to the man. For in some coat
+pockets lay hid a little glove, carefully wrapped in rosy thoughts, and
+(I was going to say) here and there also a mitten, in different-hued
+tissue paper. But no, I take that back; nobody ever gets a mitten on
+furlough, which is perhaps the reason why so many engagements date back
+to just that point.
+
+They felt very small just now, with love and home behind them; speeding
+away towards drums, Tacs and the reveille gun. I think some of them
+would have liked to slide off on a railroad "Y," and so ride backwards
+all the rest of the way, as under protest.
+
+Through all the grumbling Charlemagne Kindred was profoundly silent,
+only jerking his words out when they must come, in a way that made the
+others pronounce him "a gingersnap." But snaps are sweet, and he was
+not.
+
+"Just think," Rig said lugubriously, as he dropped into the seat by
+Magnus, "this time to-morrow I shall not have even the show of a
+pocket."
+
+"That's square; you'll have nothing to put in it."
+
+"And I've got three confinements to serve out the first thing," said
+Crane, in front.
+
+"All right--you went in for them," said Magnus, with a comfortable
+consciousness of his own clear score.
+
+"Didn't; I went out."
+
+So the talk went on, and Magnus sat vaguely listening, seldom joining
+in, his whole self reaching back towards that beloved region whither
+he could not go. He longed to have the talk stop, the train stop, the
+world stop--almost: anything, to change the pitiless rush and roar with
+which he was speeded away from all he loved best.--Mile after mile,
+hour after hour; till he felt ready to start up and cuff somebody, if
+only so he could make a change. They talk of homesick plebs, and those
+fellows have it hard enough; but I doubt if it compares with the _mal
+de pays_ of the furlough men when they come back.
+
+Cadet Kindred fought it, wrestled with it; then suddenly turned and
+began to fight himself. For was not this West Point life the very
+thing singled out just now for him? The surest, best, and quickest
+way in which he could win education, position, and the means to live?
+The shortest road to that fair home for Cherry which tinted even his
+dreams? Had it not been the Lord's appointment, far more than that
+which dated back to Congressman Ironwood? I do not think the ache died
+out, a bit; but the antagonism did. Ready for duty, ready for all that
+might come with duty; yes, that should be true of him. As clearly as
+to-morrow he would answer to his name at roll-call, so now in his heart
+Charlemagne Kindred said: "Yes, Lord, here!" What were they all praying
+for him at home? Not only, not chiefly, that he might win the honours;
+but that his daily life might _be_ an honour to the cause of Christ.
+
+The miles did not shorten after that; home still shone oh, how vividly!
+and shoulder-straps looked dim and hazy in the distance, and graduation
+but a myth; but the brave heart addressed itself to wait, and to work,
+and to endure.
+
+The great city was reached, and trunks and men conveyed across to where
+the swift steamer lay taking in her living freight. The whole class,
+gathered now from all sides of the great country, mustered in "cits"
+for the last time.
+
+As I think, it was a happy thing for these young schoolmen, that in
+the year of which I write, the "rush" was still in its glory; not yet
+found out to be unmilitary and dangerous. But now the first classman is
+supposed to forget that he ever was a boy.
+
+For my part, I am glad to know this for a clear fallacy. No power on
+earth, not even time, can ever drive the mischief out of some men, or
+kill the frolic that lies hid behind those sober suits of grey. The
+most sedate bearing may belong to the plotter of the most consummate
+exploits; and the gravest men take your breath away telling what they
+have done. Ah, it is not the boy in them that needs watching, but the
+undisciplined man.
+
+But as I said, in those days the hopeless task was not begun. So when
+the boat reached the landing, and her signal went sounding up the
+hill, a rousing reception was ready.
+
+The furlough men had been watching with sober eyes, as one grey wall
+after another peered through the trees; and now they stepped wearily
+along the steep, winding road, bags in hand; a dusty, rebellious lot.
+Then paused at the top of the hill and clustered together in front of
+the Library.
+
+Before them lay the cavalry plain, brown and powdery with sun and
+riding; the black guns of the Light Battery; then the camp. Rank after
+rank, in their exact order, the white tents gleamed in the sunshine. A
+moment the travellers saw it all.
+
+Then on the nearer side there gathered a grey and white swarm of
+figures; the furlough men spread themselves in a long single line,
+and, joining hands, began to double-time it across the plain. The grey
+figures dashed out across what was afterwards the famous "Post No. 6,"
+swooped down upon the furlough men, and "rushed them into camp."
+
+There followed ten minutes of utter Babel-like confusion; hats, caps,
+handbags, and men were on the ground or in the air, as the case might
+be. I think Mr. Starr lost his foothold on firm earth several times,
+while Magnus Kindred made things just as lively for one or two small
+first classmen. Men hugged each other or shook hands, according to the
+various degrees of size and friendship. The ladies on the seats clapped
+hands; the yearlings, on their way to dancing, turned and gave a cheer.
+Then the hubbub was over. The furlough men dived into their tents,
+and came forth to dinner roll-call full blown cadets, with very sober
+faces. The rush helped them for the minute, but it could not last; they
+were a sorry-looking lot.
+
+Charlemagne Kindred came out too, after a while (anything but his own
+thoughts!), and was most effusively greeted by Miss Beguile and Miss
+Saucy. But being promptly bid to stand and deliver a full, true, and
+unvarnished account of the summer's work and play, he got off as soon
+as he could and took his sergeant's chevrons and his loneliness down
+Flirtation for a walk.
+
+How unbearable these average girls were to him after Cherry! Cherry,
+with her quaint, womanly ways, and low-toned voice, and earnest eyes; a
+hundred times fairer in her fresh print dress than they with all their
+silks and streamers! "A trust"--ah, she was one worth having. And it
+was with a very moved and joyful heart that Cadet Kindred realised how
+surely upon his keeping of that trust, hung all the joy and brightness
+of her sweet life. Hers--and theirs; four true women looking up to him.
+
+On the whole, it was a very good bit of thinking the young sergeant did
+there, with the lovely river sweeping by at his feet, and the leaves in
+a glad rustle behind him. Yes, every new bit of honour that he could
+win, in any line, would be gilded anew for them. He must send them a
+correct drawing of even the new chevrons.
+
+Magnus again mounted the hill, but at the edge of the broken ground he
+faced about and took off his cap to the flag.
+
+"Glad to see you, old friend!" he said. "Henceforth, you and I are
+going to run things together. I'm enlisted now, for all the storms that
+blow."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+HIGH GROUND
+
+    But never sit we down and say,
+      "There's nothing left but sorrow."
+    We walk the Wilderness to-day,
+      The promised Land to-morrow.
+
+    --GERALD MASSEY.
+
+
+There was much wedging and crowding in the camp that night, lightened
+somewhat by the big hop which shortened the night for so many. Not for
+Magnus. He went to bed, thinking the night would be two nights long:
+quite sure he should not close his eyes.
+
+But youth, and health, and the long journey, and even sorrow, quite
+upset his calculations. When the hop men turned in, Magnus hardly
+roused up enough to give a short answer to some details; and when the
+sharp voice of the reveille gun spoke in his ear, it was as clear a
+wake-up--and alas! as disgusted a one--as Cadet Kindred had ever known.
+But breaking camp at least would be welcome: hard work suited his mood
+just now much better than play.
+
+Yet before the hour drew on, he strolled out towards the visitors'
+seats; the exquisite morning, the dainty wreaths of mist, and the
+sweet, pure air, making him so homesick that he craved even a chatter
+of tongues that should stop his thoughts.
+
+The seats were a waving line of colour. Hats turned up, and hats
+turned down; bonnets too small to be seen, and hats like umbrellas;
+ribands, laces, streamers of every kind. Plenty of grey coats, too;
+first classmen and yearlings in their glory, with other disconsolate
+furlough men, searching the crowd for a friend, if possibly such a
+thing remained to them east of the Rockies, or north of Mason and
+Dixon's line. Everywhere a busy chatter, with introductions, greetings,
+inquiries, and much swinging of cadet caps. Sugar-plums abounded.
+On the grass a group of children sunned themselves in front of the
+grown-up people, sometimes aping their ways.
+
+Magnus was taken possession of rapturously,--had to touch a half-dozen
+gloves in as many seconds.
+
+"And where have you been all summer, Mr. Kindred?" Miss Fashion
+inquired in gracious tones.
+
+"In a much better place than this old camp, Miss Fashion."
+
+"That goes without saying," chimed in Miss Saucy. "Any place where
+_you_ were, would of course overtop the rest of the world."
+
+"It might," Magnus answered, thinking of the oak shadows where he had
+sat with Cherry. I am not so sure that he heard Miss Fashion's next
+words, looking over her head towards the Western sky. The West! The
+West!
+
+"And of course your desire for study is immense," the young lady went
+on, a little louder.
+
+"Quite insatiable!"
+
+"Oh, you're too good to be true!" said Miss Saucy.
+
+"But don't you feel all out of training?" said another girl. "I should
+think it would come awfully hard at first."
+
+"On the contrary, I feel in better training than ever in my life
+before."
+
+"But that is _awful_!" said the Kitten. "Back from furlough 'in
+training'? Why, Magnus, you'll come out blue."
+
+"I expect it," said Magnus, with a bow. "That is what I am aiming for."
+
+"Now _that_ I call mean," said the young lady; "taking one up so. How
+sharp you have grown all of a sudden!"
+
+"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your
+fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."
+
+"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go to
+your heart to cut off your moustache?"
+
+"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."
+
+"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.
+
+"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred
+touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of
+the colour line.
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West Point
+season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her heart
+as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall, when
+that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go to
+spend the day!"
+
+"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.
+
+"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent,
+"but _they_ can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes
+along and turns them out."
+
+"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said Miss
+Saucy. "Do you know, I just _made_ Clinch look at me the other night as
+he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest thing to
+break camp before cold weather. There it goes!--our camp!"
+
+But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums
+under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that
+nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.
+
+The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold
+fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and
+flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very
+special chums together.
+
+Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred. He waited
+till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his loitering
+comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across the plain and
+took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the flag.
+
+Two whole years--two years and three months almost--since the first
+day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of brave
+allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to scan
+the two years' record.
+
+In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor fealty.
+But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this love as
+for the other he must _live_, as well as be ready to die. The honour
+of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American fought out
+his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields sometimes than
+Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No name on a tall
+column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps, while the fight
+lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall speak the "Well
+done," when he comes to survey the field.
+
+Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that
+devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country;
+winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain;
+keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained.
+
+"Winning victories"--he repeated to himself, looking up again at the
+lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as negative."
+
+Bible words are very positive.
+
+"He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He that
+gathereth not with me, scattereth."
+
+"But they don't leave us time for anything like that," Magnus thought,
+in half excuse. "It takes so long just to _be_; to look after your own
+prayers and reading. There isn't any chance to _do_."
+
+And now he remembered the lovely, constant shining of Cherry's life in
+even the commonest, everyday things; the halo that was always about
+her. Set her at any sort of work, in any sort of company, and you could
+never doubt for a moment whose she was and whom she served. The King's
+seal was there. Such a life is positive, by its very nature.
+
+"But then she is like nobody else," Magnus went on, as his rapturous
+thoughts finished off with a long, heavy sigh. "And she has a little
+space to breathe in, too. But here--just math. and chem., study and
+drill, from dawn to dark." Then other words came up before his eyes.
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily; as to the Lord, and not to men."
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
+Jesus."
+
+"Even those old lessons," commented Cadet Kindred. "I rather suspect
+I've been setting my study books at the wrong angle. I know Cherry says
+that drudgery fades out, if you write the name of Jesus on it. Wonder
+if it would work so with anybody but her?"
+
+And a long, dull procession of days rose up in sight; each one loaded
+down with hard, monotonous work. Not prettily varied, with one day this
+and next day that, but a steady, straight on pull in the same lines,
+for weeks together.
+
+"And we can't turn and twist about as you do, old flag," he said, "but
+have got to stand attention (or sit it) every time. It would feel sort
+o' good, if we could just choose our own positions for firing off
+blunders."
+
+"Whatever in the world are _you_ holding up the flagstaff for?" said
+Rig's astonished voice, as that young man came up from among the guns.
+"Beastly dull here, isn't it? I say, Kin, when's that awfully pretty
+sister of yours coming?"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Well, both, then," corrected Rig.
+
+"After you graduate--if you ever do."
+
+"You may well say if. But you'll be gone yourself, then."
+
+"Maybe I shall not let them come at all. There are too many girls
+here now." And Magnus cast cynical eyes towards several free-and-easy
+damsels who were sauntering across the plain, well attended.
+
+"There they go," he said; "men and girls and parasols. And the parasols
+are the only things in the lot with a grain of sense. Just hear that
+pink girl laugh! She's got Duncy in tow, telling him: 'Oh, Mr. Duncy!
+you are _so_ amusing!'"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if she wasn't. I think he is, sometimes, myself,"
+said Rig.
+
+"He is a consistent goose," said Magnus.
+
+"Come, now, Kin, you're out of humour," Rig said soothingly. "You'll
+feel better after dinner."
+
+"No I shall not," Magnus answered crossly. "Last Thursday I had chicken
+pie and apple fritters."
+
+Rig gave a groan.
+
+"Well," he said, "it can't be helped, so eat all you can. And there
+goes the drum."
+
+The two set off for barracks, but if Magnus had eased his mind, he had
+certainly given his heart an extra load.
+
+"Kindred's as glum as a post," remarked a smart first classman. "Easy
+to see his girl's gone back on him."
+
+Magnus caught the words, but then came a thrill of joy. No, _that_
+could never be true; and his girl was the very best in all the world.
+The sights and sounds about him grew indistinct; and with thoughts two
+thousand miles away, Cadet Kindred finished his dinner and never knew
+what it was. Only "Company A, rise!" awaked him from his dream.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+MORE GIRLS
+
+    Pray to God, but continue to row to the shore.
+
+    --_Russian Proverb._
+
+
+But work did come hard! The reveille gun was such an impertinence after
+the lazy summer mornings at home. Every officer figured as an enemy,
+every drill was an unmitigated bore. And despite what people say about
+changed seasons, it rained Saturday afternoon then, as it always does
+now; while if it rained other days too, yet it was sure to clear up in
+time for drill--or the cadets thought so, which did as well.
+
+Such meals, too, three times a day! Fair enough in ordinary, and easily
+disposed of by the healthy young appetites, whetted with hard work and
+open air; but thrown into utter disgrace just now by the background of
+"mother's" dainties and "home" cream. They were sober enough, these
+furlough men. But it is hard for even quiet steeds to go calmly back
+from pasture into the traces; some other fiery young coursers were
+simply rampant. A good deal of mischief went on in those first weeks in
+barracks.
+
+Magnus Kindred kept out of it, partly because he had Cherry's image
+before his eyes; but also because he liked his freedom better than
+anything else, and had never learned to confound license with liberty.
+No amount of fun on Monday, would pay him for spending the next
+Saturday afternoon on the area.
+
+So while other men "ran it" to the Hotel or to Highland Falls, paying
+that unpleasant penalty, Cadet Kindred kept his playtime free, taking
+long, long walks over the mountain or in other leafy regions where
+the squirrels and woodpeckers had it all to themselves. Studying the
+fanciful piebald of the autumn leaves, gathering the quaint yellow
+witch-hazel blooms, and the white ladies' tresses; and bringing back to
+barracks such a clear head for study that he went up hand over hand.
+Men said he was in love--which was certainly true; and some, that he
+was trying to "bootlick the Supe," which was as certainly false. And
+again others, that he was "boning Willet's Point." But no; he was doing
+better, and simply "boning" the highest stand he could reach.
+
+Meanwhile, to grace the lovely fall weather, several new flowers--or
+birds--might be seen at parade and on the sidewalk. And Magnus had been
+duly presented, and had done his first devoirs to the fair strangers.
+But after that he thought he might please himself again, and muse and
+climb among the beloved old rocks.
+
+"Where _does_ Mr. Kindred go every Saturday?" Miss Berry demanded of
+Rig one day. "You know I'm visiting at the corner house, and can watch
+both ways. But while I'm running from one window to the other, he
+always contrives to vanish; and I never can tell into which house."
+
+"Of course I cannot say, Miss Jo," Rig answered, "because you know I
+never get round the corner. The minute I see you watching for me, I
+stop and come in."
+
+"Watching for you! I think I see myself," said Miss Berry.
+
+"You'll see something very sweet, when you do," said Rig politely.
+
+"It'll be something pretty sour, if you're not careful," retorted Miss
+Berry. "But say--I'm awfully curious to know. Where does he go most,
+Saturdays?"
+
+"Why, nowhere, to visit, they say," said the hostess.
+
+[Illustration: CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS]
+
+"Isn't there someone he cares about out West, Mr. McLean?"
+
+"He has two charming sisters."
+
+"Oh, of course!--all you cadets have charming sisters," said Miss Jo
+impatiently. "Anybody else?"
+
+"Lots of girls there," Rig replied. "They haven't all come East by
+several."
+
+"What do Western girls look like?"
+
+"Angels, some of 'em," said Rig, thinking of Violet's eyes.
+
+"Did you see Mr. Kindred's best girl?"
+
+"I rather suspect I saw three of them," Rig answered slowly.
+
+"Three! Why, the man's a Turk. Wasn't one better than the other?"
+
+"I thought so," said Rig. "It's a matter of opinion, I suspect."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Miss Jo, with beautiful ease of manner. "It's no
+more possible to get the truth out of a cadet, than----"
+
+"Than to get it without him," suggested Rig.
+
+"I'll get at it somehow, you'd better believe," said Miss Jo. "What
+were these three girls called?"
+
+"One of them seemed to have a sort of French title; the other two
+answered to plain English."
+
+"French--that's a likely story. What do you know about French?"
+
+"Not much," Rig confessed. "Don't be hard on me, Miss Jo. I expect to
+be found in January, but you might leave a fellow hopes till then."
+
+"And you will _not_ tell us a thing about Mr. Kindred," joined in
+another girl.
+
+"Well, now"--said Rig,--"that's putting it rather strong. But here
+comes Kin himself; he ought to know. He's of age, ask him, as the Jews
+said in the Bible."
+
+And Mr. McLean stepped to the window and hailed his friend, who had not
+had the faintest intention of calling upon anybody that afternoon.
+
+However, so summoned, there was nothing else to do. So Magnus came in,
+hung up his cap in the hall, shook hands with his hostess and the other
+ladies, and then, after the manner of cadet chaff, asked Rig what he
+was fooling there for? wasting his own time as well as Miss Jo's?
+
+"She said she hadn't any to lose, so I'm safe there," answered Mr.
+McLean.
+
+"Make the most of it,--that won't carry you far," said Miss Jo. "What
+_do_ you suppose he has been doing, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Could not guess--when it is Rig."
+
+"Absolutely quoted the Bible to me. I came so near fainting away that
+he called you in for a tonic."
+
+"Quoted it pertinently?"
+
+"No, impertinently. Oh, Mr. Kindred, will you let me have a walk after
+chapel on Sunday?"
+
+"Certainly--but I cannot take you to get it."
+
+"I suppose that passes for cadet wit," said Miss Jo, pouting. "Why
+cannot you, pray?"
+
+"Something else to do: a previous."
+
+"You can't fool me so," said Miss Jo, shaking her flaxen head. "You
+_know_ your best girl isn't here."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then there is nobody else you need walk with. I think you're very
+unkind, Mr. Kindred. And I've got such a box of candy as _you_ never
+saw."
+
+"Let me see it now," said Magnus, smiling. "Destroy ignorance wherever
+you find it."
+
+"I guess I will! No, I'll give that walk to Mr. Clayton, and nobody
+else shall have a crumb."
+
+"Or a smile."
+
+"Good for Clayton," said Rig. "Then he won't have to dead-beat to
+the hospital Monday morning, but can go there for good and sufficient
+reasons."
+
+"Aren't you ashamed!--as if my candy was poison," said Miss Jo
+indignantly.
+
+"Mr. Kindred," said the hostess, "my curiosity is astir about this
+'best girl' of yours; I should like to know your taste. What is she
+like?"
+
+"Like herself: I know nobody else," said Magnus.
+
+"So then she really does exist somewhere?"
+
+"Why, you asked about her."
+
+"Yes, of course I did; but then I didn't know but Mr. McLean had been
+fooling us."
+
+"Would he dare do that?"
+
+"It's my belief he fools about everything," said Miss Jo. "And you too.
+I don't think you cadets know how to be serious about a single thing."
+
+"Grinds _are_ almost the staff of life here," said Magnus. "But you
+do Rig unjustice: he'll be serious enough when he gets zero in wave
+motion."
+
+"Don't speak of wave motion Saturday afternoon," pleaded Rig. "It's the
+only time in the week when anything stands still and right side up.
+The air waves, and the light waves; and not a thing is steady, from
+Saturday night to Saturday noonday."
+
+"I hope you do not study wave motion on Sunday," said the hostess
+reprovingly.
+
+"Only practises it in chapel, you know," said Magnus. "Rig goes to
+sleep systematically, and keeps up in wave motion by a series of
+graceful nods."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Rig. "Well, I sometimes do, that's a fact. Somebody
+stuck a pin into me last Sunday. Wasn't you, was it, Kin?"
+
+"It was not my pin. Come away, Rig, you've got another visit to pay
+before retreat," and the two bowed themselves out.
+
+"I don't believe I'll call on Miss Saucy to-day," said Rig, as they
+walked along. "I got thinking about your handsome sisters, and that
+takes the taste out of other girls."
+
+"Oh, does it!" said Magnus mockingly. "If you say that again, I'll
+report you to the Com. for a cannibal. There--the Kitten is tapping on
+the window for you, and you can go to Miss Saucy later. Run in; there's
+a lot of girls staying there."
+
+And Rig ran in. But in the hall, while giving himself those finishing
+touches in which even men indulge, Rig found that Cadet Kindred had
+slipped away to parts unknown.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+ON FORT PUT
+
+    Think truly, and thy thoughts
+      Shall the world's famine feed;
+    Speak truly, and each word of thine
+      Shall be a fruitful seed.
+    Live truly, and thy life shall be
+      A great and noble creed.
+
+    --DR. BONAR.
+
+
+No, Cadet Kindred was in no mood for "other girls" that day; had he not
+just been writing his heart out to Cherry? and was not her last letter
+lying _perdu_ up his sleeve? You could not expect him to have any
+relish for common doings.
+
+So with the easy, steady gait which I wish all men might copy, Magnus
+went swiftly on to the west end of the officers' row. Past Miss Saucy,
+who signalled him from her friend's porch; past Miss Bee, who bowed
+from an open window; past the talk and the laughter, the scent of
+chocolate, the certainty of sugar plums. Then at the last house of
+the old "west limits" he turned sharply round the corner, and began
+to mount the hill. Small danger of "other girls" here, or of other
+men, unless a few homesick strollers like himself; and these were
+passed with only a nod. The real denizens of the roadway were wild and
+sweet as the day. Red squirrels and brown chipmunks darted across the
+path, whisked into holes, or chattered in the treetops; "the sound of
+dropping nuts," the rustle of leaves, the voice of a crow or a gull,
+only made the stillness more exquisite. The rocks were cushioned
+with mosses; the ferns and the early fallen leaves of chestnut and
+butternut made a lovely carpet all about; the clear air seemed strung
+and tuned to the last pitch of harmony. Far down, down, the winding
+river, in its varying shades of blue and grey, flowed silently among
+the hills, flecked with the white wings of two or three sloops and
+schooners; but all too distant for the murmur of the little waves, the
+creaking of cordage, to reach him.
+
+Cadet Kindred paused several times at points where the view opened;
+then addressing himself to the hill again, and choosing the old broken,
+steep-pitched track of a hundred years ago. The Revolutionary style
+suited his mood to-day; and he sped up the last steep incline with a
+will; passed through the old sallyport, sprang up the parapet, and sat
+down to gaze.
+
+At his feet the rough hillside went in tumbling, breaking fashion down
+to the little fringe of houses in the officers' row; and beyond them
+the green plain spread out its fair expanse, with Barracks and Academic
+Library and Chapel, walling it in on the south. Elsewhere the river,
+and beyond that again the hills. From above the trees on Trophy Point
+the fair, curling folds of the flag, with an action which would have
+been lazy had there been any call for haste, lifted and drooped at the
+top of the tall white staff. Magnus Kindred stood up again and saluted,
+with a flourish.
+
+"Yes, old friend," he said, "we are sworn comrades now, whatever
+happens. One full summer more for me here, and then away to the ends of
+the earth: but that blessed old rag will fly just as well at San Carlos
+as at West Point, and be just as ready to read me a lesson."
+
+And with that, Magnus stretched himself out on the green slope, pulled
+forth Cherry's letter, and read it through twice.
+
+Then he studied the flag again; musing over things he had heard and
+read. Of the men who ran up the colours when their ship was sinking
+in the deep, dark sea; of standards dyed with the life-blood of their
+defenders. Of the failures that yet were a triumphant success.
+
+    "My half day's work is done,
+      And this is all my part.
+    I give a patient God
+      My patient heart:
+
+    "And grasp his banner still,
+      Though all its blue be dim;
+    These stripes, no less than stars,
+      Lead after him."
+
+"I wonder if that fellow loved anybody," Magnus questioned with
+himself, a stricture coming over his heart at thought of the young
+soldier under whose death-pillow the brave, pitiful lines were found.
+"And I wonder if I could have said it in his place? But that is
+what it means. That is just what I have to do for the old Stars and
+Stripes--and for the Lord's banner."
+
+And secure against the criticisms of chipmunks and chickadees, Magnus
+began at the old ballad of the "Star-Spangled Banner," and sang it
+straight through.
+
+"Well sung, and to the purpose," said a pleasant voice, and Magnus
+started up, to find a gentleman close behind him; and, as he saw at a
+glance, no less a person than his friend of the candidate journey.
+
+It was plain, however, that Mr. Wayne did not know him. How could he
+find in the close-cropped hair the wayward, curly locks of two years
+ago? or see, in this happy compound of uniform and drill, the homesick
+boy whom he had cheered and comforted?
+
+"Do not let me disturb you," said the newcomer, taking a seat near
+Magnus. "I was wandering round among the old walls, thinking how much
+had crumbled and how much grown up since their day, not knowing there
+was anyone up here but myself. And when suddenly the dear old song
+rang out, I could not help coming near to listen. Has it come into
+fashion again, in these latter days?"
+
+"Not especially, that I know of," said Magnus. "But I was brought up on
+it."
+
+"So was I. And where were you brought up?"
+
+Magnus named his State.
+
+"Strange!" said Mr. Wayne. "The first boy I ever spoke to who was
+coming to West Point was from that State; and now so is also the first
+full-fledged cadet I meet with here."
+
+"Yes, we have a good representation from all our districts," said
+Magnus.
+
+"Do you men from the same State always hold together in any special
+way?"
+
+"Against all the rest of the world, yes," said Magnus. "But we often
+choose our chums from the Antipodes."
+
+"For private and personal reasons, rather than public; I see. But then
+of course you know them all, more or less; and so you must know the man
+I am after."
+
+"A relation of yours, sir?" Magnus inquired gravely.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all; only an acquaintance of a day and a night. But I
+should like to see him again very much; in fact that was why I stopped
+over a day here. I wonder if he is in the corps still? Must be, I
+think; he did not look like a fellow to be 'found' in anything,--unless
+caution and self-control."
+
+"That's a bad showing," said Magnus. "I'd rather chance it in math."
+
+"You must know him, of course, if he is here," Mr. Wayne went on;
+"for he was from your State, I know. I had his name down--and I also
+had my pocket-book stolen! Can you tell over the list of your State
+delegation?"
+
+So Magnus began.
+
+"Smith, J., 2d; Jones, L.; Devius, E.; Smith, T. A.; Marston,
+Kindred----"
+
+"That's the man!" broke in Mr. Wayne; "Charlemagne Kindred. And you say
+he is here still?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's here," said Magnus, with a half groan.
+
+"Doing well?"
+
+"Doing all sorts of ways. He is just back from furlough, and as blue as
+a mouldy cheese."
+
+"Back from furlough! Ah, then he has seen his mother again. That ought
+to cure him of doing 'all sorts of ways.' Where does he stand in his
+class?"
+
+"Oh, he keeps out of the Immortals," said Magnus with a shrug. "Might
+max it oftener, if he didn't read so many magazines and write so many
+letters."
+
+"Letters, hey? These 'left behind' girls have a good deal to answer
+for. And yet such a trust as a woman's life and happiness, ought to
+steady any man, and put him at his best."
+
+"He has four just such trusts," said Magnus. "I don't know that they'd
+all die if he went to the bad, but two of them would."
+
+"Four--you seem to know him very well," said Mr. Wayne, turning to look
+more narrowly at his companion.
+
+"I don't know, sir: sometimes I think I do, sometimes not. He takes me
+all by surprise every now and then," said Magnus.
+
+But with that he turned his eyes full upon Mr. Wayne, and the
+recognition was instant.
+
+"And this is you!" said Mr. Wayne. "I see it now. Indeed I think I felt
+it all along. Sit over there, and let me look at you."
+
+So Magnus changed his seat for another, and went through a new sort of
+inspection; differing _in toto_ from that of any member of the tactical
+department. For Mr. Wayne's eyes passed rapidly over grey cloth and
+bell buttons (Magnus feeling quite sure the while that any dulness or
+disorder there would have been noted) and came to the young face, with
+a look so searching and wise that the sunburnt cheeks reddened, and the
+eyes went down. Only for a moment, however: then they met the search
+squarely, and with a laugh.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Cadet Kindred, "that is just about what I am."
+
+Privately, Mr. Wayne had been thinking to himself that just what he saw
+was a remarkably fine-looking fellow, whom anybody might be proud to
+call son or brother. For the eyes were steady and true; and when the
+face broke in a smile or a laugh the mouth had the same utterly clean
+look which had marked it two years ago. Mr. Wayne noted it all, and
+drew a deep breath of rejoicing.
+
+"I give most humble and hearty thanks," he said, reverently lifting his
+hat. Magnus sprang up and came back to his old seat.
+
+"Were you so doubtful of me, sir?" he said. "And what made you
+doubtful?"
+
+"Not doubtful of you, my boy, but certain of the world. And the
+world--even this little world here--is a hard place."
+
+"This is an awful place!" said Magnus.
+
+"You think so now, because you are just back from furlough. But you
+will find the world power in full force still, when you get to some
+far-off frontier post. Very few lives have a steady fair breeze
+straight into heaven. 'Ye must take the wind in your face if ye will
+fetch Christ,' said old Samuel Rutherford; and most of us find it so.
+But then, 'How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where
+Christ is.'"
+
+And Magnus remembered instantly that ever since he came to West Point,
+he had hailed the west wind, because it seemed to come from home.
+
+"How can you always tell, sir, whence it comes?" he asked suddenly.
+"Being disagreeable doesn't prove a thing right."
+
+"Truly no. But you know what Christ himself is, Mr. Kindred; study
+him, his character, his will, his throne. It is not hard to match your
+colours, if you are really so minded. West Point is not so unlike
+everywhere else as you seem to think. I remember a young man who went
+from here to Texas, and wrote back that he was still fighting the
+world, the flesh, and the devil. Finding the world perhaps a little
+less down there, but the flesh and the devil about as usual. And so you
+will find it. 'The kingdom of God is within you'--not outside: whether
+at Governor's Island, or San Carlos."
+
+"What makes you speak of San Carlos, sir?" Magnus said, with almost a
+start.
+
+"One of the worst posts in the army, is it not?--or counted so?"
+
+"I am not afraid of San Carlos," said Magnus decidedly. "The devil
+always has to clear out, when an angel comes in."
+
+Mr. Wayne turned and looked at him.
+
+"So!" he said; "that is all settled, is it? But no, my young sir: Satan
+held a dispute with an archangel once, long enough for some pretty
+strong words on both sides. And you are going to take an angel to San
+Carlos!"
+
+Almost just what Mr. Erskine had said.
+
+"Were you ever there, sir?" Magnus asked.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Doesn't the place need angels?"
+
+And now Mr. Wayne laughed.
+
+"You have the best of me there," he said. "Yes, not a doubt of that, it
+does. And it is the very place that the white wings love to brighten
+if they can. But Mr. Kindred, if your particular angel is to live at
+San Carlos--or anywhere--and not break her heart; spread her white
+wings and fly away from earth and you together; you have got to fight
+the devil yourself; hand to hand, and wherever you find him. These
+earthly angels are not quite so robust as the old painters make out the
+heavenly to be."
+
+"She is the very centre of my life!" cried Magnus. But Mr. Wayne sighed.
+
+"It happened once," he said, "that a young graduate of West Point
+brought his three-months' bride not to San Carlos, but to Fortress
+Monroe. Of course, the 'pleasant fellows' of the garrison went to work
+to entertain him, and one of them told me this story:
+
+"'We had a little supper party,' he said. 'Not very large, but correct
+and choice; and we kept it up pretty late; and X. Y. got more than he
+could manage gracefully. So some of the stronger heads among us set out
+to get him home. Late, as I said; servants asleep, lights out, and I
+guess we knocked and rang more than once. Then X. Y.'s young wife came
+down, candle in hand, to let him in. Poor girl--I did feel sorry for
+her when I saw her white face, as the candle flared out upon him.'"
+
+There came up before Charlemagne Kindred, as his friend spoke, the
+vision of another face; so blanched, so stricken in its grief, and all
+for him. He bowed his head upon his hands.
+
+Mr. Wayne asked never a word. He looked at the fine young man beside
+him, not knowing just what he might have touched, and then away over
+the fair hills and the soft flowing river. What a world! Peace written
+everywhere on the exquisite setting; and everywhere in the picture the
+sharp life and death conflict. Then the glad words in the Revelation
+made answer:
+
+"And I saw, and, behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a
+bow: and he went forth, conquering and to conquer."
+
+"Amen!" Mr. Wayne said aloud: adding half under his breath: "'Oh that
+thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the
+mountains might flow down at thy presence!'"
+
+Magnus looked up in surprise.
+
+"Only an old habit of mine," Mr. Wayne said, smiling at him. "I live so
+much alone, that I very often talk to myself for lack of a listener."
+
+"Do you want to see these mountains flow down?" Magnus asked, gazing in
+his turn at the fair hills.
+
+"Not these in themselves; only I long for all which the prophet's words
+imply. To see the crooked made straight, and the rough places plain;
+to hear the royal proclamation of the Prince of Peace sound out across
+this burdened earth; one could be willing to have 'every mountain and
+island' moved out of their places. To have that trumpet blast fill all
+the air:
+
+"'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
+his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'"
+
+"No more miserable captives to the power of evil; no more strong men
+'whom Satan hath bound at his own will."
+
+    "No midnight shades, no clouded sun,
+    But sacred, high, eternal noons."
+
+"How naturally the words follow:
+
+"'We give thee thanks, O Lord, because thou hast taken to thee thy
+great power, and hast reigned.'"
+
+Then Magnus began and told him the whole story; pouring out details,
+and not sparing himself in the least. And Mr. Wayne listened in deepest
+silence, with a grave, tender face which drew on confidence. Magnus did
+not once name Cherry, only at the end he said:
+
+"I told her everything. And if I thought I should ever again make her
+look as she did then, I think I would shoot myself."
+
+"Powder is very cheap," Mr. Wayne said slowly. "It is the meanest,
+smallest, silliest back door through which a man ever shirked his
+difficulties. But to live a strong life, to have one's self in hand
+and keep a tight rein, that costs, and costs tremendously; demands
+a man's whole will-power, and the mighty grace of God. There is no
+promise whatever to the one who runs away; they are all: 'To him that
+overcometh.'"
+
+"Yes sir, I know," Magnus answered him. "But instead of costing, it
+seems to me the only life that pays."
+
+"And where do you get dividends, but from investments?" said Mr. Wayne
+quickly. "You gain from what you put in: knowledge from study, health
+from exercise, advance from toil. You bone discipline, and you stand
+one; you bone mathematics, and you max it every time."
+
+"No, you don't," said Magnus. "Not some of us."
+
+"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more brains
+than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower fellow
+maxes it _for him_; the dividends are as large as the stock will
+warrant. And to my mind, that is the only ambition worth a copper. I've
+no patience with this trying to get ahead of somebody else in any line.
+Get ahead of yourself; break your own record."
+
+"Not making other men your measure," Magnus said.
+
+"No. That's the way Paul puts it: 'I press toward the mark for the
+prize'; not to get ahead of Peter or James or John. The colour markers
+always in advance, flagging out new ground."
+
+"What do you count a man's colour markers, sir?" Magnus said, looking
+amused.
+
+"Perhaps clean purpose of heart and loyalty to God would come near
+it. The Great Captain has thrown open to you--to every young man--a
+wondrous Promised Land. He says: 'Go in and possess it. Ye are well
+able to overcome.' The land is not all 'fish and cucumbers and melons,'
+with a good deal of garlic, like the Egypt degradation and bondage; but
+'a goodly land of springs and fountains, of oil olive and honey; whose
+stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.' I do
+not believe you cadets are half aggressive enough."
+
+"In what way, sir?"
+
+"Every way. Suppose your colour markers had been up to their duty on
+that sad night, and you pressing forward for the Lord's 'Well done.'"
+
+"Yes," Magnus answered, with a thrill of pain that somehow got into his
+voice.
+
+"Or suppose," Mr. Wayne went on, laying a tender hand on the young
+man's shoulder, "suppose you had been praying for those other men whose
+ways you knew; working with them, persuading them into the service of
+Christ?"
+
+"Oh, that could not be," Mr. Kindred said decidedly. "At least, I might
+pray for them, of course, but I could not say much."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Against cadet code, sir. We let each other pretty well alone."
+
+"Cadet code!" Mr. Wayne repeated. "You tease each other now and then, I
+fancy?"
+
+"Always!"
+
+"And laugh at each other?"
+
+"Without stint."
+
+"Perhaps introduce each other occasionally?"
+
+"Why, of course, sir!" Magnus answered.
+
+"And probably the cadet code would permit you to pull a man out of the
+river, or tell him the barracks were ablaze? It is framed only against
+the important things, hey?"
+
+"Don't you call it important to pull a man out of the river?" Magnus
+asked, with a laugh.
+
+"Rather. Nothing like pulling him into the kingdom."
+
+The clouds sailed silently by, river and hill darkening and brightening
+as the shadows fell and passed; the leaves rustled softly among the oak
+branches and stirred with a different music among the pines. Then from
+far down below sounded a drum--Magnus started up.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Wayne!" he said earnestly. "Come to the guard-house
+before call to quarters. I must go."
+
+"I will walk down with you," said his friend.
+
+"But I must run!"
+
+And away he went, springing down the hill through every short cut that
+could be found; the grey and white showing, and hiding, and coming out
+again further on.
+
+Mr. Wayne watched him with great interest, taking his own pace the
+while down the hill; and now, as he went, from every other quarter came
+just such flying figures. From the woods, from Flirtation, from the
+river; from lingering last words on doorsteps, and girls and bonbons in
+the houses. Hastening along with the graceful ease of long practice,
+hurrying to lose themselves behind the grim grey walls of barracks.
+
+And Mr. Wayne watched and laughed; but then his eyes grew grave. Will
+they make such haste at every call of duty, these gay youngsters? on
+hand and "ready" at each noble muster? Alas, no! Even now some are
+getting an "absence," and some a "late," and of others the guns are
+not cleaned and the bell buttons will be tarnished. Ready! it is a
+short word; but it means a man's whole ceaseless purpose, self-denial,
+and care. How little those speeding figures on the green guessed that
+anybody on the old hillside was praying for them; but I believe the
+very skill and swiftness with which they darted along, gave stringency
+to the prayer; such power for good, such forces for evil; such ease
+in doing the right thing, such recklessness, sometimes, whether it was
+done or not. Through his glass, Mr. Wayne could study it all out.
+
+See that one now; a tall fellow, going over the ground at a rate to
+take common people's breath away. It is not altogether his fault that
+he has to run for it; his best girl is on hand to-day, and this was a
+critical walk round Flirtation. Drum-calls were scarcely heard, and
+minutes flew unheeded. No carelessness of orders kept him back, and no
+contempt for them make him linger now. He does not mean to have even
+a late; and so dashes on and wins. There is some jeering and clapping
+as the tall figure comes up; "Two-forty" being his affectionate
+soubriquet; but all the same he is there, in ranks, with about ten
+seconds or less to spare.
+
+Another--Oh, yes, he set out to run; anathematising the drum, the
+parade, and the regulations, and so soon stops; runs again--and stops,
+with a sort of what's-the-use air. "How much time?" he asks another,
+who is walking calmly on.
+
+"None at all."
+
+Whereupon he quickens his steps; but not so the second. The drum-beats
+come thicker and faster--that makes no odds. It is only a "skin" more
+or less, he says to himself; and he's sure to get it some other way,
+if not this; and he has lost his Christmas leave already. So, while
+the rest fall in, and answer to roll-call, he comes leisurely up to
+barracks, some minutes after the last man has shouted "Here!"
+
+That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll "fess
+cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may get and
+still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of meaning
+there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it here and
+runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times,
+and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post.
+He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured
+glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and
+unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's
+counsels and his father's rules.
+
+"_Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien._"
+
+You see he is such a pleasant fellow,--handsome, rich, plausible; a
+great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about equally divided
+between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all thrown away; and
+worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks for other men. But
+he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much more courage to do
+wrong than he has to do right.
+
+It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the Post, a
+day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth is swelled,
+his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine proportions. But
+he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his side gazes up into
+the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the first defenders of
+the country, newly risen from the shadows of old Fort Clinton.
+
+To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of Mr.
+Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried to
+win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite
+privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do
+_that_, every time.
+
+Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every minute
+that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out of
+doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it most.
+
+"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on
+earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in the afternoon they walked
+up from Battery Knox, and paused in the little clearing where "Dade
+and his Command" will be thought of for many a long day. "Such wonders
+of beauty on every side, in mountains and sky and river; and whichever
+way you turn, such reminders of men who have 'fought a good fight' on
+the field of honour. Look at the old flag, and think how it has been
+shot at and insulted; defied and threatened; yet how splendidly it
+floats off to-day! And the guns that lie sleeping beneath its shadow
+were captured by men who knew no such words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And
+the great iron links once stretched across the river tell of other
+chains triumphantly broken, in the face of fearful odds. On all sides
+you find written: 'Faithful unto death.' Life purpose, life and death
+effort, life-blood, have done it all; the blood of men who 'counted not
+their life dear unto themselves' when the country had need. And the one
+traitor among them--why, you will not have his name even in sight! His
+tablet is a blank."
+
+Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to himself:
+
+"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for
+I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the
+name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when we
+parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends with
+the flag; _now_ I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think you
+Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."
+
+    "If you cannot reach the nation,
+      Gather in the men you know:
+    Teach your friend the way to glory--
+      Draw your comrade where you go."
+
+Cadet Kindred stopped short and faced him.
+
+"Yes," Mr. Wayne said, answering the look; "I know all about it. But
+the Lord said: 'He that gathereth not with me, scattereth'. And if you
+think it will be easier to take positive ground and begin positive work
+for Christ among a lot of strange officers at your first post, _I_
+think you are mistaken."
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+UP CROWNEST
+
+    Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
+      Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet:
+    Crowds of larks in their matins hang over,
+      Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
+
+    --JEAN INGELOW.
+
+
+If Cadet Kindred rose up next morning with the very spirit of the
+Crusades astir in his heart; ready to charge down upon the Saracens,
+lance in rest; he said to himself as the day went on, that if Mr. Wayne
+had ever been a West Point cadet, that gentleman would know some things
+he did not know now.
+
+Here had Magnus been dreaming all night how he knocked a bumper out of
+Randolph's hand; how he had run Rig up to the first section in French;
+and how he had pitched Clinker back over the Commissary wall, just in
+time to prevent his being missed and "skinned." Also how he himself
+had been publicly thanked for these exploits by the Academic Board in
+full session. But, alas! "the stuff that dreams are made of" fades in
+the morning sun, and from these pleasing nocturnal visions Mr. Kindred
+passed to a particularly tough recitation, with corresponding low
+marks, and thence to the stubbornest horse in the hall, that would not
+take the hurdles, and made him instead take the tan. And now, as he
+sat in his room, tired and growly, the mail brought him nothing but a
+desperately perfumed pink note. Magnus said "Phew!" and moved to the
+window.
+
+"Sent the whole shop, hasn't she?" said Rig. "That's Mrs. Newcomb, a
+mile off."
+
+"Just listen, will you?" said Magnus. "She wants to give a picnic on
+Crownest, and tells me to bring men enough for five girls! How many
+apiece, do you suppose?"
+
+"Unknown quantity; all depends on the girls. Who are they?"
+
+"Doesn't tell. Miss Pretty, of course, for one; she is a niece or
+something. Then there's another girl, 'just from abroad,'--'and the
+rest you know.' Well, I'll take the new girl, at a venture."
+
+"Then you'll not have to think up any new grinds," said Rig. "Lucky
+man. And I'll take Miss Pretty. If she's heard all mine before, she
+won't say so. So we are two."
+
+"And Clinker's three----"
+
+"What do you have him for?" said Rig. "He's in every single thing--when
+he isn't on the area."
+
+"She wants him. By name," said Magnus. "Hopes 'dear Mr. Clinker will be
+at leisure.'"
+
+"That's a neat way of hoping he's out of Con." said Rig. "Say, didn't
+she have a granddaughter or something, getting rubbed up in Paris?
+That's the new girl."
+
+"Granddaughter!" said Magnus. "Just let Mrs. Newcomb hear you say that!
+But I'll take the rubbed-up girl, whoever she is, my risk. And Miss
+Frisk will take _you_. She's sure to be along."
+
+"Sure to get Clinker, if she is," said Rig. "Wonder if the little Busy
+Bee will come? Kin, you're hard on that girl."
+
+"Don't want me to be soft, do you?" said Magnus, with the drum cutting
+him short.
+
+Of course the names of the party were all out before Saturday; the
+girls could not talk of much else. And as for cadets, each girl might
+have had five, had the limits of the lunch basket agreed thereto. The
+day was perfect, the dresses faultless, and Mr. Clinker happily "at
+leisure," for once.
+
+Not everybody knows--but few _try_ to know--how witching that climb up
+Crownest is, if you take the old "Cadet Trail." The way goes along for
+a while at the level of the plain, but then betakes itself to the air;
+presently mounting up and up with a straight pitch before you. There
+come turns, of course, winding round some unscaleable rock; and gentler
+going over a small knoll or two, and quite a level stretch around the
+shoulder, in the "Nest." But very often it is just a steep ladder of
+a path, to be climbed as best you can. A wilderness of grey rock and
+green woods; feathery hemlocks, sombre oaks, ash trees, maples, and
+hickory. Below these, dogwood and other "cornels," with ironwood, shad
+blossom, witch hazel, and laurel. Lower still ferns--unlike those
+in the valley; with orchids of a new type, yellow gerardias, purple
+gerardias, partridge berry, and wintergreen. Then the brown leaves of
+last year, half covering the mosses, and thickly sprinkled in turn with
+the red and yellow of to-day.
+
+The rarest scents are in the air: the balsam breath of the sweet brier,
+and from the new-fallen and falling leaves that special fragrance of
+the autumn woods--sweet, racy, heart-piercing, a waft from days gone by
+and withered, their work all done.
+
+Many of the birds have already gone South; but robins are here, and
+chickadees, and the cry of the gulls is in perfect keeping with the
+cool air and the white caps on the river.
+
+Up through this wilderness of wild and fragrant things, the little
+party went joyously along; or if not quite that on Mrs. Newcomb's
+part, yet it is painful to relate that her trips and stumbles did but
+heighten the fun for all the rest. In many a place it took two men to
+get her on at all. Magnus would leave his pretty companion safe on some
+high standpoint, jump down again himself, and with Crane on the other
+side carefully engineer Mrs. Newcomb to a place beside her niece. It
+might also be noticed that Mr. Clinker and his convoy generally lagged
+behind at such crises, or got into some tangle themselves, from which
+they came out, safe and suddenly, as soon as Mrs. Newcomb was disposed
+of. And by and by Cadet Kindred, being quite alive to the situation,
+quickened his pace, and passed on too far ahead for any new service to
+be required of him.
+
+On and up the two flitted along--like grey and red squirrels,
+averred the toiling Mrs. Newcomb; but even for themselves there were
+difficulties.
+
+Here, for instance, stands an immense rock that stops the way. And as
+Miss Lane measures it with her eyes, behold! there is Magnus on top of
+it, reaching down his hand to her.
+
+"Do you expect me to climb up there?" Cadet gives a little gesture of
+the head which Dickens would have said meant, "He rather thought so."
+
+"How did you get there yourself?"
+
+"Came."
+
+"Are there any snakes up there?"
+
+"Not so many as where you are."
+
+Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the
+rock, then looked down complacently.
+
+"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did. Oh--what
+was that--a rattle?"
+
+"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.
+
+"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must people
+always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"
+
+"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."
+
+Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder
+self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came
+out upon the mountain's lovely head, and, after a shout of victory,
+sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how wonderfully fair earth is from
+the top of Crownest!
+
+On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in
+seven shades of green--slope beyond slope--till it touched the soft
+horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range rose, shoulder
+to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely pile. Then on the
+south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay shimmering in the
+sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the river on its eastern
+shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart, and you could see
+the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like grim ribs, running
+eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river itself was decked with
+various craft; over all there wandered a faint, fitful north breeze.
+
+From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the toiling
+party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special charm just
+then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the next time
+she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest; the girls
+might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly chafing against
+the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally, sometimes,
+when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig was laughing
+to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally; and aloud at
+the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the party fumed a
+little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How came those two to
+get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the grey and the red.
+
+"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.
+
+"I am sure you ladies are."
+
+"Oh, I am not talking of the whole human race," said Miss Lane: "it is
+cadets that are so odd, so unlike other people."
+
+"That is good," said Magnus. "One would not wish to be like everybody
+else."
+
+"How you chop one up. I mean other students. Do you try to be unlike
+all other cadets?"
+
+Magnus shook his head.
+
+"I get the credit sometimes, without trying."
+
+"And I can see you deserve it, too," said the girl. "You would have
+tugged Aunt Newcomb all the way up here, if you hadn't thought Mr.
+Clinker meant you should."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Do you call that being odd?" he said. "It is just even."
+
+"And then, instead of standing off like a shirk, you did the polite
+thing and ran away. Do you always run from difficulties, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Bad for me if I do," said Magnus. "A foe in the rear is worth two in
+front."
+
+"Then you generally fight?"
+
+"People, or things?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Well, as to the people," Magnus answered, "I have not been much
+tried. It depends on yourself somewhat, I fancy; and I have never been
+challenged since I entered the Corps."
+
+"What would you do if you were?"
+
+"What I would, is one thing," Magnus said rather slowly. "By my good
+leave, I should say no."
+
+"Would you--and be pointed at?"
+
+"You're sure to be pointed at for something," Magnus answered lightly.
+"It's a choice of cases."
+
+"But I cannot imagine a man like you saying no!" said the girl eagerly.
+"Not fight, if you were challenged? You are brave, I know."
+
+"How do you know? If I am, I shall never fight for fear of being
+pointed at."
+
+"But why?" Miss Lane repeated, her bright eyes searching his face.
+"Tell me quick, Mr. Kindred. They'll all be up here directly, and I
+cannot possibly wait to know till to-morrow. Why wouldn't you fight? I
+believe you could whip any man in the Corps."
+
+"There is one rule," said Magnus, meeting her look, "which I have sworn
+to keep. It is an old rule, and a short one, but it covers a great deal
+of ground. 'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of
+the Lord Jesus.' I could not so endorse my acceptance of a challenge."
+
+The girl looked at him with wide open eyes.
+
+"You will find those old rules of yours terribly in the way,
+sometimes," she said.
+
+"Sure sign that I am off the track, then," said her companion, smiling.
+"Fences don't matter when you mean to keep the road. But doubtless most
+good things have their inconvenient side."
+
+"Aunt Newcomb, for instance," said Miss Lane, changing her tone. "I
+think I should count both sides 'inconvenient,' if I had to pull her up
+the hill. By the way, Mr. Kindred, why didn't your rule oblige you to
+take the brunt of the burden to the last?"
+
+"It might in some cases," said Magnus; "not in this. Clinker had to
+earn his lunch, and there was no other way for him to do it."
+
+"Well, there they come," said Miss Lane, rising up, "to cut short our
+talk; I am quite sorry. You interest me, Mr. Kindred; cadets with
+'views' are a novelty. But I rather wish you would fight!"
+
+"I dare say I could get a broken head in the riding-hall some day, when
+I'm on Dangerfield--would that do?" said Magnus, laughing back at her
+as he went forward to give Mrs. Newcomb a hand, which was gratefully
+taken.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred--thank you! This has been certainly--the most awfully
+grand--walk I ever experienced."
+
+"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a
+clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my
+best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five
+walks on hand for to-morrow."
+
+"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.
+
+"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into the
+sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at once,
+and save what is left of mine."
+
+"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me to
+have two."
+
+"Much you care for regulations, up here."
+
+"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the
+baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."
+
+"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"
+
+Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all around
+them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and here and
+there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and chips, dry
+and bleached and just ready to burn.
+
+Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily spread,
+a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee put under--or
+over--its care. Then busy hands unpacked or uncovered the baskets.
+Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late peaches filled a third.
+Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb
+an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut cakes, and sweet chocolate;
+and the wind kept still, and did not blow even a napkin away.
+
+But the last time Magnus Kindred had been at a picnic, it was in the
+far-away home region, and with just the home group around him; and now
+it all came back to him in a moment; with the tones of his mother's
+voice as she asked for a blessing on their day's pleasure. And I
+suppose it was this that made him pause unconsciously, after he had
+taken his stand by the fire to pour out the steaming coffee.
+
+"What is it?" said Mrs. Newcomb, in her plaintive voice. "Not hot yet?"
+
+Then Miss Freak laughed out, and Miss Newcomb looked at her, and Miss
+Lane watched this cadet who had "views."
+
+"Oh, aunty!" cried Miss Freak, "don't you know he's one of the
+too-good-for-this-earth boys? Why, coffee out of an ice box would scald
+his throat, if somebody didn't pray over it first. He's waiting for you
+to say grace, ma'am."
+
+"Waiting for me!" Mrs. Newcomb repeated helplessly. "But your uncle
+always does it, you know, Freaky."
+
+"Well, he isn't here," said Miss Freak. "Come, aunty!" The girls were
+choking themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs; the cadets, better
+used to endurance, kept their gravity intact. Charlemagne Kindred
+stood absolutely still; but his thoughts went flying back to the
+honeysuckle-wreathed porch, and Cherry, and how she had waited for him.
+Blessings on her! she never came near him but to do him good.
+
+"Why doesn't the man pour out his coffee?" Miss Lane was saying
+impatiently to herself.
+
+"Mr. Kindred," said Mrs. Newcomb in a sort of appeal--"girls, be
+quiet--I am ashamed of you. Mr. Kindred, will you be kind enough to say
+grace yourself? Of course, it is quite proper to have it done, and a
+man can do it so much better."
+
+"Not this man!" So shot the feeling through Cadet Charlemagne. This
+man, who had never even come near such a thing in public. But quick as
+Nehemiah got his orders, so on the instant the young cadet had his.
+Was he not pledged to shun no point of witness-bearing? And, with
+again one swift thought of Cherry, Magnus obeyed; standing there by the
+little fire, while good Mrs. Newcomb bowed her head, and the others
+watched him from their mossy seats. And the words were Cherry's own, as
+she had said them on that well-remembered morning.
+
+"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."
+This was a very small thing to do, but I think nobody ever guessed what
+it cost Magnus Kindred. And as little did he imagine, how that small
+bit of open confession broadened out and took its full proportions to
+other eyes. There was something in the serious face, something in the
+reverent voice, something about it all, indeed, that everybody felt. As
+Mr. Kindred came forward now with Mrs. Newcomb's coffee cup, Clinker
+looked at him curiously, McLean with a sort of wondering veneration,
+while Miss Lane said to herself: "Fight! Of course he could!" But then
+Magnus threw himself into the fun, and in two minutes had fanned the
+frolic to a point that quite outshone the fire.
+
+"So nice to have a private chaplain along," Miss Freak had said airily,
+trying to throw off her thoughts. But the other girls frowned down
+all attempts at fun in that direction, and harmony reigned. Or, to
+speak more correctly, the lunch baskets reigned in a very harmonious
+atmosphere.
+
+Sitting about on moss or stones, after the good cheer had vanished,
+the cadets got off so many "grinds" that poor Mrs. Newcomb declared
+she should have no strength left to help her down the hill. Then they
+sang songs, and gave out conundrums. The girls made chains of the pine
+needles, and the men in grey put them on, and declared them emblematic
+and imperishable.
+
+On her part, Miss Lane went on with her study of Magnus Kindred,
+watching him keenly. She noticed that though he took the frail
+green links from her hands, putting them round his cap, twining them
+about his arm, he said no word of their being "fetters"--called
+them garlands, instead. She felt that in all the light play, the
+cavalier-like deference, there was no sham devotion, no hint of deeper
+things. Yet he wore his class ring. And she knew she was pretty, and
+felt certain she was well dressed. It piqued her; she would have liked
+to see those green chains press hard, with a permanent sensation. And
+then, when she went off to look at some side view which Mr. Clinker
+recommended, what did Mr. Kindred do but seat himself by Mrs. Newcomb
+and talk to her! It was extremely trying.
+
+I think, to me, the way down Crownest is more difficult than the way
+up; taking hold perhaps upon a set of less-used muscles; but the party
+all came safe and sound to the lower level and easier going of the
+plain.
+
+"Now you must be sure and come to us at Christmas," Mrs. Newcomb was
+saying, as they parted. "We shall expect you all."
+
+"Well, I can't come, sorry to say," Mr. Clinker answered with a laugh.
+"I've got a previous with the Com. Awfully hard lines for me--but it's
+just my luck."
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+CHRISTMAS LEAVE
+
+ Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they were men that stood
+ alone.
+
+  --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+Cold weather came early. Mrs. Newcomb's picnic was the last of the
+season, and most of the human birds of passage grew chilly, and took
+their bright plumage back to city streets. A few visitors lingered on;
+people with no children to put to school, or with some son or brother
+in the Corps.
+
+Only the steadfast old hills flung out their hardy colours--and flung
+them off; decking themselves with an occasional white cap instead. The
+blue river rolled by in deep foamy wrinkles; the distant Catskills had
+donned their snow.
+
+No parades now, but noisy drills, with light battery, siege battery,
+and sea-coast guns, making the hills roar out in countless echoes. Only
+Battery Knox lay quiet, unmoved in all the commotion, keeping silent
+watch near the white shaft of "Dade and his Command." While far away
+beyond the hubbub, a small army of white and grey and brown stones told
+of other soldiers, who had fought their last battle, and answered to
+the last command. Very little told there, indeed, but of the _soldier_;
+the _man_ almost left out. But on one old, old stone are words to make
+one's heart leap up for joy:
+
+"He that doeth the will of God, abideth forever."
+
+October ran its bright course, and the shorter, darker days of November
+came softly in, but very fair, even yet. The hills set forth their
+rocky heights and fastnesses, stripped now of the softening leaves,
+and still the cold grey of the stone was warmed and clouded with the
+wilderness of brown tree stems. And every here and there rose up a
+tall hemlock or cedar or pine, in its dark, dauntless green, while not
+a few red oaks still sported the tatters of their autumn flags. Along
+the river on the lower ground, black alder bushes showed a wealth of
+"winter berries," beautiful as coral beads, and a close match in colour.
+
+Drills ceased, and dress parade began; and in the dusky time between
+gunfire and supper the men had chance for a good constitutional upon
+the well-swept sidewalk of the officers' row. Wrapped in long grey
+fearnaughts, with steady, swinging step, they went up and down, in ones
+and twos and threes, almost like an open procession; talking, talking,
+and discussing. Now the last blunder of the "Com.," now the latest whim
+of the "Supe"; then the marks of the day. Here, consigning all tactical
+officers to the prompt dealing of a drumhead court-martial, and here
+busy with the charms of some fair new girl. Oftenest of all, perhaps,
+dwelling on Graduation, Furlough, and First-class camp.
+
+But you never saw them walk arm in arm, like other students,--this
+would strike any stranger. Close together, but both hands free. Perhaps
+the regulation salute, with its frequent, instant, and exact demands,
+may be partly the cause of this.
+
+A fellow once hastening over to the hop with a girl on one arm, and her
+shoes and fan laying claim to the other, passed a certain dignitary
+with only a bow of the head, and was of course reported.
+
+Going next day to explain and get the report off, he was told:
+
+"Drop the girl! Drop the shoes! Salute, salute!"
+
+Another feature of West Point life which I think would strike unwonted
+eyes, is the universal opening of front doors at four o'clock. Up to
+that time, after the midday refection of whatever name, West Point on
+the plain might be a city asleep, with slow pacing sentries guarding
+its slumbers. But when the sweet four o'clock bugle sounds out, waking
+the echoes and the antagonistic dogs, the houses wake up too. Bonnets
+go on, gloves slide into place, and the fair wearers come forth with a
+delightful sense of expecting or being expected (for both things are in
+place), and the thinnest veil of unconcern to hide it all. It is a very
+pretty scene.
+
+Officers and professors come hastening back from the section room, gay
+turnouts wheel hither and thither, and the cadets are presently out in
+force. For drill, for parade, for walks, according to the time of year
+and the state of the weather. Football was not yet the rage, in Magnus
+Kindred's time, nor bicycles; and so every man you met was practising
+the noble art of walking, or showing how splendidly West Point can ride.
+
+As November speeded away, Christmas leave began to rise up in the
+distance, and to claim many thoughts. Men who had lost it were down on
+their "luck" (the cadet spelling for carelessness), men who had won it
+debated in what way the few dear hours of freedom should be spent; and
+many a fellow from some far-down or far-off corner of the land stood
+pledged to go with his happier friend whose home was nearer by.
+
+In all these joys, as usual, the poor fourth classmen had no share.
+They walked, indeed, like the rest; one must do something; but they
+talked gloomy things. No Christmas leave for them--and not much of
+anything else but hard work. They were not supposed to need anything
+else. No damsels on the sidewalk proffered them sugar plums, very few
+people even knew them by sight.
+
+I will do Magnus Kindred the justice to say that the keen memory
+of some of his own early days at the Post made him a little bit
+thoughtful of these forlorn young strangers. It was no great credit to
+him, perhaps, if he now and then passed on to fourth class hands a box
+of Miss Flirt's best candy, but he did better than that. He gave words
+of encouragement and counsel, cheered up the faint hearts, and would
+smile and speak to a pleb on the sidewalk, just as if he himself had
+not been first sergeant, and a prime favourite with the ladies.
+
+Some people will say he could have had no time to look after anyone but
+himself, but you never know how much you have, till you divide it up
+with needy people. And I doubt if helping takes more time than hazing.
+It is rather a question of which word you will say, what look you will
+give. And there had come to Cadet Kindred the wholesome perception that
+he could be a power for good or for evil, with all these younger boys.
+Consciously or unconsciously, they were watching the upper classmen,
+and taking tone from them.
+
+"What is in the way of your living just as earnest Christian lives
+here, as at home?" he had said one day to some plebs who were gradually
+sliding back from all their good home habits. And one answered:
+
+"Because we are so far from home, sir, and can't go to church so often,
+and can't keep Sunday as we have been taught."
+
+But another said boldly:
+
+"Because the first classmen are so different in camp from what they are
+in prayer-meeting."
+
+And it set Magnus to thinking. His own pleb days were not so long past
+that he could forget how he used to watch Mr. Upright, to see what all
+his brave words in the prayer meeting came to in the week; finding the
+first captain's straight everyday walk a constant help. And just such
+service he himself was called upon to render to these new men.
+
+It had been a doubt with Mr. Kindred, as the holidays drew on, whether
+after all he would use his Christmas leave. He had it, easy enough, but
+what should he do with it? Home was too far away to be even thought of,
+and short of home, what was there he cared for? Magnus rather thought
+he would stay at the Post.
+
+However, as the time drew near, and Mrs. Newcomb renewed her
+invitation, and Mrs. Beguile sent up hers, Magnus yielded to the
+prospective charms of the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, and New
+York harbour; and joined the gay party that were going to town. Five
+days' escape from the reveille gun was, after all, worth something.
+
+Busy, gay days! In their quiet "cit" dress the cadets roamed about all
+day, and then at night, in correct cadet costume, went to dinner here
+and supper there, until Magnus thought he must have been presented to
+all the pretty girls in town. Rooms were full of floating sashes and
+falling lace and skirts that could "stand alone": and the men in grey
+moved about among the airiest kind of clouds and billows; a maze of
+bewildering scents and sounds and visions, with old friends and new on
+every hand.
+
+The last night of all there was a large gathering of young people at
+the house of Mrs. Beguile, and of course the West Pointers were petted
+and wondered over to their hearts' content. In fact Magnus had more of
+it than he wanted; he grew tired of being asked for bell buttons, and
+telling how often he had his hair cut. McLean enjoyed it, and Randolph
+could never have too many girls around, even if the fair creatures
+had to stand on tiptoe and peep over each other's shoulders. But Mr.
+Kindred was in a very critical mood, thinking of Cherry; and found
+himself comparing necks and shoulders on every hand. He was saying
+stringent things to himself anent one of the prodigal owners, when Mrs.
+Beguile touched him on the arm.
+
+"I do not wonder you are lost in admiration," she said, following his
+eyes, which were just then fixed on the youngest Miss Fashion; an
+extremely handsome young lady, too much of whose dress seemed to have
+slid down to the floor in a mass of curling frills and furbelows.
+
+"Like Venus rising from the sea, is she not, Mr. Kindred, with her
+white foamy draperies?"
+
+Magnus considered this rendering.
+
+"Why did Venus rise from the sea?" he asked abruptly. But now Mrs.
+Beguile looked at him.
+
+"Why?" she repeated. "Dear me! how should I know? I'm not the least bit
+classical. Because she liked to, I suppose. But my dear Mr. Kindred, as
+our great poet has beautifully remarked, 'Life is a business, not good
+cheer.' Will you come with me and make yourself useful?"
+
+"What an opening--to a man who has been totally useless for the last
+four days!" Magnus answered, as he followed his hostess to the supper
+room. "But if your poet had seen that table, Mrs. Beguile, he would
+have written down life to be good cheer and not business--couldn't help
+it, you know; it would have confused his mind to that extent."
+
+Mrs. Beguile took this as a great joke, and went about repeating it.
+
+"Cadets have such pretty ways of saying things," she remarked. "Oh,
+Busy, here's Mr. Kindred. You used to see him at West Point, you know,
+and he's just as nice as ever."
+
+Poor little Miss Bee! Did she need to be assured of that? But she bore
+herself gallantly, was just glad enough and not too glad to see him,
+gave one thought to her dress--so unfashionably high and plain--and
+never found out with what deep approval Cadet Kindred noticed its
+modest cut and simple trimmings.
+
+"Cherry might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids," he thought. Poor
+little Mabel!
+
+"Say, Kin," Rig confided to him as he went by with Miss Flirt's empty
+plate; "just two things not here, cast-iron pancakes, and 'Sammy.'"
+
+"And the first captain," added Randolph, "yelling out 'Battalion,
+rise!' before we're half through."
+
+"What do you think of this, for Commissary beef?" quoth Twinkle,
+devouring a sandwich in blissful ignorance of its component parts.
+
+"Mr. Kindred! Mr. Kindred!" called out Miss Freak from a window seat
+behind him; "do please get me a glass of punch. I'm just dying with
+thirst."
+
+Magnus stepped over to a side table and brought the young lady a glass
+of sparkling cold water. Miss Freak promptly handed it back.
+
+"What did you bring that for?" she asked. "I didn't say water, man
+alive!"
+
+"Best thing I know, when you are thirsty," said Magnus. "Try it once."
+
+"Try it once," the girl repeated mockingly. "Do you suppose I never
+have?"
+
+"She wants punch," remarked Miss Saucy.
+
+"She thinks she does."
+
+"She _knows_ she does," said Miss Freak, with a stamp of her little
+foot. "You'd better believe she knows what she wants."
+
+"I never heard that ladies could not be mistaken, did you?" said Magnus
+provokingly.
+
+"Mrs. Beguile! Mrs. Beguile!" called out Miss Freak, "here's one of
+your guests very rude to me!"
+
+"What is it, Freaky?" asked the good lady, bustling up. "Rude to you?
+Oh, I guess not. Mr. Kindred will take care of you."
+
+"If she will let me."
+
+"Why, he's the very man!" said Miss Freak. "I want some punch, and
+he'll not get it for me."
+
+"Not get it for you, dear?"
+
+"Doused me with cold water," said the young lady, pouting.
+
+"Doused you!" Mrs. Beguile looked at the pink draperies, which gave no
+sign of such heroic treatment; then she turned to Magnus.
+
+"I am trying to take care of her, Mrs. Beguile," Magnus said.
+
+The good lady looked at him,--the clean, clear face, the bright eyes;
+looked across to the great punch bowl, where the ladling and quaffing
+went ceaselessly on, her own boys among the crowd, and a shadow fell on
+her placid face.
+
+"Do you drink nothing but water yourself, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am."
+
+"Not even punch?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+Another look went across the room, and then Mrs. Beguile said with a
+half sigh:
+
+"Freaky, if I were you, I'd let him take care of me as he thinks best;
+and of himself, too. You are a brave man, Mr. Kindred."
+
+"'The Lord cover his head in the day of battle,'" said a low voice
+behind Magnus. He turned quickly, but perhaps the speaker had turned
+too, for he saw no sign.
+
+"I thought you wouldn't fight?" said Miss Lane, laughing up at him.
+
+As for Miss Freak, she pouted, and made believe cry; and Randolph
+darted over to the great bowl, coming back with a glass of punch in
+each hand, one for his own companion and one for Miss Freak.
+
+"Such airs!" commented portly Mrs. Chose, sailing by. "Setting himself
+up above the rest of the world. Just the way with those West Pointers.
+I told you so, Miranda; more strut than sense. I'll never take you to
+West Point again."
+
+"Oh, yes you will," said Miss Miranda cheerfully, "because I'm going.
+Give me the strut, every time."
+
+"I admire your courage, Mr. Kindred," said another lady; "it is quite
+touching in so young a man. But I am always sorry to see a fine thing
+wasted, thrown away: misdirected zeal, you know, for instance. You
+cannot think for a moment that one of those small glasses of punch
+could affect a person in any way?"
+
+"It might make him want another, Mrs. Bright," Magnus answered
+respectfully. She was a very pleasant, sensible woman, and had always
+been very kind to him.
+
+"Want another? Well, let him have it. Two such glasses of simple punch?
+Why, the head that wouldn't stand that isn't worth the purchase."
+
+"Mine would be worth more before than it would after," Magnus answered
+gaily, but not without a twinge.
+
+"Oh, are you particularly susceptible?"
+
+"Not that I know of, ma'am."
+
+"Of course, if you are," the lady went on, "you do right to let it
+alone. But you might grant others the pleasure. Really, I think it is
+rather narrow of you, Mr. Kindred, and so I don't like it. You know you
+have always been my model cadet."
+
+Magnus bowed.
+
+"Fences have a narrow look, I do suppose," he said, "but they are good
+things, in spots. And I'd rather disappoint you so, than in some other
+ways, Mrs. Bright."
+
+The two stood silent for a moment, looking off towards the punch bowl.
+Men came and went, and went and came, with other people's glasses; and
+then stood still and emptied their own. Young men, old men, with women
+on the outskirts.
+
+"And you will not get _me_ a glass?" said Mrs. Bright; looking up at
+her favourite.
+
+"No, ma'am, if you please," Magnus said, with very winning deference.
+"You will not ask me, Mrs. Bright?"
+
+"You cannot think there is any risk for _me_? Would it be against West
+Point regulations? But they are not in force here."
+
+"No; although West Point honour is mine to guard, wherever I am,"
+answered Magnus. "But I have said it to myself, that I will never take
+nor give the stuff in any form. For a regulation older than West Point,
+Mrs. Bright."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world
+standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'"
+
+Very hilarious voices from the region of the punch bowl emphasised the
+clear, brave words.
+
+"I don't like it," said the lady frankly. "You upset all my ideas."
+
+"But why do you keep him mewed up here in the corner, Mrs. Bright?"
+said Miss Saucy, who had been listening intently behind backs. "I don't
+believe he's had one scrap of supper. Have a cup of tea; do, Magnus.
+You can't live upon air, man, even in the plural. Here's some I brought
+you myself. Taste it and see how good it is. You like lemon, I know."
+
+Magnus took the cup from the glittering fingers, expressed his thanks,
+and tasted as he was bid. Then instantly turned and set the full cup
+down on the table, coming back to his place without a word.
+
+A great burst of laughter greeted him. Miss Saucy fairly sank down into
+a chair, and Miss Newcomb and a half-dozen more clapped hands with
+delight.
+
+"What is all this?" said Mrs. Bright sternly; the screaming style was
+not to her taste, and she had caught the sudden flush and gleam on the
+face of Charlemagne Kindred. "What is all this, girls?"
+
+"Rum," Magnus said briefly.
+
+"It wasn't!" cried Miss Saucy; "it was good, honest tea, Mrs. Bright."
+
+"With dishonest seasoning."
+
+"That was a very unladylike trick," said Mrs. Bright. "Girls, I am
+extremely astonished at you. Rum in tea? Why, I never heard of such a
+thing."
+
+"Oh, aunty," cried Miss Freak, with her hands on her sides, "there's
+lots of things you never heard of!"
+
+"Well, I am glad I have heard of _you_!" said Mrs. Bright, giving
+Magnus a good grip of her hand. "Glad I have heard you, too. And now I
+must go."
+
+Miss Lane, who had been a keen looker-on at all this, came up a little
+closer.
+
+"How does it work?" she said softly. "You know I warned you those old
+rules would get in your way."
+
+"They have not yet," said Magnus. "I am all standing, thank you."
+
+"I see; straighter than ever. It's a great thing to have 'views,'" said
+Miss Lane, with a laugh. "When they materialise like yours."
+
+For a few minutes the air was full of "See you at the New Year's
+Hop"--"Take you to the Hundredth Night"--"Come for first-class camp."
+Then the company separated, the lights went out, and the punch bowl was
+left to its own reflections.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT
+
+    Oh, who will leave West Point retreats,
+      A hundred days to come?
+    Oh, who will walk the city streets,
+      A hundred days to come?
+    Oh, who will wear their suits of cits,
+    Oh, who will boast of spooning fits,
+    Who'll lose their cents but not their wits,
+      A hundred days to come?
+
+    --_West Point Howitzer of '93._
+
+
+The January examination that year came on and went off, bearing with it
+but few wrecks. One or two hard-working men who were cut out for lines
+of life where mathematics counted less; with two or three careless
+ones who coveted lines where there was no work at all. And now in
+everybody's mind the cold days and hard studies ranged themselves in
+a shortening vista, with June at the end. June! the short word for
+first-class camp, furlough, yearling camp, and graduation. While to
+Charlemagne Kindred and many another, was added in the thought of
+friends at home who had promised to grace June with their presence.
+Some men talked about this, but he never did--at least, not in full.
+To his roommate he did sometimes speak of his mother and her coming,
+but not of his sisters; never of Cherry. No one knew that she existed,
+except the men who had been there, and they had been very much thrown
+off to the other girls even then. And as Magnus was extremely popular
+at West Point, there were always girls at hand to suggest unlimited
+chaffing, without crossing the continent to find occasion thereto.
+Letters came and went in troops, of course, but so they did for
+other men. Three girls he never heard of wrote to Magnus, desiring a
+correspondence, and he turned the letters over to Mr. Trent, who had
+quite a lively time. Thus, one way and another, the weeks swung on, and
+Washington's birthday was close at hand.
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter
+morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm
+exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the fourth classman
+detailed to announce the date might have been chaired and borne back to
+barracks on the shoulders of the crowd, had such doings been allowed
+at the Academy. As things were, however, all that could be given him
+was the further privilege of announcing next morning, that the days had
+dwindled to ninety nine.
+
+But just in here came the Hundredth Night extravaganza; like
+Hallowe'en, or the Carnival, or any other special occasion when wits
+run wild.
+
+If I should try to give you the details of any one particular Hundredth
+Night frolic, I might either make anomalous blunders or else mark out
+and specify some one special year, and so date my story. Let me rather,
+then, give a chance medley from many celebrations, of things that were
+done--or might have been done--only vouching for the general truth of
+its details.
+
+Of course Magnus Kindred was in the forefront of everything, with his
+untiring energy, fine voice, and ready wit; and no beavers could have
+worked harder over a winter house, than these men over one winter
+frolic. Plans, dresses, scenery, jokes, and poems, with here and there
+an elaborate mock-machine; what patience, what perseverance, what
+endless fertile wits, they did display. Every Saturday afternoon,
+every minute of release from quarters, went into the work. Ladies were
+called upon for hints and materials; good-natured officers gave their
+accoutrements and their advice. The very professors lent their coats to
+the wicked boys who were preparing to "skin" their benefactors, in the
+only way possible to cadets.
+
+For the men in grey may not argue, remonstrate, or petition; may not
+even ask why. "Theirs but to do and die," as they themselves would
+put it; until the Colour Line comes round, or the Hundredth Night.
+Then, twice in the year, they are allowed to state their opinions,
+grievances, and desires, though still within certain limits. Woe be to
+the man who ventures to disagree with his instructor in the section
+room; but at the Hundredth night he may make what fun of him he
+can--within limits.
+
+Of late, however, the censorship over these frolics has been so strict
+that they are shorn of their old glory. The wild garden effect has
+changed into more "correct" growths, well trained and trimmed: less
+distinctive, less individual. Wits will not play without space to play
+in. But in those times of which I write, it seems to have been thought
+that steam pent up was more dangerous than the same blown off; and that
+the quips and jibes and flings, so dear to cadet hearts, were most
+innocuous when well shaken up and aired twice a year.
+
+Cadet rebukes rarely miss the mark through being wrapped in too much
+cotton. But if a few cuts and scratches follow they are not deep, and
+the surrounding fun half heals them. I defy anybody to look grave, when
+that grey house "comes down" in a roar of merriment.
+
+Of course, many of the jokes are so local and technical that a stranger
+would be puzzled. West Point affairs, personal hits at cadets,
+or memories of the section room, figure largely. But whether you
+understand or not, you have to laugh, just for the rollicking joy that
+goes on behind you. The jolly storm of applause sweeps you helplessly
+along.
+
+There are years when you go to the Hundredth Night between snowbanks
+as high as yourself, and along slippery white paths; there are others
+when the hills are clouded, and the mist hangs low, and the gas
+lights twinkle and peer through a grey veil. There are still others
+when air and hills and sky are at the brightest and bonniest, with
+a clear, hard, brown earth; and you cross the plain amid a glory of
+contesting lights:--gas round the quarters; a young moon dipping her
+lovely crescent behind the hill; Newburgh's electric lights winking and
+blinking like live things, from ten miles away; and close before you,
+the whole front of barracks in a blaze of lit-up rooms. It is so fair,
+so weird, that you can only look and look, back and forth, from side to
+side.
+
+As you gaze and loiter, small parties pass you on the way: people
+intent upon other effects than those of light and shadow. Generally
+a cadet with a girl--or two girls; with sometimes a chaperon, and
+sometimes not. But remember that every West Point cadet is held to be a
+knight _par excellence_; a gentleman all through; and so, by long usage
+and experience, judged to be a fit and sufficient escort on every such
+occasion. It is the regular thing.
+
+And then when the figures flit by you side by side or arm in arm; pink
+and grey, or grey and yellow, or, as now, furs and cadet cloth, all
+your comment is for the pretty combination. And when some solitary
+greatcoat goes speeding along to meet an appointment at the Hotel or
+the houses, you instantly hope that the girl will not keep him waiting.
+
+For the minutes are running on; and whoever wants a good seat--or a
+seat at all--had better not delay.
+
+There is a grey throng about the steps of the old Mess Hall, and girls
+in quantity.
+
+They press up the stone steps, and pour into the hall, pretty and
+flushed, proud and sufficient. Officers with their families join in,
+and now and then a distinguished stranger; and these fill up the front
+seats. Then come civilians, visitors, and their escorts. Behind the
+curtain mysterious sounds of tools at work tell of preparations not
+quite complete. There is music, a pause, and more music; and then from
+behind the curtain a tall, grey figure steps gravely forth, bows low to
+the audience, and begins the regulation Hundredth Night address. It is
+the president of the first class.
+
+Whoever makes the speech, and whatever else he puts in it, the refrain
+is always:
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+I think I never knew but one exception; and I missed the old words
+then; but this night they were in full force. Yet the speech was in
+some ways as unlike most others as he himself was different from many
+men. Strong, tall, square shouldered, both mentally and physically,
+Cadet Trueman no more thought of turning a stone wall, or dodging a
+river, than if they had been pebbles and rivulets. Which way he ought
+to go, that way he went; the only sort of a steeplechase in which no
+man comes to grief. Not a brilliant man, but a diligent; "hard work and
+hard praying" had brought him nobly through. Trueman stood high, wore
+high chevrons, and knew less (experimentally) of the area of barracks
+than any man in his class. No ladies' man, as you might guess; although
+the chevrons, or something, won him many admiring looks. But if ever
+you met Mr. Trueman meandering round Flirtation with a girl, you might
+be sure it was a case of philanthropy, pure and simple, and that the
+damsel was on his hands by no volition of his own. And he never asked
+for the further favour of a walk after chapel, or on O. G. P. He always
+acquitted himself well on such occasions, but that was the last of it;
+and he joyfully slid back among the bachelors again. And now, as he
+came forward and bowed to the expectant throng, no thought of any--or
+all--the bright eyes in the room made his pulse one throb the quicker.
+He had stir enough, in the mere heading of his speech:
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+"Who is that?" whispered a stylish new girl for whom Magnus Kindred
+played cavalier.
+
+"Fort Put. In moments of deepest affection, 'Old Put.'"
+
+"How absurd you cadets always are! Wherefore do you call him that?"
+
+"Only thing in the neighbourhood like him. Crownest is a trifle large
+for even his inches."
+
+The girl looked indignant, as if she thought Magnus was fooling her;
+but then the speech began.
+
+Happy for you, perhaps, that no complete copy has come to my hands;
+you are spared the danger of being even asked to read it. But the
+last sentences so fixed themselves in Magnus Kindred's mind that he
+sent them off to Cherry next day, word for word. And of course I have
+unlimited control of the correspondence. "Ladies and Gentlemen" figured
+politely in the opening words, but Cadet True soon forgot them; looking
+clean across the gay flower garden in front to the grey mass behind:
+the vivid, eager, forceful lives hid away beneath those trim dress
+coats.
+
+"One hundred days to June! To freedom, to power, to Life! Men of 18--,
+shall your freedom be liberty or license? your power sworn in for good,
+or for evil? Shall life be a failure--or a success? The names that rank
+highest to-day, will they keep their proud position? The names that
+stand lower, will they show the world what they could have done here,
+but for Wave Motion and Spanish?"
+
+And now Mr. Trueman had to pause, for this mention of their dire
+enemies brought the grey house down.
+
+"It may be--it can be, if you will," he went on. "Every man has it in
+him to do royal work. 'The people that know their God shall be strong,
+and do exploits.'
+
+    "Fight the fight, Christian!
+      Jesus is o'er thee.
+    Run the race, Christian!
+      Heaven is before thee.
+    Thee from the love of Christ
+      Nothing shall sever:
+    Mount when thy work is done,
+      Praise him forever."
+
+The grey figure bowed and disappeared behind the curtain amid great
+cheering.
+
+"Good for you, Old Put!" cried Magnus heartily. "You see," he explained
+to his companion, "True's just the same (or a trifle better) in
+barracks than he is at prayer-meeting. That's how he won his name.
+Nothing but treachery could have put the old fort in the hands of the
+enemy,--and that failed. I believe," said Mr. Kindred, turning bright
+eyes on his companion, "that if Arnold had carried out his plan, the
+rocks on the hillside would have risen up and fought back the invaders."
+
+Miss Cray looked at him.
+
+"You're very patriotic, aren't you, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Rather," Magnus answered with dry emphasis.
+
+"I've been abroad so long," said the pretty girl, "I get puzzled. I do
+know about Arnold. There's his tablet in the chapel, you know. But who
+were Grant and Sherman, anyway? Didn't they figure in the last war,
+somehow?"
+
+"Some people thought they did," said Cadet Kindred, with a face that
+had no expression whatever. And then, happily, the curtain drew up.
+
+But how shall I give any idea of the performance to one who has never
+seen the like? Hits at officers, burlesques of unpopular orders,
+take-offs of the girls, with jibes and chaff at each other that would
+have made anybody but cadets just savage. Being cadets, they caught
+the fun, stood the jeers, and laughed--roared--till the Mess Hall rang.
+
+With all this, songs--often very good; or a charming bit of "silent
+manual"; and scenes and situations sometimes true, always possible,
+and very droll. Then some mock machinery that one wondered how they
+ever found time to make; unheard-of problems and discoveries worked
+out in most ingenious ways, with just enough flavour of this or that
+instructor's style to "adorn the tale"--whether any moral came in or
+not.
+
+Enter a donkey, carefully compounded of four plebs within--and I cannot
+guess what without. Ears and tail of the proper length, hide of the
+proper colour. He is slightly jerky and uncertain about his first
+coming in; but that is all in keeping for a descendant of the donkey
+"what wouldn't go"; and there is no hitch whatever in the performance.
+I believe one of the legs fainted as time went on; but the little
+beast (I mean the donkey), being skilfully pulled by the tail, beat a
+masterly retreat upon the other three.
+
+A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon sketches
+of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams, and
+first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the other,
+with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of glowing
+praise and liking--and lo! there stands before you the life-size
+"counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly enlarged by
+the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the men cheer!
+They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes, but they love
+him none the less.
+
+Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming
+daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come
+flirting and fanning, bridling and prinking, in a way to instruct some
+_bona fide_ girls. The butterfly poise of these airy damsels is quite
+admirable, and could only have been won by long and careful study of
+the originals.
+
+A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a tail--longer than
+the donkey's.
+
+There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post;
+whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith
+not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner away,
+the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands unknown.
+
+Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to the
+old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in place
+at West Point,--and no one was caught. It was told, _sub rosa_, and
+with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The dog has been
+painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the chief culprit
+first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all this had passed,
+and the dog was himself again.
+
+Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and helmeted,
+went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when suddenly
+from behind the scenes slid in the dog--the paint stripes in order as
+they had been before, and the medallion on its side with the number of
+its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded little body
+gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin.
+
+Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the
+cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly
+saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical
+department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog
+was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons.
+But words cannot give the utter drollery of the thing, nor tell the
+perfect way in which it was carried out.
+
+Then came more music, and the reading of the _Howitzer_.
+
+A cadet _Howitzer_ is a small, wholly original newspaper, full of
+everything in general; grinds, burlesques, sharp hints and comments,
+with bits of ridiculous fact as well; free as air, and sometimes as
+breezy. Verses to the cadet girl, verses _at_ her, as well as touching
+the stringent professor, and the unpopular drill. Grievances painted in
+high colours, and jokes about cadets that are as merciless as they are
+many.
+
+Scene: Riding hall.
+
+Lieut. B.: "Mr. H., let go that horse's mane, sir!"
+
+Cadet H. "I--I--I'm afraid he'll fall down if I do, Lieutenant."
+
+"Why is T. like necessity?"
+
+"Because he knows no Law."
+
+"A first-class horse--the Spanish pony."
+
+"Mabel, what became of that West Pointer you were engaged to?"
+
+"O, he turned out to be a disappointer."
+
+Scene: Section room.
+
+Cadet L.: "Stucco is made by mixing gypsum with a large solution."
+
+Instructor: "Large solution of what?"
+
+Cadet: "The text does not state, sir. It just says it is mixed with a
+solution of size."
+
+Scene: Section room.
+
+Professor: "Now, gentlemen, the Indians made signs of natural and
+living objects their language. For instance, if they wished to
+represent the Little Horn River they drew a little horn; and if they
+wished to represent the Big Horn River, they drew a big horn."
+
+Cadet C.: "Professor, how did they represent the Little Big Horn?"
+
+Such, and such like, keen-worded trifles; a line, or a page long; often
+very bright, seldom complimentary, but always most impartial in their
+bestowal of hits.
+
+Miranda: "I think Mr. W. is the most absent-minded cadet I know."
+
+Jenny: "How so, dear?"
+
+Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were just
+sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"
+
+"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of
+Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on
+'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"
+
+So goes the _Howitzer_; and the audience are kindly told that at the
+end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass
+in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a
+day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."
+
+I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the
+saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold
+black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one
+laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the
+local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much
+explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his
+boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe
+urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last
+letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess
+what sort of hands will open the letter.
+
+Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well made-up
+damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed presently by
+a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering anxiously from
+side to side.
+
+"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too
+disappears.
+
+The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on the scene. He
+also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.
+
+"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this way."
+
+Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly
+assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written
+all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of
+pleasure.
+
+"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as he
+dives in among the shadows.
+
+The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy
+amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old
+Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents
+pertaining thereto, laughable enough.
+
+But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is Saturday
+night.
+
+The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the gay
+company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is over.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+PRESSING ON
+
+ I work with fury and delight, because I must get on, and I do get
+ on.
+
+  --BARON BUNSEN.
+
+
+Morning by morning now the shortening roll of days makes part of the
+cadet breakfast.
+
+"Ninety-nine days to June!"
+
+"Ninety-eight days to June!"
+
+"Ninety-seven days to June!"
+
+And all listen, and every heart takes a lighter bound. Ask any man,
+from now on, what is the news, and the odds are that you will get for
+answer:
+
+"Ninety-six days to June!"--or forty-six, as the case may be. I had a
+note once from a cadet, dated:
+
+"Barracks. Sixty-four days to June!"
+
+But then he forgot to sign his name. That did not matter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a strong pull, each man for himself, for the next three months;
+a sort of individual "tug of war." I think Magnus had never worked so
+hard in all the time he had been at West Point. Perhaps chemistry and
+wave motion had something to do with this, for our hero was no genius.
+Nothing but honest work carried him on. Higher thoughts than of rank
+lit up the musty pages, and made music for the dull company drills.
+Truly he was not unmindful of the charms of an engineer post for
+Cherry; but several born mathematicians stood between him and any hope
+of that. Yet all he _could_ do, he would. The honour of the Christian
+name, no less than Cherry's sweet life, was in his trust, to dim or
+to brighten; and no man should ever adorn the tale with the name of
+Charlemagne Kindred, when saying that religion spoiled men, and should
+be left to women and children.
+
+So Magnus had his own secret joy over every high mark. Never had he
+enjoyed "maxing it," as he did that winter, and never had he done it so
+often.
+
+Some years ago, when the graduating class received their Bibles, and
+Dr. Wm. M. Taylor made the presentation address, he bade every man
+cull from his morning reading--no matter how brief it was--a sort
+of rose-in-the-buttonhole word for the day. Something like that our
+young cadet had learned to do. Nothing had hindered his daily reading
+since furlough, hard as it seemed to spare the minutes, some days,
+when work was unusually pressing. But perhaps that very pressure
+taught him to dive right into the meaning of what he read; catch up
+a message, and bear it away. Now a promise, now a precept, now a
+prayer; a breath of joyous hope, a gleam of unearthly glory. That real
+rose-in-the-buttonhole which dress coats and blouses may never wear,
+would have drooped in the drill, fainted in the section room, and been
+lost in the tan bark. But it seemed to Magnus as if his invisible
+blooms grew only fairer as the day went on. The fragrance was royal, as
+it came and went in such variety.
+
+"Hopeth all things, endureth all things."--
+
+"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."--
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto
+men."--
+
+"Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me."--
+
+Nobody knew all this; few people read the signs; though they did
+note the high marks, and could say that "Kindred" (in his own way)
+was the gayest man in barracks. But I fear they deemed him a crank,
+all the same. Rig would look up at the clatter caused by "Analytical
+Mechanics," as it struck the corner of the room; and then see Magnus
+with an odd smile on his face make a rush for the obnoxious volume, and
+plunge into it again with all his might. "Studying like mad," as his
+easy-going comrade phrased it; but Magnus only called it "heartily."
+
+Or in the section room, with his wits gone a wool gathering, and his
+ideas in May-day confusion; every thought he had, tangled up with those
+last letters from home; desperately tempted to "bugle it," and let some
+other man bear the brunt; then the sweet "royal law" he was wearing
+that day gave its counsel, and braced him at once to do the right
+thing. He would answer, ready or unready, when his turn came. No man
+stumbled or doubted the truth of religion, because of any section-room
+meanness or selfishness on the part of Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+And so an unwelcome order, from perhaps a disagreeable man, turned
+round in the wind and came first (for him) as the Lord's command. "Obey
+them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." You will
+easily guess that Cadet Kindred remained high in discipline.
+
+And later on, first in studies also? No, by no means. Willet's Point
+never showed its head on the horizon; the leaders in the class were not
+men to be dislodged. And some studies came hard. Then (and now perhaps
+it is well I am far away from some of my friends) Cadet Kindred would
+have nothing to do with "ponies." Those seductive little frauds looked
+just as enticing, maybe, to him as to other men; but common sense and
+loyalty made him let them alone.
+
+"Common sense--for what am I here for," he answered Rig one day, "but
+to tread the paths of learning? And that does not mean going pony-back."
+
+"You can sort of line out the ground, you know," Rig said; "and then
+wear out your shoes all you want to at San Carlos."
+
+San Carlos! What visions came with the name. For a moment Rig's face
+showed through a golden haze.
+
+"But besides," Magnus went on, bringing his thoughts back, "it's not
+doing things 'heartily.' The Lord gave me this appointment to make just
+the most out of it I could. I cannot look up to Him from a 'pony,' and
+say I have learned my lesson."
+
+"But the Bible says, He always helps those that help themselves,"
+remarked Rig.
+
+"No, it doesn't; not the first word. You have borrowed some man's
+'pony' for that. It says 'Fear not, for I will help thee,'--" and
+Magnus plunged into his lesson again. The Divine strength that is
+trusted in, is a wonderful power; and Cadet Kindred pushed on and
+pushed up, every now and then took some other man's scalp, and never
+lost his own.
+
+And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed, by
+a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now and
+then guard duty; but between whiles full of quiet time to think.
+
+It was such a pleasure to pile up the study books Saturday night, and
+leave the dark mass untouched till Monday morning. It took faith--a
+good deal--in some crises of work, but it paid well. The free time was
+so good. Not hours snatched unlawfully, but taken of right, according
+to that most wise and blessed law of the Lord: "In it thou shalt not do
+any work."
+
+In fine weather Magnus kept himself much out of doors, letting the dust
+of the week clear all away from eyes and heart and brain, till the
+balance of things, so often confused in the weekday rush, swung steady
+and true once more.
+
+"I don't see how you do it, Kin," said Randolph one day. "Do you run a
+light after taps?"
+
+"Never," said Magnus. "I study all I can Saturday, and as early as I
+can Monday morning."
+
+"Always ready for eight o'clock?"
+
+"I will not say the details are always just as clear as they were on
+Saturday, but then my head is so much clearer. I get along, somehow."
+
+"Well, I should say you did!" commented Rig. "Maxing it every blessed
+day last week."
+
+
+
+
+XLV
+
+NOTHING SERIOUS
+
+    A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright
+      Conversed as they sat on the green.
+    Alonzo the brave was the name of this knight:
+      The damsel, the fair Imogene.
+
+    --LEWIS.
+
+
+One of the mild amusements of this spring for Magnus was watching Rig.
+For Mr. McLean had fallen in love. Not deeply, for that implies certain
+other depths--or hopelessly, for there was every likelihood that he
+would get out again all safe; but unmanageably. Unutterably, Rig called
+it, and Magnus unendurably.
+
+So the young man mooned over photographs, sported (in his room) an
+end of pink riband; tumbled his hair all he could, and went down in
+everything.
+
+"I say, Rig!" Magnus admonished him one night, "keep out of the
+'immortals,' whatever else you do."
+
+"I cannot do much of anything," Rig answered mournfully.
+
+"Well, I'd try, if I died in the effort," said Magnus. "Bone chevrons;
+your charmer has a quick eye for them."
+
+"She has a quick eye for everything."
+
+"Wearing bell buttons." But Rig did not heed him.
+
+"Confess, Kin, you never saw such eyes."
+
+"Only about five hundred and forty times, when I used to go
+cat-fishing. Ever notice catfish eyes, Rig?"
+
+"They're so blue!" said Cadet McLean. "So deeply, darkly----"
+
+"If you don't shut up," Magnus shouted at him, "I'll try if I can't
+shake some sense into you. Quit sighing like a furnace. You nearly blew
+the gas out."
+
+"Of course I can't expect you to understand," said Rig. "You live only
+in books, far away from all this sort of thing."
+
+"I hope so, this sort," said Magnus.
+
+"You see, my heart is larger than my head," said Mr. McLean. "Always
+was."
+
+But now Magnus threw down his book, and pitched into his friend
+very literally; pounding him, hustling him, getting him into a real
+fisticuff fight to protect himself.
+
+"Feel better, don't you?" said Mr. Kindred, when the two faced each
+other, flushed and panting. "Balance of power restored?"
+
+"I don't know how I feel!" said McLean. "I've lost all my ideas."
+
+"Well, don't advertise them at any high figure," said Magnus.
+
+    "Let 'em alone,
+      And they will come home,
+    With their little tails behind 'em.
+
+"Sit down and study, like a reasonable being. If I were a woman, I
+wouldn't _look_ at a man who couldn't hold his head up when my back was
+turned."
+
+"It is quite impossible for me to look at a book," said Rig.
+
+"Very good; sit still and sigh, and I'll write your explanation."
+
+"To whom? What about?" Rig sat up now and gazed at him.
+
+"To the Prof. To-morrow. As follows:
+
+"'Sir: I have the honour to state that I have fallen into a six-inch
+mud puddle, and cannot get out in time for recitation. So wave motion
+must wait.'"
+
+"Stuff!" McLean said rather angrily.
+
+"Stuff, and nothing but stuff. Rig, when you get fired in June, your
+dear devoted will not turn her head to see which way you go to take
+the train. Not much!" said Magnus, relieving his feelings with a bit
+of slang, and then diving into his own problems for the next day. And
+Rig could get neither word nor look more that night. But whatever
+traditions may say, unlimited chocolate creams do not help a man with
+his tactics; nor does plum cake after taps provide him a clear head for
+next day's wave motion.
+
+"You could make better marks, Mr. McLean," said the Superintendent one
+day, meeting Rig. "Why don't you, sir?"
+
+And if Rig had been openly honest, he would have answered:
+
+"Love--and mince pie, sir."
+
+Magnus scolded his friend, fought him, jeered him; then tried other
+measures.
+
+The days were softening and lengthening, with grass and flowers on
+the jump. Visitors were arriving in numbers; and for Magnus had come,
+from away across the continent, a bunch of snowdrops in Cherry's last
+letter. Somehow his own great happiness made the young cadet anxious
+for his friend.
+
+"Look here, Trent," he said one day to another classmate, "can't you
+pitch in and spoon that Curry girl? Rig will be ruined."
+
+"Spoon her yourself."
+
+"Haven't time. One more will make no difference to you."
+
+"Thanks. Rig will put a bullet in my head, if he suspects."
+
+"Well, your brain always did need fresh air," said Magnus, "so that
+will fit. Why, to-day, in the section room, Hammer asked him the colour
+of old red sandstone,--and Rig answered:
+
+"'Blue, Lieutenant.'"
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trent. "But isn't this rather a queer business to
+be talked up by our high and mighty magnate of the tender conscience?
+The man who keels over at the mere sight of a 'pony.'"
+
+"Pshaw! if it was some girls," said Magnus. "But it will make no
+difference to her either. You've both worn your hearts out--supposing
+you ever had any."
+
+"Thanks--awfully! And you think Miss Curry might be induced to hand
+over 'those fossil remains that she terms her affections' to me?"
+
+"To your temporary care. You wear chevrons," said Magnus. "And your
+affections are as fossilised as hers, allowing for the argument's sake
+that such things ever existed. Just stroll up on the other side, when
+Rig's around. She'll be delighted. And as neither of you could possibly
+fall in love with anybody, there'll be nobody hurt."
+
+"Except Rig."
+
+"Rig!" Magnus said impatiently. "Rig ought to be cut in little pieces
+and sewed up some other way."
+
+"Kin," said Mr. Trent, striking an easy attitude across the back of a
+chair, "you amuse me."
+
+"Well, clear out and amuse yourself," said Magnus. "I've got a previous
+with this old book. And if Catkins finds you here, you'll be skinned
+for all he is worth."
+
+Which warning Mr. Trent saw fit to heed.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI
+
+TRYING LETTERS
+
+    Though there's always enough to bear,
+      There is always something to do;
+    We have never to seek for care,
+      When we have the world to get through.
+
+    --CHARLES SWAIN.
+
+
+But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle? Magnus
+was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed human
+moths, wings grow anew very fast.
+
+Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but
+she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost
+his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool
+applications did but heighten the fever.
+
+From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet weather."
+Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time for drill,
+except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the rain sets in
+with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.
+
+Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself
+in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog.
+The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with
+spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and
+azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How
+fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the
+small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in
+another month _his_ birds of passage would be here, and the air full of
+their voices. Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half
+made him wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a
+one-sided leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down
+on the moss and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to
+the top of a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to
+the passing trains, and saluted the old flag.
+
+The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at them,
+he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on him.
+He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world to
+creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a
+swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it
+made.
+
+Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak
+a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly;
+and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And,
+of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself
+agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean
+cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming
+frankness:
+
+"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your
+back hair down."
+
+But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share of
+what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."
+
+Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring;
+and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average
+cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And
+the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when
+one gauzy creature looked up at him and said:
+
+"Isn't it strange? You know I've always wanted to live at an army
+post--but I'm not engaged yet,"--then Cadet Kindred grew silent, and
+as soon as possible resigned in favour of Mr. Clinker.
+
+So the hope-gilded days flew on: but with the end of May came a check.
+
+Magnus got back from a long walk, to find two letters on his table. I
+know it is the correct thing for hero and heroine to "tear open" their
+letters, but Magnus cut his as carefully as if the very envelope might
+hold its quota of words.
+
+"Dear Magnus," so the clear handwriting began, "I am afraid--no, I
+suppose I hope--that you will be very sorry. For I cannot go East with
+Mrs. Kindred and the girls."
+
+And here, truth compels me to say, Cadet Kindred threw down the letter,
+and stamped about the room in a small tempest of displeasure.
+
+"What's up?" queried Rig, who had noted the postmark. "Hasn't gone back
+on you, has she?"
+
+For which harmless suggestion, Magnus promptly tumbled the offender out
+of his chair, and left him to pick himself up.
+
+"I say! Steady on that, you know," commented Mr. McLean. "Girls are
+plenty; but where will you find a friend like me?"
+
+"That was a beastly insinuation!" said Magnus in hot wrath.
+
+"Was it? Girls are all alike, old boy." And Rig heaved a sigh.
+
+"They're not! And this isn't what you mean by a girl. It's a--a----"
+
+"An angel, perhaps," said Rig. "Then allow me to inquire what business
+you have to be rattled, with anything an angel sees fit to do."
+
+"Rig," said Magnus seriously, pausing before him, "do you know
+whereabouts we are in barracks?"
+
+"Second floor, first div.," Rig answered.
+
+"Well, you can have a chance to measure the breadth of the window, and
+the depth to the ground, just as soon as you want it."
+
+"Thanks, I'm sure," said Mr. McLean. "At this moment, I am hard at work
+on the problem of your temper, minus your common sense. What does the
+letter say?"
+
+"Don't know yet," said Magnus. "I've only read three lines."
+
+Rig looked at him, and then gathering up his own books, he carried them
+over to the cold steam pipes, laid them down, and perched himself at
+one end.
+
+"You must excuse me," he said; "you are so plainly insane, that a due
+regard to my personal safety brings about this temporary coolness.
+'Distance lends enchantment'--but you are more irresistible near by."
+
+Magnus flung back into his chair again, with a half groan, and took up
+the letter. If it had been release from quarters he would have gone to
+Fort Put for the reading.
+
+"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of reading
+on? She will not--and that's just where it is." And yet he read.
+
+"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey; and
+I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'--but I cannot, Magnus. Not this
+year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the girls are
+to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all to me; and
+maybe when you graduate we can all be there."
+
+"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk of
+anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are
+fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each
+other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought
+over and over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always
+pick you out from all the three hundred. Good-bye.--Your Cherry."
+
+It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his
+disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board
+of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.
+
+"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one day.
+"Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"
+
+"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say that
+when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes must
+find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly be.
+
+"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush at
+everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his
+scholarship.
+
+So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on
+the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him;
+won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.
+
+But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after
+Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition
+to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.
+
+"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay
+with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I
+live till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,--and two such
+journeys cost."
+
+Magnus sat back in great gloom, and declared that June was "fizzling
+out."
+
+"I suppose the next word will be that Viola and Rose have some sort of
+a previous at the North Pole," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XLVII
+
+MRS. CONGRESSMAN
+
+    Pure was her mind and simple her intent,
+    Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.
+
+    --CRABBE.
+
+
+But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave
+home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who
+had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some
+things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she
+liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it
+drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional
+and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her
+girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance
+of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his
+place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his
+sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about
+the bills.
+
+"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and
+where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's
+business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be
+the first."
+
+So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey,
+and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm
+afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for
+then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman
+voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always
+ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It was as
+good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on the side
+track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened the whole
+car; curled everybody's feathers...."
+
+It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into
+"Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet
+in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned
+and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even
+of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the
+words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs.
+Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the
+country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in
+the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on
+their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M.
+C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.
+
+And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of
+rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the
+11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.
+
+People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it is
+to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time of
+year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an
+endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will
+change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing
+cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north
+wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern
+Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now
+decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to
+shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white
+paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and reports, with
+little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the edge.
+
+It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river in full
+flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east wind. The green
+of the hills--the endless shades of the young leafage--seemed almost
+to change while you looked. The girls grew too breathless to talk even
+about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes of Mrs. Congressman, there was
+positive refreshment in the way those two arm-chairs whirled on their
+pivots, for last glimpses and new effects.
+
+"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours," she
+said.
+
+"Tired--how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just see that
+vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what Cooper
+means by 'wing and wing.'"
+
+"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I wish
+it would;" and she plied her fan.
+
+"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the
+entrancing view.
+
+"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I
+know a little."
+
+"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose
+gratefully.
+
+"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking
+amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people,
+to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one
+direction all the time, there."
+
+"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!" And
+the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other still.
+
+"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman, tying
+her bonnet strings. "Well, children, I'm glad you're so happy, and
+it's a real pleasure to have you along. Some girls are just a nuisance
+at West Point."
+
+"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking out
+all the while.
+
+"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose, studying
+the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You know we
+have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we get there,
+how to do?"
+
+"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs. Congressman,
+who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which now and then
+came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you will. The
+chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as much as a
+girl, and that you both are, always."
+
+"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.
+
+"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might
+just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only,
+girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."
+
+This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.
+
+"Not anything!"
+
+"But, you do not mean Magnus."
+
+"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one; of
+course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do not."
+
+"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things
+there!" said Rose.
+
+"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take it
+out socially."
+
+The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked
+aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight
+of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets
+(except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.
+
+"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.
+
+"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said,
+pressing close to her window.
+
+Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads, the
+fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very
+amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they
+reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who
+would have a word to say to that statement.
+
+If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody
+there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched
+every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their
+leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf,
+that decked the road up the hill.
+
+Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm
+that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the
+usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey
+cloth in view from the omnibus.
+
+"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.
+
+"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.
+
+"Unless he's in the hospital."
+
+"In the hospital!"
+
+"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained
+his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss
+Somebody's cake."
+
+But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.
+
+"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart
+wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the
+girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.
+
+"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must tell
+you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with
+me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other
+circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes,
+and they'll think you mean _them_."
+
+How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near
+Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint
+spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the
+quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to
+the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.
+
+The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off quiets
+one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It was an
+extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman into the
+dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner, surveyed
+the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.
+
+"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's before
+you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to ourselves
+till we go away."
+
+"What is to happen to us?" said Violet merrily.
+
+"Walks," said Mrs. Ironwood. "And talks. And stands. I hope you've both
+brought plenty of shoes."
+
+"I noticed the stones, as we came along," said Rose.
+
+"Stones! It's the soft going that tells on the shoes, child. I brought
+Mary Gates here one rainy spring, and she finished her overshoes in a
+week, and I had to send her home."
+
+"In a week! Did she dance instead of walking?"
+
+"Danced attendance," said Mrs. Congressman. "I didn't mean to pun,
+girls, but that was the fact. Now I should take you straight off to the
+guard-house to see Magnus----"
+
+"The guard-house?"
+
+"The visitors' room, there, silly! but work begins at two o'clock, and
+we shouldn't find him. So I'll go and get a snooze, and you'd best do
+the same."
+
+"We could not possibly sleep," said Violet. "We'll sit out on the
+piazza and look."
+
+"It's a fine view, whichever way," said Mrs. Ironwood; "but the Land
+of Nod is more to my mind just now. Sit out here, then, or do what you
+like, only don't go off hotel limits. There's no town crier here. And
+call me at a quarter past three. And girls"--she put her head inside
+the door again--"whatever you do, don't go down and stand at the hotel
+fence."
+
+The girls listened to the retreating footsteps, but then they looked at
+each other and laughed.
+
+"West Point must be an odd place," said Rose.
+
+"And she is the oddest woman! What ails the hotel fence, any more than
+all other fences?" said Violet. "It looks pretty strong."
+
+However, they obeyed orders, and wandering about a little, as all doors
+stood open, came presently out upon the north piazza and the north
+view.
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII
+
+THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE
+
+    The little birds sang as if it were
+    The one day of summer in all the year.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+I do not know when Mrs. Congressman would have been roused from her
+nap, if the clock on the old tower had not told its tale of the passage
+of time. But when three sonorous notes had sounded, after that the
+girls kept close watch, for soon Magnus would be but a half hour away.
+
+They passed round to the west side, and sat watching the hills and the
+plain and the clock, by turns; and it wanted two minutes of the quarter
+when they went in. And Mrs. Ironwood was prompt. She waked up at once,
+donned a fresh gown and an astonishing bonnet; looked her girls over
+critically, to make sure their simple preparations had come out all
+right, then sailed away down the steps and across the plain, with her
+pretty convoy close following.
+
+Late spring everywhere, blue sky and hot sun; a ravishing green carpet,
+and just a stir of such air as breathes nowhere but in the Highlands.
+Gaily dressed women spotted the green, dark-blue officers came and
+went; the bugler at the sallyport handled and toned his bugle.
+
+Straight through the sallyport the Western dame led her two girls,
+passing grey coats on the way across the area, and meeting others
+at the guard-house; nodding to one, hailing another, but giving
+no introductions; until after making known her wishes to the
+magnificent officer of the day, she turned to her girls, and presented
+Cadet-Captain Trueman. Then panted up the narrow staircase to the
+visitors' room, which was hot, and not magnificent.
+
+[Illustration: PARADE REST IN CAMP]
+
+Mrs. Ironwood and her fan at once absorbed the window, the two girls
+stood shyly behind her; and back and forth before their eyes went the
+slim grey figures in the area. Some who knew Mrs. Ironwood and doffed
+their caps to her gave just a swift second glance at the two new faces.
+For a cadet never stares, or does it so surreptitiously from under his
+visor that nobody knows.
+
+But the minutes seemed long. Mrs. Ironwood's fan plied back and forth,
+the girls stood watching.
+
+"What makes them all look just alike?" said Violet. "I should say that
+man has been across six times already." Mrs. Ironwood laughed.
+
+"Maybe he has," she said. "You'll bring the chaos to order in a day or
+two. Look very monotonous, don't they? I suppose you'll not even know
+Magnus when he comes."
+
+But a little cry from both the girls answered that. Another grey figure
+came hurrying across the open space, swung his cap high in air beneath
+the window, and came tearing up the stairs.
+
+After the first words, Mrs. Ironwood went back to her seat, and left
+them to themselves, interviewing at more length some of her friends
+below; but then she made a move.
+
+"We must get out of here," she said. "There come more bonnets, and
+there'll be more cadets, and we shan't have standing room."
+
+"When the bugle blows," said Magnus. "I can't leave here till four
+o'clock. But it's close on that now."
+
+"And then we can have you all the rest of the afternoon," said Violet.
+
+"No, little peach blossom, you cannot. There's a review on hand. I'll
+take you down to the seats. There it goes--" And the sweet four o'clock
+call rang out in front of barracks, repeated then at different points,
+and answered by soft echoes from the hill.
+
+The little party made their way out, and down among the old trees by
+the officers' row, where already the seats were filling up. But Magnus
+found them a good place, and himself stood in front; mounting guard
+over his treasures with a joy and pride it was pleasant to see. He
+quite ignored the suggestive looks that came from other men in grey.
+Just now, he wanted his sisters all to himself. And the way they gazed
+at him could not be told.
+
+To see how he knew by instinct when an officer came by; instantly
+whirling around to salute, to note how very often that cap came off to
+some embodiment of fashion and finery, was a great study. For Magnus
+was on tiptoe, and put in all the flourishes the law allowed. Only at
+the sound of the first drum did his exalted state come down.
+
+"That drummer ought to be hung at the sallyport," he said.
+
+"But it is all so pretty," said Rose. "And so in keeping, Magnus."
+
+"You do not know drums," he said. "That call means: 'Charlemagne
+Kindred--and every other cadet out for a breath of fresh air--walk
+straight off to barracks.'"
+
+"Does it?" said Violet. "Then why don't you go? We'll walk over with
+you."
+
+"Sit still! Why don't I go?" and Mr. Kindred gave fresh utterance to
+his disdain.
+
+"Now it sounds again," said Rose. "Is that a second invitation to
+'walk'?"
+
+"No; this one says: 'Magnus Kindred--and every other man who is
+enjoying himself--run!'"
+
+"O, then, do go, dear!" pleaded the girls. "O, Magnus! _do_ not be
+late. See, those men are running."
+
+But Magnus gave no sort of heed. He bowed to Miss Newcomb, looked
+after the speeding grey coats, and remarked calmly:
+
+"Let them run. They want practice." But when the next call sounded,
+Magnus turned.
+
+"That spells," he said: "'Magnus Kindred--and every other poor fellow
+who doesn't mean to be skinned--scamper!'" and scamper he certainly
+did. The two girls watched him, breathless and anxious.
+
+"There are three ladies right in his way," said Violet. "Oh, I hope
+they'll not stop him!"
+
+But no, indeed; a cadet dodging a "late" is not so easily stopped.
+Magnus knew them, took off his cap to them, spoke some words of
+greeting, but never stayed his pace; and his sisters had the pleasure
+of seeing him dive in through the sallyport before the drum said
+another word. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"Such a boy!" said Rose.
+
+"But how he did run," said Violet. Then they both were silent with
+intensest interest. For the old grey barracks presently took to itself
+the well-known likeness of a beehive in swarming time, and ignorant
+eyes could as little tell what was going on as the uninitiated can
+guess that the bees are searching for their queen. Hanging round the
+doorways, clustering in front, with new forms all the time pouring out,
+until, like the tin pan of the farmer's wife, that mysterious drum
+brought order, and they settled down in a long, long line upon the
+sidewalk.
+
+Just at this point, with all the dangerous element in safe bonds, Mrs.
+Ironwood left her girls for a while and went for a chat on one of the
+hospitable porches behind her. Several other people also moved away,
+for a walk or a talk; and the vacant seats were taken by a handful of
+girls just come on the ground, and who, noting the new faces, were now
+in the keen pursuit of knowledge.
+
+At first, however, they seemed more eager to give it, talking fast and
+loud, and sometimes across the two young strangers who were watching
+every movement on the plain. But when the march down from barracks
+ended in another motionless line upon the green, and each girl began to
+pick out her friends and favourites, despite the confusing chin-straps,
+then it was impossible not to listen.
+
+"Look at Mr. True," said one; "he's a mere mathematical line."
+
+"He'd be adorable, if he wasn't such a poke," said another.
+
+"I'd give more to see that man brought to terms!"
+
+"What terms?"
+
+"Unconditional surrender. Down on his knees."
+
+"Mr. Randolph is just behind him," said the first. "And Mr. Crane is
+fourth from the end in B Company."
+
+"Which is Mr. Kindred?" said Rose, turning to her.
+
+"Second man with the cross-belt. Do you know him?" said the young lady,
+much surprised.
+
+"I have met him several times."
+
+"Well, anybody who knows Magnus Kindred after meeting him 'several
+times,' may go up head," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Is he a poke, too?" asked Violet, with a grave face.
+
+"No, he's too wicked for that," said Miss Cray.
+
+"Wicked?" said little Miss Wren. "Why, he's one in discipline all the
+time."
+
+"Well, he'd better be two, and have a few grains of civility," said
+Miss Cray. "Absolutely he left me all standing in the middle of the
+plain yesterday, just because that ridiculous drum chose to beat!"
+
+"But that was a very good way to be left," said Rose merrily. "Perhaps
+if you had been all falling, he would have stayed."
+
+"Fine idea to work up!" said another girl, laughing, but Miss Cray
+tossed her head.
+
+"Nobody cared, either way," she said. "How do _you_ know what 'perhaps'
+he would have done?"
+
+"Why, we are both his sisters," said Violet. And for once in her life
+Miss Cray was taken aback.
+
+"Fancy it!" she said. "Where are you staying?"
+
+"At the hotel."
+
+"We are at Cranston's. Who is your chaperon?"
+
+"Mrs. Ironwood."
+
+Which was better care than Miss Cray herself could boast, and so the
+force of circumstances dealt another blow.
+
+"Well, don't serve me out too large a slice of humble pie," she said.
+"I'm awfully fond of Mr. Kindred, myself. The trouble is, he's not so
+awfully fond of me. And wounded hearts, you know!"
+
+"If Mr. McLean were here, he'd say: 'Steady!'" remarked Miss Wren. "Do
+you know Mr. McLean, too?" she said, turning to Violet.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Met _him_ 'several times'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you must come from the West?"
+
+"There are quite a number of people out there," said Violet.
+
+"And one can visit, even on a prairie," said Miss Cray politely. "But
+it seems so odd."
+
+Perhaps for a freer discussion of the oddity of things, that party
+moved away, and Mrs. Ironwood came back to her charge. But social
+duties still claimed her to such a degree that she hardly looked at the
+review, and not at all at the girls, for a good while. Then in some
+moment of silence, a soft, long-drawn breath made her turn her head.
+
+The cadets were just passing, double-timing round the square, and the
+good lady saw that her two girls had hold of hands, and that the eyes
+of both were full. What about? Only for one particular dress coat with
+a white cross-belt, one particular pair of shoes that darted past; the
+owner whereof was so far from feeling himself a hero that he was just
+pronouncing under breath the whole review a mean contrivance to keep
+men out in the sun. Ah, young brothers! have you any faint vision of
+what your sisters see in you?
+
+"Pull up your wraps, girls," said Mrs. Congressman. "It turns cool
+here, the minute the sun drops behind the hill. And I suppose wild
+horses wouldn't get you away before parade. Well, they'll have dealings
+with that man."
+
+The end of the battalion was just passing, one single cadet officer
+bringing up the rear; and this man's sash had come untied. And as he
+darted on, one long red streamer trailed gracefully behind him; too
+heavy to float, unless with more wind astir.
+
+The girls were in fits of merriment; only our two girls looked grave.
+
+"Just think!" whispered Rose; "it might have been Magnus."
+
+"But why doesn't he stop and tie it up?" said Violet.
+
+"Stop and tie it up?" said Mrs. Congressman, who caught the words.
+"Why, if his head was off, he couldn't stop to put it on. Not in a
+review."
+
+Between review and parade there was a charming bit of free time when
+Magnus came down to see his sisters. Miss Cray and her party took for
+granted he was coming also to see them, and there was some bridling and
+handling of sugar-plum boxes. And it was quite a shock, when Magnus,
+after bowing to them, turned away, and found himself a seat between
+"those two Western girls," whom he could see any time.
+
+Sweet brief minutes; I wonder if unlimited free hours can ever have
+the subtle charm that used to hang over the now-and-then release from
+quarters?
+
+Mr. Starr came up to claim acquaintance, and presently coaxed Rose
+away to introduce her to the sidewalk, as he said; Cadet-Captain
+Trueman appeared, preferring the same claim, though of so much later
+date. And Miss Cray looked on.
+
+As for my two girls, they were more than content; Violet finding the
+grave, dark-browed Mr. True a very interesting person indeed; and Rose
+so taken up with Mr. Starr's sallies of fun and comment, that she
+missed all the admiring glances bestowed upon her own sweet eyes and
+laughing mouth. The first drum came all too soon.
+
+Starr went on to just the point where they had turned before, came
+slowly back and led Rose to her seat; then standing before her and
+going on with his talk. And Miss Cray listened.
+
+"Mr. Trueman," she said presently, putting in her word, "we had a wager
+about you last night."
+
+"About me? That certainly speaks you all ladies of much leisure."
+
+"Now, don't begin to preach," said Miss Freak. "Be good for once, and
+tell us."
+
+"And what, if you please?"
+
+"The point was this," said Miss Saucy. "Kate said that before you will
+go down on your knees to a woman, you must have a cushion a mile high.
+The rest of us thought that perhaps a yard might do."
+
+"Pardon me!" said Mr. Trueman, with some energy; "if ever I kneel to a
+woman, I shall want no cushion!"
+
+And the tall cadet captain bowed gravely to Violet, touched his cap to
+the others, and walked away.
+
+A quick clearance of grey coats from about the seats followed. Over by
+the innocent-looking reveille gun stood two soldiers in blue, at the
+foot of the flagstaff were two more. The flag showed off its beauties,
+lifting, falling, floating away in circling folds upon the fitful
+air; then drooping, a mere line of colour against the staff. Then
+came a series of wild yells from the front of barracks, answering the
+roll-call, and then parade.
+
+In spite of the dignitaries who generally "assist" at a review, adding
+all that position or plumage can give, they never get off anything at
+West Point that is quite so good as an old-time dress parade. I use my
+adjective wittingly, for--no disrespect to the new tactics, they hurt
+the effect. To-night everything was perfect, even the music. The band
+struck up "Money Musk," or some other time-honoured quick-step, known
+in those happy days before "Boulanger" was heard of; the grey files
+came down the green in absolute order, and drew up in a long, unbroken,
+glancing line, before the seats.
+
+The hills across the river were in a glory of sunshine, the higher
+heads that sentinel the north entrance to the Highlands showed sunlight
+and shadow, too. The river went silently along, you could just hear the
+paddles of the _Mary Powell_, as she speeded round Gee's Point on her
+northward course. All this, while the adjutant dressed the line, and
+brought it to parade rest.
+
+"Sound off!"
+
+It matters little what they played then, for as the drum major raised
+his baton and struck his attitude, and the throng of bandsmen went
+nimbly after him, our two Western girls were absolutely and wholly
+bewitched. To see the black plumes slanting off as one before the
+breeze, with the stir of a red sash here and there, and the glinting of
+breast-plates and bayonets and bell buttons in that long moveless line.
+Then to behold the band of musicians getting tangled up in a maze at
+the turn, but coming out all right, and playing for dear life through
+it all,--they were so wrapped and lost, no wonder the gun made them
+jump.
+
+Then the wonder of the manual, to unwonted eyes; the comical
+different voices in which the sergeants reported, with hand on heart
+(supposedly), and the amused guesses as to how in Company D there
+should be two privates absent and unaccounted for. Even the jumble of
+the orders was delightful.
+
+"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., May 10, 18--" so
+much was generally plain. As also "Special Order. No. forty three-e-e!"
+But whether it gave Cadet Nameless leave of absence for two weeks, or
+said he was to be shot in two days, only the nature of the case made
+clear. To their ears, it might as well have been the one as the other.
+
+The reading ends, the adjutant tucks the folded paper into the breast
+of his dress coat, comes neatly round on one heel, and waves his sword
+to the officer in charge.
+
+"Sir, the orders are published."
+
+"Dismiss the parade, sir!"
+
+Another skilful pirouette, and the adjutant faces the line and sheathes
+his sword.
+
+"Parade dismissed!"
+
+The swords of all the cadet officers rattle down into the scabbard, the
+adjutant steps loftily back to his old place by the line.
+
+"Forward! Guide centre! March!"
+
+And with another gay burst of music, the cadet officers come forward,
+salute the officer in charge, and disperse (in these days draw up
+behind him); the long, grey line breaks into companies, the music
+changes its measure, and away they all go to barracks, to the sweet
+strains of "Pop Goes the Weasel!" Every right arm swings just so, every
+black shoe sole displays its regulation state, in most regulation
+order. But how many furtive blessings brushed the head of Cadet Kindred
+as he went by, that obtuse young fellow never guessed.
+
+Tea at the hotel, after all this, was prosaic enough, but doubtless the
+most soaring bird comes down to rest, and finds the lower lands quite
+bearable, with further flight in prospect. So the two girls relished
+their bread and butter and strawberries with no alloy, for was not
+Magnus coming after supper for a walk? Magnus, and perhaps two more.
+
+"Everything is so unusual," Rose said; "it makes one feel quite
+distinguished. Think of walking 'till call to quarters!"
+
+"Yes, think of it," said Mrs. Congressman, carefully creaming her black
+tea. "Then you've been in the cars night and day since Monday. You must
+excuse me, young ladies. I know girls are untirable where cadets are
+concerned, but I am too old a bird for that sort of chaff, and I am
+going straight to my bed, as soon as I see you off. With your brother
+along, you'll not need me."
+
+"May we sit on the piazza after we come back? Or must we go to bed,
+too?" asked Violet.
+
+"Sit there? Yes. Must you go to bed? No. Sit there and gaze at the
+barracks till shutting up time comes, and then go upstairs and carry it
+on from your window. You're not obliged to go to bed at all, while you
+are at West Point. Who's coming to-night?"
+
+"Magnus, of course, and Mr. Trueman. And Mr. McLean said he would, if
+he could."
+
+"Three for two girls; you begin well. There, they are coming out, and
+you can go stand at the fence, and I can go to my bed."
+
+"Why should we stand at the fence?"
+
+"'Mahomet and the mountain,'" said Mrs. Congressman. "Bell buttons
+cannot come any nearer, without a special permit."
+
+"But I do not like that," said Violet, drawing back. "You know you bade
+us not. It looks as if we were waiting for somebody."
+
+"Silly girl! That is just what you are doing: now isn't then. Come,
+I'll see you safe to the fence."
+
+So under that broad, protecting shadow the girls went down the walk;
+shy, and glad, and expectant, and just a trifle afraid; for were there
+not _four_ dark figures coming rapidly across the plain? It was all so
+strange and entrancing; the straight shadows, the measured step.
+
+"Ah, here you are!" cried Magnus. "Good-evening, Mrs. Ironwood."
+
+"How d'ye do again," said that lady. "How d'ye do, Mr. Trueman, and Mr.
+McLean--and, as I'm alive!--Mr. Bouché! I suppose two of you have come
+for me. I'm so broad, you think one wouldn't hear what the other was
+saying, and you could both fool me to your heart's content."
+
+There was a laugh and a protest (very honest, so far as the coming for
+_her_ was concerned), and then the young people turned away, and Mrs.
+Congressman went to her much coveted repose.
+
+"She fulfils her destiny," said Mr. Bouché, as he placed himself by
+Rose. "The only possible use of a chaperon is to go to sleep."
+
+
+
+
+XLIX
+
+FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES
+
+    When feelings were young, and the world was new.
+
+    --PRINGLE.
+
+
+There is no need to describe that walk, nor the many that followed it.
+Anybody who has been a girl--or had care of a girl--at West Point,
+knows without telling; though doubtless the walks vary according to
+the girl. But hither and thither, then as now, went Peace and War, in
+endless new combinations. Down among the grey rocks and green mosses of
+Flirtation, where the tide flowed by as softly as the minutes, and all
+the pretty whispers sounded true. Or up on the old fort; green enough
+once, but in these days pathetic as well as lovely in its helpless
+decline, and where much history might have been talked, and was not.
+Kosciusko's garden, Fort Clinton, even the Officer's Row--what tales
+they might tell, and are silent.
+
+I must do Mrs. Ironwood the justice to say, that she did not fulfil
+her destiny after that night, so far as it involved going to sleep
+when she should be on duty. And she did the duty well, as befits long
+habit. Always accidentally on hand; keen-eyed, though taking no notice;
+interfering when she must, in a way that was wholly pleasant--and
+unmanageable. The two girls, so unlearned in the world, could not have
+had a more wisely careful friend. Violet never guessed how it was that
+she was generally free to walk with Mr. Trueman, nor why Mr. Clinker
+always fell to the lot of Mrs. Ironwood herself. "She must be very fond
+of him," thought the girls. And Magnus was careful, too, in a way, and
+would by no means present everybody he knew to his two young sisters.
+
+So within that twofold invisible fence Violet and Rose moved joyously
+on, and had--as they wrote home--"the very loveliest time that girls
+could."
+
+And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon
+ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other
+girls were borne meekly; and the days when he was on guard called forth
+less lamentation. In short (in the prettiest sort of way) the cadet
+fever had claimed our two young Westerners. As how should it not, when
+they were in such demand? Men did not stand round them to see "what
+those girls would do next," the poorest sort of a compliment; but came
+for the real liking and appreciation of the fair womanliness, of which
+even faulty men have an idea--or an ideal. Then fresh common sense is
+very pleasant when you find it; and if Rose was thought too sensible by
+some--or too sedate, Violet was as full of fun and frolic as any young,
+unspoiled nature ought to be; so they set each other off. But the fun
+was not pointed with slang, nor did the frolic show out in shrieks of
+laughter, or in familiar ways. It never occurred to either of them
+that it was witty to say "Get out!" or ladylike to beg for buttons and
+buckles. Or interesting, to give a kiss to some man who was unmannerly
+enough to ask it. But nobody dared that of them.
+
+Mrs. Ironwood's "sleepy" eyes saw all these things; saw also,
+by degrees, some others. She could tell, to a time, how often
+Cadet-Captain Trueman had walked with Violet, as also that Violet
+seemed quite unconscious that he came oftener than other men.
+
+"Great pity!" said Mrs. Ironwood in her heart, waving her fan there
+on the hotel piazza. "He's the best fellow living--and she's the girl
+of girls for him. But she hasn't a sou--and _he_ hasn't; it would
+never do. I did try to keep Rose in the way--but my! he'd get round a
+standing army. Study, drills, examination, don't head him off one bit.
+A fine piece of three weeks' work! And in ten days more he graduates,
+and there's an end."
+
+And just at that very time, this is what was going on among the
+casemates at Fort Putnam.
+
+"Do you think you could live on a second lieutenant's pay?" Trueman was
+saying. "It is not much, you know--but then at first we should probably
+be stationed at some small one-company post, where it would not be
+needful to make a show."
+
+"I have never lived where it was needful, or possible, to make a show,"
+said Violet, with a bit of a laugh at the idea of being "stationed"
+anywhere. "But you know I have had no chance to think of anything yet."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Trueman; "it's all very sudden to you. But
+the first minute I saw you I knew I had met my fate, and I have done
+nothing but think, ever since. Thinking out the fairest story that ever
+came into any man's heart. And I am going so soon. Write home to-night,
+will you, Miss Violet, and get _leave_ to promise?"
+
+And then with the sound of coming footsteps, the two drew apart a
+little, and walked decorously down the hill; Trueman screening himself
+carefully with Violet's blue parasol from the sun without, and she
+conscious only of a strange new sunlight within.
+
+Rose, meanwhile, was having a different sort of talk with Mr. Bouché;
+an American, despite his French name.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, stood well up in his class, and was
+proficient in more than West Point learning; but as much adrift as any
+unpiloted boat in all matters of faith, and some of practice. Why he
+sought out Rose Kindred (as he had done persistently from the day she
+came) it would be hard to tell, unless from that peculiar masculine
+contrariness which, as Mrs. Ironwood phrased it, "makes Arctic men
+always swear by the South Pole."
+
+It was Mr. Bouché's special delight to get Rose away from everyone
+else, find her a splendid seat in some leafy nook, throw himself down
+on the grass where he must needs look up and so could properly gaze
+into her face, and then draw her into an argument. I do not know that
+Rose was more wedded to her opinions than other women, but she knew
+what she believed, which they do not all. And when the point was of
+importance she could fight, and fight well; zeal and love of the truth
+holding their own fearlessly against more polished weapons. Even as did
+the old "Queen's Arm" in the hand of one of her ancestors at Concord.
+
+On this particular afternoon, every place seemed taken. Gee's Point, of
+course, but also the seat by the river edge, and the almost unscalable
+rocks, and the grey stones that lie about the way to Battery Knox.
+
+"Never mind," Rose said. "I am not tired. I would just as leave walk."
+
+"Tired! You? No," said Mr. Bouché; "you are the most rested creature
+that ever lived. But I am a lazy fellow, and I want a comfortable
+place, where you can lecture me."
+
+"Upon your laziness?"
+
+"Upon what you will. I need it all round."
+
+"There will not be time for an all-round lecture before parade."
+
+"Bother parade!" said Mr. Bouché. "Why need you remind a fellow of
+parade, just when he's happy? Here--come this way. Now we can dive
+through these bushes--look out for your dress, Miss Rose!--and we can
+sit on the rock and be out of the way of all the spoons. And Catkins
+himself couldn't find us."
+
+Laughing at him, guarding her dress, following through the tangle
+like a true fresh-air girl, Rose presently forgot everything in the
+loveliness that was all about. Behind them, trees and bushes were both
+shade and screen; but in front there was only rock, river, and hill.
+The grey ledge on which they stood took a sudden dip almost at their
+feet, and went down, down, sheer and smooth, with little to break the
+line till it ended in a low fringe of riverside bushes. And the stream
+itself, curling rapidly round Gee's Point, went in full flow through
+the broadening channel towards Anthony's Nose and the "Race." One or two
+sailing vessels beat up against the breeze; from under the fringe of
+bushes came the measured dip of oars. The east-side hills, with their
+wavy outline, caught the full glory of the sinking sun.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful!" Rose cried.
+
+"Yes!" said Mr. Bouché, who had been eyeing the girl much as she
+studied the landscape; "just what I was thinking."
+
+"It is like nothing I ever saw anywhere else," said Rose.
+
+"Nor I," assented her companion.
+
+"You see, I have never been just here before," said Rose, turning at
+the somewhat peculiar tone of voice. "Have you?"
+
+"I am not sure--that I have," said Mr. Bouché, considering with himself
+whether certain sensations in the region of his heart could possibly
+(in a cadet of such wide experience) mean something new. "It rather
+seems to me not. What are you going to lecture me about, Miss Rose?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Oh, yes, you are!" cried Bouché, rousing up. "That's not fair. It is
+in the bond that you are to lecture."
+
+"Who signed the bond?"
+
+"I--for self and partner," said Bouché audaciously.
+
+"'Himself and he,'" said Rose, quoting Cowper.
+
+[Illustration: FLIRTATION]
+
+"Now, that is truly unkind," said Mr. Bouché, with an injured air; "and
+therefore not like you, Miss Rose. And people should always speak in
+character. I am surprised at you. Do you believe that I never think of
+anybody but myself?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose when you are speaking to me, you must be thinking of me
+a little," said Rose, a faint tinge coming into her cheeks as she made
+the admission. "Look at that eagle flying across the river."
+
+"Let him fly--" said Bouché. "You really suppose I think of you 'a
+little,' then? When it's week days and Sundays, Saturdays and common
+days. When the reveille gun has grown sweet to my ear, because----"
+
+"Now hush!" Rose interrupted him. "That is a good place to stop.
+Nothing ever yet made the reveille gun sound sweet to a cadet."
+
+"Other cadets."
+
+"Well, you are just another cadet," said Rose.
+
+Bouché burst into a laugh, in spite of his efforts to look tragic.
+
+"There," he said; "she's making fun of me. It's all up. I am only 'just
+another cadet.' One more in her train. Only so many additional bell
+buttons, and a pair of chevrons thrown in."
+
+"Who is the professor of nonsense here?" Rose demanded. "I never saw
+such proficients as you cadets are, in all my life. Have you had forty
+pages to learn? and are you trying them off on me? Very well recited,
+Mr. Bouché."
+
+"It isn't at all. You are getting off grinds on me the whole time, and
+that's not fair. I should think conscientious scruples would hinder
+you."
+
+"Conscientious scruples?"
+
+"Yes," said Bouché. "The way you throw away opportunities tries even my
+conscience. You see, Miss Rose, _I_ never had folks to stand round me
+and keep me straight. I've been a Topsy boy, all my life."
+
+"Topsy-turvy?" suggested Rose.
+
+Bouché drew a deep sigh.
+
+"There it goes again," he said; "I shall have to take it, I suppose.
+But I guess it's true. And now, when somebody has a chance to set me
+right, she don't do it."
+
+"What could she do?" Rose asked, seriously now.
+
+"For one thing, she could take a long, long walk with me on Sunday.
+Keep me out of mischief the whole afternoon."
+
+"You mistake, Mr. Bouché," said Rose, turning her clear, grave eyes
+upon him. "Getting into mischief one's self, never helps anybody else
+out."
+
+"How would you get in?" Bouché said eagerly. "I'd max it on care of
+you."
+
+"Ah, yes, I do not doubt. But--I was not brought up so," Rose said,
+hesitating over her words. "At home, Sunday is such a special,
+set-apart, happy day. We never take it for common things."
+
+"It would be a very special and happy day for me, if you would take the
+walk," said Bouché. "Of course _you_ would count it 'common' doings to
+go with me, any day."
+
+"It is not fair to twist my words," said Rose, looking troubled.
+
+"Then if it would be _un_common, you can go. You are throwing down
+opportunities, Miss Rose. I'll take you to some remote, far-wilderness
+corner, and you shall preach to me till the drum beats. I'm as meek as
+skim-milk on Sunday. Why, if you only tell me to take my cap and go to
+chapel, I shall do it."
+
+"But you have to do that."
+
+"You'd better believe I wouldn't be there else," said Bouché. "But I'll
+listen to you a quarter longer than we give the chaplain."
+
+"I do not think you will--for I shall not speak, on Sunday," said Rose.
+
+"Not speak! Turning into 'a sweet, silent Carthusian,' and thinking up
+hard things to say to me on Monday."
+
+Rose did not at once answer.
+
+"Mr. Bouché," she said, "I think you make a great mistake about the
+chapel."
+
+"It's the biggest-sized mistake to make me go there."
+
+"But if you went willingly, you would forget all about being made to
+go," said Rose.
+
+How Bouché laughed! Rose coloured a little, but stood her ground.
+
+"I mean," she said, "the bonds you strive against are the ones that
+press hard."
+
+"Good beginning," said the cadet, controlling himself. "Go on, Miss
+Rose."
+
+"Well," she said, "then you need not have laughed at me quite so much.
+But somebody says, there are two ends to a sermon."
+
+"Only one here," said Bouché, "and that's at the beginning."
+
+"Two ends," Rose went on steadily; "the human and the Divine, the text
+and the preacher. If you begin with the preacher, one man may not like
+him, and another one may----"
+
+"That man hasn't reported yet," Bouché interrupted her.
+
+"And it would be just the same," Rose said, "if an angel came and
+preached to you. Some men would be sure to criticise him, and study the
+length of his wings."
+
+"Wishing he'd use 'em to fly away with; that would be me, every
+time--unless he wore your bonnet."
+
+"So the best speaker would not please you all," Rose concluded. "But if
+you would begin with the text, you could not dispute that authority,
+nor question that style. You would not _dare_ to criticise it. And if
+you were studying the text all the way through, no sermon could seem
+dull, because it would have such living light upon it, from the Lord's
+own living words."
+
+There was such a light and glow on the girl's own face, that Mr. Bouché
+gazed at her with evident admiration.
+
+"All depends," he said. "Give me my particular angel for the preacher,
+and the text may go."
+
+"Mr. Bouché," said Rose, rising up, "I am sure I heard a drum."
+
+"You can always hear a drum here, any time of day or night."
+
+"Not that drum; listen!"
+
+"Happy drum to be listened to."
+
+"But seriously, we must walk on; you will be late."
+
+"'One private absent.' Hard on the Com. But it's not imminent yet, Miss
+Rose."
+
+"Why, you do not look!" said Rose. "See how the shadow lies on the
+river. Please go! Just run on; never mind me."
+
+"Never mind you!" said Bouché, taking leisurely steps at her side. "Not
+if I know it."
+
+"Mr. Bouché, you will be late."
+
+"Like enough. The first sergeant of D Company will tell it with his
+hand on his heart, regretfully adding: ''Tis true, 'tis pity; pity
+'tis, 'tis true.' And old Powder Flask will jump for joy in his
+regulation shoes."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"The chance of skinning me for the ninety-ninth time this week."
+
+"Well, I'll not be responsible for his joy," said Rose. "Good-bye!" And
+as they came to one of the many cross-paths that led towards the plain,
+Rose suddenly turned up the ascent, running so lightly and easily that
+it was almost as pretty to see as the regular double-time. Bouché
+stood open-eyed for a second, and then came up with her, fuming.
+
+"Now this is atrocious, preposterous, unheard of!" he said. "I don't
+care a button for a 'late.'"
+
+"Well, you should," said Rose, laughing round at him, keeping her pace
+and her breath admirably. "And this might turn into a cold absence. You
+ought to care. Magnus says discipline counts. There's a different sort
+of text for you."
+
+"I vow!" said Bouché. "Don't you give me any of _his_ wise sayings, or
+I'll punch his head when I get back to barracks, the first thing."
+
+"Not the _first_," said Rose with a gay laugh, as they reached the edge
+of the open, "Look! there goes the band. Run, Mr. Bouché!"
+
+"As if I hadn't been running!" said Bouché, much aggrieved. "Miss Rose,
+I'll owe you one better for this."
+
+And then, run he did.
+
+
+
+
+L
+
+FAIRYLAND
+
+    Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,
+    Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low;
+    Their banners and their crests waving in a row.
+
+    --FRERE.
+
+
+The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I had
+best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather,
+the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail
+delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out
+and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited
+taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave
+the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and
+frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than they.
+
+The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have
+grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary
+chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost
+graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels
+repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But
+alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere--with you!" That might have
+been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are down;
+and Choice opens its eyes and waits.
+
+In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the
+looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or
+San Carlos: comes also the question of comforts and climates. These
+delicate creatures can walk all day and dance all night in West Point
+air. But what will their high heels do at Huachuca? and how will their
+fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle Pass? Are they brave to be left
+with only soldier attendants when the young lieutenant is ordered off
+on a scout after Indians? Can they make bread, where the baker does
+not come round? and keep their sweet patience when some "ranking" new
+arrival swoops down upon their pretty quarters, and bids them move? Or
+again, what if the modest pay of a second-lieutenant should not comport
+with twenty-dollar bonnets?
+
+Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known
+for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's
+acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And
+no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for
+just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which
+the men have won their shoulder-straps.
+
+Among all the unwonted eyes that ever saw June come over West Point,
+none could get more delight than did Cadet Kindred's two young sisters.
+The mere shining out of the whole post in white trousers was an event.
+And the guns that greeted the Board of Visitors were, to the full, as
+imposing, as the various "planks" in that respected body. The girls
+watched every point of the welcoming review, and then studied the
+chosen guests as they trooped into the "big house" reception. But
+better than chicken salad indoors, was the music discoursed by the band
+in the pretty grounds outside. It may be said, however, that Violet did
+not fail to see Mr. Trueman, in sash and plume, go up the steps with
+the rest of the graduating class, and to think for one brief moment
+that it might be pleasant to go there too.
+
+Only parade that night, but a wonderful walk after supper; and next
+day, and every day for ten more, a series of varied pleasures.
+
+The examinations in the library were positively awe-inspiring; such
+battle plans, such hieroglyphics. There was some trembling of heart
+the first time they saw Magnus under fire; but he so plainly knew
+what he was about, that fear soon passed into rejoicing. And when Mr.
+Clinker was set to read Spanish, and the story (as translated) sounded
+unutterably ridiculous, Mrs. Ironwood declared that her two girls
+behaved better than she did.
+
+Something of this in the morning; at night a concert; in the afternoon
+a drill. Perhaps on the cavalry plain with the ear-tearing racket of
+the Light Battery; where the guns were sometimes pointed at the ladies,
+and the ladies cried out, and stopped their ears, and ran away; and
+the hills sent back the thunder, and the descending sun half glorified
+the clouds of dust. Or maybe they went down by the river, and saw
+Mr. Trueman and a throng of unknown men build the pontoon bridge,
+themselves sitting on the grass in a blaze of sunshine, which the north
+wind softened down. With gay dresses on every side, and grey-and-white
+men standing behind them, or down on the grass too. Sugar-plums in
+many hands, the perfume of flirtation in all the air; and certainly
+their own attendant cavaliers were well disposed for both these soft
+delectations. But if Rose looked round, it was generally to put some
+intelligent question, which Bouché could only answer in kind; and
+Violet's bright eyes were too eagerly watching what Mr. True did with
+his boat, to heed what Randolph whispered about _them_.
+
+How skilfully those huge grey pontoons swung into line; how stirring
+was the sounding tramp of the plank-bearers; how curiously they locked
+arms going back, and how very charming was the walk over that strange
+bridge when it was done.
+
+[Illustration: CADET BOAT AND CREW]
+
+Another day came skirmish drill, with the grey files in all sorts of
+varied action; the men scattered over the plain as a sower casts his
+seed. Speeding down in the hollow, dashing up the ridge, disappearing
+behind the trees, and firing straight at the pretty spectators. In
+those days, the short midway rest was all right for visiting; and so,
+when the other men dropped down on the grass, Magnus and Mr. Trueman
+and quite a little crowd came over to the seats, cap in hand. Smoky,
+and dusty, and hot--and charming--for a few minutes of lively talk. To
+the begrimed warriors every girl looked perfectly resplendent, in her
+fresh summer dress.
+
+Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee
+to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers
+standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the
+chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each
+straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass.
+Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground--but for these! It was
+all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the ground
+sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of danger.
+
+One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched up
+with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and
+fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the
+guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark
+figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass
+which the crimson fire caught in its red glow.
+
+Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry
+drill on the plain and the grand charge.
+
+In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in watchful
+waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent, and
+caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There was
+one lady in particular, handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody,
+whose son was in the drill, and whose fears were many and public. In
+the midst of the most harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it,
+"on thorns"; and she danced about as if it were true.
+
+Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see at all;
+with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or expostulation--it
+was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch her when the charge
+really came,--and forgot her as July forgets December.
+
+There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by
+the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining
+his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them
+looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a
+better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then
+quicker, till the word was given:
+
+"Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas cyclone
+upon the resounding road.
+
+In some of the quieter moments before the charge, Rose and Violet had
+picked out two or three men they knew, noting their horses (they were
+not all dark then); and now, even in that dusty whirlwind, the grey
+and the black could be seen and followed. And--yes, certainly--Mr.
+Trueman's horse has leaped the Hotel fence, and the plucky rider puts
+him at it again, and comes bounding back. And Mr. Clinker's steed
+has swerved at the crossroad and gone dashing along towards Trophy
+Point, for freedom and Highland Falls. However, he missed in both,
+and everything came out right, and nobody was hurt; and the drill was
+pronounced in every way first-class. But for days after, when Violet
+shut her eyes, she seemed to see the flashing sabres, and hear again
+the ringing shout; and to watch that particular grey horse as he leaped
+the hedge.
+
+Then came graduation; and Violet had the first sight of Mr. Trueman's
+diploma, as soon as he could step aside and show it. And Magnus was
+made first captain, and Mr. Bouché shone forth as adjutant; and even
+Mr. McLean found his arm adorned with three bright bars, to his own
+astonishment.
+
+"All owing to Kin," he confided to the two sisters. "If he hadn't
+pinched me black and blue every day since Christmas, I should be on my
+way back to Kansas, to hoe potatoes for the rest of my life."
+
+It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Trueman lingered at the post for a
+few days in "cits," and finally departed with a permit to show himself
+in the Western home, and plead his own cause there.
+
+Mrs. Ironwood lingered, too, even longer, to let her charge have a
+taste of the pretty concerts and guard-mounting in camp; and then the
+girls packed their trunk, and saw the hills fade away in a mist that
+was all in their own eyes.
+
+
+
+
+LI
+
+THE HOME-STRETCH
+
+    A gold fringe on the purpling hem
+      Of hills the river runs,
+    As down its long green valley falls
+      The last of summer suns.
+    Along its tawny gravel bed
+      Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
+    As if its meadow-levels felt
+      The hurry of the hill,
+    Noiseless between its banks of green
+      From curve to curve it slips;
+    The drowsy maple shadows rest
+      Like fingers on its lips.
+
+    --WHITTIER.
+
+
+To come down from two girls of your own to none, is a long step; and
+I think if ever Cadet Charlemagne was ready to put the full value on
+the many fair and gay women at the Point, it was just then, when his
+sisters had gone. Not another sight of his own to be hoped for till a
+whole long year should roll away. First-class camp though it was, I
+think he would have liked the busy term-time better.
+
+But he talked with Miss Lane, he walked with Miss Newcomb; and did the
+civil thing to a handful of new visitors; went to picnics, teas, and
+such like merrymakings; and through it all found himself pining for
+Cherry, and wondering what they were all about at home. In the very
+midst of the frolic, with bright eyes and soft hands on every side, the
+refrain of the old song would keep coming up:
+
+    "O this is no' my ain lassie!
+      Fair though the lassie be."
+
+Such a mood works differently with different men; with Magnus it
+wrought in a very becoming fashion. For the high mark put upon the
+three girls far away, set the standard for his behaviour to those
+near by. "Help them," Cherry had said. And so, over his ordinary good
+manners and winning ways, there had come that grave air of chivalry,
+that deference to women _because_ they were women, which sets off a
+man's own manhood as nothing else can. His heart was elsewhere, but his
+best service was theirs to command. Now and then he ventured a reproof.
+
+"You must not do that," he said one day to Miss Lane; receiving an
+instant "Thank you!" which spoke her good stuff. And even when he came
+between Miss Saucy and some lawless escapade with a firm: "You shall
+not do that!" the words were so courteous and earnest that the girl
+yielded with:
+
+"There, there--I won't. Hush up!"
+
+It was kind work to do, and the giving pleasure was always pleasant;
+but for his own delights Magnus fell back into his solitary woodside
+walks, with now and then a long pull upon the river. Up and down the
+shining current; fighting the wind, breasting the tide; tossed with
+mimic billows, or shivering a mirror of blue; so he went. Now coasting
+along at oar's length from the shore, where the hills rose up in
+castellated masses of rock and the cool shadow lay deep; then resting
+on his oars, and gazing through the peerless north gateway at the
+flood of sunset over Newburgh Bay. Sometimes showing it all to Cherry,
+"on their wedding trip"; or again, sent back here as Commandant, with
+Cherry the fair Frau Commander of the Post. And then--
+
+A faint strain of music broke in upon his dream; the oars hung
+motionless, dripping their bright drops.
+
+A soldier's funeral was passing slowly up the winding Camptown road;
+the grave notes of the band coming clear and soft across the water;
+the flag drooped midway. Magnus reverently bared his head. Then he sat
+listening.
+
+There was so little tide that a dip of the oars now and then kept the
+boat in place; and Magnus sat there motionless, until the third volley
+rang out among the echoes, and to the usual lively racket the men came
+marching home.
+
+"Yes!" he said to himself, as he began to pull down stream again. "When
+the time comes for Old Glory to wrap me up, let them bring me here and
+lay me there, to sleep among the hills."
+
+And with a shake of the head at his own musings, Cadet Charlemagne made
+the boat fairly spin till it reached the landing, and dashed into the
+sallyport with full five minutes to spare.
+
+The Fourth of July that year rose exceedingly hot. A misty haze veiled
+the mountains, the dew lay thick on every blade of grass; the silent
+black-mouthed guns were dripping with moisture.
+
+Being a holiday, even the reveille gun took an extra nap; and the camp
+lay in absolute stillness for a half hour beyond its usual time. Only
+the sentries paced up and down in the heightening glare; and far away
+in the Logtown regions you could hear the sputtering of fire-crackers
+and know that Independence Day was begun.
+
+Meanwhile, by the same token, a lively ambush was preparing in the
+quiet camp--a thing not distinctly set down and forbidden in West Point
+rules, and with what we call constructive evidence cadets concern
+themselves but little. And so with happy unconcern, Magnus and Twinkle,
+and pretty much all the first class who were not on duty, arranged the
+frolic. And for once the plebs liked their orders.
+
+Up came the sun, touching Crownest, gilding Fort Putnam, peering into
+every bush and tree; and from the other side up came the band, their
+white helmets making a winding line of light across the plain. They
+took post at one corner of the camp; and then, as the Stars and Stripes
+swung slowly up to the head of the flagstaff, began their march and
+their music, saluting the colours.
+
+You have all heard how the piper of Hamelin played the rats out, where
+none were seen before; and something like that happened now. The camp
+was for all useful purposes asleep. But as soon as the inspiring notes
+of "The Red, White, and Blue" broke up the stillness, there came a stir.
+
+At quick step, and to a full-blast medley of national airs, the band
+passed through the camp; up A Company Street and down B Company Street;
+and as they went, out poured a chance-medley crowd to match. A crowd of
+plebs, wrapped in sheets, in blankets, in every sort of harum-scarum
+costume; with brooms for muskets, and the strict orders of upper
+classmen for regulations.
+
+With all other cadet eyes peering through tent curtains to watch, the
+crazy throng came after the band in full procession. And even when the
+officer in charge woke up to the state of things, these agile boys
+kept out of the way; slipped through between tents to the next Company
+street, and then re-forming and marching on joyously, until, as the
+band came round to its starting point, and "Yankee Doodle" filled all
+the air, the queer contingent drew up in order before them, solemnly
+presented arms (alias broom-sticks) scattered, dived, and disappeared.
+And only the most sedate and orderly faces could be seen at roll-call.
+
+That was great fun. Better than the Fourth of July dinner, Magnus
+declared.
+
+The usual festivities graced the morning. The muster, and the march
+across the plain to the old trees before the library. The band played,
+Magnus read the "Declaration," and Mr. Bouché made a speech which
+proved him, in theory, a model patriot.
+
+Then the midday salute of forty odd guns thundered out among the hills;
+returned by them in six times as many echoes; and the work of the day
+was done. Once upon a time, when powder was cheap, there used to be a
+salute at sunrise, too, and at sundown.
+
+Magnus strolled away to one of his haunts by the river, and sat himself
+down to watch the tide come in. It was almost full flood; the water
+creeping silently up, hiding every mud-stained rock, floating off the
+drift from every corner. One could see how it picked up its freight
+of chips and sticks and sawdust; but the current was so strong, the
+water so bright, that the dark streaks hardly counted. In fact, Magnus
+enjoyed the whole process, finding fair images for himself.
+
+"Just so," he thought, "would the June-tide set in, when:
+
+    "Whatever of life has ebbed away
+    Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
+    Into every green inlet, and creek, and bay."
+
+Bearing away then, of course, to parts unknown, all the disagreeables
+of life; studies, drills, and regulations. Wave motion giving place to
+Cherry. "It is so pleasant," said one of these pre-graduates to me, "to
+think of never again having to do anything I don't want to do!"
+
+Magnus was so deep in his dreams down there one day that a step close
+by made him start. This was no gauze-winged vision, however, but a
+poor, homesick pleb. In the gray, baggy suit of first initiation, with
+clouded brow and an air of general forlornness, he looked as little
+like flood tide as a fellow could do.
+
+He glanced at the trim first classman down among the bushes, went a few
+steps on, turned, hesitated, and finally came up behind Magnus.
+
+"Shall I disturb you, sir?" he said deprecatingly.
+
+"No; come on. Rocks are Government property. You're Mr. Renwick, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The boy sat himself down at the water's edge, and looked gloomily off.
+He was a slight fellow, just touching the regulation age; fair-skinned,
+soft-haired, with an unmistakable air of love and petting about him.
+"A mother's boy" all over. There were hearts aching for a sight of him
+somewhere, without a doubt.
+
+Magnus eyed him a while from a first-class standpoint; then his look
+softened. What wretched, desperate hours he himself had spent in that
+very dress among those very rocks. And then of a sudden Cadet Kindred
+fell to wondering what the Lord would say to this poor heart, were he
+there himself in bodily presence? And the reply was instant:
+
+"Be pitiful, be courteous."
+
+"You were in the pleb formation on the Fourth?" he said abruptly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Liked it?"
+
+"No, sir. At least I liked it well enough, but I didn't enjoy it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Last Fourth was better."
+
+"Oh, was it!" said Magnus ironically. "Did you think to bring
+home-doings in your pocket when you came to West Point?"
+
+"No, sir," said Renwick, with a sigh. "I suppose not."
+
+"If you had all you wanted at home, why didn't you stay there?"
+
+"I had _not_ all I wanted," said the boy, rousing up. "I wanted an
+education, and we were too poor for me to get it anywhere else."
+
+"My case precisely. And to-day you think home is worth all the
+education that ever was heard of. So have I, a thousand times. But it
+isn't, for all."
+
+"Did _you_ ever feel so, Mr. Kindred?" said the boy, changing his seat
+for one a little nearer. "Everybody says you've had a clear run of
+luck, straight through."
+
+"Stuff!" Magnus answered him. "Are you a Christian, Mr. Renwick?"
+
+"I hope so, sir."
+
+"Hope so! Well, are you an American?"
+
+"Why, of course I am."
+
+"How do you know? You may be a Chinese."
+
+"Well, I know--whether I can tell how or not," said the boy.
+
+"Certain sure where you belong in this world, and not sure at all where
+you belong in the next. Unsound business, Mr. Renwick."
+
+Renwick looked at him.
+
+"You are a queer man!" he said.
+
+"My one distinction. Found I couldn't lead off in anything else, here.
+What are _you_ going to be?"
+
+"A success--if I can, sir."
+
+"Well, the only way to success is, to succeed."
+
+"I know as much as that myself, sir."
+
+"Practise it then. You might as well try to take that hill at one
+jump, as think to be a success in January and June, and a failure all
+the rest of the time. Unless you're a fine mixture of laziness and
+mathematics. I am not myself."
+
+"Very little mathematics about me," said Renwick; "and they speak as if
+that was everything here. So I don't see what I am to do."
+
+"Do?" Magnus said. "Why, dig like a prairie dog! Things are not so deep
+down that they _can't_ be routed out. And get all the help you can, and
+take all you can get."
+
+"Do you mean 'ponies'?" said Renwick with a doubtful look.
+
+"I do _not_ mean 'ponies'!"
+
+"But they say _you_ are always so busy?"
+
+"O yes, I'm busy enough; have to look out for my own scalp, you know.
+My advice is always at your service, but my time most generally not."
+
+"Then I don't see what you mean, sir."
+
+"Have you a Bible, Mr. Renwick?"
+
+"Yes, sir, of course."
+
+"Read it?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Well, at one of those rare intervals," said Magnus, "put three marks
+in it. A red one here:
+
+"'Call upon me here in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee.'"
+
+The boy drew a long sigh.
+
+"Mother's verse," he said. "But that will not bring me home."
+
+"No, and you don't want to go. Then a long blue one here:
+
+"'What time I am afraid I will trust in thee.'"
+
+"Hold on there," said Renwick. "I'm not afraid, sir, and I don't expect
+to be."
+
+"You will be, quite unexpectedly, some day, when you get into the
+section room and find you have left your wits in barracks. But put a
+broad white mark here, and _keep_ it white:
+
+"'Walk in the light.'"
+
+"Keep out of all dark ways, Mr. Renwick. You can have the Lord's help
+every time and all the time, on those terms."
+
+Renwick looked at him again.
+
+"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of getting through West Point
+_so_," he said.
+
+"Tiptop way, you'll find," said Magnus.
+
+"And that is your whole list of directions?"
+
+"Finished up with the first one: dig! You must work like all the
+beavers between whiles, or you'll never have the face to pray such
+prayers."
+
+"I heard you were odd," was Renwick's comment.
+
+"And now you think the half wasn't told you. Sound doctrine,
+nevertheless."
+
+"But mathematics!" said the boy; "and natural philosophy! and Spanish!"
+
+"Know them all through now, don't you?" said Magnus; "and so want no
+help."
+
+"No, no, sir! of course not. But I mean--Mr. Kindred, do all the head
+men get to the top of the class your way?"
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"Then why do you lay it out for me?"
+
+"Only sure way I know."
+
+"To push me up head?"
+
+"To put you somewhere where it's worth while for a man to stand," said
+Magnus. "You might come out head--and be a disgrace to the service. You
+might go down before French twistifications, get dropped--and live to
+bless the country some other way."
+
+"I thought you meant I should be sure to graduate," said Renwick,
+disappointed.
+
+"There's but one thing sure." And rising to his feet, Cadet Kindred
+chanted out a scrap of an old hymn.
+
+    "Looking off unto Jesus,
+      I go not astray:
+    My eyes are on him
+      And he shows me the way.
+    The path may seem dark
+      As he leads me along;
+    But following Jesus,
+      I cannot go wrong."
+
+"Does it ever seem dark to you, sir?" Renwick said wistfully.
+
+"Lots of times."
+
+"It is so hateful here," the boy burst forth; "the place, and the
+drills, and the cadets, and everything!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it!" said Magnus heartily. "I have felt just so. Why,
+there are days when I should like to shoot the cadets, burn down the
+barracks, pitch all those old study books into the blaze, and tie the
+Tacs within roasting distance."
+
+The two looked at each other, and then both broke into a laugh.
+
+"Splendid old place, isn't it?" said Mr. Kindred. "And the drills are
+as good as the rack for stretching a man. And the cadets aren't much
+worse than the rest of the world. You and I are two of them. Come on!
+Let's go take a look at the flag. That always puts me to rights when I
+turn sour. 'Hail, Columbia, happy land!' and West Point is part of it."
+
+    "The sweet red, white, and blue,
+      The brave red, white and blue,
+    Has done so much for me,
+      And done so much for you."
+
+
+
+
+LII
+
+THE BIG RECEPTION
+
+    When shall I come to the top of that same hill?
+    ----You do climb up it now; look how we labour.
+
+    --SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+A very busy six months followed first-class camp; the autumn full
+of drills and study, the winter of examination, hard work, and the
+Hundredth Night. With the opening spring poured in the usual flood of
+tradesmen and their wares; company drills began, early visitors came,
+and June was coming. The lower classmen, as usual, were on tiptoe with
+glee and excitement; and, also as usual, were the ballasting thoughts
+in many a first-class head. Questions of regiments, of posts, and of
+girls.
+
+But for Charlemagne Kindred all that was settled. If he were ordered
+to the North Pole, and stationed on the tip end of it, he should still
+take Cherry. And if he could not keep the wind from roughening her soft
+hair, Lieutenant Kindred would be a much more incompetent person than
+Cadet Charlemagne thought possible. Cherry was just the girl for Arctic
+regions; she would sketch the icebergs, sing to the seals, and teach
+them Greek. And in the long evenings by their driftwood fire, they
+could plan out where to live when he wore three stars on his shoulder,
+and was retired on full pay for special services as yet unknown.
+A little soon for that, to be sure; but there is no harm in being
+beforehand, even "quite some," as they say in New Jersey. They could
+draw plans for the house, and so save on architects when the time came.
+
+Other big questions came up for other men. Should this one assume
+at once the debt which the dear home people shouldered so patiently
+to send him to West Point? And how much can this other save from his
+slender pay, to help educate his young brothers and sisters? It touches
+one's heart to see the dainty articles of dress that are bought for the
+girls at home, whose life has been chiefly homespun.
+
+Then what work will they find to do at the strange, far-away posts?
+Work in that other army to which, as boys, they were mustered in? For
+there are many church members in the corps; and I doubt if there is
+one to whom the old vows do not come up in mind before graduation.
+Sometimes, perhaps, with a never-so-keen perception of what Paul meant
+when he said: "I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." Paul
+could have claimed the lower honours too; learned, skilled, an acute
+theologian, a matchless writer. But no earthly plaudits were in his
+thoughts; only the Lord's "Well done"; the crown which those Royal
+hands would give him "at that day."
+
+The spring flew on, tossing off its freight of snowdrops, violets,
+columbine, and apple blossoms. Twenty-three days to June, twenty-two
+days; then came more tidings.
+
+Mr. Erskine was failing, so the mother wrote; failing steadily and
+fast. It was doubtful if Magnus would see his friend again; and the
+young cadet's heart went out with a great yearning to the lonely girl
+of whom he would so soon be the chief earthly protector. And once again
+Magnus gave thanks for that grace which had brought him through the
+fire, and made him fit to take such a charge. But none of them could
+come for graduation.
+
+"Of course we cannot leave Cherry," so Violet wrote; "one of us is up
+there all the time. Cherry looks like a white wind-flower. O, Magnus, I
+wish you were here!" And Magnus gave a groan and turned to his tally:
+twenty-one days to June.
+
+But he did what he could. He wrote Cherry a letter every day, saying
+everything he could to beguile her thoughts. He sent the last picture
+of himself, and the class picture, and a photograph of the up-river
+view. In every letter went his marks for the day, with what bits of
+mischief or of news the Post could furnish. He told what girls he had
+walked with, and of his rambles alone; giving her much to read and to
+talk of. With all this he studied untiringly, refused invitations, went
+up in his marks, and was often fagged enough when tattoo beat; but less
+with the work than with excitement and tension.
+
+He had applied for a regiment not then near San Carlos; but so much
+depended upon how many men went to Willet's Point that he could guess
+little as to his own placing. One thing was sure, he was learning
+fast. Lessons of patience, of self-control, of trust; so winning true
+promotion, day by day. Finding out also, with new understanding,
+the exceeding helpfulness of prayer; learning to lay down cares and
+questions at the feet of that blessed Lord Jesus who "doeth all things
+well." Rank and post, life and death, could safely be left with Him! A
+great peace and a great strength were in the face of Magnus Kindred in
+those days.
+
+If he seemed graver than usual, it was that with every chance his
+thoughts flew away. Or, rather, were some of them always in that
+far-off sick-room. For whoever else might be with her, Magnus knew,
+unerringly, how Cherry's heart reached out for him. How, in every hard
+moment, with every new token of the coming sorrow, the longing for him
+leaped up and grew. Sometimes it made him almost desperate enough to
+go, at all risks.
+
+As a last comfort to himself and to her, Magnus took off his class ring
+and expressed it on, bidding her wear it till he came to put another in
+its place. She would not take it last summer, but she must _now_. And
+there was no telling what that ring was to the girl, and to her father
+as well, making the bond so tangible and real. Cherry studied it in
+her lonely night watches, and Mr. Erskine's heart gave thanks at every
+gleam of the stone as her hands' sweet ministry came about him. While
+far away, Magnus, on his part, was verifying and honouring all their
+trust.
+
+So came on June, with her rose-trimmed slippers; and it seemed that
+first summer afternoon as if the whole countryside poured down upon
+West Point. Long before four o'clock the seats were full, then crowded;
+the wagon-load of campstools vanished as they came; and soon even
+standing-room was at a premium. And when the Board of Visitors had
+reviewed the Corps, and the Corps the Board, everybody who had the
+right crowded in to the reception, while the left-out throng whirled
+round with one accord, and sat staring with all its eyes at the open
+door and solid front of the Superintendent's quarters. If only X-rays
+had been on hand! The interest grew to a keen point when the first
+class (all together then, though now they go scattering in) passed
+through the gate, doffed their plumed hats, and vanished within the
+doorway.
+
+Magnus was claimed by old friends and presented to new, had a great
+grip of Mr. Wayne's hand, and brought little Miss Bee a plate of
+lobster salad deeply bordered with sunshine.
+
+I think Cadet Charlemagne had learned a little more about girls than he
+once knew; and the light and colour that came into this particular shy
+face at sight of him, smote him with a sense of at least possible past
+mistakes. She had no need to think so much of his small civilities.
+And Mr. Kindred bowed himself away, and made merry in a gauzy circle
+of colours near by. And then, when Miss Bee looked so left out in the
+cold, Magnus rushed up again, took her plate, brought her an ice, and
+made things worse than ever. Manlike, he thought the fast-and-loose
+plan worked to admiration.
+
+Now privately, Miss Bee cared nothing for lobster and very little for
+ice; but it felt so good to be noticed and to have something to do,
+that I think she hardly knew what she had. And had not Mr. Kindred said
+the ice would "refresh" her? So she ate a little, played with it a
+little, and heard, nolens-volens, a good deal of talk.
+
+"Why, here is Mr. Kindred!" said one of his Christmas friends. "All on
+tiptoe for shoulder-straps."
+
+"Mr. Kindred has small occasion to stand on 'tiptoe' for anything,"
+said Miss Lane. "But what have you done with your beautiful class ring?
+Not lost it?"
+
+"Hardly, since I know where it is. Lost things are said to keep cool
+company in the moon."
+
+"What is keeping company with your ring?" said Miss Saucy. "Your heart,
+of course?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Will she be here for the hop?"
+
+"Since when were hearts feminine? No, I do not think 'she' will," said
+Magnus. "Hearts are best at home, hop nights."
+
+The talk went on, the crowd drifted; and little Miss Bee in her corner
+held her plate and ate her ice, and tasted nothing. Of course, she
+had seen that the ring was missing; but then no girl had boasted its
+possession. And men took whims.
+
+What tales dark corners could tell; of hard-pressed fights, of
+struggles, of victory! The band played, the throng increased--then
+began to thin out. Presently Magnus came and took the plate from the
+weary fingers, asking if she would have anything more.
+
+"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the smile
+and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch a
+handful of the gayest bonbons and mottoes, and bestow them in Miss
+Bee's own hands. A man's blunder, again! And yet perhaps not. Of
+course the sweets were not eaten; they were conveyed away and stored
+among Miss Bee's few chiefest treasures; but I think in time they
+became a comfort, too; shining tokens of what a friend she had had in
+one of the foremost men of the Corps. It could not be helped that this
+put other men at a discount.
+
+For the ten days that followed no one saw much of Cadet Kindred, in any
+of those between-times that he could call his own. West Point outlines
+had cast their lovely spell about him; and with every chance he was
+down by the river, up among the rocks; climbing the leafy ways; saying
+good-bye, and then coming back to say it again.
+
+
+
+
+LIII
+
+THE FIRST POST
+
+    A ravelled rainbow overhead
+    Lets down to life its varying thread;
+    Love's blue,--joy's gold,--and fair between
+    Hope's shifting light of emerald green;
+    With either side, in deep relief,
+    A crimson pain, a violet grief.
+
+    --MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+I never understand how people can chatter all through the graduating
+parade. Standing before other people who fain would see, but with their
+own backs to the show; gabbling on about trains and stages, weather and
+wraps, to the utter discomfiture of the quiet souls who are straining
+their ears to catch the "standing," just then read out by the cadet
+adjutant; and finally pausing long enough to wonder "Whatever is he
+talking so long about, anyway?"
+
+"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. Special order, No.
+fifty-nine!" So much with the knowledge that comes by iteration, you
+make out; but the human wall shuts off the rest. Such people should
+stay at home.
+
+If you are a stranger and unwarned, you may easily miss some special
+points in the show to-night. You will not know that, when the battalion
+comes marching down to the tune of "The Dashing White Sergeant," it
+means that from fifty to seventy of its men are on dress parade for the
+last time. And as they come nearer and wheel into line, you will hardly
+notice, that among those orderly grey figures, there is every here and
+there one who carries only side-arms, his musket left behind. And when
+these come out and form a quiet line in front of the rest, you will
+not guess that they are never again to go through the manual or be
+mingled with the other men. Also for this night, the Commandant himself
+steps out upon the ground, instead of the usual officer in charge.
+
+The line is dressed, and then--
+
+"Parade rest!" and then--
+
+"Sound off!"
+
+And with sweet, clear rendering, the band begins to play:
+
+    "In cottage or palace,
+      Wherever I roam,
+    Be it ever so humble,
+      There's no place like home.
+    Home! Home!
+      Sweet, sweet home!"--
+
+O what does it mean, to those men who (except for the short furlough)
+have been four years in exile! They give no sign; motionless as so many
+statues; the black chin straps merging faces, and hiding what may be
+there. The June air stirs the soft edges of the black plumes, floating
+them off as one; the sunset glitters on buckle and bayonet; the great
+garrison flag curls and uncurls its mighty folds. "It may be for years
+and it may be for ever," before the men of that front rank will look
+upon the scene again. They have hated it, sometimes, and longed to get
+away, but now they know how well they love it. What things those old
+hills and they have gone through together! from the forlorn pleb days
+until now. And even with that thought, the band lapses softly into
+another mood:
+
+    "Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
+    And never brought to mind?"
+
+and every heart answers to the pleading of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+For these classmates, after to-morrow, will be scattered to the four
+winds. Some, not to meet again till they are grey-haired men; never
+_all_ to stand together, until the day when before the King "in his
+glory," "shall be gathered all nations." Believers or unbelievers, they
+think of it now. They may not speak nor touch each other, nor turn the
+head, but they think.
+
+It is as well, perhaps, that "The girl I left behind me" puts in her
+word just here, and you have to laugh, partly because you were so near
+crying. But Lang Syne and Sweet Home have the last saying, as the band
+comes back to its place.
+
+Parade goes on, and for once everybody is "present or accounted for."
+The orders are published, the standing read (not always, in these
+days), and then the graduating class come forward, and with dress hats
+off and held at the correct angle, shake hands with the Commandant and
+have a short address from him. And while the little company pass down
+and stand in line before the trees (not that either, now), the old
+Commandant turns hastily away from the show, and seeks his own front
+door. It is a long ago "Lang Syne" that he remembers, and far better
+than these youngsters, he knows what all this means.
+
+But the music begins again, with another change. "I see them on their
+winding way" fills all the air. The lines break up; and buckle and
+bayonet, sash and plume, come gaily past the seats, and then as they
+pass the waiting graduates, again the plumed hats come off, while
+cheers ring out in eager greeting from their comrades marching by.
+
+"I know I shall cry when it comes to that!" said a gay young first
+classman to me. And I have no doubt he did. But there are no lookers-on
+in front of them, and the old plain tells no tales.
+
+The next ten or twelve waking hours are little but hurry and rush.
+The big hop on hand for society men: with farewell visits, last ends
+of packing, and countless bits of red tape to be tied in regulation
+knots. Then last looks at the river, and hands laid lovingly and for
+the last time upon some of the old grey rocks.
+
+In front of the library a platform is raised, and draped with the
+star-spangled banner, and a canvas canopy stretches across from tree
+to tree. Strong ropes wall in the space below, where stand the chairs,
+rank after rank, and as the morning hours run on, sentinels guard the
+ropes against all intruders. The seats, of course, are, first of all,
+for cadets and people of the Post, but just there does the dear general
+public wish to sit, and for whom the chairs are placed affects them not
+at all. So, for an hour or more, there is a sort of running fight--a
+skirmish line--all round the lines of rope, and the sentries well nigh
+meet their match. Demands, complaints, exclamations, are loud-voiced
+and many, and neither orders nor fixed bayonets win much respect.
+
+"Those are the orders, ma'am."
+
+"I'm not responsible, ma'am."
+
+"No, ma'am, no one allowed inside the ropes."
+
+"Sit there? Those seats are reserved for the mothers, ma'am."
+
+"But _we_ are the mothers," cried one good dame to the stony official.
+And as the guard turned to ward off some new intruder, one could but
+laugh at the adroitness with which she slipped in behind his back,
+to be again ordered out. At last come dignitaries in such very full
+feather that the crowd stands back and becomes a trifle more modest.
+The hands on the clock move on, cadets who were wandering about
+with mothers and friends leave them and go off to barracks. Men for
+the platform come leisurely along, sure of a good place; the upper
+ten for the seats below make more speed, seeking the best. Then the
+superintendent, the adjutant, and all the glittering people in train
+of the Board of Visitors, mount the platform, and make it a study
+of sheen and colour. Drums sound in the distance, then nearer, and
+the whole battalion comes marching down. They halt at the back of the
+crowd, stack arms, and the graduating class file in and take their
+seats.
+
+There is a short prayer from the chaplain, "Hail, Columbia!" from
+the band, and then the address--or, maybe two. From the president of
+the board generally, followed often by words from some high ranking
+officer, or some notability in civil life. Addresses sometimes wise,
+sometimes more--otherwise--than one could wish; very seldom vivid
+and instinct with fire. The country figures, of course, and "this
+Institution," and the flag, with the service, in a mild sort of way.
+All eyes are fixed upon this particular class, and the army welcomes it
+with open arms. And the cadets have done well, and the professors have
+done their best. On the whole, the sort of speeches to which you would
+like to apply a match and bring them to either a blaze or to ashes. How
+rarely--Oh, how rarely!--have these veterans in camp or council one
+word of real cheer, wisdom, and fire, for these "youngsters," these
+smooth-faced new recruits.
+
+Perhaps it makes less difference than I think to the grave young men
+waiting there, bare-headed and absorbed; they have been at such high
+pressure, and have so much else to think of. They listen, and applaud,
+from time to time, and generally in the right place. Once in a while
+you may notice that just _there_ the Southern hands are silent.
+
+More music follows, and then the adjutant with his stack of diplomas
+comes to the front and stands behind the Superintendent, or whoever is
+to give them out: in the old days, it was often General Sherman. One by
+one he takes the parchment from the adjutant, and the names are called
+off in order of standing.
+
+"Harvey Linton!"
+
+A tall, dark-haired young fellow rises from the grey mass, comes to
+the foot of the platform, and with a low bow takes the credentials for
+which he has toiled so bravely.
+
+"I congratulate you, sir," says the donor; "not so much for being at
+the head as for the hard work which has put you there,"--and Linton
+bows again, and goes back to his seat.
+
+"Yes, he has done very well--ve--ry well," so his father in the crowd
+answers friendly words, trying hard to seem unconscious that his son
+has carried off first honours.
+
+"Anson Dent!" and this time it is a broad shouldered Wisconsiner,
+followed by a Virginian, a fair haired Hoosier, and all the rest. But
+you notice other differences among the men. For while some smile and
+bow gratefully, others give the briefest sort of nod, and some none at
+all. Some flush, and some grow pale, and some hands almost grab the
+diploma as if a right had been long withheld. And one casts furtive
+glances towards a certain bewitching bonnet in the crowd, as he goes
+to his seat, and the next sends a deeper gaze across the gay lines,
+seeking a face and dress the plainest there, but the best beloved in
+all the world; while many see only the friends a thousand miles away.
+One man unrolls his diploma and studies it with all his eyes, his
+neighbour plays with his, as if it were the veriest trifle--a mere
+bagatelle.
+
+"Charlemagne Kindred!"
+
+And I am bound to own that this man went forward in a dream. With one
+swift glance at Mr. Wayne, he did catch the loving interest in that
+face, but the rest of the people might as well have been a fog bank. He
+was feeling so much that he seemed not to feel at all, until when they
+broke up, and Twinkle pressed through the crowd, crying:
+
+"Where is my mother! I want my mother!"
+
+And then Magnus could have shaken him, for daring to put his own
+heart-cry in words.
+
+Indiscriminate cheering was not the fashion in those days. A specially
+popular man, or one who had done his work against special odds, might
+have some hearty plaudits. But generally the applause was kept for "the
+last man," who by brilliant carelessness or industrious breaking of
+regulations, footed "the immortals." Of course, they all cheered _him_.
+Had he not kept someone else from being "last man?"--even now and then
+(it is whispered) closing up the class end so that no one else _could_
+fall through. But after all, _somebody_ must be last, so cheer him on.
+He may outrank you yet, in life.
+
+The scene changes. Everyone rises to the "Star-Spangled Banner," there
+is the benediction, the cadets march away to the "Left Behind Girl"
+once more; and then girls present, who will not accept the situation,
+tear along to the front of barracks to hear the new orders.
+
+The companies are drawn up in line, never again to stand together
+there, and the adjutant publishes the orders for the last time.
+
+It is a long reading. Lists of the men who graduate, of the men who
+go on furlough, and of the new cadet officers; and again the friendly
+chin-straps do the part of words, and "conceal thought." But if you are
+near enough, and know the faces, you can see a gleam in the eyes of the
+men who are to wear chevrons, or gloom on the faces of some who are
+left in ranks, while the furlough men are almost dancing. But not even
+a half-inch stir, anywhere.
+
+When the reading is done, and they break ranks, then indeed frolic
+breaks loose, and every sort of thing is on hand. Graduates rush
+to their rooms, clasping a hand here and there as they go, to put
+off the grey once more and forever. Furlough men also "scoot" away,
+eager to come out in "cits" for the journey; while the others hug and
+congratulate each other in a threefold tangle, sometimes; the new
+officers hurry to put on their chevrons; and (lest the fun should be
+one-sided) are now and then caught and borne away and put under the
+hydrant by the zealous yearlings.
+
+Meantime the sallyport fills up with girls, matrons, friends, old
+graduates, and people in general. The gay overflow pours out into the
+area of barracks, all waiting to see the young lieutenants and the
+furlough men shine out in "cits." And they are about as different from
+each other, when they come, as they were in the old candidate days. One
+tall man in an extra tall hat, the next neat and harmonious down to
+his small handbag, and this one just a trifle loud and mixed. Twos and
+threes and one alone, hardly to be known at first, with their canes and
+neckties. The furlough men shine all over with joy, the young graduates
+have thoughts. So this face grows grave over a handshake, and this
+other stalwart fellow breaks down in his words of farewell, and leaves
+them unsaid.
+
+Mr. Wayne stood there with the rest, watching for Magnus, and then
+having a word with him from time to time, until that matter-of-fact
+regulation drum beat the call for dinner, and the new cadet officers
+marched the men away.
+
+The air is still full of hurry, for most of those who are going want
+to take the down boat, and there are a few last calls to pay, and some
+unfinished business with the commissary or the "Com." But one way and
+another the area is cleared, the men slip out of sight, and graduation
+is over. Few words may tell the rest.
+
+Mr. Erskine had passed away from this earthly life, during that very
+week in June; and it was a very pale and grief-stricken girl, much
+needing him, that Magnus took in his arms when he reached home. And
+later on in the summer there was a quiet wedding, with just a few
+classmates in full-dress uniform to light up the room, and Mr. Wayne to
+join the two hands in a bond which should never be broken.
+
+And their first post? What does that matter? However, it was one with
+plenty to do, and some things to bear; a good place wherein to shine as
+the Lord's true servants, and an excellent one from which to look up to
+Him.
+
+For the rest, it stood on high ground, with a fine outlook, and a fair
+climate. It was called Fort Content.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+  Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.
+
+  Blank pages have been removed.
+
+  There are inconsistencies in the display of attributions in the poetry
+  and quotes following chapter headings. These have been retained.
+
+  In the body of the text closing quotes have been omitted before
+  poetry, after a colon and in correspondence. The text reproduced here
+  is true to the original.
+
+
+
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, West Point Colors, by Anna Bartlett Warner</h1>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
+and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.  If you are not
+located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
+<p>Title: West Point Colors</p>
+<p>Author: Anna Bartlett Warner</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 30, 2020  [eBook #62275]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST POINT COLORS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by MWS, Val Wooff,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive<br />
+    (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff; width: 100%; margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      <a href="https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn">
+      https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn</a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pgx" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="cover" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="745" alt="Cover " />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>WEST POINT COLORS</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<img src="images/frontis_600.jpg" width="375" height="590" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE FLAG</div>
+</div> </div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center ph1"><br /> <br />
+WEST POINT<br />
+COLORS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="small">BY</span></p>
+
+<p class="center ph2">ANNA B. WARNER</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8"><i>"My only regret is that I have but one life to give</i></span>
+<span class="i6"><i>for my country."</i></span>
+<span class="i25"><span class="smcap">Nathan Hale.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 146px;">
+<img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="146" height="112" alt="Colophon" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">New York &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Toronto</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="large">Fleming H. Revell Company</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London and Edinburgh</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center"><br /> <br />
+Copyright, 1903, by</p>
+<p class="center">FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY</p>
+<p class="center">(<i>October</i>)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /> <br />
+New York:158 Fifth Avenue<br />
+Chicago: 63 Washington Street<br />
+Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.<br />
+London: 21 Paternoster Square<br />
+Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<div class="table">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></td>
+<td></td><td align="right"><span class="small"> PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#I">I.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#II">II.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Means to an End</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#III">III.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Night Express</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">21</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ready for Duty</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#V">V.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Flag</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Lonely Candidate</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">54</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">In for It</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">60</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a> </td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rubs the Wrong Way</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">67</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Camp Hard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">73</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#X">X.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Band Concert</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">78</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">88</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><i>Off</i> <span class="smcap">Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">92</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Blue Christmas</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">97</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Camp Golightly</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">106</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Signaling for Help</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Re-enforcements Ready</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">117</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a>
+</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Three Cheers and a Tiger</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">124</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a>
+</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">High Summer</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">129</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Visitors' Seats</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">138</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Just Thee and Me</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">142</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Me Only</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">150</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Girls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">157</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Grim Gray Walls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">167</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ninety-nine Days to June</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">173</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Furlough</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">180</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cherry</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">189</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Off Limits</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">199</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Exhibition</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">209</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Skirmishing</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">218</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Morning Talk</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">226<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Summer Girl</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">238</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Laying Foundations</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">245</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Building Thereon</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">258</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ambushes</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">272</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Of Course</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">278</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">San Carlos</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">284</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rushed into Camp</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">288</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">High Ground</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">293</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">More Girls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">299</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XL">XL.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Fort Put</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">305</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLI">XLI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Up Crownest</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">321</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLII">XLII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Christmas Leave</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">332</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIII">XLIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Hundredth Night</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">343</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIV">XLIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Pressing On</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">355</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLV">XLV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Nothing Serious</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">360</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVI">XLVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Trying Letters</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">364</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVII">XLVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Congressman</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">369</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVIII">XLVIII.</a> </td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Guard-House in June</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">376</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIX">XLIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Flirtation and Other Places</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">388</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#L">L.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Fairyland</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">398</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LI">LI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Home Stretch</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">404</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LII">LII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Big Reception</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">414</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LIII">LIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The First Post</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">420</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="table">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" align="right"><span class="small">FACING PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Flag</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><i>Title</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Barracks in Winter</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Color Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Mounting Heavy Guns in Fort Clinton</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cadet Room in Barracks</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Parade Rest in Camp</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_377">377</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Flirtation</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cadet Boat and Crew</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_401">401</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION TO THIS TALE OF A<br />
+POSSIBLE CADET</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some of my friends in a certain cadet class beset me to write a West
+Point story; promising me incidents at will, a plot, a name, and a
+tactical officer for "the villain." Perhaps it was because I declined
+this last sensational detail that they backed out of all the rest, and
+having given my boat a shove into deep water, left me to row and pilot
+as best I might.</p>
+
+<p>However, help came from other men, in other classes. I was cheered
+on in my work, and given story after story, with full leave to use them
+as I chose; and so it falls out that my book is quite true.</p>
+
+<p>Not that all the happenings ever came to any one cadet, or within
+the bounds of any four years' course. But they have almost all, at some
+time, been part of somebody's cadet life at West Point. With what men,
+or in what years, it does not matter: the last decade of the nineteenth
+century nearly enough covers the whole.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried hard to have the small technicalities quite correct.
+Yet as rules do vary now and then, even at West Point, everything may
+not always <i>seem</i> right, to this or that graduate. And, of course, I
+may have blundered here and there.</p>
+
+<p>Certain points in cadet life I was especially asked to handle; and
+if once or twice I have told only what <i>might</i> have been, even there I
+had the warrant of cadet opinion.</p>
+
+<p>As for the fancy names, it was so hard to find plain ones that
+were not down in some Army List or Visitors' Book, that I made up a
+few, choosing rather to give caps which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+nobody would put on than others quite sure to be appropriated. Truly, I
+did not name Miss Dangleum: a young officer did that, and Cadet Devlin
+was also dubbed by one who knew.</p>
+
+<p>Since certain words of my story were written a few changes have
+come in. The cadet classes have pledged themselves to abolish hazing;
+the Hundredth Night (in its old wild glee) has been forbidden; the
+Cadet Howitzer is spiked. The shady nooks along "Flirtation" have
+been cleared up; Fort Clinton is a memory, the tents are brown, and
+Dade's white shaft now stands in the gayest and sunniest of all the
+thoroughfares. But human nature survives,&mdash;and "boodle"&mdash;and
+the girls, so that my book is declared to be still "absolutely
+true."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes when I watch that grey throng in the Chapel, I have a
+great wish that I could see the other little army with whom they are to
+join hands. So much depends on them. For womanhood sets the standard
+for the world of men.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She's like the keystone to an arch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That consummates all beauty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She's like the music to a march,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That sheds a joy on duty."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such she should be.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p><span class="i20">A. B. W.</span></p>
+<p><span class="i25"><span class="smcap">Martlaer's Rock.</span></span><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br />
+THE BOY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The lions, if they left not the forest, would capture no prey; and
+the arrow, if it quitted not the bow, would not strike the mark.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Arabian Nights.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The precise date of my story does not matter: the world strikes a
+much more even average than we are apt to think; and still, as of old,
+"the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
+done, is that which shall be done."</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, then, there was a boy whose name was Charlemagne
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus" was the home version. I think his two young sisters were
+perhaps rather proud of the royal-republican title, and would by no
+means let it come down to "Charley," and so lose itself in the crowd.
+Once in a while, when a longer lecture than usual was called for, Mrs.
+Kindred would say Charlemagne: but I doubt if it had much effect,
+unless to give Magnus some slighting thoughts of the ancestor who had
+first borne his name.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred was a widow of ten years' standing; and she and Magnus,
+and the two young sisters, made up the family. There is nothing on
+earth sweeter than girls can be; and these two filled out the fair
+pattern, with few breaks or flaws. But no history or inheritance of
+even a name had been wasted on them, and they set out in life
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+as plain Rose and Violet, named for their father's favourite
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had not at all, however, the same reverence for his sisters
+that they felt for him, which was a pity; for really I think they
+deserved it better.</p>
+
+<p>But another drawback to the perfections of my hero,&mdash;a common
+one enough with heroes, and which after all proved him the real
+thing,&mdash;he had not five cents to his name. And failing this, the
+question came up very naturally, what else he could have "to his name,"
+to make that worth the carrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, he'd make a beautiful minister!" said Rose, who, enshrined
+in the very rosiest corner of her heart, had a faint, far-away picture
+of her father in the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>"He would make a beautiful anything," said the mother, her
+eyes shining at the mere thought of her boy. "But he cannot be a
+minister, Rose, at least not in his father's church, without going to
+college."</p>
+
+<p>"And that takes money," said Violet. "Mamma, if I were Uncle Sam,
+I'd have free colleges. I can't see why not, just as well as free
+schools."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like to hear you say 'Uncle Sam,' Violet. It is not
+respectful to the Government."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus does."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred might have answered that the bump of reverence was not
+as yet developed in that young magnate's head to any alarming degree,
+but no such disloyal words came out. She sat thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"The Government has one free college, you know, girls," she said;
+"at least, I suppose it may be called that. Two, in fact: the Naval
+Academy at Annapolis, and the Military Academy at West Point. I wonder
+it never occurred to me before."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point!" exclaimed both the girls, open-eyed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+"Then he'd be a soldier, and wear a uniform," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and then there would be a war, and he would get killed," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he wouldn't," said Violet. "Catch Magnus letting anybody shoot
+<i>him</i>. He's a good deal too quick for that. Besides, people can get
+killed anywhere. Missionaries do, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder I never thought of West Point," Mrs. Kindred repeated.
+"Hush, girls; don't say such things. There is no war now, and maybe
+there never will be again. Magnus would like it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd be splendid in uniform," said Rose, "he's so tall."</p>
+
+<p>"Too tall," said the mother with a sigh. "Magnus grows altogether
+too fast. Perhaps West Point would be just the thing for him, and make
+him spread out a little. You know, girls, what big fellows some of
+those army men are, in papa's book of officers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Violet doubtfully, "big enough. But then Magnus never
+could be as broad as he is long, so we needn't worry."</p>
+
+<p>A cheery whistle, strong and sweet and clear, pierced through the
+summer air outside; and with one consent the three talkers hurried
+to the window to look out. It was a back window, commanding easily a
+woodshed, a small garden, and a barn.</p>
+
+<p>In the woodshed, hard at work upon a somewhat elaborate dog-house,
+stood the young future victim of mathematics and wave motion. Coat off,
+hat tossed down, hands busily chiselling out some bit of ornamentation;
+the head with its shock of brown curls bent low over his work. And very
+appropriately just then, for the thoughts that filled the air, Magnus
+was whistling "Yankee Doodle": his limber young tones going with great
+force and discern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>ment
+into all the ups and downs of that delightful old melody. Do not
+mistake me and think the words ironical; I am extremely fond of "Yankee
+Doodle," myself.</p>
+
+<p>"How queer he should be whistling that!" said Rose. "Oh, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come up here. We were just talking about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk away."</p>
+
+<p>"But mother and all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good I am down here, then," said the boy, eyeing a bit of board
+along the edge to see if it was straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" cried Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"You know she doesn't like to praise me to my face," said Magnus,
+carefully planing the aforesaid edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Conceited boy!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I suppose he was that, just a little; but what can happen to
+average masculine nature, with three such bits of the feminine to stand
+round and gaze at its perfections? Magnus brought his board to a nicety
+of straightness, tossed off the shavings, gave another toss to his
+brown hair&mdash;then looked up at the sweet cluster of faces in the
+window and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"All's safe up there, so long as I stay down here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The three were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"He is such a beauty!" said Rose under her breath. "He grows better
+and handsomer every day."</p>
+
+<p>"But we want to talk to you!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I can wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we cannot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Front door's open," said Magnus, falling to work with his hammer,
+and once more lapsing into the sweets of "Yankee Doodle."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, may we tell him?" said Rose. "May we ask him how he'd like
+it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+"Why, yes, dear; that can do no harm," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>So the girls went down to the woodshed, perching themselves on some
+hard places each side of their big brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, how would you like to be a soldier?"</p>
+
+<p>"When there's a war, you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>That was beginning at the wrong end; the two young faces grew
+suddenly grave. But, after all, there was no war then, and probably
+never would be, as their mother had said.</p>
+
+<p>"But we mean <i>now</i>," Rose went on. "How would you like to go to West
+Point?"</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to learn to be a soldier!" said Violet impressively.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed in high derision.</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers!" he said&mdash;"Popinjays. Parrots and popinjays. There
+was one of those fellows at Clear Spring last summer, and he had airs
+enough to fly a kite with a tail a mile long."</p>
+
+<p>Again the two young sisters were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>you</i> would not, Magnus, when you came home," said Violet. "Oh,
+Rose! just think of his coming home on vacation!"</p>
+
+<p>"And if all the rest are like that, you could be what mamma
+calls a 'beautiful example,'" said Rose. "I heard Cherry speak
+of that 'fellow,' as you call him. She said his uniform was very
+interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry doesn't care a copper for such stuff!" said Magnus hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she can admire a uniform," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>But to that Magnus made no reply.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br />
+MEANS TO AN END</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">The nightingale flew away, and time flew also.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Charlemagne got his appointment. In a very commonplace way, after
+all, like most other boys; in spite of his long name and his longer
+list of qualifications. Some relative knew the Congressman of the
+district, had done business with him in the pre-official days, and in
+one of the intervals of home rest after Washington fatigues, young
+Kindred was taken over to the dignitary's whereabouts, and presented
+as one who was eager to serve his country in another line. There was
+nothing heroic about the whole proceeding, and the man was not an ideal
+Congressman; but he answered the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The interview would have made a fine subject for a picture. The
+boy, on his dignity every inch of him, making believe that he did not
+care a continental about the matter; but too unskilled in dissembling
+to prove the fact, and keep down the quick flashes of eye and flushes
+of cheek. The introducer, the childless uncle to whom his sister's son
+was the one boy of all the world. Opposite them the old Congressman,
+with chair at an uncertain angle and hat ditto; tilting back in the
+cool shady porch, and listening with a scarce hid smile to the tale of
+Charlemagne's attainments.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he room in his head for anything more?" he demanded, when Mr.
+Thorn paused. "He'll want a little, over there."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+"I am ready to learn all they teach, sir!" said young Magnus, firing
+up. "You think I don't know anything now&mdash;and maybe I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe&mdash;" said the Congressman drily. "How about the <i>outside</i>
+of your head? You'll get it rough and ready, at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got hands!" said Magnus with another flush.</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the Honourable Miles Ironwood. "Well, take good care of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have understood," put in Mr. Thorn, "that hazing is quite
+stamped out at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ironwood skilfully rocked his chair upon its two hind legs, a
+mocking smile upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever see a bit of woodland that was half trees and two-thirds
+rocks?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I was brought up on just such a place," said Mr. Thorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever fight a fire there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm&mdash;I thought perhaps you hadn't," said the Congressman.
+"Well, Mr. Thorn, this district is not represented at West Point just
+now; last appointment resigned some months ago, and I suppose it had
+better be filled. And this young man doesn't look as if he would give
+the Tacs more trouble than common. And if they go for him, that is his
+lookout and not mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the Tacs, sir?" inquired Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Men who come round every morning to see if you have washed your
+face," said Mr. Ironwood, without moving a muscle of his own. "And
+every night, to tuck you up and bring away the light."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured indignantly; but a certain twinkle in Mr. Ironwood's
+eye kept him silent.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they teach there, chiefly?" said Mr. Thorn. "What had
+Magnus better learn before he goes?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+"Learn everything you can, when you are going <i>anywhere</i>," said Mr.
+Ironwood impressively. "They teach riding&mdash;a little&mdash;at West
+Point. And mathematics&mdash;some."</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne can ride," said his uncle proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"On his head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why no!" said Mr. Thorn. "Will that be required?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen 'em on their heads, in that riding-hall," said the
+Congressman with an easy change of position.</p>
+
+<p>"They teach the classics, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll hear something about Achilles, like as not," said Mr.
+Ironwood. "Hector, too. Not so much of either as he will of
+Charlemagne."</p>
+
+<p>Again the suggestive gleam of the eye acted upon the boy as both
+spur and check.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have no general advice to give him, Mr. Ironwood, as to
+what he had best do to prepare himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prepare himself?" Mr. Ironwood brought his chair down on all-fours
+with considerable force. "If that boy wants to get ready for West
+Point, let him do every blessed thing he <i>don't</i> want to do and not one
+that he <i>does</i>, between now and next June. Good-morning: I'll attend to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"He's an old buzzard!" said Magnus as they walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"A little sudden, sometimes," said his mild uncle. "But he's a smart
+man&mdash;a very smart man. And now I think of it, he was there once
+himself, and didn't get through. That's what makes him so down on the
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been a very smart man if he couldn't get through West
+Point," Magnus said, with a boy's easy contempt.</p>
+
+<p>But smart or not, Mr. Ironwood was as good as his word. And so in
+due course it was set forth in the <i>Army and Navy Journal</i>, that among
+the candidates for the Military Academy the following June would be
+found one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Charlemagne Kindred. And the local paper of Barren Heights (albeit not
+generally concerning itself with West Point) got hold of the item and
+copied it out in full. And so astonishing was it to see Charlemagne's
+name in print that the family copy of said paper would have been quite
+worn out with much study and handling, if Mrs. Kindred had not rescued
+it, and laid it safe away among the family archives.</p>
+
+<p>As for Cherry, after first privately breaking her heart because
+Magnus was going away, she then plucked up courage and common sense,
+and became the proudest little maiden that could be found among all the
+patient readers of the <i>Barren Heights View</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is safe to say that Magnus reversed Mr. Ironwood's wise counsel
+at every point and every time. Having himself been a failure at West
+Point, the Congressman's opinion was counted a failure too; would have
+been, anyhow, I fancy; and Charlemagne Kindred got ready for West
+Point by doing every possible thing he wanted to do, and letting the
+things he did not want to do, alone. Even when the rainy days of May
+went weeping by, and the fateful June was close at hand, what that boy
+did&mdash;and was allowed to do&mdash;would not bear telling. "He is
+going away," hushed every reproof; and "when I am gone," forestalled
+criticism. Refuse him? scold him?&mdash;the three gentle hearts at home
+were quite beyond all that.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, he ought to have studied hard, the whole time; but then
+Magnus was so quick and bright it could not be really needful. And if
+Mrs. Kindred now and then sighed, and wondered what the end would be,
+if the beginning was so lawless, and what her husband the minister
+would have said to his only son becoming a soldier&mdash;the girls had
+the answer ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Why mother, it is to defend the Country! My father went to the war
+once, himself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+"Yes, in time of need," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus says that when there is no danger is the time to
+prepare," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Mrs. Kindred said again with a smile and a sigh, pleased at
+such wisdom in her boy; although it was a principle of sound business
+which Magnus had never been known to act upon, in any one single
+case.</p>
+
+<p>But even he sobered down a little, as the last home day drew on.
+When the new trunk was packed, and Magnus had said good-bye to all
+the neighbourhood, and taken his last walk with Cherry; cheering up
+her forebodings in various efficacious ways best known to himself and
+to her; when there was nothing left but the good-night, and the early
+breakfast, and the parting&mdash;then, indeed, things began to look
+serious, and the boy too.</p>
+
+<p>He sat that evening, taking the clearest sort of mental photographs.
+He saw the grief that lay back of his mother's brave words and tender
+smiles: saw it, as it were, on that other background of the older
+and deeper sorrow which never left her face. He noticed the white
+lines that marked the brown hair above her temples. He studied her
+hands: slender, white, but with that unmistakable character of use and
+usefulness which some hands have.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his sisters: fair, innocent slips of girls as you could
+find, East or West: their tears coming and going, their smiles playing
+hide and seek. Who ever had three such blessed bits of womankind
+entrusted to him? and who would take care of them when he, tall
+Charlemagne Kindred, should be far away? Magnus registered in his heart
+some vows that night, which to his honour he kept.</p>
+
+<p>Then his eyes went down again to his mother's hands. They were
+quietly folded in her lap; but as Magnus looked, he seemed to see them
+busy in a hundred different ways, and always for him. Steadying his
+baby steps, cooling his aching head; binding up scratches and cuts;
+sewing on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+buttons, knitting socks, mending gloves. Now laid tenderly on his
+shoulder in some time of persuasion or entreaty&mdash;and now held out,
+both of them, to receive the penitent.</p>
+
+<p>But here Magnus jumped up and fled away, out of the room, out of the
+house; and poured forth his agony of tears in the old orchard, under
+the quiet stars.</p>
+
+<p>At his age, however, such showers are brief, and often end in a
+highly exalted state of mind. Magnus came back to the house protector
+of his mother, defender of his sisters, and knight-errant for all
+womankind in general&mdash;especially Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry would have given what coppers she had in the world, and some
+silver to boot, to spend that last evening and morning at the Kindred
+house, and the girls had entreated her to stay, but she was a very
+self-contained little damsel and said no. "Little" is not descriptive,
+however, for Cherry was growing up tall and straight as a plumed reed
+by the river side; with a wealth of dark brown hair, and large serious
+eyes, and delicate brows that, when they laughed, went into curves as
+lovely and mischievous as the proverbial bow of Cupid. The whole of the
+demure face laughed then, with dimples here and dimples there.</p>
+
+<p>Brought up until six years old with a frail, invalid mother, and
+since then by a student father, the child had early learned to keep
+herself to herself with severe decision. And keep herself hid according
+to her own ideas, Cherry feared she could not, if she was at hand to
+see Magnus Kindred go. Besides&mdash;Magnus himself had not asked
+her!</p>
+
+<p>"But why will you not stay, Cherry?" the girls persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise
+Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady
+steps toward her own gate, so soon as tea was over. To be sure, Magnus
+did see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+her and come bounding after; and, to be sure, she found out then that
+she was not really in such haste as she had thought: but still Magnus
+would never have got the sort of farewell he did, if he had not been
+saucy and taken it. Though, alas! I am afraid his after-memory of the
+parting was for a time less tender and true than hers.</p>
+
+<p>So there were only the three home faces about the boy that last
+morning, and only the three sore hearts to plan and prepare his
+breakfast and every other possible sort of ministration. And magnate as
+he was, Charlemagne found those three as much as he could bear.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br />
+THE NIGHT EXPRESS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.<br /></span></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down
+sentiment and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty
+and feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at
+the shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer
+a kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway"
+mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a
+good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines
+until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty."
+But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and
+you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round
+you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark
+line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across
+the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally
+ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than
+wait.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and
+his setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being
+late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after
+the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but
+pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+go with him to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so
+much faster alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him
+loiter.</p>
+
+<p>So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and
+waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe
+indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the
+greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother,
+and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed
+to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's
+house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why,
+the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West
+Point. Nevertheless, he went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"For men must work and women must weep."</p>
+
+<p>Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic
+than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with
+a derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother,
+and the three girls.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic
+to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you
+would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed,
+there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth
+remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly
+aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving
+for seats.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly
+the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its
+exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>The first day and the first night went by wearily enough.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Magnus had decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his
+anxious mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And
+so he could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that
+long first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were
+softer (as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of
+the night express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car!
+What gruff voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him.
+Disgust, fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands,
+until, as the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He
+wondered what was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be
+ill: and never guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly
+homesick.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a
+little country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been
+sitting far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had
+called forth no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and
+roar ceased for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes
+of the little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in
+the moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked
+down the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up
+the darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late
+fellow-passengers&mdash;then as the way opened, and the mother moved
+on, the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to
+that small, unknown world.</p>
+
+<p>"Dood-night, folks!" she said&mdash;and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus
+quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch
+of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger
+than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was
+he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+to him? If indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should
+die by the way.</p>
+
+<p>He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down
+over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion,
+and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small
+stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place,
+where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally
+brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of
+viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out.
+Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides
+had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch
+<i>them</i>&mdash;look at them even&mdash;in his present mood, he could
+not.</p>
+
+<p>The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness
+and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors.
+It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too
+short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the
+passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest,
+and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had
+had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy
+could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A
+somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place
+of others left behind at the station.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat,
+and only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the
+train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of a
+different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build; close
+shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and in
+order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and not
+from that tailor to all the crowned heads,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+High Style. Over the whole man was that look of absolute
+cleanness&mdash;mental, moral, and physical&mdash;which a smooth face
+always sets off to the best advantage. Step firm and businesslike, eyes
+quick and kind. A man "at leisure from himself," for all the work his
+Master might set before him. Was there, perhaps, work here?</p>
+
+<p>The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping
+off at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night
+drew on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there
+one by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car,
+and from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing
+that he would come and sit by <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of
+the chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another,
+"Run, speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no
+audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the
+car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by
+young Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br />
+READY FOR DUTY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">The man that wants me is the man I want.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Dr. Edward Payson.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the
+stranger said as he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the
+answer broader than the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on
+softly to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul,
+wait thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a
+minute or two.</p>
+
+<p>"They had supper at Beaver Junction."</p>
+
+<p>"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I didn't want any."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said
+Mr. Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They <i>used</i> to
+stop at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the
+road."</p>
+
+<p>He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the
+conductor was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that
+another chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where
+they had to wait for the train from Combination.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a
+closer survey.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. It will not be near <i>me</i> for two years," said Magnus,
+trying to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his
+travels, and far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was
+almost a groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West
+Point?" he said the next minute in his quick way.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get
+to West Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you
+will see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first
+thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd
+better do a little at it before you get there."</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the
+merry glance that went with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Often."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up
+in his interest.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr.
+Wayne. "With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart
+to, and never get it back."</p>
+
+<p>"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All
+sorts."</p>
+
+<p>"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Be it ever so homely,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember
+varieties?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was
+waste time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get
+through."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near
+home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so
+everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But
+here is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my
+guest, and when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you
+don't want to go, and eat when you are not hungry."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly
+lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer
+railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from
+munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time
+seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came
+back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise
+and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into
+life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole
+little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a
+sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and
+sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when
+Magnus roused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and the young head
+sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back of the seat,
+then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had vanished,
+and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.</p>
+
+<p>"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the
+clear skin and pure colour, "and well brought up"&mdash;for
+unmistakable lines of truth and intelligence marked the face.
+"Warm-hearted&mdash;almost&mdash;as a woman, and wilful enough for two!
+What will he do at West Point? and what will West Point do to him?"</p>
+
+<p>The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that
+longing petition of the Lord himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that
+thou shouldest keep them from the evil."</p>
+
+<p>So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep,
+until the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two
+new-made friends went back to their car after breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ordered to report to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, not until Friday."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you stay to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything
+at West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in
+town with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you live in town, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred,
+and he entered into this plan with great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+alacrity; nor ever guessed, till he went home on furlough and put up at
+the same hotel, how large a part of his fare that night was paid by Mr.
+Wayne himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least
+according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands
+on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two
+o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him
+sleep a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened
+again until broad daylight.</p>
+
+<p>The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus,
+the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own.
+Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat,
+orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading
+his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and
+then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his
+own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came
+a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then
+Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone,
+which was all that could be wished.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together.
+There their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road,
+while Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said
+Mr. Wayne, as they stepped along.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard work, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you
+expect to keep yourself at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own will, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to
+its duty?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and
+often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow
+up the whole concern."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy
+with some quickness.</p>
+
+<p>"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the
+wrong things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to
+have the 'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working
+order."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be
+for four years."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at
+West Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the
+United States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether
+you like it or not, whether you understand it or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing
+to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but
+that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and
+neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the
+least."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds hard," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> hard."</p>
+
+<p>"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus
+with a boy's air of competent criticism.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If
+the authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I
+would have that written up over your door in gilt letters."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the
+absolute needs-be."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a
+wondering look at his new-found friend.</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and
+a few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may
+come to."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been <i>there</i>?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad
+I am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all
+that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got
+shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as
+much in grey as you ever will in blue."</p>
+
+<p>"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls
+is the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else,
+from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders&mdash;sworn
+in to obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must
+have forgotten. He never <i>means</i> to disobey.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on
+this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name,
+it is a West Point tactical officer."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+"Who is he?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue,
+specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."</p>
+
+<p>"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see
+if you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that
+on me!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne laughed a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that
+you haven't got does not pay at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with
+growing distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and
+that often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear
+to obey orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come
+out. From the time you get up till the time you go to bed,&mdash;and
+after."</p>
+
+<p>"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive
+lift of the brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being
+asleep will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will
+come round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if
+you are not <i>too</i> tired, I think you had better get up.'"</p>
+
+<p>It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that
+the boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.</p>
+
+<p>"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his
+self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with
+corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it
+comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."</p>
+
+<p>"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that
+kind office for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+another man detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house
+by his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was
+not all of enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered
+Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you
+can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you
+must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and
+pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up
+the other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I <i>am</i> rather
+lazy."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I
+want you to make friends with the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the
+time? That is glorious!"</p>
+
+<p>"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm
+flag in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What
+would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came
+by who did not like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to
+offend?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"But Young America can <i>suppose</i>, for the argument's sake," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as
+you say. And I say, the man would come
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+down, a long sight ahead of the Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending
+anybody, for the flag."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point.
+Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are
+open."</p>
+
+<p>So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train
+moved slowly out of the Grand Central.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br />
+THE FLAG</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now it catches the gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the morning's first beam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Francis Key.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you
+leave the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in
+the long passage under ever-arching streets; and whatever the Harlem
+end of New York may have been, it is not delightsome to look upon
+now.</p>
+
+<p>But the way to the turn is not long; and once round that corner, and
+racing along the river side, there is enough to see, well worth the
+seeing. And it was all new to Magnus. The wonderful rush of the mighty
+river, rolling its blue waves in endless curls and undulations; the
+stately Palisades, with their drapings of June green; the white-winged
+craft on the water, and the white-winged gulls in the air; all made the
+boy's heart leap. Here went a steamer, ploughing her crested furrows;
+now and then the train stopped for breath at some station with a
+strange name. It was all a wonderful new world.</p>
+
+<p>With his face close to the window Magnus looked eagerly out; sending
+his gaze as far up the river as the headlands and bends would let him;
+and at last in the distance beyond the narrowing waters of Haverstraw
+Bay, and above the nearer hillsides, rose lovely mountain-heads. Not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+towering and stupendous, such as he might have seen many a time in the
+Western States, but soft, rounded, exquisite; just high enough, in
+fact, to claim the dignified name of mountains, as distinguished from
+mere hills. What they were, and where they belonged, Magnus could not
+tell. They rose up, and stretched out, and locked in, in an impassable
+sort of way; as if they might be miles off from the river. He did not
+know whether West Point was near them. And yet, by his time-table,
+there was but one station more before he must leave the train.</p>
+
+<p>Now the engine rushed inland for a bit, losing sight of the river,
+and Magnus studied the time-table again, assuring himself for the
+twentieth time of the precise hour and minute when he was expected to
+reach Garrisons. Then as the train drew up at Peekskill, he gazed out
+at that dingy combination which gathers round a railway station. The
+engine got its quantum of water, darted on, and then&mdash;ah, what
+could be fairer! Magnus almost shouted with delight as they swept
+around the curve, with the full south view for a moment, past Anthony's
+Nose, and with the Dunderberg across the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"What are these mountains called?" he asked of a Peekskill passenger
+who had taken the seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Highlands&mdash;Hudson Highlands," said the man. "You don't belong
+round here, likely?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never was here before."</p>
+
+<p>"You've come to the right place, then. Aint purtier mountings
+nowhere. Such a lot o' happenings, too. Now, right <i>here</i>,"&mdash;as
+the train rushed through a deep rock cut,&mdash;"just about here, was
+where Benedict Arnold sneaked off to find the <i>Vulture</i>. And earth nor
+water didn't nary one on 'em open and swaller him up."</p>
+
+<p>"Then this is Teller's Point!" cried Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Teller's Point it is. And up yonder, to your right, is where the
+scamp was livin', and gettin' his breakfast that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+mornin', when the Father of his country come, and all but cotched him.
+Tell you, these old hills has seen things! But now look this way a bit.
+See that crick over there, and the mill? Fort Montgomery's one side,
+to the north, and t'other side o' the crick is Fort Clinton; and down
+there, atween 'em, is where they fit the battle and killed my great
+grandfather. They do say, the Continentals was that mad they pitched
+all the Hessians into the crick. Tell you what, young man, it's fine to
+have one o' the family die in the service. I aint partic'lar about its
+bein' me, you understand, but some one on 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'd be ready to have it you?" said Magnus, eyeing his new
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Likely I would, if the tug came. Life's life, howsoever, when there
+aint no special call to get along without it. They're tryin' to learn
+them boys at West Point how to fight; but la! this here sham work don't
+go for nothin'. Live in peace till the time comes, say I."</p>
+
+<p>"But you want to be ready for the time," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready?" the man repeated. "Take your pitchfork and <i>go</i>. That's
+ready enough for me. It did average well, in '76."</p>
+
+<p>"Garri-sons!" sang out the brakeman, flinging back the door.
+"Garrisons! Ferry to West Point."</p>
+
+<p>And in another minute Magnus was out on the platform, and heard the
+little ferryboat ringing her bell. He looked eagerly about him, found
+the right official to take his check, and following that bell, marched
+down to the <i>Highlander</i>, and went on board.</p>
+
+<p>A down train was nearly due, so there were a few minutes to wait;
+and Magnus pushed straight on to the little forward deck, and then
+forgot everything in what he saw.</p>
+
+<p>It was unearthly fair, this bit of the world that lay before him.
+The lovely green further shore, decked from river side to sky edge in
+the rich growth and colouring of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+early summer; the hills but hardly yet in their full depth of green, so
+that the dark cedars and hemlocks stood out markedly among the tender
+hues of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and maples. From the midst of the
+trees on the table-land rose up chimneys, pointed roofs, round roofs,
+and domes, which as yet meant nothing to Charlemagne Kindred. The river
+rolled placidly by, stirred into wavelets by the fresh, sweet breeze;
+close at hand he could hear the soft lapping of the water against the
+sides of the boat. All sweet, all strange; and between the two, Magnus
+very nearly let his head go down.</p>
+
+<p>But now came the thunder of the down train; the inviting ding-dong
+of the ferryboat made itself once more heard, a little throng of
+passengers came hurrying on board, and then they were off. Crossing the
+Rubicon, Magnus felt, if he did not say.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments still he stood quite alone on the forward deck.
+How fast the little steamer parted the blue waters that lay between
+him and his new life! Hilltops to the north, hilltops to the south,
+Anthony's Nose cutting the river off on the one hand, Martlaer's
+Rock&mdash;the old "East Point" of the maps&mdash;closing it in on the
+other. Before him, West Point, "Tacs," and orders; behind him, the road
+by which he had come from home.</p>
+
+<p>Then the swing-door slammed, and a bevy of girls came rushing
+out to the front of the boat. Magnus turned to look at them, then
+instinctively took a stand further back, where he could gaze less
+visibly.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly he had seen girls enough to know the genus, but these were
+a new species. Such hats, such heels, such giggles, such bewildering
+dresses. Such knots of riband, such spots of velvet, such piles of
+artificial flowers, such very pretty faces. Not handsome, like Cherry,
+Magnus said indignantly, calling himself to order; and then began to
+wonder how Cherry would look dressed <i>so</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+And even as the thought came, he heard one whisper to the other, "A
+candidate."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus felt unreasonably angry. What business had they to pick
+him out? And how was he a marked man, anyway? But their notice of him
+was short.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at Jenny!" giggled one, half under her breath, pointing to a
+girl who leaned on the railing, and never took her eyes from the West
+Point shore. "He isn't on the watch, sweet child: it's one o'clock,
+and they're all in the Mess Hall. Don't send such wistful looks on
+ahead, or they'll mount the hill and spoil his digestion." And she half
+whistled, half sang:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come fill up your glasses, and don't stand back;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Vive la compagnie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drink to the health of our Captain Jack&mdash;&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"You don't call him plain 'Jack' yet, do you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you <i>could</i> talk a little sense!" murmured the girl at the
+railing. "I shall never call him '<i>plain</i>' anything."</p>
+
+<p>The girls choked with laughter, which half rippled out, and half was
+smothered. Then the talk went on, in the same undertones; not as if it
+was meant to be heard, and yet which Magnus could not help hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"She's such a Paul Pry! Said to me the other day when we were out
+walking, 'But you are not in love with any one of the class?' I said,
+'No; I'm in love with the whole class.' Oh, dear! it will be too
+dreadful when they all go!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are always candidates," whispered another, with a glance
+towards Magnus, and then the boat touched her landing, and the girls
+hurried on shore.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus did not hurry. He had no quarters to spend on omnibus fare,
+and no mind at all to be wedged in among those lively ladies. He picked
+up his bag and walked after the stage as it slowly climbed the hill. A
+few swift strides would have easily taken him beyond it. But he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+lingered and loitered, sat down on the tall stone curbing of the road,
+and tried to find out why he felt so uncomfortable. What if he was a
+"candidate"? There was Cherry, and the other two girls at home, on
+tiptoe over that very fact. Why should West Point feel so differently?
+He had come to learn to serve and to defend his country; to grace her
+ranks, wherever he might be.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked after his stageful of enemies, and seeing that
+they had turned down towards the south, he quickened his steps, and
+soon reached the top of the hill. There paused again, partly for
+strangeness, and partly for wonder. It was all so beautiful, so new.</p>
+
+<p>The grass, close shaven and vividly green, covered the ground on
+every side; up the slopes, and down in the hollows; with only the
+cavalry plain lying brown and bare in the sunshine. Buildings, with
+hardly two alike, were dropped down for the most part in a long,
+curving line, the end of which he could not see. No people, anywhere,
+for it was dinner time or lunch time all over the Post; only as
+Magnus crossed the road to get a nearer view of the buildings, he
+came upon a very distinguished personage with a gun on his shoulder,
+pacing aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. His uniform was blue, his
+"deportment" fierce. "He must be an officer," thought the boy to
+himself, "and this some special important point he must watch."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus found a seat under a friendly tree, and studied him. That
+slow, ceaseless, back-and-forth march, fascinated the quicksilver
+youngster. Orioles whistled over his head, sparrows sang, catbirds
+cried out in fear or shouted for joy. Further off was the whistle and
+roar of trains, and the bell of the ferryboat. In every pause the
+breeze rustled softly by, and the river plashed against the shore. He
+had never seen anything so lovely in all his life. But now, where were
+all those voices?&mdash;a mild roar of talk.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Plainly, in that small grey stone castle just over the way.</p>
+
+<p>He strolled on again, passed the old Academic, and came out upon the
+plain. And then for a while he forgot everything but what his eyes took
+in.</p>
+
+<p>The smooth greensward, irregularly framed in with trees, and having
+here and there a slight undulation which only heightened its beauty,
+lay shimmering in the summer sun. On one side, behind the trees, the
+row of houses went its winding way; on the other, the trees drew
+together rather thinly in a little wood; but Magnus just then gave
+no heed to either. His eyes followed the green right on to a sort of
+jumping-off place, where the ground dropped suddenly all along the
+line. There too was a closer-set clump of trees; and from among them,
+white and slim, rose the tall flagstaff, bearing aloft the beautiful
+banner of the Stars and Stripes.</p>
+
+<p>There was not much wind, and the great flag hung in those half-way
+curves which are more picturesque than the full expansion. Softly
+twisting, turning, its mighty folds; the red, white, and blue seeming
+ever in playful strife for the upper hand, which should show most and
+which give way.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at it, and then instantly bared his head. He had
+never seen so large a flag, nor ever one that floated with such clear
+assumption of its rights; such careless, easy grace in claiming and
+keeping them. "Make a friend of the flag," Mr. Wayne had said, and from
+this moment the boy took it to his very heart. Fight for it? Aye, that
+he would!</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly across the plain, still watching the flag, until
+he stood close beneath it, and could hear the soft flapping of the
+halyards as they beat against the pole. But now it was fairyland
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>All about him, spotting the green grass, were guns: big
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+guns and little guns; shining black and mouldy green; with piles
+of wicked-looking black shot. The guns themselves, like many other
+senders-forth of mischief, looked sleepy and innocent enough. Tall
+trees rose up, bordering the little platform, from which the ground
+fell off steeply towards the river; some younger and softer tree heads
+showing there and hindering the further view. But Magnus wanted no more
+views just then.</p>
+
+<p>He stood leaning back against the white flagstaff, and for the
+moment felt content. Over his head the lovely folds of the flag curled
+and drooped and stretched away upon the wind; and again, as Magnus
+looked up at it, he doffed his hat. Then he found himself wondering
+what they did to the grass in this part of the world, to make it so
+smooth and soft and even. Then two or three uniforms went by, and he
+wondered over them: it was in truth fairyland. Oh, if the folks at home
+could only see it! And then, suddenly, fairyland shifted its place, and
+fled away far out West, to the lonely regions of Barren Heights. Oh,
+if&mdash;not that they were here, but that he was there!&mdash;just
+back once more at home! The boy's hat came down low over his eyes. What
+did that old flag care for him? And what did he care for grass, or
+views, or uniforms, or anything else, but only just to see mother, and
+the girls, and Cherry?</p>
+
+<p>"Bracing up" is often so useful a process that one must not be
+too hard upon the agents that oblige us thereto; and this time the
+agents were very comely. A cluster of young girls, clad in all the
+pretty frippery of the day, came giggling along the walk towards the
+flagstaff. It was not, Say something and laugh at it&mdash;or, Say
+something to make the others laugh; but there was a chronic state of
+giggle, as if life were such a very droll thing that no occasional
+outburst could do it justice. The walk passed the flagstaff with some
+little green space between; and they came flickering
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+along (I am really at a loss for a word); changing places, pulling each
+other, pushing each other, whispering, sometimes half-dancing, down the
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that Magnus "braced up" immediately; and still
+leaning against the flagstaff, watched them from under his hat.</p>
+
+<p>These were not his fair foes of the ferryboat, whom he had supposed
+were rare specimens: now he was to learn that the species is widespread
+and common, in June. Again he heard the obnoxious word, "candidate."</p>
+
+<p>"Holding up the flagstaff, as usual," said the leading girl. "I do
+verily believe they think that's what they come for."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said another. "Don't talk so loud. He might hear."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll hear worse than that, before he's been here many days," said
+the first. "I'll just break it to him by degrees. Say, girls, let's go
+and give him his 'technical,' and get the start of Devlin Fritz."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> be quiet!" said a third. "No wonder they all call you 'Miss
+Saucy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It's something to have them <i>all</i> call you anything," returned the
+young lady with much content.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's true!" said another. "I declare, girls, I think it's too
+bad. Here I've spent ten pounds of candy since I came, and I haven't
+got one special cadet yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Huyler's?" demanded Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Huyler's."</p>
+
+<p>"Get Dulce to hand you over Mr. Day. She bores the poor boy to
+death. I know he'd be glad of almost any change," said Miss Flirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Or she might try a 'candied date,'" suggested Miss Saucy with a
+sideway gesture.</p>
+
+<p>In the small babel of words and laughter that followed this, the
+girls drifted away out of hearing, and the sweet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+summer air was silent again. The leaves clapped hands softly, the folds
+of the beautiful flag curled and played as before over the head of the
+young candidate. But in the heart of Magnus himself, just now, the
+summer grace and peace found no foothold. Rather, his thoughts were
+like a November gale, with the air full of dust and rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>What if he <i>was</i> a candidate? Men had to be, when they first came,
+he supposed. And what if he <i>did</i> mean to hold up the flagstaff? who
+had a better right? Magnus looked up defiantly, and made a profound
+reverence to the Stars and Stripes. All the same, he edged away as
+he saw another party of girls approaching, and went and sat down on
+a long iron seat among the tree shadows. One thing was certain: his
+sisters&mdash;and Cherry&mdash;should never set foot here, if he could
+help it. He had been thinking&mdash;if only they could get money
+enough&mdash;how fine it would be to have them all come and see this
+beautiful place. Such walks as they could take! But West Point just
+<i>swarmed</i> with girls already. And at this point of his meditations
+Magnus was quite sure that he heard "candidate" again, from another
+jocund voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, let's find out."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" said a pink vision.</p>
+
+<p>"Fun," said the white one: "Oh, I know the regulation questions."
+And but half under her breath, the pretty tones sang out:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"See where he hails from&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What is his name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who was his 'pred.,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And why he came."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Who cares?" said the other girl, hurrying her along.
+"Come, we are late."</p>
+
+<p>That party passed, followed, it must be owned, by some rather fierce
+looks from Magnus. Then, slowly strolling down the pathway, came two
+more: a girl, in the height of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+every fashion, and a tall fellow in close-fitting grey coat and the
+whitest of unwrinkled trousers. Over his head he carried the girl's
+scarlet and lace parasol, shielding himself as carefully as if she had
+brought it for that express purpose. As perhaps she had: who knows? At
+all events, the little lady gazed up at the dark sunburnt face, with
+its vivid background, as if nothing could be too good to screen such a
+complexion. And he looked down at her&mdash;well, women never get just
+what they give, but he did look very admiringly; as if the delicate
+face needed nothing, not even a parasol.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever was the reason, this couple made Magnus more irate than
+any that had gone before. There was an instant antagonism to the tall
+cadet. His uniform was so becoming, and fitted so well; the glancing
+buttons were so attractive; the gold bars on the upper arm had such
+a distinguished look; the young stranger set him down at once for a
+coxcomb. But there was a little envy in it all. How cleverly he cut
+down the military stride to keep step with the girl's mincing feet; a
+difficult thing, as Magnus knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Taking care of his own precious face, and letting hers burn!" quoth
+the young civilian; but all the same, he would have given more money
+than he was likely to have soon to be in just such guise himself, with
+Cherry by his side. He'd show that fellow a thing or two.</p>
+
+<p>He was getting homesick again. All these people, with their friends
+and their fun, made him feel so desolately far away from everybody. He
+slouched his hat down further, and wandered off again, not looking much
+where he went; just following the path beneath his feet. Slowly round
+the guns, then on along the bank, and there found more seats. There
+was no sound of voice or step here, and Magnus sat down wearily, and
+leaned his head on his arm, and tried to fight the homesickness. For
+the moment he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+despised the whole race of girls, Cherry, of course, excepted.
+"Simpering up into that fellow's face, as if there had never been a man
+before, nor would be again."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, there was certainly a twinge of envy in Charlemagne's heart.
+The tall cadet had carried himself with such careless, graceful
+erectness that there was no relief to be had out of calling him a
+"ramrod." And his white trousers were <i>so</i> white, and so without a
+wrinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to know how he manages that," thought Magnus, the envy
+passing into wonder. With him, white trousers had been always uncertain
+and short-lived things. And now his thoughts flew far away again,
+over hills and prairie land; and once more he was going through wild
+exploits at home; getting himself wet and muddy, and having the girls
+laugh at him from the midst of their intact fresh draperies. Magnus
+drew a long, heavy sigh.</p>
+
+<p>Then he roused himself and sat up; for again those measured steps,
+the peculiar tread of which he was just learning to know, sounded near
+by; and another cadet, from the opposite direction, came down the walk.
+He glanced at Magnus, then crossed the grass, and took his seat on the
+other end of the same bench; but said not a word, only gazed placidly
+up the river. And now, as one always looks whither another is looking,
+so also did Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>There were no trees in the way here, and the view was open. Close
+at his feet the ground fell sharply down to the level of the siege
+battery, where a dozen guns and mortars kept grim watch, their ugly
+black mouths pointed up-stream. Beyond the green parapet nothing made
+much show till you reached the river itself, which for ten miles here
+came flowing gently down, with no sharp turns; the whole of "Martlaer's
+Reach" lay full in sight. In the far, far distance, an irregularly
+broken line of blue peaks brushed softly against the sky. At their feet
+lay the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+green wooded slopes of the Newburgh hills, with Newburgh itself
+sparkling in the sun. The line stretched across so straight from side
+to side, as if there the river began.</p>
+
+<p>Nearer, and on either hand, rising in abrupt masses from the water's
+edge, lay Butter Hill and Breakneck, Bull Hill and Crow Nest; pillars
+of the north Highland gateway. All green, from brow to base, except
+where every now and then the granite framework of the mountains pushed
+itself through in crags and ridges. The green was exquisite, with all
+the lush hues of June.</p>
+
+<p>Between the hills the flood of the great river poured along
+unchecked, until where in the very foreground the grey-green bluff
+of Martlaer's Rock thrust itself out athwart the stream; bringing
+it with one sharp turn to its very narrowest and deepest part. For
+a little distance then, in front of Magnus, the river ran east and
+west&mdash;along the Rock; then took another short turn, and went
+racing south; the lovely "Shaw-na-taw-ty," that "flows toward the
+midday." Between the river and the homesick boy lay only the broken
+hillside and the silent guns.</p>
+
+<p>There were no human voices, either, but a chance medley of sweet
+sounds from other throats. Song sparrows in their rollicking glee, with
+the homespun twitter of a chipping sparrow, giving her brood their
+first outing. Robins kept up their changing chorus; crows cawed; among
+the distant trees you could hear the thrush bells now and then. The
+indescribable sighs and murmurs and trills of the summer wind, the soft
+touches of the mighty river along its banks, filled every moment of
+unappropriated time.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus forgot everything, as he looked and listened. June threw her
+warm spell over him, and for the minute again he was content.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that can't be beat," remarked his neighbour in grey, who had
+been watching him closely. "Look at it all you want to; now is a good
+time."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+"I think every time is good, for such a view," Magnus said, facing
+round.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you report?" asked the other abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow." Magnus answered the question, perceiving the next
+instant that again he was noted as a candidate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, next week, if you are here, you'll find some other hills
+lying round promiscuous, and you won't think quite so much about
+these."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know I was to report at all?"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No mistaking a candidate," he said. "You have the real all-overish
+look about you. And no need to huff up at it, either. I've been there
+myself, so I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it here?" said Magnus, the flush cooling down.</p>
+
+<p>"Fair to middling. When I'm up in math., keep out of Con., and don't
+get skinned too often."</p>
+
+<p>This was high Dutch to Magnus. But he was at the age when pertinent
+questions are far harder to ask than the impertinent; and nothing would
+have made him show his ignorance. He went back to the last subject.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you know, because you've been a candidate yourself; but who
+tells all these girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the girls!" said the cadet. "Yes, there's a good many girls
+here; and what some of 'em don't know, and don't do, wouldn't fill a
+collar-box. Even Crinkem's head could hold it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Crinkem?"</p>
+
+<p>"My respected classmate. Absolutely worried along so far, and gone
+on furlough. Nobody can guess how he did it, either. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>The cadet gave a long, "Whew!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you have for week days?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+"Not quite," said Magnus, smiling in spite of himself. "They call me
+Magnus, at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't do you any good here," said the other, shaking his head.
+"Name's got to go down in full, if it was Beelzebub Nebuchadnezzar.
+You'll be rechristened for common use."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they always do that?" said Magnus, looking grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Mostly."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus reddened.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see what the Faculty have to do with my name," he said.
+"It's not their business."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the Faculty, as you call them, at all," said the cadet, "but
+your beloved fellow-students. They will take almost as anxious care of
+you as will the Com."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the other cadets!" said Magnus loftily. "I'll take care of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I would," said the man in grey with dry emphasis. "Not too many at
+once. There's quite a few of them."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat studying the north view without seeing it.</p>
+
+<p>"But how is this?" he said suddenly. "You say your classmate has
+gone on furlough&mdash;why aren't you gone too?"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Some men leave their country for their country's good," he said,
+"and some stay in it, same at same. I lost my furlough. But anyhow
+Crinkem went ahead of time; folks sick at home. He's always in
+luck."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lost</i> it," Magnus repeated. "How could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy enough, if you run against the Tacs in a tight place. Lose
+anything here, except your heart and your appetite."</p>
+
+<p>But to these last words Magnus gave no heed; his whole soul was
+astir with this new idea. <i>Lose his furlough!</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+Not go home even at the end of the two long years!</p>
+
+<p>"Can you do that?" he said. "Is it often done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so very. Oh, you can do it, fast enough, if you have a run of
+bad luck, as I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe in luck," Magnus answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you? Well, you will, when you've been here a month."</p>
+
+<p>And now a party of strollers came by the seat; another much-dressed
+young damsel, set in a framework of grey uniforms. As they passed, the
+lady bowed; Magnus's friend stood up and doffed his cap, the other
+cadets also touching theirs; and again (against his will) Magnus
+admired and envied the easy precision of every movement. He wondered if
+he could take off his hat with that peculiar swing?&mdash;and said no,
+to himself, at once. But he would have it before furlough&mdash;and how
+astonished Cherry would be!</p>
+
+<p>"Been round Flirtation?" demanded his new acquaintance abruptly,
+watching the three who went slowly on towards where the path left the
+brow of the hill, and ran down among the cedars.</p>
+
+<p>"Round flirtation!"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't look so scared," he said&mdash;"it's only one of
+our walks. At least it isn't generally anything else. Come on, and
+I'll show it to you. I don't see what Fitch is after with that girl;
+cutting out poor little Day. And he can talk a dozen to Day's one. Come
+along."</p>
+
+<p>So they rose up, and stepped on at a good pace, till they had the
+others in full sight again; dropping then into the like easy saunter.
+At least it was easy to one, but for Magnus like being in bonds; and he
+was constantly getting ahead, checking himself, and falling back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+"I'll teach them how to walk, when I'm once in," he thought. Then
+aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"We should call this slow doings out West," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said his companion. "Generally want to get there, out West, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"We certainly do."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Well, those folks don't."</p>
+
+<p>It was such a self-evident fact about the three in front, that
+Magnus looked from them to the man at his side, and his eyes flashed
+with fun. They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do none of them ever want to get <i>anywhere</i>?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Not often&mdash;on Flirtation. Spoil the fun, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you say that is Mr. Fitch, and the other is Mr. Day, then who
+are you?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure!" said the cadet with a lazy drawl. "I've been wondering
+how long a Westerner could get along without asking."</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus grew hot at this implied charge, he had no chance to show
+it then. A sudden drum-call, clear and loud, sent its racket through
+the still air. The cadet stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he said; "that beastly review is to come off, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>And without another word, he turned and darted up the hill. In
+another minute, Fitch and Day went speeding by, at the same keen,
+measured pace, which struck Magnus as unlike anything he had ever seen.
+A few bounds brought him up to the green level of the plain, where he
+could watch the three, as they hurried along to the grey barracks.
+Nor those three alone. From every side, from all directions, the grey
+and white came hurrying in. Hurrying&mdash;yet always with the same
+even, regular, swift step; the foot lifted just so high, the right arm
+swinging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+just so far; and with no seeming effort. Magnus saw one and another of
+them take off his cap to some lady as he flew by, but without the least
+pause or break. Only two or three very much belated men dropped into a
+walk as they neared the barracks. As Rosamund said, "It was too late to
+get up early."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br />
+A LONELY CANDIDATE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Nothing useless is, or low;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Each thing in its place is best:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And what seems but idle show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Strengthens and supports the rest.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus strolled leisurely along, thinking first that he could show
+these cadets how to run, and then beginning to have grave doubts on
+the subject; and finally finding himself a seat under the trees, where
+he could look and listen in shady comfort. Eyes and ears had full
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>There was a busy note of preparation everywhere, and especially
+among the drums. Beating there, and then beating here; the sound caught
+up and echoed back from the grey rocks on the green hillside. Then
+came out uniforms of various sorts (Magnus personified the dress, not
+knowing the men) and proceeded to mark off a certain space on the green
+in front of him, setting a gay little banner at the four corners of a
+large, large square.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at first slowly, but soon hurrying up from every point
+of the compass, a many-coloured crowd swarmed in and filled the
+seats&mdash;filled them presently so full that Magnus gave up his place
+to the next gauzy creature that came along. She fluttered down into the
+seat with much gratulation and no thanks, and Magnus gravely took his
+stand in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>He had no lack of company, even there. Officers in various uniforms,
+civilians in all sorts of coats, and girls in all sorts of finery,
+stood beside and around him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+And now, also, there came straying in another small posse, whom Magnus
+instinctively knew as of his own kind. Yes, they must be candidates;
+partly, perhaps, because they could not possibly be anything else; no
+other class owned them. Yet how did <i>he</i> know that?&mdash;to whom all
+classes here were strange. What possible connection between that dapper
+little fellow in straw hat and black alpaca coat, and this young giant
+who wore a cloth cap and a fluttering linen duster? Or how was his
+next neighbour in a Derby and long frock coat like the fourth man, who
+wore brown trousers, a cutaway coat, and a wide-awake? Yet even Magnus
+could see that "candidate" was written on them all. So plainly, indeed,
+that he stepped further back and put himself behind the tree. Anybody
+who looked at him standing there&mdash;and some did look&mdash;saw a
+tall, well-made young fellow in a neat and perfectly unobtrusive suit
+of brown-grey cloth. Very dark hair and with a wilful curl that tossed
+it about every way. Excellent features, ignorant as yet of life's
+moulding touch; and a sweet, mobile mouth, set just now in very grave
+lines indeed, and so hiding one of the great charms of his face. For
+nobody could watch Magnus Kindred when he smiled or laughed, and not
+notice the <i>clean</i> look: the utterly pure and true lines into which
+those grave ones changed. For the rest, hands and feet were well shaped
+and in excellent order; and the whole bearing was both self-reliant and
+unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>But it seemed as if the gayer grew the scene, the soberer grew that
+young face gazing out from behind the tree. For of all the lonely
+places, commend me to an unknown throng of pleasure-seekers, where
+everyone belongs to someone, is waiting for someone, or is waited for,
+and you belong to none. No eyes are watching for you, no heart stirs
+when you come in sight; and no one will miss you if you do not come at
+all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded
+almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between
+himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls,
+thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them
+was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and
+flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own
+dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the
+boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers
+he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He
+looks pretty homesick."</p>
+
+<p>"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German,
+Floy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>he</i> can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached
+the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a
+candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't
+wear chevrons."</p>
+
+<p>And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next
+neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve
+to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him.
+These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken
+cords are strong.</p>
+
+<p>How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood
+where they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees,
+and made a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians,
+matrons, girls&mdash;and candidates. Little children dropped down
+on the green edge of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and
+hard-pushed people sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant
+came along, waving them off with his black wand. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+the people jumped up, growling and frowning, and, as soon as they saw
+his back, dropped down again.</p>
+
+<p>As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening
+cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he
+would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations.
+Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit
+or change. Not to see home again for two long years.</p>
+
+<p>Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set
+himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all
+his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to
+someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the
+whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper.
+"Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they
+could not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was
+so fine that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the
+great square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one
+elastic thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed.
+So they marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the
+double-timing.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet
+officers leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally
+unerring footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away
+since he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed
+into the grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never
+lagged. The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry
+it was pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration;
+down to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>He was noticing every step; eyeing the black shoe-soles
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+that came up as one, the bent-knee line of white trousers, the glitter
+of the guns; forgetting everything else, when again the hated word came
+full upon his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Just look at that candidate, will you! It's as good as a play. I
+wonder he didn't join in."</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as," was answered in a drawling tone by her escort. "There he
+stands. Study his perfections now, while you can, Miss Jenny. Next week
+he will have ceased to shine upon the polite world. Exit the candidate,
+enter the beast. That is, if he gets in, which is doubtful."</p>
+
+<p>A small thing may do the work where a large one fails; trains got no
+hearing, after that. That he would enter became instantly a fixed fact
+to that particular candidate.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was certainly pretty. How would Cherry look, sitting
+there, and with himself in a grey coat bending over her, and twirling
+her parasol? Cherry was handsomer&mdash;miles away&mdash;than this
+girl. Deeper eyes, tenderer mouth, more glowing cheeks, too, for that
+matter. Yet she would not look <i>so</i>, the boy honestly owned to himself,
+though fuming a little over the admission; the whole make-up would be
+different. The very idea of such shoes as this damsel thrust out into
+the sunlight had never entered Cherry's wholesome head. "Shoe pegs,"
+Magnus called the heels, with great scorn, and set right in the middle
+of her foot. And scarlet stockings. And her dress&mdash;what was it
+made of? No, Cherry would not look so; and however he might frown,
+Magnus felt the glamour, as most men do, of city dressmaking and "the
+correct thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Country-made gowns look so different," said someone behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Then that girl further on, in fluffs of white lace and muslin, white
+shoes, white gloves, and her dainty head crowned with "an acre" of
+Leghorn, and "a half bushel" of roses. No, neither would Cherry look
+like her. And now the boy's fancy brought the little country
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+maiden, in her country garb&mdash;even her Sunday best&mdash;and set
+her down beside these two. A plain white gown, with no setting off but
+the simple ruffles which Cherry had embroidered, and the exquisite
+laundry work which she had also done herself. Black shoes, which were
+made for walking ("but either one of those white ones could hold 'em
+both," thought Magnus, in his hot fancy). Then a broad straw hat, round
+which Violet's deft fingers had twined a dark green riband; while the
+hands, which were small, indeed, and comely, but unwhitened with either
+idleness or lemon, wore only a pair of spotless Lisle thread gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at the pink, the white, the tan kids all about him,
+and drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"But she <i>shall</i> sit there!" he said, with one of his fierce mental
+bursts. "She shall sit there, and look just so. No, not just so, for,
+if they try their prettiest, they can never any of them look like
+her."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br />
+IN FOR IT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">With this hand work, and with the other pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And God will bless them both from day to day.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Old Vierlander Motto.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some little time after the foregoing events, the
+following letter was sent from the West Point
+Post Office:</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Camp Hard</span>, June &mdash;, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Folks at Home</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am in for it. Uncle Sam has me, body and soul. At least
+the body is self-evident, and as I don't get time to say my soul's my
+own, I suppose he claims that, too,&mdash;Mr. Wayne to the contrary.
+Bought and paid for and sworn in; and earmarks enough for a drove of
+pigs. Do you want to know what I look like, you girls? Just at present
+I am a compound of grey and green in about equal mixture. No, I guess
+the green has it. Hair cut short, army shoes, and a brand new prison
+dress which might fit anybody else as well as it does me, and better. I
+get up by a gun, and go to bed by a drum, and have a bugle to tell me
+when to go to sleep, and as we are young and tender in the ways of the
+world, at every meal the first captain informs us when to stop eating.
+(He's nothing special to look at, Cherry. Don't open your eyes too
+wide. But he's such an old spoon that he's always in a hurry to get out
+and walk with some girl or other)."</p>
+
+<p>"We study straight lines in the morning, and play leap-frog <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> in
+the afternoon; and have girls come and make fun of us while we're at
+it. Yesterday they enjoyed it more than was good for themselves, and
+one of the officers ordered them off."</p>
+
+<p>"There are two special prigs in chevrons, who have charge of our
+thumbs and shoulderblades; and when you girls come to see me, <i>one</i>
+of 'em won't get an introduction, that's all. What do you think he
+did yesterday? It was hot enough to melt down your ideas, if you had
+any&mdash;hot as the middle line of the equator; and he had been
+drilling us as if he had never been drilled himself, and didn't know
+how it felt. So, when drill was over, he stood a lot of us round his
+tent door in the sun, and then made iced lemonade, and sat there
+drinking it with us looking on. Give us some? Not quite. Go to the
+store and buy our own lemons, Rose? Why, we can't get a shoestring
+without a special order. Corporal Mean smuggled in his sugar from the
+Mess Hall; and I guess Miss Flyaway brought him the lemons. If you want
+to know about Miss Flyaway, she's one of the girls; a summer girl, as
+they say here, and we plebs could spare her till winter just as well as
+not. She's as bad as a third-class corporal&mdash;only we can laugh at
+her and we can't at him. If we did, we'd be skinned in a minute. This
+is what I should hear read out after parade:</p>
+
+<p>"'Kindred&mdash;disrespect to superior officer, at about 4.30 <span
+class="smcap">P. M.</span>'&mdash;demerits according. Oh, well! we'll
+wear through somehow; it takes a good deal to kill a man. And they're
+not all like that. Cadet Captain Steady called me into his tent to-day
+and gave me a whole lot of good advice that would have gone to mother's
+heart. There's another Captain, too, Mr. Upright, who's as nice as
+he can be; and some of the Tacs aren't very bad to take. But we've
+got one in our company! I just wish you could see him. We call him
+Towser&mdash;because he's always nosing round,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+and sniffing about everywhere, to see what sort of a dry bone he
+can find to pick. He hasn't hived any of mine yet, but he spied
+a whole square inch of paper in front of Randolph's tent and
+reported him for disorder. You have to polish your shoestrings
+to go down A Company street, when he's in charge. So whoever
+sees him coming fires off a volley, and then we all know.
+Bow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll like my tentmate, Rig. That's not his name, of course,
+but we call him so because he's so B. J. about his dress. They don't
+leave him much hair to brush, but what he has takes up half his spare
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know mother is aching to put in her questions&mdash;just
+waiting till I get through writing stuff. Well, ma'am, you see, we just
+<i>have</i> to praise ourselves a little bit here, because if we don't do
+it, it don't get done; and so I call myself a pretty good boy. Whether
+I'd suit you exactly, I'll not say. I go to prayer-meeting twice a
+week and once to Chapel (<i>have</i> to go there, so you needn't give me
+a credit), and I've not missed reading my chapter one day yet. Mr.
+Upright came by the other day when I was at it, and he stopped and
+walked in."</p>
+
+<p>"'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he
+said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as much
+as you like; the more, the better. Remember:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"'He always wins, who sides with God.'"<br /></p>
+
+<p>"So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long
+as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours
+flying&mdash;a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here
+sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he declares:
+says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned back, and so he
+has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says there's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+no place in the course for religion; just as well give it up
+first as last."</p>
+
+<p>"So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her
+dictionary and never taught me how to spell the words."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years
+ago; though how she can enjoy herself up there, with him
+going on as he does down here, I can't see. Maybe she
+doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other
+all round for me, beginning anywhere."</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+"<span class="smcap">Magnus Kindred</span>,<br />
+U. S. Corps of Cadets."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow.
+But you see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his
+feelings to look like an acorn."</p>
+
+<p>This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped;
+went on the orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in
+due course, across the continent to the far-off simple home
+at Barren Heights. There it alighted with the force and
+precision of a bombshell. That is, if force may be measured
+by commotion.</p>
+
+<p>The strange phrases, the new ideas, the dim, vague
+vision of most unwonted doings&mdash;there is no telling what
+a stir-up it all was. The three girls had gone to the post
+office together in the course of their afternoon walk, and
+had taken turns at bringing the precious missive home.
+Now they sat about on the front steps, while Mrs. Kindred,
+in the porch rocking chair, opened and read the letter aloud.</p>
+
+<p>I think she never even thought of a hidden meaning in
+"Camp Hard," passing it by as a mere name; but as she
+read on, even where the words themselves were perplexing,
+their intent was unmistakable. At the end of almost the
+very first sentence Mrs. Kindred took off her glasses, laid
+them down on the letter, and looked about her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+"No time to say his soul is his own," she said. "Why, what does this
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody else had felt the shock, but as usual they all crowded in
+to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be just his way of talking," said Violet. "Don't you know,
+mother, that when Magnus gets excited he always goes on stilts?"</p>
+
+<p>"And of course, he is very busy," said Rose, "with so many new
+things to do."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can see he is talking in the air, Mrs. Kindred," said
+Cherry's sweet voice, "because he instances something for which he does
+<i>not</i> want time. Magnus has never called his soul his own, since he
+gave it to Christ to save and keep."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear boy!" said the mother. "Thank you, Cherry, for reminding me.
+Yes, I will not doubt,"&mdash;and she read on.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see why he says 'skinned,'" said Violet. "It's a very
+queer way to talk."</p>
+
+<p>"But just like him," said Rose. "Magnus always did talk
+wild&mdash;just a little bit," the sisterly censure softening down.
+"And you see they play games for exercise&mdash;so that is very
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose studying straight lines must mean drawing," said Cherry,
+looking down at the open letter. "Magnus will not care what they do, if
+they will only let him draw."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so anxious about all <i>that</i>," said the mother
+thoughtfully. "Boys at school must have some hardships and do many
+things they do not like. And you see he does go to prayer-meeting and
+read the Bible."</p>
+
+<p>"But he says such strange things," said Violet, studying the letter
+from her side. "Do all people in the East have names like that?
+'Rig,' and 'Mean,' and 'Upright'&mdash;it sounds like the Pilgrim's
+Progress."</p>
+
+<p>"And so it is," said the mother, smiling faintly, through
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+two big teardrops, "and Magnus is going over a part of the road where
+we have never been. That must be, girls. But the Lord is as strong
+there as here in Barren Heights; and Magnus is no weaker than he was at
+home&mdash;bless his dear heart! He never could bear that word 'weak.'
+I wish he had told us what he means by 'a storm flag.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it must be a flag that flies in all weathers!" cried Cherry.
+"So strong that the wind cannot tear it, and so deep-coloured that the
+rain cannot wash it out."</p>
+
+<p>Well for them all that she did not know enough to add, "And so small
+that it can hardly be seen."</p>
+
+<p>But no such thought cast its dark shadow. Mrs. Kindred looked at the
+sweet eyes, all aglow with the spirit of the martyrs; the lips in a
+quiver, the cheeks in a flush; then took Cherry in her arms and kissed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"You are never anything but a blessing," she said, and went away
+to pour out tears and petitions in her own private room; with a
+heart-aching sense all the while that she wished some other boy had
+the glory and the brass buttons, and that her own Magnus was safe at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the girls in the porch talked on.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you are right about the flag, Cherry," said Rose, "but
+there are other things I cannot understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It is dreadful about his clothes," put in Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mind <i>that</i> so much," said Rose. "Mother always said
+Magnus was a fidget to fit. But what <i>can</i> he mean by B. J.? Oh, girls,
+do you think it could possibly be some dreadful expression he has
+learned, and didn't like to write out to us?" And Rose put her head
+down, in great distress.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>could</i> not be!" said Violet, with a scared look. "Why, you are
+talking about Magnus! Rose, I believe you are crazy."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I must be," said Rose, lifting her head and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+brushing off the tears. "Of course, it is all my nonsense. Cherry,
+where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home," said the girl, pulling on her deep sun-bonnet. "I have
+something to do. I'll be down again soon."</p>
+
+<p>No one noticed how white the young face had grown while the other
+girls wept; no one guessed the cause of this sudden home-going; but as
+she went, Cherry clenched her hands for very anguish of heart. <i>Magnus</i>
+change like that? <i>Magnus</i> learn words so bad that he would not write
+them home? No indeed!&mdash;it could not be; she knew it could not.
+All the same, that vision of possibility had come into her heart, and
+come to stay; and nothing stilled the aching until she had carried her
+burden to the feet of Him, "Who is able to keep you from falling, and
+to present you faultless before the presence of his glory."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry did not cry: she was not given to tears: but from that day
+on, two Bible verses answered to each other in her heart like a sweet
+chime:</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, that have not defiled their
+garments," and "He is able to save to the uttermost."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br />
+RUBS THE WRONG WAY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Now don't go off half cock; folks never gains<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By usin' pepper sarce instead o' brains.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If Cadet Magnus Kindred knew in a general sort of
+way that all the simple, loving women folk at home
+were praying for him morning, noon, and night,
+"and watching thereunto with all perseverance," it was
+with a very easy remembrance of the fact, and not the
+faintest idea that anything but pleasure touched the case.
+And he would have simply shouted at Rose's panic over the
+unexplained "B. J." In fact, if anybody knows the origin
+of those two cabalistic letters, Magnus certainly did not.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he had scant time for running down questions. Drills began
+as soon as examination was over, and were pushed on "fiercely" (as
+Randolph declared), hot sun or no sun, rested or tired. Though Magnus
+had been used to such an active open-air life that all this came easier
+to him than to some others. As to the rest, he got along pretty well
+for a "pleb," having a certain sensible nature which made light of
+hardships, and was not quick to take offence. So when he was jeered and
+pointed at, chin poked in and toes pushed out, he rarely said anything
+stronger, even to himself, than, "Just you wait!" Good common sense
+everywhere befriended him, even when the drill masters abused their
+power, or first classmen showed their prowess by "jumping" plebs.</p>
+
+<p>So he brought in water and cleaned guns; stood attention, and stood
+his ground; and when the time came for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+that amusement, "advanced ghosts" in the most correct terms, but kept
+his musket against all attempts of Cadet Devlin and his compeers. Nay,
+on one such occasion, he gave the marauder the most accurate measure
+of himself upon the ground that the young man had ever had. Of course
+Magnus was reported, but he gave too straight answers for the charge
+to stand, and the upshot was that Mr. Devlin lost his chevrons "for
+hazing plebs." The whole account caused great consternation at home,
+only lulled by the assurance Magnus gave that if he had let anyone take
+his gun, he himself might have been put in "light prison" or sent home
+in disgrace. For to the bewildered mind of a pleb in those early days,
+anything might happen.</p>
+
+<p>Devlin swore vengeance, and in a small way carried it out. But young
+Kindred laughed off some things, ignored others, and now and then gave
+Mr. Devlin a blaze out of his honest eyes before which that gentleman
+rather shrivelled up. Nobody liked to exactly try to handle Charlemagne
+Kindred: there was about him "a look of unknown quantities"&mdash;as
+Mr. Upright remarked one day. Cadet Upright was a staunch friend; and
+it was a blessing to all the plebs in Camp Hard that year that he was
+head man over them.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and clean my gun, Mr. Kindred," he would say, adding, when
+Magnus was in the tent, "The gun is not very dirty, and there is no
+hurry about it, but you must be doing something, and in here is better
+than out there."</p>
+
+<p>A fact which Magnus realised when from the cool recesses of the tent
+he saw other plebs fetching water in the sun, or standing attention for
+a lecture from Mr. Devlin: teased and worried and laughed at by Mr.
+Prank.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the fervid days of that July that Rig ("poor Rig," as
+Magnus generally termed him in the letters home) went through a small
+bit of experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+which, by his own account, made him "a sadder, if not a wiser, man."</p>
+
+<p>The morning was intensely hot. The plebs had been out at their
+early drill and now in the canvas shade were enjoying a few minutes'
+rest. Guard-mounting was just over, and for a brief space no one had
+anything special to do. The visitors' seats were nearly deserted, with
+only a few sentimentals from either side the colour-line still lounging
+there. The sentries paced up and down in full fatigue dress: the row of
+stacked arms shimmered in the heat.</p>
+
+<p>In his tent Magnus was devouring over again the last night's letter
+from home, and so did not notice what was going on, until the shadow of
+Cadet Prank in the tent door made him look up in time to see Rig (alias
+McLean) start to his feet and stand very stiff indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-day, Mr. McLean," said the man with chevrons. "Don't disturb
+yourself, I'll not come in. I know you've been hard at it this morning,
+and I really hate to ask you to go out again,&mdash;but in such a
+case,"&mdash;and Mr. Prank gazed into the glowing sunshine in deep
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, watching from the depths of the tent, saw the gleam which
+no effort of Prank's could keep out of his eyes, with the dangerously
+solemn lines about the mouth. But poor Rig at such honeyed words from
+an upper classman, lost what little everyday perception belonged to
+him. "He's just got to learn for himself, though," thought Magnus,
+looking on with intense amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank suddenly turned and glanced suspiciously down towards the
+listener; but Magnus was all quiet, behind his letter.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mr. McLean," Prank went on, dropping his voice a little,
+"I want a man I can trust, to do me a small service. If you are not too
+much fatigued&mdash;it would not take long."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+Visions of Mr. Prank for his bosom friend, and Camp Hard suddenly
+transformed into Elysium, floated before Rig's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir,&mdash;no, sir," he answered, gathering up the points.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really but a minute's work," said Prank with another glance
+over Rig's head towards Magnus; "but a particular friend of mine has
+gone on guard without his gloves. Most absent-minded man alive! And if
+the Com. comes along, he's ruined. So I thought if you would just take
+them to him&mdash;you see <i>I</i> should have to report him. He's on post
+No. 6."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank held out a pair of immaculate white gloves. But now Rig
+drew back. To waylay a sentinel on his beat, was something so clearly
+beyond pleb limits that he took fright.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he began; "certainly, sir. But you know, sir, it's
+against orders, I believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank drew himself up to all his inches.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," he said. "Of course, I don't know much about
+regulations and never heard the orders. Very kind of you to instruct
+me, I am sure; I shall not forget it! Sorry to have disturbed your
+toilette, Mr. McLean, but I thought such a trifle could not seriously
+put you out. Someone else, probably, will be kind enough&mdash;whose
+hair curls easier than yours."</p>
+
+<p>And tucking the white gloves into the cadet pocket (his sleeve), Mr.
+Prank strode haughtily away.</p>
+
+<p>Rig felt miserable. He did not see that Magnus in his dark
+corner was shaking from head to foot. But to lose his character for
+obligingness! With a bound he was after the retreating chevrons.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Prank!" he said. "Of course I didn't mean that you didn't
+know, sir; and I have just thought of a way, if you think it will do. I
+can hang the gloves on one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+of the bayonets where the arms are stacked, you know, sir, and then he
+can get them for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"The very thing!" said Prank, with a well-kept face. "I see you
+are bright, Mr. McLean, as well as obliging. Take the gloves, my dear
+fellow, and be quick. And count upon me hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>With a swelling heart Rig stepped briskly up to the shining row of
+guns, where not an inch nor a line was out of the most spick-and-span
+state of military precision, and hung the white pendant on a glittering
+point of steel. And as he turned&mdash;alas! he was tapped on the
+shoulder and marched off to the guard tent "for tampering with the
+arms."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have minded that so much," he said afterwards to
+Magnus, "if I hadn't been such a double-distilled fool. And I'm not a
+fool really, you know,&mdash;but I'm not 'a gem of purest ray serene,'
+either. And I just lost my head with being told I was."</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of that sort of sport (to give it its common name) went on
+in Camp Hard, and even the most patient men grew tired of it, and the
+most good-natured got cross. It is monotonous when all the fun goes to
+somebody else. Even the straight shoulders sometimes rebelled against
+the perpetual bracing up; and many a poor fourth classman wished that
+his grey trousers had no side seam which could serve as a landmark to
+his weary thumbs: for in those days "finning out" was in full force.</p>
+
+<p>But indeed it was sometimes hard to take even what the law
+allowed.</p>
+
+<p>A strict order had been published that no cadet should ask a pleb
+to perform any menial service, but when Corporal Main remarked, "Mr.
+Stone, there are some very dusty shoes in my tent,"&mdash;no more was
+needed. Stone was just come in from drill, and ached in every inch; but
+he went at the shoes, and cleaned and rubbed and polished
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+for dear life, while Corporal Main strolled off with Miss Flyaway, and
+told her the story.</p>
+
+<p>Again, another humane order was read out one day in the Mess Hall,
+to the effect that in that place of supposed relaxation plebs need not
+"brace," but might sit and stand "at will." But the minute the reader's
+back was turned Cadet Prank drawled out:</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, hadn't you all a great deal <i>rather</i> brace up?"</p>
+
+<p>And so many hurriedly answered, "Yes, sir!" that the contrary noes
+were never counted.</p>
+
+<p>That was the way of it; and by dint of being laughed at and pointed
+at; drilled, straightened, pulled into shape, and called "beasts," the
+fourth classmen began to feel as if in truth the name fitted. They
+huddled together in corners, talked in whispers, and told endless
+stories of home.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX<br />
+CAMP HARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Marcus Antonius.</i> Cæsar dear, is there no way this
+troubling my dear little plebeian sentinels can be stopped?<br />
+<i>Cæsar.</i> There probably is, but we have not found it
+yet.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Colour Line Tragedy of 1890.</i></span></div>
+
+<p>Nor yet. And so, year by year, for a time, the
+new fourth classmen worked out pretty fairly
+Lowell's lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mis'ble as roosters in a rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heads down, and tails half-mast."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred was speeding along through camp one morning, thinking
+of home, when he was hailed by an upper classman.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, beast, what's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus made answer, with what composure of face and voice he could
+call up at such short notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you come from?" And again the reply came with fair
+coolness.</p>
+
+<p>"Got so few men out there, they give 'em long names to stretch out
+and cover the country. Who was your pred.?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunn, sir. He resigned, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good example for you to follow in November," said Mr. Seaton, "but
+you've got to be taken care of in the mean time. Wipe that smile off,
+sir! What's your technical name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got any, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if anyone asks you that again, tell 'em it's Lorenzo Monkey,"
+said Seaton, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus shook his fist at him (mentally), but what can <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> a
+pleb do? And so to the next inquirer he answered (pretty ungraciously,
+it must be owned):</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody said it was Lorenzo Monkey, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't have a monkey without a tail," said Mr. Danby. "Now remember,
+beast, you are technically called: 'Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not
+fame.' Take your eyes off me, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Well, the tail grew&mdash;naturally; and every time the name was
+called for, to amuse one man or a dozen, somebody would add on a word,
+and then Magnus was bid to rattle the whole thing off, amid shouts of
+laughter. He was required also to write out his technical name in full,
+and hand the paper in under the guise of an official document: a half
+sheet of paper duly folded, and inscribed as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Camp Hard,<br />
+West Point, N. Y.,<br />
+July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.<br /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="center">Kindred, C,
+<br />
+Cadet Private. Co. "A." 4th Class.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="center">Subscribed Copy of<br />
+"Technical Name."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p>Within, it ran thus:</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Camp Hard,<br />
+West Point, N. Y.,<br />
+July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.<br />
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple. (Through the proper channels.)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>: I have the honour to submit the following,&mdash;my technical
+name for the summer encampment, U. S. M. A. To wit:</p>
+
+<p>I am Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not fame. It is tame: it is
+lame: it is shame: it is blame: it is game. Yet I claim, a Colonial
+dame was my flame, when I came. Same at same.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Very respectfully,</p>
+<p class="right">Your obedient servant,<br />
+Charlemagne Kindred,<br />
+Cadet Private, Co. "A." Fourth Class.</p>
+
+<p>To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple,<br />
+Commanding Battalion of Crabs.<br />
+<br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+Magnus chafed at all this stuff; growled over it, almost resisted;
+and yet it was wise to pass things by as quietly as he could. All the
+same, his feeling towards some of the upper classmen was getting to be
+a very fixed fact, indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank, for instance, was much given to hops,&mdash;also to
+prinking for the same: and it was in his heart to combine all the good
+things he could, and "crawling" plebs came in among the rest. So on hop
+nights, after supper, when Mr. Prank was shaving, dressing, and vainly
+endeavouring to curl his short hair, Magnus Kindred was frequently
+detailed as valet. The work being to follow Mr. Prank about the tent
+and fan him during these fatigues, and also to soothe and attune his
+feelings by singing "Annie Laurie" or some other lovelorn ditty. How
+Magnus did hate it!&mdash;and how he did secretly vow vengeance, if
+ever he himself should have half a chance with Mr. Prank's best girl!
+But then! Mr. Prank had a relay of "best girls," and could spare one or
+two just as well as not.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the two men who "tented" with Magnus thought he
+had an easy time.</p>
+
+<p>"If you had to black Mr. Mean's shoes!" said Randolph.</p>
+
+<p>"Or clear up after old Seaton," said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>Rig's technical name taxed all his powers of memory and patience. It
+began:</p>
+
+<p>"I am the distilled quintessence of stuff, the double-dyed result of
+being dipped in the Styx,"&mdash;and so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>, and to Rig,
+certainly, <i>ad nauseam</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Homesickness had broken loose in the fourth class, of late, and
+become epidemic. These boys were but boys, and the manliest of them
+all would&mdash;many a day&mdash;have given up his hopes of being a
+brigadier just to lay his head down on his mother's apron, and have
+her pet him and comfort him, and make him feel that he was not a
+"beast."</p>
+
+<p>"But she'd not find any hair to stroke, now," said Magnus
+
+Kindred, in one of these spasms. And then he caught
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+hold of himself again, set his teeth in his favourite fashion, and
+announced to himself that he meant to be adjutant.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll not look like you, either," he went on, apostrophising Mr.
+Larkin, who just then came strolling by between two admiring girls,
+turning from one to the other with much the air of the exquisite who
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Really, now, you know&mdash;won't somebody come and share me?"</p>
+
+<p>The young adjutant's buttons were very bright, and his waist was
+very small; and the red and white (brown) of his complexion left
+nothing to be desired. If he had been a girl, you might have called his
+walk "willowy," but I know not the masculine of that. And the barber
+had plainly been open to persuasion in his case, and had left almost a
+lovelock or two on the tall head.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred watched the party go by, but they did not see him.
+In one of the rocky, shady nooks on Flirtation, where the green leaves
+rustle and the river whispers softly to the shore, there he had hidden
+himself away with his sweet and bitter fancies. Hard, literal facts
+they were just then, for Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>The footsteps died away, and more came, quicker and brisker than the
+first; and two cadets went by his hiding place. Then another with his
+best girl (for the time being); and Magnus watched them all. As the
+silence fell again a wood thrush in the shadows behind him rang its
+liquid chime.</p>
+
+<p>Then a tall cadet with chevrons, and the dainty air and manner which
+had earned him the soubriquet of "Gentleman Joe," passed slowly by with
+his mother on his arm; he bending down to her, and she looking up to
+him, while a little white fidget of ten years old flitted about the
+two.</p>
+
+<p>But when these were out of sight, then Magnus Kindred threw himself
+face down among the moss and ferns, and gave no further heed to outside
+things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+"Oh, mother!&mdash;and Cherry, and Violet, and Rose&mdash;and home!" It
+was very bitter for a while. And when at last, in answer to a distant
+drum-call, Magnus roused himself, and got on his feet, he knew that he
+hated that drum, and all it betokened, just as hard as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Gentler thoughts came, as he mounted the hill. The clear notes of
+the thrushes were all around him, but in their grave sweetness there
+were no faltering tones; and while it pierced the boy's heart it
+strengthened it, too. Yes, one day <i>he</i> would be the tall man with
+chevrons, leading his mother along Flirtation; and she should be as
+proud of him as Mrs. Gresham was of her son. And, instead of that child
+in white, there would be&mdash;but here the drum became imperative, and
+Magnus stowed away all the rest of his thoughts, and double-timed every
+remaining step up to Camp Hard.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="X" id="X"></a>X<br />
+BAND CONCERT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I cannot bear it any longer, said the pewter soldier as he sat on the
+drawers; it is so lonely and melancholy here.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>It was the evening for band concert at the camp: a warm first of
+August. A red glow lingered over Crownest, the stars came out slowly,
+hazy with the heat; the katydids were publishing their arrival in the
+usual contradictory way. As the twilight deepened, the camp began to
+light up, and in front of the colour-line one especial burner shone
+full upon the concert programme, which was posted on a stick. Beyond
+this a small circle of lights marked the standing place of the band.</p>
+
+<p>Cadets were everywhere&mdash;half in a tent, or half out; walking,
+sauntering, standing, in twos and threes and half-dozens; some down on
+the grass where the lights shone full, and some hid away in the shadows
+towards Fort Clinton.</p>
+
+<p>Other figures were coming up, too, and dresses of every hue flitted
+across the plain. The dew lay sweet and fresh upon every grass-blade,
+but then the grass was short, and nobody minded dew when going to band
+concert.</p>
+
+<p>Often some grey uniform was escorting some dainty lady: these
+coming straight from the houses, and those others pausing, after a
+delightful tryst at Trophy Point, or a saunter along the upper bends of
+Flirtation. For, in those days, the concert night limits were&mdash;so
+far as you could hear and distinguish the music.</p>
+
+<p>The plebs kept together, and away from the gay throng;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+unless where some especially happy boy had a cousin on hand. But a
+great event had marked that day in Camp Hard; for the obnoxious "grey
+bags" had disappeared, giving place to the full uniform, bell buttons
+and all complete; and at last the plebs looked like cadets.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred had been as jubilant as anyone over the change,
+and nobody had given a heartier parting kick to the grey bag. But "a
+competency is what a man has, and a little more"&mdash;and so, then,
+the young man wanted someone to look at him. How his mother and sisters
+would have stroked the sleeve of that wonderful dress coat, and admired
+the buttons: how they would have studied out every turn of braid and
+quirl of adornment. And Cherry&mdash;no, they were not her little hands
+he seemed to feel on his arm: her hands were just folded in their
+pretty way, and she stood a few steps off, laughing at the others,
+and secretly admiring him. She never said so, but what innocent,
+true-hearted girl can quite keep it out of her eyes, when her hero
+stands before her? Or, if the eyes sometimes grew shy and turned away,
+the lips laughed, and told it still.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus said, almost aloud, his own lips
+parting in a smile at the sweet vision. But then they closed again
+firmer than ever. Two thousand miles away (it seemed five thousand to
+Magnus), and two whole years before he could go there. And a weary sigh
+measured off both time and space, and found them endless.</p>
+
+<p>"Joseph," whispered Mrs. Gresham to her son (they were just opposite
+Magnus), "who is that boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kindred&mdash;fourth class."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks like a first-class fellow," said Mrs. Gresham, watching
+him, as he suddenly moved off and joined the grey circle around
+the band. "What a fine face he has! I noticed him yesterday before
+parade."</p>
+
+<p>"Good fellow enough," assented Mr. Gresham, who was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+just then "noticing" the arrival of Miss Saucy. "But he's so awfully
+homesick. Blue as Cat's eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're not obliged to call me 'Cat,' sir, if you <i>are</i> a
+captain," said the little girl, trying hard to make a pinch tell
+through the thick cadet cloth. "He's the one that was up among the
+rocks, Aunt Effie. I told you, and you wouldn't look."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," said Mrs. Gresham. "Never try to see anybody who
+does not wish to be seen, Catty."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Catty pouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he was a cadet," she said, "for I saw the bell buttons. And
+I thought cadets <i>always</i> want to be looked at. They act so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a burst of laughter from the group that had gathered round
+Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a pity she's not a little older!" cried Miss Flyaway.
+"Your mainstay ought not to graduate for six years to come, Mrs.
+Gresham, that Catty might be up to the situation. But then, we poor
+damsels would have lost him. So it's best as it is. Things are
+generally best as they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Some few things might be improved," said Mrs. Gresham quietly.
+"Joseph, I wish you would bring up Mr. Kindred, and introduce him."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now. We can spare you so long as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Miss Flirt, making a
+profound courtesy; while Miss Flyaway called after him: "Don't hurry
+yourself, we'll wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him you wouldn't go away for <i>anything</i>," said the
+irrepressible Catty.</p>
+
+<p>"You saucy monkey!" said Miss Flirt. "You ought to be in bed and
+asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you were, at my age," said Catty, with better logic
+than she knew.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+"Hush, Catty!" said her aunt. "Mr. Carr, who is that officer talking
+with Mrs. Seaton?"</p>
+
+<p>"The arch-fiend, <i>we</i> call him," said Carr, with a laugh. "He's the
+professor of confusion worse confounded, Mrs. Gresham. Do you want him
+brought up, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no: here comes Joseph. How do you do, Mr. Kindred?" And
+Mrs. Gresham gave Magnus a warm clasp of the hand that went to his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for Magnus. "I
+suppose you enjoy these concerts very much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," Magnus answered her. "They make a change."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you go to the hops, if you want a change?" said Catty,
+leaning her elbows on her aunt's lap, and gazing up at the new
+acquaintance. Magnus laughed in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know but I do?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I never see you there when I go," said Catty.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you, child," said Miss Flirt, coming to the rescue. "Mr.
+Kindred never goes to the hops in the hop room, because at this time of
+year he has no end of hops outdoors."</p>
+
+<p>Catty looked mystified.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not talking to you," she said, turning her back. "But I never
+met you out walking either, Mr. Kindred. Don't you ever walk with
+anybody but your best girl? I never do, when my special cadet's on
+guard."</p>
+
+<p>Amid the little hubbub which this called forth, Mrs. Gresham rose
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will give me your arm, Mr. Kindred," she said, "I should
+like to walk round the camp. The lights and shades show so differently
+from different points; it is pleasant to watch them. I have been in
+Europe for three years, and West Point is new to me. What is the band
+playing now?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+"I'm not sure, ma'am. One of Moore's melodies comes next."</p>
+
+<p>"How lovely the shadows are! I used to be quite a painter in my
+young days," said Mrs. Gresham as they strolled along. "Is that one of
+your studies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not this year, ma'am. Indeed we have no real studies 'in camp.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But still many things that deserve the name: I understand. What do
+you call the hardest thing you have to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes, 'study to be quiet,'" said Magnus, with a look and tone
+at once so playful and so full of feeling that Mrs. Gresham opened her
+heart, and took him right in.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can well believe it. And I am glad you have
+Bible words at hand for your hard places."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care about them?" said Magnus quickly. "I thought nobody
+did, here."</p>
+
+<p>"About Bible words? Oh, yes they do!" said Mrs. Gresham, with her
+gentle smile. "You do not know many people here yet, Mr. Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am not likely to, very soon," said Magnus. "But I spoke too
+quick. Yes, I know there are some right here in the Corps who care.
+There's Mr. Upright of the first class. I do not believe he ever misses
+a chance of doing the out-and-out thing for a Christian to do. And Mr.
+True of the third, he's another. Oh, there are a lot among us that know
+enough&mdash;if we only hold out," he added soberly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gresham had listened for her son's name, but it did not come.
+He, too, "knew enough," but alas! only that very morning when he
+came in from drill, Magnus had heard him curse his horse, and the
+instructor, and the whole concern, in terms that would have wrung the
+gentle mother's heart. The girls did not know, as they hung
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+upon his arm; the officers did not guess, seeing only the
+straight military figure and good face: only God knew, and
+the fellow-students to whom Gresham was setting his example.
+The mother felt the omission, sighed, waited, and
+sighed again; then silently locked up her fears and her
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>must</i> hold out, Mr. Kindred," she said. "If you are a
+professing Christian, you have sworn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," Magnus answered soberly, "and I mean it, too. But
+there are harder times here than you can guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the pinch that shows what a man is," said Mrs. Gresham. "If
+you must run, run before the firing begins."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But remember, too," said Mrs. Gresham, "that here as everywhere
+else: on the Hill Difficulty of West Point, no less than among the
+Delectable Mountains at home, you are to be a witness for Christ."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am&mdash;you would think so," said Magnus excitedly, "and
+so mother thinks. But how are you going to do anything <i>here</i>? Religion
+don't count, in this old camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Religion may come in and stay, even where she is not fêted and
+caressed," said Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true enough," said the boy, colouring. "All the same, you
+can't guess, as I said, what a hard time she has. And now guard duty
+begins; and it'll be drill and walk post, walk post and drill, night
+and day. Your shoulders poked in, and your feet kicked out. Skinned if
+you don't skin somebody else, and nearly skinned actually if you do.
+Told forty things a day that you don't understand, and then given extra
+tours <i>because</i> you don't. That's what they say. Why, there are six
+hundred and sixty-eight separate regulations that we are supposed to
+keep!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+"Six hundred and sixty-eight!" said Mrs. Gresham. "Well, it must
+take a very lively imagination to 'suppose' that three hundred boys
+will keep six hundred and sixty-eight regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"They know we can't do it," said Magnus hotly. "But we're bid to,
+all the same. And they punish us if we don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Mrs. Gresham," said another voice, and Cadet Main
+(alias Mean) came up and shook hands. "What work of charity have you in
+tow now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred has been telling me about the many regulations," said
+Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, regulations!" said Main. "Yes, there's quite a little many of
+'em. Keeps a fellow busy to break 'em all; but some of us max it, every
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Break them? You mean 'keep them,'" said Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"No I don't&mdash;not I!" said Main, laughing. "You'd better believe
+I don't. Why, the only fun I have in life is breaking regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Breaking them?" repeated Mrs. Gresham, looking bewildered. "But you
+will get yourself into trouble, so, Mr. Main."</p>
+
+<p>"Will, shall, have, and expect to," said Main. "I'm bound to get
+some fun out of this old prison."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the walls open, rather suddenly, and let you out."</p>
+
+<p>"Make my best bow, and go. It'll be a great loss to the service. But
+you should talk to Lorenzo here, Mrs. Gresham; he's played good boy
+ever since he came. Regular pet of the Com.'s, he is. Why, he won't
+even help carry off Sammy from the Mess Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"And pray how comes 'Sammy,' as you call him, to need carrying
+off?" demanded Mrs. Gresham severely. But that brought such a chorus of
+laughter from the whole <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+group of cadets (several more had gathered round), that
+Mrs. Gresham let her question drop.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll run it up to the hotel some day, and present him, Mrs.
+Gresham," said Main.</p>
+
+<p>"If you 'run it'&mdash;to anywhere I am, I'll not see you," said the
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you <i>can't</i> keep all the regulations," said Devlin. "Not if
+you did your level best. You just <i>have</i> to break them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it all for&mdash;this Blue Book you tell of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Light reading for the Academic Board," suggested Mr. Sharpless.</p>
+
+<p>"Skinning made easy," said Main. "Every new Tac makes a new rule and
+tacks it on. They'll bring it up to a thousand presently."</p>
+
+<p>They had made the circuit of the camp, and now came round once more
+to the open space before the lights, with its shadowy border where the
+motley groups paused, moved on, went in and out. The camp points of
+flame flickered, and peered into the dusk; contesting now with a nobler
+light their right of search. For in the east the moon was rising;
+lifting her fair face above the hilltops, and pouring a flood of summer
+glory over river and plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so she will be rising at home," Magnus thought. "With the
+girls all sitting on the steps, and mother in her rocking chair in the
+porch."</p>
+
+<p>It is well for the homesick cadet that his surroundings are so fine,
+beguiling him with their beauty; but it is also a good thing that he
+never can do much "mooning" at once. Before Magnus had got to the
+middle of his third sigh came the sharp voice of the drum, calling him
+to order. And yet "sharp" is hardly the word; only neglected duty takes
+on that tone, but the drum-call was brisk, imperative, unmistakable.
+Yet fine, as well, and stirring; as duty attended to always is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+It was pretty to see the grey and white figures coming out from
+the dusky shadows among the trees, and crossing to the tents. Some
+at a quick run, others slowly, as under protest: here and there one
+very lingeringly, with many a backward look and farewell word, to some
+white-robed vision that shewed angelic in the uncertain light.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the racket of drum and fife filled all the air, rattling
+up and down the company streets. The crowd scattered, the band tramped
+off; and still here and there a tardy cadet came hurrying in, but only
+in time to get a cold "late" or "absence."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it <i>is</i> such fun to make them run!" said one fair creature
+delightedly. "I just kept Mr. Dunkirk fooling along after the first
+drum; and there he goes, for all he is worth."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late?" queried a quiet lady in a dark dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Not too late to get to bed," said Miss Saucy. "They won't make
+him walk post to-night, poor boy. But he'll be on the black list
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you won't have him to walk with on Saturday," said another
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Have somebody else, <i>ma chère</i>. One gets tired of the same man too
+often. If I didn't trip him up now and then I should die of a surfeit
+of honey, and never have a chance at treacle and lumps of sugar."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you mean to say," said the lady in black, "do you really
+mean to say that you get these young men into difficulty <i>wilfully</i>?
+That <i>you</i> are responsible for their being late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do everything wilfully," said the girl&mdash;"and I am
+never responsible for anything. So I don't know how you'll fix it."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell the Commandant to-morrow!" said the lady excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"No good." said the girl. "He can't skin me&mdash;and he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+<i>will</i> skin him. It don't hurt much: <i>he</i> don't care. Says
+he don't."</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to care!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely he ought," said Miss Saucy. "Oh, he's not absolute
+perfection&mdash;won't be canonised till he's dead, I dare say."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI<br />
+ON GUARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Twelve small strokes on the tinkling bell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Midnight comes, and all is well!</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Culprit Fay.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, with the new uniform came also new work, as Magnus had been
+warned. Guard duty put in its claim, and the plebs were promoted to
+walk post, and to learn what upper classmen could do to make that duty
+unpleasant. "Jumping plebs" went on with variations. "Crawling" seems
+to be the favourite word now, but probably the thing itself is not much
+slower than it was of yore.</p>
+
+<p>The first night on guard was a never-to-be-forgotten thing to Magnus
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quiet night enough, so far as disturbances went, for this
+time the tide of mischief seemed to set in some other direction. But
+that only left the power of the night itself unchecked. So still, so
+solemn, so sweet, and yet with such a bitter flavour. Strange beyond
+description, and beautiful past all telling.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne had gone on with the second relief, tattoo had beat, and
+taps had said its closing word; and now all private lights were out.
+The day had been hot, but the night came down dewy and cool; and the
+full summer moon was slowly flooding the world with glory, and lining
+out everything in clear black and white.</p>
+
+<p>Every tent wall was raised to let in the air. The prostrate men
+on the floors were as still as the white canvas above their heads.
+Sleeping off drills and difficulties here,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+and there plotting and planning; or perhaps gazing out into the night
+with wide-open, homesick eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A faint breath stirred the trees around Camp Hard; from across the
+plain one could just catch the sound of slow footsteps, where the
+enlisted sentry paced up and down the Officers' Row. Far below, on the
+river, boats went and came: a sloop, dreaming noiselessly along on the
+incoming tide; or two steamers, signalling before they met. You could
+hear the dash of the swell upon the shore, and the panting breath of
+the fierce little tugs, with the more stately beat of the paddles of a
+side-wheeler. Over all, the moon rode high and clear.</p>
+
+<p>And, for this night, the Western pleb was unmolested. Not a stray
+ghost crossed his beat. Up and down, up and down, in company with his
+shadow, the slow, measured step leaving his thoughts free: and they had
+all gone home. And so it was, that by degrees Magnus Kindred fell into
+one of his desperate fits of lonely homesickness, ready to fire off his
+musket, or do any lawless thing, if only so he might be arrested and
+dismissed to freedom, mother, and the girls. And on post you cannot
+throw your arms into the air and yourself down on the ground; not get
+even the smallest bit of any such slight relief.</p>
+
+<p>As Magnus turned on his beat, pacing now towards the western hills,
+the exceeding beauty of the bit of star-spangled sky to the north was
+full in view. The Great Bear and his associates held on their shining
+way, despite the moon, calm, high, lifted above all of earth's tears
+and turmoils. What was that his mother used to sing?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ye stars are but the shining dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of my divine abode;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pavement of those heavenly courts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where I shall see my God."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus remembered with another of his sharp twinges.</p>
+
+<p>"All right for her!" he thought, pacing back again to <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> meet
+the moon, "all right for them all! But the folks that tread those
+pavements have gotten the victory."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think, myself," Cadet Kindred went on candidly, eyeing the
+stars once more, "that I am fighting for it hard enough to hurt, just
+at present. 'Gotten the victory,'" he repeated to himself, "won it, and
+kept it."</p>
+
+<p>The dear folks at home might not even be thinking of him, just then;
+they were doubtless all peacefully asleep, each having laid down her
+heart's desire at the feet of Him "that keepeth Israel," so leaving the
+far-off young sentinel in His tender care. But Magnus knew, almost as
+if he had heard them, the prayers sent up for him that night.</p>
+
+<p>A sharp, resonant cry brought him suddenly back to Camp Hard and
+duty. From the post in front of the camp the sentinel gave the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Number One! Half-past ten o'clock and all's--well!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it came to Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Now the guard had been admonished, that very day, not to mumble the
+words, but to give each its full value, clear and strong. But this
+first man was sleepy, or lazy, and gave small heed to the order. His
+"All's well!" was loud enough, but seemed rather a matter of hope than
+of certainty.</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure that Magnus even supposed that he himself was working
+out the spirit of the order, but he was homesick and disheartened,
+as well as ignorant of military affairs; and with that a little bit
+reckless, and ready to do anything for a change. What did it matter,
+anyhow? And so, as it came to his turn, he shouted forth the call at
+the top of his voice, and to the closing notes of the retreat bugle
+call at parade.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/090music.jpg" width="600" height="94" alt="music" />
+<div class="caption">Number-two: Half-past ten o'clock and all is ... well!</div>
+<p class="center">[<a href="music/no2.mid">Listen</a>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+And half the camp heard it.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there was a stir, and Magnus was reported for "calling
+the hour in an improper manner." But he went scot-free, after all, by
+reason, doubtless, of his short acquaintance with guard duty.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII<br />
+<i>OFF</i> GUARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Are you shining for Jesus loyally,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shining just anywhere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not only in easy places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Not only just here and there?</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">F. R. Havergal.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In such fashion days and weeks rolled by; as time-wheels will, over
+the roughest ground, and through the most uninteresting country. For
+without doubt, drills can become monotonous; and if the body yielded
+itself more and more easily to regulations, as the time went on, so did
+not always the mind.</p>
+
+<p>At first, in the strangeness of everything, details went for less,
+but now that he no longer wore the grey bag, to have his toes still
+kicked out set his blood tingling. He was so well made by nature, that
+"this extra regulation ramrod style," as he spitefully termed it,
+seemed like persecution. For some of the drill masters by no means
+slackened their demands as the need of them grew less.</p>
+
+<p>"Get your shoulders back, Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Get</i> them back, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Get</i> them <i>back</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"He had better take a sledge hammer and pound them
+in," Magnus declared one day.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be pounded for disrespect," Rig warned
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; it's a true bill. I don't respect that man,
+and I never shall."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+"But officers, you know," suggested Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, officers!" said Magnus loftily. "What business has he to be an officer,
+with the manners of a boot-black?"</p>
+
+<p>However, as I said, time did wear on; with parades, drills,
+gymnastics, and the rest of it. And in the intervals, when upper
+classmen walked with the pretty girls, and went to teas and picnics,
+the plebs drew together and eyed them from a distance, making many
+comments, uttering many groans; but, most of all, knitting up firm and
+strong the class bond which no after-years could break.</p>
+
+<p>This class bond is a most natural thing among boys who have faced
+hardships side by side; and in a way, it is very fine; but it has its
+danger, too.</p>
+
+<p>The stand taken by each one in the class for and with each other
+one, in those first hard weeks when they feel as if every man's
+hand was against them all, sometimes passes into a "Stand by the
+class!" which cramps the influence, and hinders the action of many an
+individual man. "The class, right or wrong!" is never a safe motto.</p>
+
+<p>One other little event in camp life that summer may be told over
+here, for its after-effect upon Magnus Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>There were two or three men in the pleb class who, by reason of a
+certain offhand brightness of thought and tongue, had more influence
+with the rest than they deserved, for either their principles or their
+brains. Men able to put the wrong thing into such brilliant words, that
+the real meaning was lost sight of in the fun and the glitter. And so,
+in the scarcity of amusements, Magnus fell into the habit of lingering
+where they stood; listening to their sayings, laughing at their
+sallies, and, to a certain degree, following their lead. And, as often
+happens, the light words, the smart speeches which were not true, won
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+their way. He began to hearken more readily, and more easily lent
+himself to plans and projects he might better have let alone; getting
+into the swirl of a current not likely to land him on any good and
+fruitful shore.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as birds of a feather are apt to find each other out,
+some men of like tendencies in the first class made common cause, in a
+way; finding an admiring look of any sort quite pleasant, and a pleb a
+convenient catspaw, now and then. They made the musical ones come in
+for a chorus; and under such innocent cover matured their plans, and
+told their stories, to nobody's good.</p>
+
+<p>If one of these wits set forth the fact that "Muffti" was sure to
+lead the prayer-meeting that night, Magnus would perhaps stay in his
+tent, or wander off beyond sound of the hymns, which always pricked
+his conscience and his heart as well. Or if some smart man made fun of
+the preacher who was to fill the chaplain's place during the summer
+vacation, Magnus was careful the next Sunday to practise himself in the
+fine art of sitting bolt upright when fast asleep. He grew to be an
+expert at smuggling in "boodle": he took the loan of books he had much
+better have let alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Come round to my tent after dinner, Mr. Kindred," said Cadet
+Upright one day; and of course Magnus went; then stood attention in the
+straightest sort of way; very much wondering for what unknown breach of
+rules he was to be called to account by the first Captain.</p>
+
+<p>So he stood up to all his inches, just within the tent door, while
+Cadet Captain Upright sat on a camp stool facing him; a stray sunbeam
+working its way in to touch the chevrons, and lighting up the honest,
+sunburnt face. Mr. Upright was no beauty, but not a man in the Corps
+was more thoroughly respected than he. "Not much to look at," said Sam
+Weller of his hat, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+"Mr. Kindred," began Upright, "I asked you to come, because I wanted
+to talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and Magnus responded, "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You are in danger," Upright went on. "You are taking risks no wise
+man will shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done, sir?" Magnus demanded, stiffening slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing special, to my knowledge," said the first captain, "But I
+see you in slippery places, where sooner or later a man must go down.
+And the mud often sticks for a good while to come, even after&mdash;and
+even if&mdash;he picks himself up and gets away."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see, sir," Magnus began&mdash;"what risks are you talking
+of, Mr. Upright?"</p>
+
+<p>"The risk of being false to yourself, and to your Christian pledge
+and name; the risk of (practically) forgetting your mother and your
+mother's words."</p>
+
+<p>But now Magnus burst forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgetting my mother!" he said. Then checking himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, sir, that proves you never saw her, Mr. Upright."</p>
+
+<p>Upright laughed, and his eyes shone.</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you!" he said heartily. "But, Mr. Kindred, you are
+training with the wrong crowd."</p>
+
+<p>And now Magnus coloured, and his eyes went down. Upright watched him
+for a moment in silence; then he took up a slip of paper, and held it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a reminding text I wrote off for you," he said. "Take it
+with you up and down the post. 'He setteth a print on the heels of my
+feet.' That will do, sir," and Magnus saluted, and whirled away.</p>
+
+<p>"Might be the Com. himself, for the style he talks!" he grumbled,
+under his breath. But all the same, the words sank in. They were too
+true to miss a hearing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+on the one side, and had been too kindly spoken to lose
+it, on the other. Yes, he was training with the wrong
+crowd, there was no doubt of that.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus winced under the confession. There was no one he so little
+liked to find fault with as himself, and to court-martial Cadet
+Kindred, on his own knowledge and belief, was extremely unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>But the finding of the Court is rarely severe in such cases;
+and Magnus presently let himself off with a few admonitions to be
+more careful. He went to prayer-meeting regularly, boned discipline
+a little, and kept away from that crowd (what he called) "all he
+could."</p>
+
+<p>Then they broke camp, and marched into barracks, and that was a
+help, for work began at a rate that left scant time for lawless play.
+Magnus Kindred had studied before, studied hard, but never with the
+exactness of drill and discipline and pressure that now filled every
+day. Breakfast, recitation, study, dinner, study, recitation, drill;
+then dress parade, supper, and study. Some of the plebs resigned and
+went home, others talked gloomily of being "found" in January; before
+which wintry fear homesickness itself gave way. And again others drew
+the buckles of their armour tight, looked well to their stirrups, and
+went at the difficulties, lance in rest.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/097fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="351" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE BARRACKS IN WINTER</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII<br />
+A BLUE CHRISTMAS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">No age, no race, no single soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By lofty tumbling wins the goal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The steady pace it keeps between;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The little points it makes unseen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By these, achieved in gathering might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It moveth on, and out of sight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wins, through all that's overpast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The city of its hopes at last.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Whitney.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of these true knights Charlemagne Kindred was one. Lessons,
+problems, questions, went down before his fierce assault. He had never
+enjoyed being headed off in what he chose to do; and had pledged it to
+himself that if ever anything did that kind office for him, it should
+not be West Point.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> stop me?" he would say to some particularly obnoxious book.
+"<i>You</i> get in my way?" and probably the hard-headed volume would then
+and there find itself pitched to the furthest corner of the room. But
+after that little expression of opinion, Magnus would pick the book up,
+and bone with all his might. Smith's "Conic Sections" got quite used to
+such short excursions, and Ketel's "French Grammar" grew old before its
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Rig's method was different.</p>
+
+<p>"Kin, I'm growing grey," he said plaintively one morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Grey as a goose."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but really," said Rig, laying down the book. "This thing's too
+hard, you know. Breaks a man all up."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+"You'd best stick yourself together again before two o'clock," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"No good," said Rig, taking up another study volume from the heap.
+"I'll try this a while. Nobody ought to be expected to learn such
+stuff."</p>
+
+<p>"Put that book down!" Magnus thundered at him, from his own
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can put it down easy enough," Rig said rather sulkily. "But I
+can't see what business it is of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Now fold your hands, and spell zero ten times backwards," said
+Magnus, "and then take your Davies, and go to work. Unless you want to
+fess solid for the rest of your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;Say, Kin,&mdash;what a good fellow Mr. Upright is."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upright's a cold max. Mind your business."</p>
+
+<p>Pushing and pulling did a good deal for Rig that winter. There was a
+little stir about the holidays, when the happy upper classmen who had
+won their Christmas leave went off for unlimited bliss in a limited
+time, and those who had lost it abused "luck." And there was also the
+mild interest of a better dinner than usual. But to the plebs, for whom
+no getting away was possible, and to whom no Point festivities were
+open, that first Christmas was a thing to live through as best they
+might. I think some of them despised even the dinner, with the flavour
+of their mother's cookery yet lingering and fresh.</p>
+
+<p>How hard it was! "The most miserable day they ever spent," as many
+a one has said since. And the letters and home trifles that arrived
+in the mail-bag were not much help in the line of bracing up. Magnus
+put Cherry's bookmark in his Bible, and his mother's picture up his
+sleeve; while the toilet cushion and cover on which the two girls had
+bestowed so many loving looks, as they wrought out the pretty devices,
+were hid away in his clothes bag; no such decorations being allowed in
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+Then he wrote letters to them all, then he tried to study, but who
+can study on a legal holiday?</p>
+
+<p>So at last Cadet Kindred donned his grey fearnaught, wandered
+down among the rocks and snow-drifts on Flirtation, and listened
+to the grinding of the ice cakes in the dark river. The sky, blue
+with an unearthly far-away depth of colour, was pushed back by the
+whitened hills: all nature seemed locked up and unapproachable and
+unsympathising.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Those fair blue heavens so distant are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their very clearness seems to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">How far, how far!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They lie above man's stormy way."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And Magnus Kindred felt as desperately lonesome as he thought it was
+in the power of man to be.</p>
+
+<p>There were no loiterers now under the "Kissing Rock"; no echoing
+steps within "First-class Cave"; all the old seats and trysting places
+were snow capped and silent. Even the broad folds of the Post flag
+would have been some company, a little cheer to his sad eyes as he once
+more came out upon the plain. But the Post flag was safely folded away;
+and only a wee, wintry looking storm flag, whipped out in many a past
+gale, was abroad to brave the keen-edged airs that stirred round Trophy
+Point. Could anything exceed the dreariness and length of that wretched
+Christmas Day?</p>
+
+<p>Then such cake for tea&mdash;though I doubt if Purcell's best would
+have suited Magnus that night. He was glad when the drummers began
+their noisy tattoo, that he might unroll his mattress, go to bed, and
+forget his misery.</p>
+
+<p>New Year's Day was not quite so bad, perhaps because the coming
+examination lent at least a dash of red pepper to the monotony, and the
+first evening of the new year was full of study and talk, questions,
+fears, and surmisings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+Blue letters home went off in troops, and many a man arranged
+definitely just what he would do after he was "found," of which last
+fact he felt sure. With the great hop that graced this week, or the gay
+damsels who graced the hop, the fourth class had nothing to do.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural enough that the strain and fatigue of the examination
+should be followed by a certain dislike for work at all. The men who
+were "found" had vanished; the men who had gone up a section were
+quietly in place, while others had as quietly joined "the Immortals,"
+a better name than its popular substitute. And from now on until June,
+things would remain pretty much as they were.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder, then, if the reaction set in strong. Snow blocked the
+favourite cadet walks; permits for skating were cut. No parades, no
+stirring drills, except in the riding-hall, and the plebs had no good
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were stormy days when even the officers' row was gloomy,
+and things grew very tame indeed. The bent bows ached to spring back,
+and the pent-up steam was ready to blow off in any direction; for
+mischief at least makes a change, and to break regulations and not be
+found out, gave life a certain flavour. It was a pity, but not at all
+strange.</p>
+
+<p>And so, in some parts of the barracks, license, not liberty, was the
+popular word. The great point of interest by day and by night being how
+to defy the blue book, and not get caught.</p>
+
+<p>The leaders were bright men, some of them; personable, pleasant to
+talk to, fair mathematicians, and capital cooks over the gas-light.
+Several had friends who sent them money, sweets, mince pies, and
+tobacco: all smuggled in by unscrupulous outside hands. And these
+dainties were freely dispensed by the happy owners.</p>
+
+<p>As to the rest, they were light fingered enough for pick-
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+pockets, and could abstract and convey to barracks anything&mdash;except
+"Sammy"&mdash;from the mess-hall table; and I have even been told that
+this one exception lost its place that year.</p>
+
+<p>But so far, you could charge things pretty fairly upon fun, and the
+delightful exercise of skill. If, as was alleged, they carried off two
+pounds of sugar for every lemon they got hold of, still, one must do
+something; and as they said, "the sugar was all paid for out of their
+own allowance."</p>
+
+<p>A much graver thing&mdash;perhaps the worst in the whole
+business&mdash;was the bribing enlisted men. Some free lances, indeed,
+were much too fond of "chancing" it, to do their frisky deeds by proxy.
+They fetched for themselves what they wanted, with a daring of which
+I may not tell. But others would get the sentry at the gate to pass
+things in; or a bandsman to bring all sorts of contraband goods from
+the Falls. Other people helped, but a mess-hall waiter could only lose
+his place and run away, while the sentinels were in trust.</p>
+
+<p>Now Magnus Kindred had not been so brought up, and the sight and
+hearing of certain things at first made him indignant. But they looked
+lighter coloured the fifteenth time than the first. The memory of Mr.
+Upright's words also faded out, and when springtime came, and days grew
+long and nights were bright, he had fallen back into much the old way,
+and was training with (or training) the wrong crowd. And he was so
+agile and wary that he never got caught, which was perhaps his loss.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you work it, Kin," Rig complained one day. "You do
+everything you have a mind to, and yet even Towser will swear you in
+for sweet cream every time. But as for me, if both my shoe toes aren't
+blacked exactly alike, I'm skinned to a certainty."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+I am not sure that Magnus relished the compliment,&mdash;one has a
+choice about praise,&mdash;but he made no answer, and did not change
+his too successful ways.</p>
+
+<p>And thus that pleb winter did much work for him in more lines than
+one. For you cannot keep hard at hard studies, as he did, without a
+swift and increasing rate of progress; the Hill Difficulty of West
+Point, as Mrs. Gresham had called it, yielded better and better
+footing, week by week. But alas, it is also true that you cannot
+constantly fling even small stones at the law, without that fine pillar
+of strength's being chipped and frayed, and in a sort defaced. Magnus
+Kindred did not call his doings by any such dignified name, but all
+the same, freedom and lawlessness were getting very much mixed in his
+mind. While the right of the authorities to command, and his own right
+to disobey, were in a worse tangle still. The wise, dignified, and
+wholesome rule of "Honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear," was much
+dethroned in those days.</p>
+
+<p>So the course of the days and the drift of the ways went on. Winter
+slid early into spring. Company drills began, and the full tide of
+everything set in, especially walks. Bright parasols appeared on the
+sidewalk, and the old seat at Gee's Point once more received its
+guests.</p>
+
+<p>A general stir of preparation was in the air; grass was dressed,
+branches trimmed, and rubbish burned. Cleaning house was on hand, and
+dressmakers; and always drills, drills, drills. To the Post in general,
+these signs meant the coming of the Board of Visitors, and all the
+whirl of examination week: but to the cadets, chiefly June.</p>
+
+<p>All that spring, in spite of much work, Magnus Kindred wrote home
+very regularly; long, amusing letters. Telling less of his inner life
+than the hearts at home would have liked; but the strangeness of what
+he said of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+outer partly covered this up. And I doubt whether Magnus knew how
+little he told.</p>
+
+<p>Of one thing, however, he was dimly conscious. At first, his
+mother's expressions of trust and hope, given in Bible words or her
+own, had been a comfort and help to him; they seemed to bring her
+nearer and to make him stronger. But of late he had been often inclined
+to slur over those parts of her letters, and to hurry on "to get the
+news first"&mdash;as he put it to himself. He never stopped to ask why;
+and it was again Mr. Upright who opened his eyes, and showed him how
+quietly they had been closing and falling asleep.</p>
+
+<p>There are tears as well as smiles, on that fateful day in June. Here
+is a mother, who, having had her son within easy reach for the last
+four years, knows that now, after the short graduation leave, he will
+be whirled away beyond her ken. To Barrancas, it may be, or Huachuca,
+or Indian Territory. So the mother breaks down and cries visibly.</p>
+
+<p>And here are roommates, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in all
+sorts of hardships, now henceforth, until, they are grey-haired men,
+to live as far apart as this broad country can put them; and it is a
+sobering thought.</p>
+
+<p>Then, this pretty, timid girl, who has ventured her heart on the
+insecure ground of cadet soft speeches; or thought out her wedding
+dress after one particular walk around Flirtation; or tried the class
+ring on one of her own slender fingers, without being asked to keep it
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is too dreadful!" she cries, stamping her little foot, and
+with the tears all ready, when that heartless band fall off into "The
+Girl I Left Behind Me." "I can <i>not</i> see what they find in that old
+tune."</p>
+
+<p>It goes hard with her, sometimes, poor child, in matter of
+health.</p>
+
+<p>And sometimes a like hope is laid down with the grey,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+and the blue must seek another charmer; and earth is&mdash;henceforth
+and comparatively&mdash;a desert. All sorts of things happen at
+graduation; and when you hear an eager, "You will be sure to come back
+in August," it does not follow that he will, or that she will wait for
+him if he does.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no shallow sentiment about Mr. Upright. On the day
+of his graduation, the young first captain, having put off his cadet
+honours and come out in plain "cits," went down to the mess-hall dinner
+to look round the old place once more, and to speak farewell words
+to his own company and the Corps. Magnus Kindred caught his eye and
+smile, and started a yell for Mr. Upright, which quite cut short that
+young man's power to say much; but every word had the resonance of true
+metal.</p>
+
+<p>"'Quit you like men! be strong.' 'Strong in the Lord, and in the
+power of his might,'" he said; vainly trying to shake all the hands
+held out to him. But if the tones faltered, the meaning was full
+strung, and Magnus once more opened his eyes, and looked at himself and
+his doings. And the more he looked, the less he liked it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good day for feeling blue. The sudden quiet, the cut-down
+numbers; envy of the furlough men, and to a degree, of the graduates,
+made men restless and dull. No drill, no parade, and not even "a plank"
+left of the Board of Visitors. Not even many girls to look at; for half
+the Post, and three-tenths of the visitors, had sailed away with the
+gay throng on the down boat, and candidates swarmed everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred strolled off by himself to the river edge, sat down
+and looked himself over.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely getting used to things!" he confided to his favourite
+oaks and cedars. And then he began to see what was the character of
+those things. Of course, a boy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+could not grow up anywhere, alas! in this poor world, and not now and
+then hear men swear; but oaths from his <i>comrades</i> had at first shocked
+him exceedingly. There was one man, for instance, who for a low mark in
+the section room, a bad ride, a rainy Saturday, would have his mouth so
+full of cursing that it seemed hard to get it all out. He lived near
+Magnus; and many a time had the boy secretly stopped his ears to shut
+out the terrible words. Rig said the air was "blue" with them.</p>
+
+<p>But quick and keen it came to Magnus now, that he had long ceased
+to take any such precautions. Ah! only last night, after the reading
+of the black list, he had wondered idly to himself, whether Carr would
+find something new to say.</p>
+
+<p>Some hot, unwonted tears sprang up at that, with some very pricking
+thoughts of the four pure hearts at home keeping watch for him. And the
+thoughts grew and piled up, and sharpened their edges.</p>
+
+<p>I should have said that when the new cadet officers were read out on
+Graduation Day, Magnus found himself promoted to the rank of corporal.
+Soon after this the Corps went into camp.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV<br />
+CAMP GOLIGHTLY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">As 'twixt the silences, now far, now nigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rings the sharp challenge, hums the low reply.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yearling Camp was wonderfully unlike the dreary pleb camp of a year
+ago. The special hazers, drill masters, and tormentors of last year
+were gone away on furlough, or gone for good, and there was a new first
+class to take the lead. And if everyone was sorry to lose Mr. Upright,
+"many a dry eye followed" Mr. Devlin and Mr. Prank.</p>
+
+<p>Now the yearlings threw off their reserve, came out of hiding, and
+were introduced to the ladies. Some wore chevrons, some were drill
+masters, some frequented the hops, and almost all of them learned
+to play the cavalier and to win fair companions for walks before
+breakfast and after drill; for band practice, for band concert, and the
+delightful wanderings on O. G. P. The long winter months of work were
+in the dim distance, the next big milestone was marked furlough, and
+at hand were summer and the summer girl. Sisters came, and cousins;
+introductions were many, flirtations not a few.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the most delicious place!" cried Nina Dangleum one day. "You
+are always falling in love, and it never comes to anything."</p>
+
+<p>It was not to be supposed that amid such breezes Magnus Kindred
+could keep himself unfanned. To give him his due, he had no particular
+taste for flirting, and did not often mean it; he was too earnest a
+fellow to like half-way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+measures, or to go into anything only skin-deep. And I think his own
+blessed cluster of womankind at home had set the standard too high for
+him to enjoy drawing a girl on to be silly, even if it was amusing to
+see. He had also not much taste for talking unmitigated stuff, or much
+knack at doing it, and at this time of his existence would have nearly
+endorsed Mr. Weller's words:</p>
+
+<p>"Wot's the use o' calling a young 'ooman a Wenus? Just as well call
+her a griffin, or a king's arms."</p>
+
+<p>But the gales that stirred about West Point just then were very
+perfume-laden; and almost any woman might seem like an angel, when you
+first come out of the double shadow of pleb year and barracks, where
+tactical officers were your chief glimpses of the outside world.</p>
+
+<p>The soft, "Mr. Kindred, I saw you coming clear across the plain,"
+smoothed down very pleasantly the plumage which had been so roughly
+stroked the wrong way. The "Tac" might have reported those very bell
+buttons that very day as in need of rubbing up; but if Miss Flyaway
+could see them as soon as the man left camp, you perceive it took off
+the effect.</p>
+
+<p>In matters of discipline, however, and of military precision Magnus
+was, on the whole, a careful fellow (Rig spelled it "lucky"), and so
+when other men had their freedom tied up, he was often detailed to walk
+with the friend or the cousin and give her "a good time." Thus he came
+in for rather more than his share of sweets.</p>
+
+<p>It was charming to wander almost anywhere in those fair days, and
+well nigh as good to lie in the shadow of the trees about Fort Clinton,
+with a book or without. The "without" was Rig's style.</p>
+
+<p>"Kin&mdash;I'm no end comfortable!" he declared one day, lying back
+on the green with his arms above his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Same at same," responded Magnus, from behind his home newspaper.
+Rig suddenly sat up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+"Say, Kin, I want to go to artillery drill to-morrow night as chief
+of caissons."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. If you're detailed for guard, shall I take the girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Steady!"</p>
+
+<p>But after all, so it fell out; and when the Band concert began,
+Magnus escorted Miss Dangleum through the shadows to where the light
+battery guns stood ready, helped her to mount a caisson, and was in
+close attendance till the drum beat. One of these old caissons was
+quite a favourite "box" with the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Beastly!" Rig declared it all, when he came off guard next day.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him having the spooniest sort of a time," said Randolph
+maliciously. "Chappy and the Kitten were on the next gun. I say, I'm
+tired walking post. I'm going to bone colours."</p>
+
+<p>"Go in and win," Magnus admonished him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll see," said Randolph. And to be sure, such a polishing
+of buttons, and rubbing up of arms, as followed were unknown before in
+Randolph's tent. Magnus declared that the buttons made him wink clear
+across A Company Street.</p>
+
+<p>Just at the last possible moment before the critical guard-mounting,
+Randolph rushed in upon his two friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boys, lend me a pair of white trousers. I can't find any of
+mine that are fit to go with my buttons."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've only one pair fit to go with mine," said Magnus. "Sorry!
+but they'd be too long for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig's will do," said Randolph, making a dash at the pile of
+trousers. "Thanks awfully. My, how they shine!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 386px;">
+<img src="images/109fp_600.jpg" width="386" height="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE COLOR GUARD</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Well, they certainly did. Spotless, unwrinkled, as if they, too,
+had been "boning" colours. Randolph marched out on higher heels than
+those prescribed in the regulations, and later on presented himself
+fearlessly as a candidate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+for honours. And the inspecting officer's face seemed to say he had
+reason; Randolph could see approval in every look and gesture. Gloves,
+buttons, gun were scrutinised; the trousers were dazzling and smooth.
+Then the officer passed round for a back view. Hair right length,
+collar right height above the grey, belt and buttons adjusted to a
+nicety.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Randolph," said the cadet adjutant, as he came round in front,
+"I would have given you colours but for those trousers."</p>
+
+<p>And when Randolph got in and scrutinised himself he found that the
+borrowed trousers were deeply frayed at the ankle! After which the
+young man professed himself blue and bored.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck," he said. "But I'll get even with him, see if I
+don't. They were only fringed behind."</p>
+
+<p>Two or three days after this, Randolph accosted Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin, want some fun? Like to see Coxy scared within an inch of
+his life?"</p>
+
+<p>"No sort of objection on my part; rather B. J. in you to propose
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's more than propose," said Randolph. "Just you hang round my
+tent about nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>Then after supper Randolph took his stand at the foot of A Company
+Street, where the plebs were busily going back and forth between the
+hydrant and the tents.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Johnson!" he said, hailing a D Company pleb, but keeping his
+voice well down.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The pleb slackened his pace a little, but did not look round, and
+Randolph stood glancing carelessly about, as if thinking of nothing in
+particular.</p>
+
+<p>"When you have carried in that pail come at once to the darkened
+tent at the head of the street."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+"What is your name, sir?" to another.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ummerstot, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upstart! I would like to know, Mr. Upstart, if you have no
+superior whose pail needs tilling as well as your own? Go home at once,
+and then report at my tent. The one with no light in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>When six more were under orders, Randolph strolled back to the front
+of his tent, and as fast as the plebs came up, he passed them in. They
+might stand at ease, but must not talk above a whisper. When they were
+all in hiding, Randolph spoke through the closed door of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Johnson!" in a low undertone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Your special technical name for this evening is <i>Hippotherium</i>. Do
+you hive it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upstart! Your special name till tattoo is <i>Semnopithereus</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Parboil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Carboil, sir," said the poor pleb, with a mild preference for
+his own name.</p>
+
+<p>"I said <i>Parboil</i>. Your name will be <i>Cereopithereus</i>. Mr.
+Cereopithereus, you are first cousin to Mr. Semnopithereus, and
+according to Darwin, you each bear the same relation to a man that a
+pleb does to his superiors."</p>
+
+<p>So the eight names were given, and then Randolph began again:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ichthyosaurus, you and your fellow animals will answer to your
+special technical names at roll-call, by a growl. You, sir, are an
+extinct reptile. Did you ever hear an extinct reptile growl?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You other animals, stop that unseemly snicker. Where have you
+lived, sir, all your life to know so little?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+"In Massachusetts, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The very headquarters of fossil life. Well, sir, if you have any
+imagination at all, growl as nearly as you can in the hypothetical
+voice of that extinct reptile called an Ichthyosaurus."</p>
+
+<p>A low growl, ending in a suppressed chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Order there, in the zoölogical museum! Mr. Hippotherium!" and
+another growl followed in a different key.</p>
+
+<p>"How," said Randolph, when the roll had been gone through, "the
+countersign is: 'Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!' Do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The painful general growl that answered him was cut short by a
+smothered laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Attention! When you hear the countersign and see the tent flap
+lifted you are to growl all together, with your deepest and heaviest
+roar."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes passed silently by. Randolph loitered about near
+the tent, as one might do who found the evening air refreshing. Then
+suddenly Adjutant Cox passed down the colour line.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Cox," Randolph hailed him, "come and see what I've got in my
+tent."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking only of boodle, for which he had a soft spot, Mr. Cox came
+up, and pushed back the tent flap.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!" cried Randolph, and from the
+darkness poured forth such a horrible and very prehistoric roar that
+the tall cadet made one spring across the company street, demanding in
+no gentle tones of Randolph "What on earth he had got there?" Then,
+"hiving" the joke, he walked rapidly away. Only one such roar could
+be risked, and after a little more hectoring the plebs were let out
+quietly one by one, and Randolph sought out Magnus and Rig to receive
+their compliments on his success.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV<br />
+SIGNALING FOR HELP</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">All common things, each day's events,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That with the hour begin and end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our pleasures, and our discontents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Are rounds by which we may ascend.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was a new experience to be on guard as corporal; and instead of
+the tedious pacing up and down, to go round the camp at set intervals,
+posting the reliefs, and then to sleep or lounge in the guard tent. No
+more sounding out the "All's well!" in proper, or improper, style; but
+it seemed to Magnus that he never missed hearing it.</p>
+
+<p>But whereas in the old days he used to wish every time he called the
+hour that the beautiful, serious, and weird cry could reach across the
+continent, even to his mother's ears, now, on the whole, he was content
+that it did not.</p>
+
+<p>"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's
+well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now,
+somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all well with the camp, all
+well with the Post; was it all well with him? Would the words bear a
+true report as <i>she</i> would understand them?</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred studied the point a good deal as he lay there in the
+guard tent looking himself over, or stole a solitary walk now and then.
+And I say "stole" advisedly. Short of stealing away, a solitary walk
+was hard to get.</p>
+
+<p>If, at the risk of his neck, he slid down some sheer cliff to the
+river's edge, few indeed would follow him, but a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+cadet boat might come along shore with a barge-load of girls in tow.
+And sometimes he was quick enough to dodge behind the bushes, and
+sometimes he sat still and let the shower of exclamations come.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just <i>see</i> Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred, <i>please</i> get right into the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't a permit."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nobody round," said the Kitten. "Jump in quick. You <i>never</i>
+can get back up there without being dashed to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly <i>with</i>. Then there'll be one less 'additional' in the
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"How dreadful! I thought you were better brought up than to talk
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you really so very well brought up?" said the Kitten, with her
+head on one side. "Do you know, I should never have thought it."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus rose to his feet, and doffed his cap profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you've done it, Puss," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I don't see how," said the Kitten. "I hate well-brought-up
+people; that's why I spoke."</p>
+
+<p>"Better hate Kin as fast as you can, then," said Chappy from the
+boat, "so's there'll be a chance for some of the rest of us. Why, he
+don't sleep in chapel more than every other Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"How can he help going to sleep, poor boy?" said Miss Saucy. "Such
+sermons!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come now," said another cadet, "that last sermon wasn't half
+bad. And not more than twice as long as was necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but for these times!" quoth Miss Saucy. "Why, it was just like
+saying 'Be good,' don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hard upon the times, wasn't it?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+"Well, row on," said the Kitten with a deep sigh. "I see by his face
+nothing <i>I</i> can say will do any good. But it is such a pity! I never
+guessed he was that sort. A new fad, isn't it?" she said in a loud
+aside, as the oars dipped and rose. "Good-bye, Mr. Kindred! I hope your
+meditations will be very profitable."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," Magnus answered, standing up again, "I think they
+will."</p>
+
+<p>He watched the boat as it went on over the dimpling water, then
+changed his place a little, and began on a new end of his thoughts.
+This girl had "never guessed he was that sort."</p>
+
+<p>Maybe she was only telling society fibs, but Magnus would not let
+himself off so. For what reason had he ever given her to think him a
+Christian? Where had his colours been, in all these walks and talks and
+meetings? Up his sleeve, in hiding?</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot flaunt them in people's faces," Magnus pleaded for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>No, and no more did the flag its stars and stripes; only waved them
+joyously overhead.</p>
+
+<p>He had been ready to say that the constant frolic with the gay
+crowd was not good for him, but how about his side of the influence?
+Had he ever tried talking sense to girls whom he condemned for talking
+only nonsense? "Ye are the salt of the earth," but salt refreshes,
+stimulates, purifies; how far had he been like that? Without being
+priggish, without setting up for a preacher, could he not show in
+every way that the service of Christ was better than all else, and the
+knowledge of Him the most joyful thing in all this world? "Ye are my
+witnesses," said the Lord Jesus; and what sort of testimony did Cadet
+Magnus Kindred give from day to day? No matter how other men did, what
+had he done?</p>
+
+<p>The final outcome of all these cogitations was a letter. <br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">
+"<span class="smcap">Camp Golightly</span>,<br />
+"July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you don't come East and look after your boy. How
+do you know what he is about here? Better come and see whether you
+want him home on furlough; that is, if that time ever comes, which I
+don't believe it will. Three, six, well nigh eight months yet before it
+will even be 'One hundred days to June.' Besides, they may find me in
+January, and then, instead of going home, I should go as straight to
+the Antipodes as if they'd shot me out of a catapult."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy; I'm not skinned more than twice a day on an
+average; skins grow fast here, and skinning is nothing when you get
+used to it. So the eels say. And I'm sure to take daddy's scalp when we
+get back to barracks. Not much of a possession, either, I must own."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realise, ma'am, that your son is that much detested and
+overworked and maligned being a yearling Corporal?&mdash;wearing
+chevrons, and sporting dignity enough for three Major-Generals?
+Come and see me drill the plebs; best fun you ever saw in your
+life&mdash;when you aren't one of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"But now, mother, this is serious. Do bring up our three girls
+respectably, so that when they come here for first-class camp, they'll
+know how to behave. But first of all, you've got to come yourself and
+brush me up. Buy your ticket for West Point, stop at Garrisons, cross
+in the ferryboat, and take the omnibus up the hill. Look out both sides
+all the way up; and the minute you see a grey uniform throw up his cap,
+get out. I suppose I might run it down the hill, but then if I get in
+con. and couldn't see you all the time you were here, it wouldn't pay.
+And Towser'd be sure to be round with his patent magnifiers."</p>
+
+<p>"So I'll go to the edge of limits, and as you don't know
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+where that is, look out. If you get lost, I'll put Towser on the track
+and he'll know where you are before you know it yourself. I wonder the
+Phil. Department don't set him to work on the lost Pleiad."</p>
+
+<p>"Heigh-ho! I wish you were here this minute&mdash;with your bag full
+of gingercakes. I was on guard last night, and had nothing to eat but
+those old cast-iron sandwiches. So we put 'em in the reveille gun and
+they went off that way. Love to the girls. Don't bring 'em this time,
+but come yourself."</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Your (very) third class Corporal,</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Charlemagne Kindred</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"I enclose a picture of myself which you may like to see."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI<br />
+RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes
+choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours
+assez de moyens. &mdash;<span class="smcap">Rochefoucauld.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say
+that never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits
+of boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so
+received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at
+things cannot wear them out.</p>
+
+<p>At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke
+down and cried. Partly for joy&mdash;for how handsome he was! and how
+those bell buttons did set him off!&mdash;partly for the wild longing
+it stirred to have him in their arms again. But with this came in
+another feeling: that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was
+their own wayward, careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away
+behind that perfectly buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point
+makes a wonderful change, which even accustomed eyes find marvellous;
+what wonder that these unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He
+had graduated from the mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.</p>
+
+<p>If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it
+may be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that
+really belonged to it. <i>This</i> exact, stately young man, <i>her</i> Magnus,
+who used to catch her in his
+
+arms and whirl her off her feet. <i>This</i> soldierly fellow <i>their</i>
+brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the
+window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the
+smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said
+Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak
+calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added,
+feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point
+and a soldier and look like my little boy still."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of
+my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow
+seen, anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed
+one bit. Just see how they laugh at you&mdash;&mdash;" But that look
+stopped the words.</p>
+
+<p>"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window.
+"What are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came
+through the hall and into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing
+themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place
+behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's
+cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.</p>
+
+<p>But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at
+first sight of that wonderful presentation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+of her hero, but then she stood quite still; her fingers interlacing
+each other, the red and white playing hide and seek on her young
+face. That undefined change which they all felt came to her with a
+difference. For Magnus had never been hers to have and to hold, but
+only to gaze at from a safe distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become
+more wonderful than ever. Whether this put him further away or not gave
+Cherry no trouble just then; she had forgotten herself and the whole
+world at first sight of this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said
+plaintively; and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in
+the most matter-of-fact way:</p>
+
+<p>"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you
+always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her
+face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor
+Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she
+had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it
+that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look
+inside; <i>could</i> Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by
+the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was
+just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest
+Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.</p>
+
+<p>"You are strange people not to like it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad
+because it looks different."</p>
+
+<p>"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying
+the hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go
+flying open, in the Army."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing
+at her young soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+Dear me! But take off your hat and sit down, child; here is a whole
+long letter to read."</p>
+
+<p>There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot
+cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the
+picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very
+first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her
+with bewildered eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said.
+"Why, I thought he had the whole Government to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone,
+I am sure," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is
+homesick, Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back
+again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his
+mother." Her voice choked a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite
+failing to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma,
+don't look so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of
+you; he ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then
+you can tell us all about him and the place and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities
+with their young feet, were too much for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, girls, I haven't the money."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have my new winter bonnet&mdash;which was to be," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+not to be," said Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong
+box."</p>
+
+<p>"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She
+sat looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is
+as still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to
+read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such
+a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading
+began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he
+says," pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard.
+Every sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the
+two faces that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's
+shining eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always
+in sight. Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which
+the others missed; and so now and then retired into her own private
+meditations. "Bring up <i>our</i> three girls" and "when <i>they</i> come."
+Clearly, then, she also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever
+that might be.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean
+about their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the
+Antipodes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the
+girl, too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he
+says all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't
+really changed him one bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+the picture. "I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to
+the dress a little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you
+really think I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"</p>
+
+<p>With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that
+nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the
+railway companies would do the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for
+your getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody
+could keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just
+fly out."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes
+the two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you.
+Read on, mamma, please."</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the
+real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"&mdash;third-class corporals
+and the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not
+clear up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully
+twice through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly
+announced that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get
+ready. And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they
+could go too.</p>
+
+<p>And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn
+not only bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the
+conductor. The girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the
+gingercakes there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief
+embroidered with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small
+pincushion "to go in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent
+him her last little drawing of the old apple tree which had been his
+own special private <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they all
+went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours joining
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good
+woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth
+and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went,
+we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless
+feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in
+any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for
+West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest,
+and then he'd he provided for."</p>
+
+<p>Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went
+home and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly
+away, very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she
+was going to see her boy.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII<br />
+THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">'Twas morn, a most auspicious one:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the golden East the golden sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Came forth his glorious race to run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through clouds of most splendid tinges.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clouds that lately slept in shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But now seemed made<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of gold brocade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With magnificent golden fringes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hood.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, it was a royal August day. The last summer
+month has a very different character in different
+places. In town, where, instead of</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Three months of sunshine bound in sheaves"</p>
+
+<p>you have the same stored up in pavements and glowing from brown
+stone fronts, it is a time which men naturally enough choose for their
+vacation, and leave the city home behind them as fast and as far as
+they can. September rains may clear the air, but till then, away.</p>
+
+<p>But in the Highlands, with here and there a rare exception, August
+is one of the very loveliest months of all the year. We say of a
+human face that it is finer after life has given its touches and done
+somewhat of its fine chiselling, and a little so does the last summer
+month surpass the two that went before. More sedate than jocund June;
+far calmer than July with its tempests and fervid heats, the shadows
+fall differently, the changed lights give you a new insight into
+things. The days are so exquisite partly because they are shortening;
+the flowers hurry out in troops.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+And nowhere in all the year do we have such a succession of wonderful
+sunset skies as in August. Then the temperature is for the most part
+perfect; the cool mornings and evenings only the fairer for the midday
+heat. It is a time when you can sit out, dine out, and well nigh take
+leave of the house altogether.</p>
+
+<p>One wise thing inexperienced Mrs. Kindred remembered to do. From
+point to point as the miles rolled by, she sent postals to the girls at
+home, and one at the outset to Magnus. He knew just when to look for
+her. And so, when the day came, and dinner was over, Cadet Charlemagne
+reported his absence at the guard tent, and strolled away to Trophy
+Point, and seated himself to wait and watch. Too early yet by an hour;
+but he was restless and could do nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>The day was cloudless now; the noon heats still in the air; the
+hazy, lazy hum of the locusts thrilled out on every side. Perhaps lazy
+is not just the word&mdash;but there are no inflections; they fight it
+out on one line, as few tired workers ever can.</p>
+
+<p>A suspicion of real haze hung over Newburgh; the more distant hills
+looked faint and dreamy. Far up the river a long tow wound silently
+down, leaving its trail upon the quiet water; nearby a sloop or two
+went softly on, spreading their white wings to the breeze. There was
+just enough air stirring to lift and drop, lift and drop, the bunting
+on the flagstaff.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat looking and listening, drawing a deep breath now and
+then. How long it seemed since he first saw Trophy Point and that
+flagstaff!&mdash;and it was really but fourteen months. He glanced
+up at the flag, just then shaking out its lovely folds. That had not
+changed. And he knew his mother had not; she would be just the same
+blessed person she had always been. But how about himself? and what
+would she think of him? And now, studying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+that question, Magnus took out mentally his own private stand of
+colours and looked at them, matching them with the flag overhead. It
+hung very still just then; and yet he could see a star here, a touch of
+the stripes there. Storms might beat it to ribands, but they could not
+change the colours nor make the flag come down.</p>
+
+<p>"That weak strip of bunting!" thought Magnus, with a certain
+interlining of words not complimentary to himself. And other words
+written above his father's grave came quick and clear: "The world
+passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
+abideth forever."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stood up and walked slowly along the little path to another
+point, whence he could see the "Central" road.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no end glad she's coming!"&mdash;so ran his thoughts. "But I
+just wonder how she'll like her boy? And there she comes!"</p>
+
+<p>For now a puff of white smoke rose up at the mouth of the Breakneck
+tunnel and then fell into a long, curling line, and began to wind its
+way rapidly along the curves of the river road.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus watched it, jumped on the seat to see it better still, and
+then tossed his cap into the air like any boy let out of school.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah, old flag!" he cried; "there she comes! Now you'll see
+somebody worth looking at."</p>
+
+<p>The white line rushed on, paused at Cold Spring, whirled along over
+the north bay and hid itself in the green Island woods, while Magnus,
+again waving his cap and this time so recklessly that it was near
+going down the hill, hurried away to Battery Knox, ran up on the green
+parapet, and stood to watch. The engine came puffing over the south
+bay as if the fate of the nation hung on its speed, dived into the
+Garrisons tunnel and slowed up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+How long it stayed!</p>
+
+<p>"Just to put off mother and her little trunk!" thought Magnus,
+laughing to himself, and then getting such dim eyes that he could not
+see a thing. But he felt as if he could hug even the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>And now, puff, puff, the train slowly moved away from the station,
+and the little ferryboat rang her bell. Of course, his mother was
+there, in the small, dark throng that came down to the river, and of
+course he must therefore really see her, but&mdash;Oh! it was too
+tantalising! I think at that minute Magnus would have given anything
+(except furlough) for a good glass.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was off, steering across the river in a pretty curve to
+suit the tide; the smooth water turning back in two long lines of
+wrinkles in her wake.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus leaped down from the parapet and was speeding away up the
+path at a great rate when there came a hail:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kin&mdash;dred!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus paused to see.</p>
+
+<p>Clustered about the pathetic white column that looking calmly down
+on the silent river, tells in such vivid fashion its terrible tale of
+struggle and death, were three or four very summery looking girls: Miss
+Fashion, Miss Dangleum, and another whom Magnus did not know.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> come here, Mr. Kindred," pleaded Miss Dangleum.</p>
+
+<p>Well, a cadet is nothing if he is not a squire of distressed
+damsels. Magnus turned and jumped down to where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he said; "has a fan gone down the hill? or is a
+parasol in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"There, isn't that just like you!" said Miss Fashion. "No, nothing
+so serious as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Beguile has come," said Miss Dangleum, "and she asked you down
+to a private view of her eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>Nina</i>!" said Miss Beguile, in soft expostulation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+"We also wanted her to see yours," said Miss Nina daringly. "She
+doesn't believe cadets have any under those caps."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus doffed his own particular cap, as in duty bound, but the view
+Miss Beguile got of his eyes was very short and unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>"Now find us a nice seat," said Miss Dangleum. "We've got lots of
+boodle."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;at any other time," began Magnus, "but
+now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say you've got a previous?" cried the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Very previous, indeed. I am just going to meet my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother?" said Miss Beguile with the sweetest air of interest.
+"How charming!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, where does <i>she</i> come from?" drawled Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>But now Mr. Kindred's eyes came to the front and declared
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"She comes from <i>home</i>," he said. "Excuse me, I am late"; and with
+another touch of his cap Magnus sprang away up the path about as fast
+as a man could go and not run.</p>
+
+<p>"He has magnificent eyes," said Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but no use," said Miss Dangleum. "I cannot bring that man to
+terms, do what I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Flinty, is he?" said Miss Beguile. "Well, I mean to get hold of
+him, girls, I give you notice. He's the sort of man I like."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any sort you don't like, Bessie?" said Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's always great fun to have men round, no matter what sort
+they are," confessed her friend. "But the unapproachable is my dearest
+choice, every time."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br />
+HIGH SUMMER</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Far through the memory shines a happy day.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Magnus meanwhile went speeding on; leaping over space, and
+chafing at the lost minutes in terms not very flattering to his fair
+disturbers. But he was in good time, after all. The stage had waited
+for a West Shore train, and when Magnus reached the furthest and
+nearest point to which he might go, the horses with their light load
+were but just nearing the riding hall.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, slowly&mdash;how that stage did creep along. Magnus crossed
+the road, went back again, darted from one point to another; if only
+he could get a good glimpse inside! Now the lumbering thing turned a
+little; ah, it was just empty. No; surely that was a bonnet on the
+further seat; and now at this window looking out for him! And surely if
+ever a forage cap went high in air, one went then. But the moment it
+was within reach again Magnus pulled it far down over his own eyes. He
+had been at West Point more than a year, looking at tactical officers,
+professors, dignitaries of all sorts; with wild cadets and all kinds
+of girls; and now this was his mother's face, and like nothing else in
+all the world. The boy's heart gave a bound fit to burst something less
+elastic than a young heart always is.</p>
+
+<p>As for poor Mrs. Kindred, when she saw that cap go up in the air, of
+course you know what happened to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+But she would not look away, even to cry, and sat gazing at that tall
+figure in grey and drawing the long sobbing breaths that bear such a
+very mixed freight. She even forgot to pull the check string, and would
+have been driven straight on if Magnus, in a voice stern enough for the
+first captain, had not bidden the driver stop. And it seemed so natural
+and fitting that her boy should pay her fare that when he pulled out a
+hidden quarter and passed it up to the driver no qualms of fear that he
+might be "skinned" for so doing disturbed her mind. Of course cadets
+have no more business with pocket money than they have with pockets,
+but she did not know that.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got one hand on his arm, gripping it with the other hand as
+if he thought she might run away; and drew her rapidly along through
+the nearest byways to a nook among rocks and trees that he deemed his
+own private discovery. Once there, hidden away in the sweet, cool
+shadow, with the river plashing softly far below, and a wood thrush
+ringing his chimes near by, Cadet Corporal Kindred threw his cap down
+on the grass, put his arms round his mother, and hid his face in her
+neck as if he had been six years old.</p>
+
+<p>It was just what the mother needed. For at first sight, this tall,
+splendid fellow with braid and buttons and chevrons, straight as a
+line, and with all the saucy curls cut away, laid her under a spell.
+Except the first meeting kiss she had had hardly a sign from him unless
+that grip of her hand. But now, with her boy in her arms, he was her
+boy still, and she quite too happy for this lower world.</p>
+
+<p>"Child," she said at last, "what have they done with your hair? Have
+you been sick?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus looked up and laughed; the old shine in his eyes making
+her heart leap.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations," he said. "I am nothing any more but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+a bundle of regulations, mother. Might about as well be a convict
+labeled 379."</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations!" Mrs. Kindred repeated. "I wish I had the making of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had, mother. And there are some three hundred and odd
+more boys here, who would confidingly hand the job over to you. Then
+we'd have pie every day for dinner and cake for supper, Saturday in the
+middle of the week, and no Monday morning recitations."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus," said Mrs. Kindred, bewildered over this very mixed lot
+of grievances, "don't you have cake for supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now and then a mysterious compound which goes by that name," said
+Magnus. "We are having it scientifically analysed to see whether it is
+all new-process granite, or whether one part mud comes in."</p>
+
+<p>But here the innocent, perplexed face was too much for him. He
+almost shouted with fun, tossing his cap up higher than it had ever
+been.</p>
+
+<p>"You blessed mother!" he said. "You haven't changed one
+bit&mdash;not a pin's point. There was one on your shoulder just now to
+scratch me, exactly as there always used to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!" cried poor Mrs. Kindred. "I did not mean to leave
+that pin there. I just stuck it in last night in the sleeping car."</p>
+
+<p>"But you always did 'just stick it in,' you know," said Magnus
+disrespectfully; "and I never remember the time when it didn't just
+stick out. It wouldn't be you without a pin on your shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be you if you were not a saucy boy," said the mother,
+and then they looked in each other's eyes and laughed; how happy they
+were!</p>
+
+<p>"All right, mammy," said Magnus. "That pin gave me a welcome nothing
+else could. How are the girls?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+"The girls are lovely," said Mrs. Kindred. "Cherry has tried to fill
+your place, Magnus, ever since you came away."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm, I don't know about that," said Magnus. "Tell her she can't
+have but half of it, fair and square."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, you know how I talk," said Mrs. Kindred. "She could not
+really, dear, nor anybody else. But she is the dearest girl, Magnus,
+and so wise. We have to get her to explain all the queer things in your
+letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I write queer things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very; or they sound so to us. And I get quite worried sometimes.
+And then Cherry will say in that pretty way of hers, 'You know it is
+Magnus, Mrs. Kindred, so he could not mean <i>that</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>If two sparks flew from Cadet Kindred's eyes at these words, only
+the green moss at his feet was witness thereto. But, then, a very grave
+look came over his face. His mother watched him anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think I really <i>meant</i> that, dear?" she said. "No one on
+earth could fill my boy's place with me, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; I understand," he said, without looking up. "But she
+deserves it so. Cherry is a great deal better than I am, mother."</p>
+
+<p>The mother smiled contentedly. Very small improvement did her boy
+need for her. But she would not say that; just as well for him not to
+know how high he stood on the general merit roll. And it was a fine new
+West Point development, if Magnus was inclined to underrate his own
+perfections. Which, by the way, was not at all what that young man was
+doing. But Cherry's simple, unquestioning faith in him suddenly touched
+up his memory of certain things which (in spite of being "Magnus") he
+had done, and the recollection was not pleasant. Not very bad things,
+Oh, no! but by no means up to Cherry's standard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's not worth while for her to come on before furlough," he said,
+thinking aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Her?" Mrs. Kindred repeated questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, any one of the girls," said Magnus. "You see, the winter
+journey is one thing; and then in the winter there's such a beastly lot
+of studying to do. And in the spring I shall be boning every minute.
+But wait till first-class camp. Or you might all come back with me from
+furlough&mdash;just for a first sight of the place."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred. "Why Magnus, you talk as if we had
+the Bank of England at our back."</p>
+
+<p>"No, only me in front," said Magnus with a gleam of his bright eyes.
+"You don't suppose I am going to worry through the last two years here
+without a sight of you all? Wouldn't pay to bone rank if nobody came to
+see my chevrons. Just as well go on and get rattled like some of the
+rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said poor Mrs. Kindred. "'Rattled' and 'bone' you've
+said twice. And you called your studies 'beastly.' I thought they
+taught English at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>How Magnus laughed!</p>
+
+<p>"There are Tacs over yonder," he said, "with a party of summer
+girls; and one of the girls offered me a lot of boodle. And the Com.'s
+out riding, and the Supe's gone to town, and the Arch-fiend is at the
+seaside."</p>
+
+<p>"Now Charlemagne, stop!" said Mrs. Kindred. Magnus gave her another
+delighted hug.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh mammy!" he said; "this is you, and no mistake. I didn't quite
+believe it was at first." And kissing first one hand and then the
+other, Magnus put them both back in her lap, and laid his cheek down
+upon them. The mother got one hand away and softly stroked the fine
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand about your hair, yet," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And why do you wear such a thick coat this warm day, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Why my dear! Well, you might unbutton it at least," said Mrs.
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred was silent a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"I took my dinner in Poughkeepsie," she said, "because I was not
+sure of getting here in time for yours; and I know it is not good for
+you to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"No ma'am, it isn't&mdash;here," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"But we can have supper at any time you like."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, without raising his head, gave a groan and wished they
+could.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can," said Mrs. Kindred. "I can wait till late, or have
+it early, Magnus, just as suits you. What do you mean by sighing like
+that? What is in the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well!" said the mother, trying to smother her disappointment;
+"you have some other thing on hand? Never mind, dear, then we'll be
+together at breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we sha'n't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations. We cannot have one single meal together while you are
+here, mammy."</p>
+
+<p>And now, indeed, Mrs. Kindred had no more to say; the bands of red
+tape seemed to be winding all about her heart, and drawing very tight
+indeed. She had so pictured to herself the joy of once more handing her
+boy his cup of coffee. But it must be best for him, she said bravely to
+herself; or else they would not make such rules. And, whatever was best
+for him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>can</i> you do, dear?" she said aloud, but with a plaintiveness
+that went to the boy's heart. He sat up and took her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I can do lots, mammy!" he said. "Never you worry one bit. I can't
+do it for breakfast, and I can't do it to-night, but some other day
+I'll cut supper, and we'll have it down here together. And we'll have
+picnics instead of dinner. And I'll walk with you every minute of
+release from quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"Release!" The word jarred on the mother's ear; to what had she sent
+her boy? But then, whatever it was, it agreed with him splendidly;
+never had she seen Magnus in more jocund health and strength; life at
+its best was in every look and motion. And the eyes that flashed and
+sparkled at her were not the least in the world careworn or overworked.
+So Mrs. Kindred locked up all her dismayed pangs and questionings, and
+once more stroking her boy's cropped head, remarked that it was said to
+make the hair grow to cut it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a mop when I come out, then," said Magnus. "How does
+Cherry wear her hair now? same old way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Kindred; "only it's never twice just the
+same. You know her curls arrange themselves&mdash;as yours used to,
+Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Disarrange was the word for me. If anybody cuts hers off, I'll
+shoot him."</p>
+
+<p>"I think somebody did cut one off once, without being shot," said
+Mrs. Kindred. Magnus coloured.</p>
+
+<p>"That was only one," he said. "Why didn't you bring them all along?
+The girls, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you unreasonable boy," said his mother; "you expressly bade me
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"I had been here so long, I forgot that you always minded," said
+Magnus, with a saucy look.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I did <i>not</i> always," said Mrs. Kindred; "but the girls could
+not have come off in such a moment, Magnus; they were not ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Girls never are. They'd learn, if they had a week or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+two in camp. Bang goes the reveille gun&mdash;and in just two minutes
+you have to be dressed and out in line, swearing that 'Kindred, C.' is
+present and accounted for."</p>
+
+<p>"Swearing, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, some of the men make the statement pretty loud. I am one of
+the mild kind, and 'roar gently.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know what your gentle roars amount to," said his mother
+derisively. "But Magnus, do they really make you dress in two
+minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"By my watch."</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't got a watch," said the perplexed mother.</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore am subject now and then to miscalculations."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, West Point has not changed you yet, to hurt," said the
+mother, smiling at him. Magnus took her tender hands and put one on
+each side of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "it is the jolliest thing to see you sitting
+there, puzzling your dear head over my grinds. I could cry, if I wanted
+to. But I say, when you do bring the girls, don't give 'em time to get
+ready. They shan't come here looking as if they'd never had anything
+before, but had got it now, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But our girls have always had enough, you know, Magnus, and they
+are not likely to have any more," said Mrs. Kindred, cutting both
+knots.</p>
+
+<p>"They are worth all the girls I have seen here, multiplied by twelve
+dozen," said Magnus. "Oh, mother, why didn't they come! But I tell you,
+you'll have your hands full when they do. Violet will make a sensation.
+And Rose&mdash;I think True will be fathom deep at first sight of Rose;
+he likes quiet, sweet, strong girls."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think most people would," said Mrs. Kindred. "And how
+about Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing about Cherry."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Am I not to bring her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! she had better come too," said Magnus. "Mammy, it is
+as good as a month of Saturdays just to look at you. You are the
+handsomest woman on the Post."</p>
+
+<p>And now pink tinges came upon the sweet pale face; and Mrs. Kindred
+was certainly the happiest woman anywhere about.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX<br />
+THE VISITORS' SEATS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">With whom doth Time gallop withal?</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Alas. Time did not slacken his pace for those two people. After that
+very first day, when Mrs. Kindred really took in the astounding fact
+that she was <i>there</i>, she began to count almost the seconds as they
+ticked away, and grudged even those spent in sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She would sit far on into the night, looking over from her window to
+where her boy's tent rose up sharp and white in the moonshine; and with
+the first drum-beat in the morning was at her post, sending off her
+heart and her blessing to that grey line where Magnus stood. If he was
+on guard she watched for glimpses of his tall figure as he went up and
+down, posting reliefs, and in a sort loved the whole white battalion
+that marched away to dinner because one particular white helmet rested
+on his head. And never was there a more devoted frequenter of the camp,
+as she waited there on the visitors' seats for his moments of leisure,
+happy between whiles that he was at least nearby.</p>
+
+<p>Then she steadied her nerves to bear the sharp reports in the Light
+Battery drill, and watched man&oelig;uvres and evolutions as eagerly as
+if she understood them all. How stately Magnus looked in his various
+trappings; how nimbly he tumbled in and out of the caissons. And when
+the sergeant shouted out at parade:</p>
+
+<p>"Company A, one corporal absent!"&mdash;how thankful
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+that particular mother was that it could not possibly be <i>her</i> son.</p>
+
+<p>It was astonishing to see such honours and cares resting upon
+his young head; drilling plebs, posting sentinels; no wonder he had
+changed. Was the change in him all for the better? The mother could not
+quite tell. When Magnus was with her that joy swept everything else
+away; but sometimes, as she sat alone, her thoughts worked hard, and
+many things came in to tangle and perplex them.</p>
+
+<p>Loitering about the camp in this way, and never missing a formation,
+Mrs. Kindred also could not miss a good deal else. The Point was not
+crowded; but the summer girl&mdash;and the summer girl's supposed
+chaperon&mdash;were in sufficient force; and as young people nowadays
+think their words worth hearing, Mrs. Kindred did not need to strain
+her ears nor give undue attention to know much that was said and
+done.</p>
+
+<p>It was a glimpse into a life unguessed before. Her own had been
+simple, earnest, and useful, from her youth up. The three girls at home
+were as merry as crickets, and overflowing with fun and frolic; but
+the cricket fun&mdash;if fun it be&mdash;was not more guileless and
+true-hearted than theirs.</p>
+
+<p>But now, sitting under the trees and watching her boy from a
+distance, Mrs. Kindred would sometimes hear, close at hand, some word
+or sentiment that made her start and look round, with a great wish that
+the girl's mother were there; and behold, quite often she <i>was</i>. Then
+this mother would get up and change her seat.</p>
+
+<p>Small use. Near the new place sat a tall young lady in tennis rig
+set free, while her waist was drawn in until playing must have been
+hard work. A game had been on, for Miss Viny's cheeks were flushed, and
+she still brandished her racket. She was talking over her shoulder to a
+semi-young officer.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you have a great deal too much to do with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+Captain Chose, Miss Viny," said this gentleman. "You know he is in a
+very peculiar position with regard to his wife."</p>
+
+<p>And the handsome girl, flashing round at him her daring eyes, made
+answer:</p>
+
+<p>"That only makes him the more interesting!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred shivered slightly, and once more changed her seat.</p>
+
+<p>And <i>now</i> she got among a bevy of girls who were talking of Magnus;
+they fluttered in and settled down all around her, too eager over their
+subject to know or care who heard their talk.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get hold of him somehow. I'm bound to do it," said a dark girl
+in very extreme costume. "I told you I would, and I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Not worth the bother," said a plump little damsel in pink. "There
+are plenty more."</p>
+
+<p>"Not plenty with eyes like his; there's not such another pair in the
+Corps. They're just heavenly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aren't they?" said the plump girl. "When he looks at you it
+makes you feel queer all over."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you were going to say, all through," said Miss
+Beguile; "and you know there isn't any 'all through' to you,
+Kitten."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I call that <i>too</i> bad," said the Kitten. "When I am universally
+known to be all heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Good you are," said Miss Saucy, "for you give everyone a piece and
+the supply might fail. But there's a good deal of you, such as it is,
+Kitten. You'll turn the three F's, if you live long enough."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Some</i> people don't think there's too much of me," said the Kitten,
+pouting.</p>
+
+<p>"About half the Corps, I should judge. Now I believe in one grand
+master passion, don't you know. I think it's dear."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's a passion for a master&mdash;if you're in love with Mr.
+Kindred," said a fourth girl. "He'll manage you, Bessie. Make you
+behave."</p>
+
+<p>If anybody had had time to notice the quiet little mother sitting
+there, he would have seen a very perceptible start, and a pair of eyes
+as indignant as such tender eyes could be. <i>Those</i> girls after her
+young magnate? Mrs. Kindred was fit to go that moment to headquarters
+and demand a cordon of red tape to surround her boy. But she could do
+nothing; could not speak to the girls, could not (alas) even shake
+them. Then she seemed to remember seeing him bow to these very ones;
+and with a certain dress-coat air, which now Mrs. Kindred marked as one
+of the new things about Magnus that disturbed her.</p>
+
+<p>What if Cherry had seen and heard it all? And suddenly Mrs. Kindred
+knew why it was Cherry she thought of, and not Rose or Violet.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a new and difficult complication. Yes, of course, it was
+all natural, the mother felt, and plain enough now she thought of it.
+Whether Cherry herself yet knew, or not, she <i>would</i>, just as soon as
+Magnus took a fancy to somebody else. Could he do that, after having
+once known her? Mrs. Kindred waited till the next relief went on, and
+Magnus within the guard tent was quite out of sight, and then went to
+her room to think and to pray.</p>
+
+<p>Should she talk to Magnus?&mdash;no; skating is generally safer
+than navigation in broken ice. And the next day but one she was to go
+home.</p>
+
+<p>No further sight of her boy could be hoped for that night, and Mrs.
+Kindred shut herself in and watched the silent camp long after the
+sweet "curfew" bugle had cried to every light:</p>
+
+<p>"Put it out! Put it out! Put it out!"</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX<br />
+JUST THEE AND ME</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And minuting the long day's loss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The cedar's shadow, slow and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Creeps o'er the dial of grey moss.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The next day rose fairer than ever. Magnus came off at eight o'clock
+with "old guard privileges," and having also kind permission from the
+authorities to dine with his mother in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Now the ordering and preparing of this dinner had been a great
+joy to Mrs. Kindred; what though the correct dainties could not be
+had. Green corn to boil was an impossibility, even if a kettle could
+be found; and home-made rolls were far out of reach, and not all the
+canned things that were ever turned out could replace her own home-fed
+chickens and home-cured ham. The supplies from the baker were fresh
+and clean and well looking&mdash;yet Mrs. Kindred sighed, thinking of
+Violet's loaves of cake, and Cherry's pies.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, however, was not so critical, he did not see even such as
+these every day, and so enjoyed everything to his mother's heart's
+content. And as she feasted on her boy there was really no lack
+anywhere. The fair August lights and shades chased each other among
+cedars and oaks, the locusts hummed; the birds that had nestlings sped
+swiftly to and fro, bringing food. Fall after fall of rocky woods and
+winding road lay at their feet; below all, the white camp in its green
+setting, then the river&mdash;never twice
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+the same. Far up in the north the Catskills lifted their blue,
+changeless heads.</p>
+
+<p>It was all so wondrous and so new to Mrs. Kindred that she was
+watching it, taking it in, even when she thought she had no eyes but
+for Magnus. The hills bewitched her; the distant blue, the nearer
+green; on all sides she seemed to hear the silent chanting of her
+favourite psalm:</p>
+
+<p>"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help."</p>
+
+<p>Surely this was a place wherein to grow "strong in the Lord"; a
+place where to remember:</p>
+
+<p>"Thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures."</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy, you don't eat," said Magnus, beginning on another small pie.
+"You might venture&mdash;just a little. I think there'd be enough left
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I have too much," said the mother. "Magnus, don't eat any
+more of that pie; it is not Cherry's make, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know it! But her pies are across the continent, worse luck.
+It is good the know-nothing girls here don't try their hand. Shade of
+Scipio Africanus, what a poisoning of cadets there would be! Dr. Senna
+says that if it wasn't for Pretty Newcomb and her candy&mdash;with a
+sprained ankle now and then&mdash;he shouldn't have a man on the sick
+list."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is good," said Mrs. Kindred heartily; "the place must
+agree with you all. Magnus, do you know many people here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred cadets, more or less, and too many officers quite
+intimately," said Magnus, trying the cake. "Besides the bugler and the
+orderly."</p>
+
+<p>"Any ladies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite some."</p>
+
+<p>"I really do wish they taught English here," said
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+poor Mrs. Kindred. "You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the
+mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"</p>
+
+<p>"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously
+quoting Portia.</p>
+
+<p>"You do know her then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she
+talks," said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the
+Kitten?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested in anyone you know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast
+into the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that
+did their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first
+one hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips.
+And Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap,
+softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out
+here, nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."</p>
+
+<p>"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It is not growing like a tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That makes man better be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a
+whole half-inch. Call it three-quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory,
+and tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute
+they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a <i>very</i> saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look
+grave.</p>
+
+<p>"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last
+June. Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I
+think she could not be sweeter&mdash;and then the next day I think she
+is," said Mrs. Kindred warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really
+believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every
+chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class,
+and for two hours every day they study together."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are
+extremely developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have
+grown enough."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred,
+taking her turn at the irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books
+are on hand, but the pocket is wanting."</p>
+
+<p>"No pocket?"</p>
+
+<p>"No'm. <i>Now</i> you have an idea of desolate destitution."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+And Magnus raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white
+handkerchief from his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air,
+tucked it back again.</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder
+I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I
+couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what
+preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no
+Tacs up overhead,"&mdash;and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no
+pockets&mdash;why, I never heard of such doings!&mdash;then where do
+you put anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up my sleeve."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally <i>not</i> spoken
+of. In winter we have a resource&mdash;a small one; but in summer we
+should be hard up if it wasn't for the girls."</p>
+
+<p>"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred
+rather severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and
+empty them at our feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk
+in that way at home, and I do not like it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after
+me yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted
+the men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a
+man do? You must speak of people as you find them."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.</p>
+
+<p>"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+aren't lions, mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail
+of an angel stayed by him,&mdash;and mine comes&mdash;and will go!" And
+Magnus brought the beloved hands up to his face again.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing
+and delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That
+touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to
+be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas
+came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of
+order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too
+much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out,
+and the standing sure.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering
+in spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>has</i>," put in Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for
+loyalty to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew
+that was true of you."</p>
+
+<p>How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of
+the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird
+notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows,
+the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came
+to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing
+words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they
+sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless
+prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else.
+Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed
+eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and
+lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down
+into her lap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing
+off at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me.
+But mother, you don't know how hard it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places,
+nor is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had
+always at least a storm flag out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you guess what I meant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your
+flag down, even on the stormiest days."</p>
+
+<p>"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine
+anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean&mdash;and
+what it <i>does</i> mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The
+toughest wind that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from
+reveille to retreat. And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a
+touch of blue and a gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of
+the old pole."</p>
+
+<p>"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to
+fly my storm flag in fair weather."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to
+speak, and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her
+again, found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face
+was grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company
+Christians?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."</p>
+
+<p>"Or all your special associates?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no! Not by several and many."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+with aliens, and not an American left but the one in charge of the
+colours. What should he do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI<br />
+ME ONLY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Everything goes away," said the Dryad: "goes away as the
+clouds go, never to return." &mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>That was the last long talk they had together. A brief walk next
+morning before eight o'clock; another&mdash;ah, how short&mdash;to the
+brow of the hill where they had met that first day; and then Magnus
+pulled his cap over his eyes and strode away to his hidden nook, and
+the mother went quietly sobbing down the hill. Alas! how fast the
+minutes flew now that had seemed so loitering when she came.</p>
+
+<p>As for Magnus, he watched the ferryboat every foot of the way over;
+waved his cap frantically to the cluster of dark spots that went up the
+sloping path to the station; then listened for the roar of the coming
+train with an intensity that made him start when he heard it. With
+a great pang he saw the pliant black line wind out from between the
+cloven rocks and swing along to the station, almost holding his breath
+in the minute's hush that came next. Hardly a minute; then puffs of
+black smoke curled up into the air, the engine gave its usual snort at
+such trifles as love and life and parting, and the train glided on into
+the tunnel, flew out across the bay, and past the Island; the trail of
+smoke fainted and faded away on the sweet summer air, and Cadet Kindred
+shook his fist at the whole thing.</p>
+
+<p>What right had that black engine to carry his mother off before his
+very eyes? And what business had he to be lingering there behind her?
+If it could have been done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+suddenly and quietly, I believe Magnus would have resigned on the spot,
+and taken the next train home.</p>
+
+<p>But red tape has its use. What letters and papers and statements
+such a step would involve; what answering of official questions; and
+Cadet Charlemagne Kindred did not feel prepared to state publicly that
+he, who had survived to be a yearling corporal, must now resign for
+homesickness. A drum-call in the distance also lent its persuasions.
+The usual is generally, after all, the easiest thing to do, so Magnus
+put his cap in position, and set his face towards camp and duty. But
+taking off the cap again, he first bowed very low towards the steadfast
+old hills through whose cuts and chasms his mother had just vanished,
+kissing his hand to her in mute farewell; then resolutely walked
+away.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pleb drill that afternoon, and with the way one has of
+being good by proxy, Mr. Kindred kept his little set of men to their
+work most unflinchingly, with small allowance for mistakes, and none
+at all for inattention. Such zeal bestowed upon himself would have
+wrought wonders. To hear him, you would have thought a mathematical
+line the only easy position, and any sort of twist or bend that might
+be ordered merely a pleasing variety of the same. "Brace up"&mdash;the
+poor, distracted fourth classmen felt sure he must have done it in his
+cradle.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dangleum came by and paused to look&mdash;and Magnus was
+sublimely unconscious of her presence; the Kitten held out a box of
+bonbons&mdash;and he went by at the double-quick. Then Miss Saucy
+joined the group, with Miss Bessie Beguile, and finally, that young
+lady's mother came slowly on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter here?" said the panting chaperon. "How you girls
+do run! What are you looking at? Who's fainted? These drills are
+positively barbarous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't you just wish he <i>would</i> faint?" cried the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+Kitten. "Such fun! Then we'd all rush in with our smelling-bottles,
+while Mrs. Beguile ran for water!"</p>
+
+<p>"While I&mdash;ran&mdash;for water!" quoth Mrs. Beguile, with a
+thought of her rather stout proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'd be the only one, you know, mamma," said Miss Bessie
+sweetly. "Because <i>we</i> couldn't invade the guard tents alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor in company, either," said Miss Saucy. "Nobody's going to faint,
+Mrs. Beguile, unless it's me, because we can't get Mr. Kindred to look
+at us."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" said Mrs. Beguile. "I am surprised! <i>Never</i> show such
+special interest. Why, you will turn the young man's head."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what we're after," said the Kitten. "And what we'll do, too.
+I'll <i>make</i> him look at me&mdash;I vow I will!"</p>
+
+<p>The words were spoken half aloud, but the young lady got not a
+glimpse of the eyes in question. Corporal Kindred's words of command
+rang out minus let or hinderance; and if the girls put themselves in
+the way, he led his men straight on, and they had to get out of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind," said Miss Saucy, after one of these raids. "It's
+fun. And he can't <i>help</i> seeing us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's ravishing to hear anything in such a voice," said Miss
+Beguile. "If I were going to be shot, I should like to have him give
+the order."</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow
+music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from
+the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a
+prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus
+walked slowly down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness,
+in these his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum.
+"They are so pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and
+experimentally).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill
+it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"</p>
+
+<p>And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the
+corporal turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no
+sign.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a
+box of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently
+deep abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could
+knock his cap off, I should die radiant."</p>
+
+<p>And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in
+the fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position;
+the peach fell harmlessly at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Attention!"</p>
+
+<p>The plebs started, and so did the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left
+to make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it
+up." But he did not.</p>
+
+<p>Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in
+the cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What
+pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This
+time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's
+witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from
+some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the
+group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin, Miss Dangleum wants you."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in
+the mood."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I tell her?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you like!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and
+have left a bear to keep house."</p>
+
+<p>Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do bring him!" cried a pretty voice. "I do so dote upon bears.
+Oh, I think they're dear! Which one is Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll know by his eyes, when he turns round," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's the only way I can ever tell cadets apart&mdash;by their
+eyes," said Miss Midget. "Is that the reason they order 'Eyes front' so
+much?&mdash;so that the officers can know which one to report?"</p>
+
+<p>Another laugh followed.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better believe old Towser would know, if they hadn't any eyes
+at all," said Randolph, "or if he hadn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he hasn't, much," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Stands to reason," said Rig, "because he's got 'em all
+over&mdash;diffused. In the back of his head, and on his
+shoulder-straps, and the white stripe down his trousers, and the point
+of his nose."</p>
+
+<p>"That's awfully funny!" said Miss Beguile. "Must make it awfully
+lively for all of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just does. The only enjoyment he has in life is skinning cadets. So
+it's 'Skin 'em! Skin 'em!' all the day long. Too much shirt-collar at
+breakfast, and too little coat above belt at drill."</p>
+
+<p>"And too much hair," said Mr. Carr. "I declare, when Towser comes
+rubbing up and down the back of my head, I feel as if I was a baby
+getting washed and dressed."</p>
+
+<p>The girls clapped their hands in applause.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Such pretty hair, too," said the Kitten, "or would be, I'm sure, if
+one could see it." Mr. Carr made a profound reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you so much," he said. "Awfully good of you. Wish you'd give
+Towser a hint."</p>
+
+<p>"Wherever did the poor man get such a name?" said Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Simple and descriptive," said Mr. Carr.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, D. T.," said Rig, "I wouldn't be as funny as I could,
+not every time, don't you know. You might get the blues for disrespect.
+He's sure to be round."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you call <i>him</i> 'D. T.'?" demanded another girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubletimes it every day," said Rig. "Gets a late in the morning,
+and a cold absence at night."</p>
+
+<p>"But what <i>can</i> we do to rouse Mr. Kindred from this awful
+abstraction?" said Miss Dangleum.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's give him homeopathic treatment," said the Kitten. "D. T.,
+double-time it over to the band and bid them play 'Love Not.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," said Rig. "He won't get there till the drum beats. 'Love
+Not'&mdash;I never heard of such a tune in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"You will&mdash;first time you make love to the wrong girl," said
+Miss Saucy. "Now go!"</p>
+
+<p>"They won't do it for him," said Carr; "they <i>can't</i>&mdash;unless
+the Com. or the officer in charge says so. You'll have to go yourself.
+Towser's in charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Send the Kitten," said Miss Dangleum. "That will just fit. Here,
+Puss, draw in your claws and stretch out your paws, and go get an order
+for the band to play 'Love Not.'"</p>
+
+<p>So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't do it," said Randolph.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole
+canine contingent."</p>
+
+<p>And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand,
+took their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.</p>
+
+<p>And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it
+so long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but
+slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been
+a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows
+came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet
+rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the
+old words kept sounding in his ears:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Love not! Love not!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thing you love may change."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved
+people at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers
+did write!</p>
+
+<p>He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then
+began the simple air again; and the words would come:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Love not! Love not!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thing you love may die."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A great pang shot through the boy's heart. <i>Could</i> such
+things happen to him? How had his mother looked?
+Magnus turned away from the band and hid himself in
+the dark recesses of his tent.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII<br />
+GIRLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Rien de trop est un point<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dont on parle sans cesse, et qu'on observe point.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">La Fontaine.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So Miss Dangleum failed for that time. But "To-morrow is also a
+day," says the proverb. And it is not in human nature to be always
+insensible to blandishments. Mr. Kindred found himself scanning his
+wonderful eyes in the small glass quite oftener than was needed. He
+could also pick out Miss Dangleum's red parasol clear across the plain
+from all its compeers; and knew at least half of Miss Beguile's fans by
+experience. She declared that he had broken a quarter of them, but this
+statement is plainly incorrect.</p>
+
+<p>The Point filled up to crowding as the encampment neared its close,
+and introductions, walks, picnics, were multiplied, and every cadet who
+liked the fun could have enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred, for one, had about all he could manage, Rig's
+favourite cousin was always on his hands when Rig himself was on guard
+or in confinement. This happened pretty often, and as Rig was his
+"wife" Magnus could not object. Chapman's sister was often turned over
+to him because Chapman's best girl was also at the Point.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was every now and then some plain, unnoticed girl whom
+Magnus in his chivalry would look after and take out, giving her a
+royal good time. There were guests at some of the houses where the
+young cadet had been made welcome, and he must help amuse them. And
+finally (for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+my hero was every inch a man), there were wits and beauties with
+whom he liked to stand at least as well as the best. It was all very
+enticing, and he was so lonely when his mother had gone that petting of
+any sort felt good.</p>
+
+<p>So that last part of August was one grand whirl, in which common
+sense and right ways got drawn in and danced a breakdown. At least that
+was what Cadet Kindred said of it himself in his calmer moments. For
+"Kindred&mdash;late at roll-call," "Kindred&mdash;absent at supper,"
+had been read out too often from the blue list after parade.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was on guard the last night but one of Camp Golightly, and
+between reliefs took time to foot up his accounts. What had he to
+show for those weeks since his mother went away? Or (excepting only
+her visit) for the whole of "Yearling Camp"? Not much, he thought to
+himself with a curl of his lip. The little pleasure he had given was
+easy and cheap; the pleasure he had had&mdash;well, it did not look
+very bright to him now. Not very satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed rather small business to take all the sweets he could get:
+compliments, flattery, and boodle, from girls to whom he neither would,
+could, nor should, give more in return than a walk or two; perhaps only
+the convenient phrase:</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, awfully."</p>
+
+<p>And that very phrase was his mother's aversion.</p>
+
+<p>And it was no end mean, to laugh at a thing and then afterwards
+score it sharply. Was he still "training with the wrong
+crowd"&mdash;only of girls this time?</p>
+
+<p>Then he changed his ground and came up on the other side. How far
+had he been a power for good in all those weeks? How much stronger or
+purer had any company been for his presence? Who had learned to think
+sweeter things of religion for his glad life? Whose doubts had weakened
+in the light of his faith? Was anyone more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+ready to swear fealty to Christ for <i>his</i> constant witnessing to the
+blessedness of the service? Nay, Cadet Kindred knew, now that he took
+time to think, what had ailed some of the merrymaking. It jarred his
+conscience. And sometimes he had felt it at the time.</p>
+
+<p>That Sunday afternoon, when he had walked about with Miss Dangleum,
+and smiled at her vapid infidelities, the twinge had been so sharp, as
+he thought of his mother in the old porch at home, drawing strength and
+knowledge from her open Bible, that he never did <i>that</i> thing again.
+But he had laughed at Miss Beguile's jests about church and church
+service, and the very next day, in chapel, had taken the sugar plums
+she offered under cover of her fan.</p>
+
+<p>He had been indignant when some girl, displeased with the sermon,
+shook her fist at the preacher then and there. But perhaps she had
+never been taught any better&mdash;and what had been his own criticisms
+of that very sermon? Just as open as he dared make them.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred felt rather sick of himself, on the whole.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a large place in which to keep your colours!" he said,
+looking down into his grey sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold
+of at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the
+great excitement of a nest of young squirrels. And the first bonbon
+drugged with rum followed: first, and last.</p>
+
+<p>"But, easy and cheap!" he repeated to himself. "I was not going to
+be tricked into taking that stuff. I had said I wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>What else had he "said"?</p>
+
+<p>Coming off next morning with O. G. P., Magnus got leave to go to the
+trunkroom, and hunted out a little copy of the Church covenant which he
+knew his mother had packed in with his other things. Then, under one of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+shadowing trees of Fort Clinton, he lay on the grass and read it
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"Unto Him, the Lord, you do now give yourself away, in a covenant
+never to be revoked, to be His willing servant forever."</p>
+
+<p>Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his
+Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was
+lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long
+would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always
+wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself.
+"And these are but catspaws that come to me."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff,
+where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and
+looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.</p>
+
+<p>"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a
+reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last
+letter?</p>
+
+<p>"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of
+Jesus Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position,
+Magnus found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of
+which Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing
+pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either
+entreaty or dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's nothing the matter, is there?" she said. "I was <i>so</i>
+afraid you'd had a sunstroke, or something. And you know you promised
+me a walk this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it's very rude of you to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is not too late for the walk," said Magnus,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+slipping the little book up his sleeve, and putting himself by the
+young lady's side. "Which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Round the plain. I mustn't get out of sight, because I have to walk
+with Mr. Chapman at twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"'Have to' expresses it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't make fun of him," said Miss Saucy. "Of course, he's not
+some people,&mdash;but then he never forgets his walks, which some
+people do. What was that book you were studying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Blue book?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, white."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was the black one. Boning discipline! I don't believe it.
+Not you."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see, then," she said. "I know it's just some old thing with
+a love letter inside. Give it to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus drew out the little book and handed it over, but Miss Saucy
+was a very bewildered girl indeed, as she turned the pages.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>" she said. "I can't make head or tail of this thing. What
+sort of stuff is it, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff that will wear."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll wear you&mdash;wear you out," said Miss Saucy. "You are
+at least two years older than you were last night. Oh, I don't know
+anything about religion, except the outside of course, don't you know;
+but that's enough. So the Chaplain has given you the points, and
+you're going to pose; Cadet Kindred, the serious man. Well, it'll be
+a variety. Come, let's go; I'll be the first to have a walk with him,
+anyhow. Will this do-o-o?" said the girl, drawling out her words, and
+bringing the corners of her little mouth as far down as they would go.
+"Mr. Kindred, what will be a profitable subject for us to discuss, as
+we take our solemn way under the brooding trees that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+shadow the path once called Flirtation? The low state of grace in the
+Corps, and what to do about it? Then when we've settled that we might
+turn our brilliant light upon the girls and go for them."</p>
+
+<p>"You said you wanted to walk on the plain," Magnus answered her.</p>
+
+<p>"Plain's too gay. Do you think, Mr. Kindred, you could lend me your
+lovely book just till to-morrow? It might do me no end of good. And you
+know how much I need it."</p>
+
+<p>"The book would do you no good at all," said Magnus, trying to
+keep cool. "If that is what you want, you had better read your own
+Bible."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't one to my name,&mdash;so there!" said Miss Saucy. "Oh, I
+never dare read the Bible, for fear of what I might find. I suppose you
+see me there quite often, all done up in black, and labelled like old
+letters. 'To be&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" Magnus said, so sharply and suddenly that Miss Saucy did
+stop for sheer amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I vow!" she said. "I wonder what right you have to speak to
+me so, Mr. Cadet Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"No right at all," said Magnus. "Only, if you play with Bible words,
+you will cut your own fingers; and I'm not going to stand by and see
+you do it. That is all. So if I should leave you and go back to camp,
+you'll know why." And Magnus strode on at a pace quite beyond the usual
+Flirtation saunter.</p>
+
+<p>"I never&mdash;was&mdash;so talked to&mdash;in all my&mdash;many
+years of existence," said Miss Saucy, pretending to whimper. "I
+know I'm an awfully bad girl&mdash;and it's awfully sweet of you
+to tell me so. Such a nice time, too, when there's nobody round to
+take my part. Really looks as if you <i>cared</i>," added she, with soft
+intonation. "Don't go so fast, Mr. Kindred, please! I won't say another
+word&mdash;not half a word. Not if we meet a procession of snakes. Or
+my best<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+man with another girl. Or your best girl with another man."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not meet her," said Magnus. "She is too far away."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is abominable," said Miss Saucy, as a turn of the walk
+brought them face to face with another couple. "That is awfully,
+savagely cruel. Oh, Nina Dangleum! Here is Mr. Kindred telling me he is
+engaged to be married! How are we all to live on and smile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me; I said nothing of the sort," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Awfully of the sort, I should say," retorted Miss Saucy. "Ought
+to be, if you're not. With a faraway girl that hides all the rest of
+creation."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are not to congratulate <i>both</i> parties?" said the second
+man in grey, Mr. Short.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, me, by all means&mdash;that I'm not the other girl," said
+Miss Saucy. "We've been having the awfullest quarrel! I never guessed
+Mr. Kindred had such a temper: he always struck me as one of the
+sweet-milk division. Like the Zulu's dog, you know, that eat up all the
+missionary's Bible and could never fight any&mdash;more."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the dog didn't die&mdash;if that's what you mean," said Miss
+Saucy. "Only his popularity."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about missionaries?" said Short, with a laugh.
+"That's a story made to order."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't! I guess I can hear things; I've got ears."</p>
+
+<p>"Two pink shells," Mr. Short suggested. Miss Saucy made him a
+sweeping courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>"Positively, the first decent word I've had said to me this morning.
+Mr. Kindred has been simply savage. But, do you know, Nina," she went
+on, half aside, "I think he believes it suits his style. Very fetching,
+don't you know. Why his eyes just glowed! If I wasn't so awfully afraid
+of him, I vow I'd make him angry every day."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nothing left for you two, that I see, but coffee and pistols," said
+Short. "I suppose you can shoot, Miss Saucy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I take the job off your hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no use!" said the girl. "Mr. Kindred can't fight. He's the
+Zulu's dog."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured; but with a quiet steadiness of face and voice that
+held the essence of bravery, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"True, Oh, Miss Saucy! So, as it is to be peace and not war, shall
+we walk on?"</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Saucy actually behaved herself, for the rest of the way;
+and declared afterwards that she never <i>had</i> known Mr. Kindred so
+fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon, Rig coming into the tent was much astonished
+to find Magnus with his arms on the locker, and his head on his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever's to pay now?" he said. "Just seen Pretty Newcomb go by
+with Carr? I wouldn't mind, Kin! There's several girls left."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig," said Magnus, looking up at him, "if you bring all your
+brilliant intellect to bear in September, I'm afraid the Institution
+will blow up."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't get the old thing started. Well, what is it, then? What
+are you at, all by yourself here? We've been having lots of fun in D
+Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Good place for it," said Magnus; "your sort."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you about, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Adding up two and two, and trying to make them six."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk of blowing things up!" said Rig; "if <i>that</i> isn't inflation!
+You'll find it a quicker job, Kin, to fetch in two more, if time is any
+object to you."</p>
+
+<p>"When you want sense," said Magnus, "go straight to the man who
+hasn't got any, and he'll give you his whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+stock. I'll pit you against the world. Clear out and curl your hair;
+I've got something to do."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus took from his Bible the slip of paper Mr. Upright had
+given him a year ago, then turned over to the fourth chapter of the
+first epistle of Peter, and put it in there for a mark. But he looked
+long and steadily at the staunch words:</p>
+
+<p>"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>After a little Rig came and peered over his shoulder again.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard at it yet?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Magnus, "and like to be. Just look at this! 'If ye be
+reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.' And I don't feel
+happy, worth a cent. I feel just as cross as two sticks."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't take that as a <i>command</i>," said Rig, looking puzzled.
+"Folks don't feel happy to order."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a command, no; it merely states the case. How I should feel if
+the cause were as dear to me as it ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd like to know what you're cross about," said Rig gloomily.
+"All the girls at your feet, and never twitted with anything by the
+Com. If it was me, now! You know how I shone in the blue list the other
+night."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hadn't really done anything," said Rig; "not worth
+mentioning, you know; and so I put in an explanation. And it was
+disallowed."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by 'naturally'?"</p>
+
+<p>"The way of the world, or the tactical part of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wasn't going to stand it, if it was, you know; and I polished
+up my buttons, brushed the top of my head, swept my face, and went to
+see the Supe."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Submitted your explanation to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Another, Kin, another, with variations. Told him I didn't really
+know the act was against rules. Which I didn't, except by hearsay; and
+that's not evidence in law."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you a copy of the blue book?" demanded Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Always sleep with it clasped to my heart, so as to know when to
+wake up," said Rig. "But now, Kin, what do you think the Supe did?
+Passed right over my innocent face and guileless bearing, my spotless
+gloves and inky shoes, and went for me like a Bengal tiger."</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. McLean,' he said, 'ignorance in your case is no excuse, sir.
+You have been reported for breaking almost every rule known to this
+Institution. That will do, sir.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And you came away, as usual, sadder and wiser?"</p>
+
+<p>Rig heaved a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "'sadder and wiser' will be my motto, Kin, as long
+as I stay here."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed and held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to make you better that, this year," he said.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII<br />
+THE GRIM GRAY WALLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">I'm older'n you,&mdash;and I've seen things a many;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And my experience,&mdash;tell ye what it's ben;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Folks that worked thorough was the ones that thriv;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But bad work follers ye's long's ye live.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Next day the tents were struck; and the manifold delights of Camp
+Golightly drifted away beyond recall. But how pretty&mdash;and how
+gay&mdash;the scene was, that last morning.</p>
+
+<p>A perfect day to begin with; the air crisp enough to herald the
+coming fall; everything at its best, and the crowd at its largest.
+Mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and strangers, the whole
+Post, and half the neighbourhood. The groups are always very varied,
+often picturesque.</p>
+
+<p>Here stands a tall first classman, perfectly hemmed in by the dear
+people from home. His cap is off, and his face aglow; and lifted
+high up in his arms is the pet of the family; the little girl's hand
+straying round his neck, her soft childish dress and his gleaming
+chevrons setting each other off in a very perfect way.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond them is a many-coloured group of girls and dresses, but the
+girls look sleepy, and the muslins a trifle tired. The small hours of
+the hop last night have been too much for both. They are languidly
+talking over supposed conquests, rousing up now and then to say
+good-bye to special cadet friends, with many promises to come back next
+June for graduation. Under another tree is another
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+party in the freshest of dresses, but themselves in the dumps.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Amy!" says one of the calmest of the group, "you are almost
+crying!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is too awful to have it all go!" said Miss Amy, never taking
+her tearful gaze from the white tents. "I asked Ella this morning
+how she could possibly sit there and eat all that chicken and egg. I
+couldn't touch a thing!"</p>
+
+<p>And beyond these again stands a camera and its attendant genii,
+where a half-dozen mothers and their cadet sons are getting
+photographed together.</p>
+
+<p>Great army wagons pass back and forth between camp and barracks,
+bearing away bedding, lockers, brooms, and looking-glasses; and over
+the same short road go men in grey, with private effects too precious
+for the wagon, or perhaps only a belated broom.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the company streets there gathered and grew the while, this
+day, an array of rubbish; old shoes and gloves, old boxes that had once
+held boodle, white jars that <i>must</i> have known tobacco, and yet had
+baffled (somehow) all tactical noses. White handkerchiefs&mdash;this
+one, indeed, duly marked "Smith, J." but this other, alas! filmy and
+fine with embroidery and lace. Once coveted and begged for and hid
+away, now tossed out among mess-hall spoons, stray towels, and broken
+glass. Had it even, perhaps, belonged to the fair damsel now weeping
+over the coming wreck of Camp Golightly? Take warning, young ladies,
+and do not waste your pocket handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p>As time went on, the grey element gradually faded out from about the
+seats, and the white canvas began to shrink and fall from its smooth
+shapeliness, with cadets clustering in and about every tent.</p>
+
+<p>The drummers came, and the first drum sounded. The tents shivered
+and swayed, the cadets took new positions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+the breeze played over their heads and threatened to strike the tents
+at its own pleasure. Another drum, and now every eye and hand are
+needed to maintain even the semblance of a camp. Another&mdash;and the
+pretty little white town falls prostrate, and the grey men have the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>Then fold and bundle up, with some cheers for the quickest; the full
+band marches in, the Commandant leads off on horseback&mdash;and away
+goes the grey-and-white host, plumes waving, arms glancing, all down
+the old road to the officers' row, and so on to barracks. And over the
+plain in all sorts of groups and combinations, goes a motley crowd of
+the sovereign people, vainly striving to get there first.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Miss Amy! Your cambric handkerchief lies limp and low in
+D Company street; and the man who was to keep it "always" marches past
+in the battalion, his head high in air.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two of freedom follow, for getting settled; a few last
+bewitching walks are taken by some, while others peep into their study
+books and try to brush off a little of the summer's dust which dims
+that respected pile. And so comes the 1st of September.</p>
+
+<p>I think Magnus Kindred was glad to get back to barracks, if only
+to tackle the year which should bring in furlough, and the yearling
+course certainly gave him enough to do. But who could not work with
+furlough before him? and of late another thought had taken new hold of
+his heart. He was but one, yet the honour of the name he bore was just
+so far in his keeping. If he stood high, it would be one answer to the
+taunt that religion made muffs of men. That would surely be said, if he
+were low in discipline, careless in dress, idle in studies.</p>
+
+<p>So for one cause and another, Magnus worked with all his might;
+stood one in discipline, and in other things went
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+steadily up. And his example told; there was a strong, sound atmosphere
+about him that other men could feel.</p>
+
+<p>His dose of bitter-sweet thoughts about himself had done him good;
+and though he could not help hearing and seeing many things he did not
+like, join in them he would not, even if people laughed at him. More
+stringent orders than any blue book shows had taken new hold of the
+boy's heart, drawing him back from evil, speeding him on to good. "I
+have sworn unto the Lord, and I will perform it." Magnus and the flag
+had a good deal to say to each other in those days.</p>
+
+<p>What busy days they were! New studies, new drills, riding among
+the rest; but that was a delight. The days shortened, the girls
+drifted away to less studious regions, the leaves fell&mdash;then the
+snowflakes; and the winter settled down into the long, steady stride
+which brought furlough nearer with every step.</p>
+
+<p>January's first week sifted out several men from the yearling class;
+Mr. Carr among the rest. But as for some reason Mr. Carr took up his
+abode in the neighbourhood, he was still at least as useful an ally in
+helping them break regulations as he had been while in the Corps.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want some fun," Rig said to Magnus one day, "just hang round
+the west wall of the Academic after supper."</p>
+
+<p>"What about? I'm not going to put my fingers into a dark pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody wants 'em in. There'll be enough without yours," said Rig.
+"But Carr is going to bring up a grocery store, and I thought you might
+like to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring up a grocery! Look out it doesn't turn into light prison for
+some of you."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/170fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="353" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>However, groceries being rare in that particular locality, when
+Magnus went out for his evening walk he did stroll towards the old
+Academic. The night was moonless, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+not overbright with even stars; but the white spread of snow made
+things quite plain enough. And presently, as Magnus stepped down the
+walk, he saw a dark huddle of figures near the appointed west wall.
+A small sled and a very big box, with a half-dozen cadets playing
+stevedore.</p>
+
+<p>Then an officer came along the walk, meeting Magnus, who saluted
+and passed on. The officer glanced rather curiously down towards the
+dark group, but, with his mind full of something else, he merely took
+a short cut across the area, and so through the sallyport from the
+inside.</p>
+
+<p>It was at a critical moment. Box after box of chickens, mince pies,
+cakes, ham, sweets, celery, and so forth, had been pounced upon, stowed
+in bags, and carried off. Rig's turn came last.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it's a mistake, you all going the same way," he said, as
+he seized the last bag of chickens. "I'll slip round the corner, and
+come in from the plain."</p>
+
+<p>So round he went in the dusky light and met Lieutenant Benton in
+the very mouth of the sallyport. Rig saluted, and slipped in. But dark
+as it was under the grey arch, the officer's practised eyes found
+something unusual about the cadet outlines, and the next moment he
+turned and gave chase.</p>
+
+<p>Rig had the start, and would have got off out of sight in another
+second if Mr. Benton had not suddenly shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Cadet, halt!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was all up.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you there, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chickens, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the guard-house and turn them in."</p>
+
+<p>Crestfallen and sour, Rig crossed the area, set his bag down at the
+door of the guardhouse, and went in with his report. Being promptly
+ordered to produce his plunder, Rig stepped to the door&mdash;and
+behold! one chicken only was left. The light-fingered, light-footed
+boys in grey had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+that two minutes rifled the bag and vanished. And Rig felt
+smaller than his own chicken when he turned it in, with the
+big bag, to the officer of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck!" he said gloomily. But he never knew who ate the
+chickens.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV<br />
+NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">The bargain must be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For this is a sort of engagement, you see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is binding on you, but not binding on me.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Nothing to Wear.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a
+two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home
+group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time
+the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of
+excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count
+the hours.</p>
+
+<p>A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and
+freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all
+alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective
+laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure.
+They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do
+not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are
+good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just
+perfect&mdash;except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers,
+scented air, and in the distance&mdash;June.</p>
+
+<p>For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class,
+graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges;
+for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings,
+and call themselves the happiest of all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men
+with samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords,
+hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs,
+canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most
+perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four
+years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether
+you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a
+plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep
+debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against
+another's.</p>
+
+<p>With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but
+over one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit"
+clothes in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that
+very account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them
+home. So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just
+what he would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness,
+he thought he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it
+to himself gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the
+sallyport in open day.</p>
+
+<p>It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised
+West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed
+until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus tossed the coat up to the ceiling, regardless of what might
+happen to the plaster, and joined the shopping band that very day.</p>
+
+<p>It was delightful now, in the soft spring weather, to go out at
+every release from quarters, for a stroll round the plain, or down by
+the river. How lovely Flirtation was! An army of "Dutchman's breeches"
+held all the best posts among the rocks by the wayside, scaling the
+cliffs even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+down by the landing. And in the deeper shade north of Battery Knox,
+whole beds of dog-tooth violets filled the spots of damper ground,
+lifting their elegant heads like the highbred beauties that they
+are.</p>
+
+<p>Among the tougher growths, iron wood and black birch were charming
+with their tresses, and the young tufts of maple and oak and hickory
+leaves were a joy to see. Shad blossoms and dogwood "picked out" the
+green; from some far-down hidden corner the spice bush spiced the air.
+Saxifrage spread whole sheets of bloom; and Lowell's "dear common
+flower" gleamed everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh
+from Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows.
+The company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not
+always games of solitaire.</p>
+
+<p>Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs.
+Granton, with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other
+people&mdash;Miss Bee and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just
+average damsels, but, of course, having a gay brother in the first
+class, they went everywhere, and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an
+heiress and played ditto, ditto upon yet stronger ground.</p>
+
+<p>In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just
+funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either
+wealth or beauty.</p>
+
+<p>She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant
+eyes and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of
+herself in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination.
+No poppy leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead,
+no foreign coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of
+home growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world
+than she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were
+large enough to button<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a trick of saying
+nothing she did not mean.</p>
+
+<p>No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point;
+cadets are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of
+all I have told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in
+the public interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one
+missed her, or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never
+scowled at each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what
+she had on. Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted
+every crumb of pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had
+had so little of it in her life, poor child! This was her first real
+outing. No wonder West Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born
+prince in disguise.</p>
+
+<p>At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious,
+perhaps, of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that
+changed a little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily
+as ever, when some grey uniform came up with:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay
+whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton,
+this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many
+a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade,
+and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody
+guessed it, and she never told.</p>
+
+<p>It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus
+suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all
+romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell
+buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy
+individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In truth, it was
+some time before the child picked up a dictionary of herself, with
+definitions.</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with
+keen eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile,
+and a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may
+happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl
+rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see
+and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk,
+when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion,
+right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it)
+enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he
+came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far
+too much of a gentleman&mdash;too much of a man&mdash;to try to draw
+her on for his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though
+he did pick up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and
+then he took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a
+"previous" against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all
+the while he was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his
+own mind so befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and
+surely one poor little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel
+the bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even
+though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does
+not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the
+distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus
+a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl
+<i>must</i> have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding
+at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too
+often played pilot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+to that he never gave a thought. All <i>that</i> was in the realm of
+impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.</p>
+
+<p>It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own
+counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask
+Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some
+others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time
+came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all
+parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.</p>
+
+<p>There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now
+than ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his
+life but home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about
+three lines, telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day,
+and in all the other between-times he was either freshening up his
+knowledge of some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks
+with June, and June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or
+caught a glimpse of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off,
+scaling the rocks or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck
+spot, quite beyond reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he
+would lie on the moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of
+the thrush; listen without hearing, as he planned his journey home.
+He would take such a train, and make such a connection, and jump off
+at the old station at just such a time. He would not tell them quite
+when to expect him, because they would be sure to come to meet him,
+and some of them would cry&mdash;right there before everybody. And it
+was a bother to attend to your luggage with three girls round your
+neck. But then Magnus laughed and coloured too. There could hardly be
+<i>three</i>&mdash;yet somehow two seemed even more objectionable. And still
+if he sent no word, and they did not meet him, there was a good half
+hour lost from that end of his furlough.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss
+Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight.
+She <i>must</i> have displeased him somehow.</p>
+
+<p>"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said
+Clive.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV<br />
+FURLOUGH</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Den away, away, for I can't wait any longer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Hooray! Hooray! I's goin' home!</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Old Shady.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is strange how some event towards which you have been working,
+and which seemed to fill earth and sky till you reached it, at once
+then sinks down and becomes hardly distinguishable from the plain. So
+passed by the examination to Magnus Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>In fact everybody is so fagged out by the 12th of June, tired with
+work, with gaiety and excitement, that feeling seems swallowed up of
+high pressure. This may be one reason why the bad success of other men
+affects so little those who have won through. Exceptionally strong as
+class feeling is at West Point, the dropped names seem to make very
+slight impression. And in some cases, of course, there is no surprise.
+When a man bones nothing but mischief, and tries to crowd into the
+three weeks before examination the study which should have filled six
+months, June is not always kind to him. Unless, indeed, he be one of
+those men who are pure mathematics&mdash;and even then the discipline
+column may cut him down. So it was with small surprise that Magnus
+heard Chapman's name among the "found deficient." Chapman did not
+whimper, but he took it hard.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that beastly calculus!" he confided to Magnus, in the hurried
+moments of parting. "Oh, yes! I know what you mean by raising your
+eyebrows, but a man couldn't live here if he didn't run it now and
+then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you see a man can't always live here if he does," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! Yes, he can. Only they don't all run against old Towser every
+time, as I did. No, it wasn't that at all, it was the calculus."</p>
+
+<p>And doubtless, in great measure, it was. Another boy, from far away,
+fairly came to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how I am to go home!" he said. "I don't know what my
+mother will say!"</p>
+
+<p>While another, who had got a turn-back, liked so little what his
+mother <i>did</i> say that he gave her a sharp little lecture on the
+Graduation ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell what makes you go on so!" he burst forth. "I'm only
+turned back. Lots of men are sent away altogether. Why do you talk like
+that? What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor mothers! It is often pathetic to hear them explain the case to
+other people.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a good boy, Miss Smith; but you know he has always been
+delicate. Hard study never agreed with him." (True, this last.)</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mrs. Brown, he has had such trouble with his eyes that I
+wonder he has kept up at all. I really must speak to the Superintendent
+about the study lights. Then these early recitations. Why, at home we
+never thought of waking him up till eight o'clock, and then gently, you
+know, and by degrees. And now he says that gun just goes through his
+head without a word of preparation. I suppose, really, that is what
+ails his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything here is so wretchedly mismanaged!" commented a wise and
+sympathetic damsel. "The cadets are abused at every turn. I don't see
+how they stand it. It is the meanest place!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've done what I could to straighten things," said a beaming
+matron. "Look at this bag,&mdash;absolutely worn out in the service. It
+has brought Tom <i>everything</i>&mdash;from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+cigars up. And when he wants money, he has only to say so."</p>
+
+<p>Strange, that with such care Tom should ever grumble at
+anything&mdash;especially regulations.</p>
+
+<p>But graduation has come and gone, the graduates have scattered; some
+for home, some for Europe, some to be married "on graduation leave."
+For three months they have "the world before them, where to choose."</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men, too, are scattered, yet more widely and
+individually, speeding away on the spider's web of railways that covers
+the country. Class supper was over, changed from a gay revel to a
+less brilliant memory, and Magnus Kindred went whirling along towards
+home. And the great question of taking them all by surprise was still
+unsettled.</p>
+
+<p>The home folks, however, had their own ideas on the subject, and for
+at least two days before Magnus could possibly come, they had met every
+train from the East; Mrs. Kindred, Rose, and Violet. Cherry went the
+first time, but after that absented herself on one plea or another. And
+so on that sweet June afternoon, when the train slowed up to let off
+the one passenger and the one trunk, the three were in hiding behind
+the station.</p>
+
+<p>No one could ever describe what that first home-coming was to
+Magnus. For miles and hours the excitement in the boy's heart had been
+working itself up to white heat, as point after point rose up to give
+him welcome. Here a cliff and there a hill; the schoolhouse near by,
+the church further off; if he had only had a dozen straw hats, I think
+eleven of them would have gone out of the window, for pure joy.</p>
+
+<p>But the little platform was empty, save of officials; not a creature
+got out of the train but Magnus, and not one was waiting to get in. Not
+a figure broke the broad June sunlight that filled the old road towards
+home. But when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+he had hurriedly tramped down the steps, he found himself in his
+mother's arms, with the two girls sobbing for joy on either side.</p>
+
+<p>Of the next few minutes, I think no one of them could afterwards
+give much account. Then Magnus, with one arm round his mother, gave
+that hand to Violet, and the other to Rose, and so they walked along.
+How they talked!&mdash;with tongues once set free; but most of all, how
+they looked at each other. Mother and son had met within the year, but
+the two girls gazed at their handsome brother with a surprised delight
+that could never have enough.</p>
+
+<p>"But I had forgotten that you were so brown, Magnus," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Drills."</p>
+
+<p>"You always were straight," said Violet, "but now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bracing up."</p>
+
+<p>"And your hair is <i>so</i> short," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>Then how they all laughed and hugged each other over again, for
+there were only the wild birds to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, certainly, if brevity be the soul of wit, you have improved
+in one line," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"They teach it out there," said Magnus. "'Mr. Kindred, your head is
+on one side, sir!'&mdash;'Yes, sir. Which side, sir?'"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you get for being so saucy?" asked the mother, as the
+laugh died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that time. Even Towser can't skin a man unless he gets hold
+of him. But wherever is Cherry? When you all came out of the first
+bush, I thought she would jump out of the second."</p>
+
+<p>"She's at home," said Rose. "We wanted her to come, and she
+wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"But she did the first time," said Violet eagerly; "the first day we
+thought you might come."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ho!&mdash;and as I didn't show up then she put on her
+high-heeled shoes," said Magnus. "Girls are all just alike the world
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they are not!" cried both the charming specimens then
+present. "And you shall not say that of Cherry. She is like nobody
+else&mdash;and nobody else is like her."</p>
+
+<p>And privately, Magnus thought his own two sisters very unlike most
+other girls. With their fresh, unjaded faces, undoctored complexions,
+untrammelled feet and waists, and unspoiled minds, they made a
+wonderful sweet contrast to Miss Dashaway and Miss Flirt. Magnus had
+not known how his estimate of women had run down among the crowd till
+he found it mounting up again, ten degrees at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Even Cherry's absenting herself&mdash;it provoked him heartily,
+and he felt himself much injured, but it was after all a refreshing
+change after Miss Dangleum's ways. Yes, demonstrations were the man's
+business, and in his present mood Magnus felt quite equal to them,
+could he but get hold of the right person.</p>
+
+<p>No half-grown girl in half-long dresses appeared, however, as they
+reached the house, but for a few minutes Magnus had all he could
+manage. The old dog (prudently left at home) was nearly as wild over
+the meeting as his young master; jumped upon him, clung to him, danced
+round him, whimpered, whined, and barked for joy. It was not five
+minutes before the two were rolling down the grass slope together,
+then running a sharp race, and then flying all over the old house from
+room to room. Magnus shouldered his trunk and rushed upstairs with it,
+and Plato dashed after him, wakening all the echoes that were anywhere
+about. The two girls, putting rolls in the oven and setting on cream
+and butter, almost danced in their tiptoe joy; the mother in the small
+sitting-room hid her face in her hands, and cried and gave thanks. Just
+to hear that boy's step overhead, what was it like? And then to have
+the pair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+come racing down the old stairs when supper was ready, Plato barking in
+a perfect scream of delight;&mdash;do you wonder that the prayer for a
+blessing was spoken low and falteringly? or that a hush filled all the
+room for some moments thereafter?</p>
+
+<p>Then the three busied themselves earnestly about their boy's supper,
+and the boy also lent his assistance; Plato lying on the floor and
+winking at him. The old dog was afraid to really go to sleep lest he
+should lose sight of his young master.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose her High Mightiness expects me to put on my war paint
+to-morrow, and to go and ca&mdash;ll," said Magnus, drawling out the
+last word with ridiculous intonation.</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Cherry? Now, Magnus, you shall not call her that," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall not, hey? I will call her anything I like," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on, then, and do it," cried Violet, with a laugh, "for
+here she is."</p>
+
+<p>And in more confusion than he expected from himself, after this
+bravado, Cadet Kindred started up from the table and found himself face
+to face with his old playmate.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry had the advantage of him; she had seen the photograph, and
+was partly prepared for what she saw now&mdash;not quite. But to
+Magnus, with eyes full of the gleesome, outspoken girl of sixteen, this
+vision of a tall, slender maiden of eighteen summers, with something of
+a woman's shy reserve floating round her like the daintiest filmy veil,
+was altogether new. He had seen nothing like it. She was so lovely, so
+dainty, so sweet&mdash;if any epithets presented themselves, they died
+on his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl, too, had caught her breath; the living presence is
+always so far beyond the picture. All her nicely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+prepared words of welcome took to their heels, and Cherry held out her
+hand and said simply:</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got hold of the hand, and kept it; held it fast while he
+pushed and pulled chairs about to give her a place by himself. The hand
+was something tangible&mdash;especially as it was not quite ready to be
+held.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I do?" he repeated, as she took her seat: "you don't care.
+Why didn't you come to meet me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had enough at the station."</p>
+
+<p>"And you had enough at home, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to do&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how can you spare the time to be here now?" said Mr. Kindred,
+pursuing his inquiries. A girl who did not wear even the semblance of a
+heart upon her sleeve was something new of late, and exasperating. "It
+is very frivolous work to sit by and see me eat supper."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be less so, when I get something to eat myself," Cherry
+answered demurely. "But I can wait still longer, if it is not certain
+the supply will hold out."</p>
+
+<p>"There! now you have got it," cried Rose, clapping her hands; "and
+good for you, too. Hectoring her in that style! Give her some berries,
+Magnus, before you eat another one. Cherry picked two thirds of them
+with her own fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"She did!" said Magnus, reddening in spite of himself under Cherry's
+fire; second classman on furlough and presumptive first sergeant though
+he was. "That explains why I've had to empty the sugar bowl. I'm sorry
+I have made such a raid, Cherry, but you shall have what is left."</p>
+
+<p>And swiftly he drew everything as near the girl's plate as the
+dishes could find room. Bread plate and butter plate, cake basket,
+cheese, cream pitcher, water pitcher, and the wreck of the broiled
+chicken. Then seizing the berry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+bowl Magnus began to pile the sweet wild strawberries upon her plate,
+adding slowly and skilfully till they ran down to the very edge and
+rose up in the middle a red fragrant cone.</p>
+
+<p>"How will that do to begin?" he said. "Will you have some
+sugar?&mdash;but I suppose not, as you picked them yourself and put all
+the tartness into mine."</p>
+
+<p>The other three looked on, laughing and interested; but now Cherry
+was out of her depth. She looked down at the strawberry hill, at the
+dishes, then glanced round at Magnus. What did he mean? Was he really
+vexed? Could he really think? It was the fairest kind of a look, so
+earnest and questioning. What do you mean? it said.</p>
+
+<p>I think Cadet Kindred knew very promptly what he meant, and saw some
+things clearly which had been hanging about in a sort of uncertain
+haze. And thus in answer to her shy questioning, Cherry met a look so
+keen and merry and full of mischief, full of she hardly knew what, that
+her eyes fell and the pink flushes came hurrying over her face.</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus laughed. He had the vantage now which belonged to him,
+and he felt better.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry," he said, "you are a transparent humbug! Mother, will you
+give me a cup of tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are an extremely rude boy," said Mrs. Kindred, putting
+in an extra lump of sugar the while. "If these are your West Point
+manners, you will need a few terms at some other school."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point manners are all packed away with my dress coat. This is
+the original Magnus variety."</p>
+
+<p>"It is good to know," said Rose. "Here we have all been rubbing
+<i>our</i> manners up, to receive you properly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Magnus, turning to gaze at Cherry.
+"Good to know, as you say. I did suspicion it was something got up for
+my express benefit."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let her alone, and finish your supper," said Mrs. Kindred. "That
+is, if you ever intend to finish."</p>
+
+<p>"Emphatically I do!" said Magnus. "If I didn't, I could never begin
+again, and that would be a loss out here. Cherry, give me just a few
+berries off your plate. I am bashful about taking any more out of the
+dish. The sugar has given out, too," he added, dropping his voice; "and
+these will not want any."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Cherry!&mdash;she literally found not a word to say, but
+sat looking down at her plate in helpless silence, as the hands she
+remembered so well conveyed away part of its contents. Then Rose came
+with a replenished sugar-bowl and set it down by him. But Magnus waved
+it away.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," he said. "These are too sweet for sugar. How do you
+suppose Cherry worked it, to get them all on her plate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy boy!" said Rose, "you put them there yourself. Magnus, is
+your dress coat here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly. Had to bring it along, lest a war should break out before
+I get back. May need it yet&mdash;&mdash;" with an indescribable
+inflection which only Cherry caught.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if you <i>have</i> done, as mother says," said Violet, "go straight
+upstairs and put it on, and come down and show yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Put on my dress coat, after such a supper," quoth Magnus. "I think
+I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be foolish," said Rose. "Go at once, if you want pancakes for
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it waffles&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, waffles," cried both the girls, laughing at him.
+"Now Magnus, go! While your hair is short."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI<br />
+CHERRY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">'Tis the middle watch of a summer night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Naught is seen in the vault on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the flood that rolls its milky hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A river of light, in the welkin blue.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Culprit Fay.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And thus it was, that in ten minutes or so there entered upon the
+scene a fine presentation of a West Point cadet: short hair, white
+collar, bell buttons, and all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Just inside the door Magnus paused, drew himself up, and gave a
+comprehensive military salute; then came on with quick, regulation
+step, halted in front of Cherry, and took off his cap with the true
+cadet swing.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought you'd be out, Miss Reserve. I saw you clear across the
+plain. Now Cherry, you must ask how I could possibly see so far."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you answer if I did?" Cherry said diplomatically. This
+photograph in person was not easy to talk to.</p>
+
+<p>"I should remark that I can always see some people, across the
+world. Then you must put your head on one side and say: 'But you know
+you have <i>such</i> eyes, Mr. Kindred!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I certainly shall not say <i>that</i>," Cherry declared, venturing
+a look.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you are a young peacock," said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine feathers, mammy. How do you like West Point, <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+Miss Reserve? Is this your first visit? Very warm, isn't it? What do
+think of our view?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how they laughed at him, Cherry and all! Magnus kept a grave
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you walk with me after supper?" he went on. And Cherry's sweet
+eyes opened full on him, to see what he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the way at all," said Magnus (approving it highly,
+all the same). "You must put your head on the other side now and say:
+'Really, Mr. Kindred&mdash;he! he!&mdash;I'm awfully sorry&mdash;but
+I've given all my walks away.' Then I shall answer fiercely: 'Tell me
+one of the men, and I'll go fight him and get it back.' Now, Cherry,
+clasp your hands and say pleadingly: 'Oh, no! Please don't, Mr.
+Kindred! I remember now&mdash;there is one walk just before breakfast.
+Would that be too early for you?' And I answer practically: 'Nothing is
+too early for me, Miss Reserve, after you have opened your eyes.' And
+then you must give me an admiring glance and say: 'Oh, don't talk of
+<i>my</i> eyes, Mr. Kindred!' Then the drum-beats, and I double-time it into
+camp."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not say 'you'&mdash;I should never say such things,"
+Cherry declared; this vision of other girls acting as a tonic, though
+she laughed with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! You do not say anything to me," retorted Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"She is too polite to interrupt you," said Rose. "Do you mean to say
+that West Point girls talk like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some of the girls. Cherry will when I have walked with her a few
+times."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry glanced up in quick denial, meeting then the aforesaid eyes
+looking so handsome and competent and full of frolic and power that her
+own beat a hasty retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"And you walk with such girls?" demanded Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;" Magnus said easily. "One cannot be uncivil just
+because they are complimentary."</p>
+
+<p>"But before breakfast!" said Rose. "Is there no other half hour in
+the day that would do?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, it's not <i>that</i> half hour in particular; it is every
+half hour they can get. You wouldn't have them pink and white their
+cheeks for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Pink their cheeks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Magnus. "Pink them&mdash;frost them. I'm sure I
+don't know how it's done."</p>
+
+<p>"You are telling traveller's tales," said Mrs. Kindred gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I like that!" said Magnus. "Why, mammy, they <i>all</i> do it.
+Clinker says so. At least not all, I suppose. Of course, there are
+exceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne"&mdash;began Mrs. Kindred. But at this word Magnus
+turned to her and "stood attention," bracing up to the fullest extent,
+and saluting with such profound gravity and respect that the rest all
+shouted, and the mother's face gave way.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no doing anything with you," she said. "You must give them
+no end of trouble at West Point. Go upstairs and take off that toggery,
+and see if you can be a reasonable boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to give Cherry her walk first," said Magnus. "She has
+never walked with a real live cadet; and she may as well practise on me
+before she undertakes the rest of the Corps next summer."</p>
+
+<p>"I look like that," said Cherry, with some scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much like it, I should say," responded Magnus. "I know how
+it will be. 'Say, Kindred, who's that awfully nice girl you've got on
+hand? Introduce me, won't you? Your sister, aint she? Well, don't let
+her promise all her walks to those spoony fellows. You want her to have
+a good time, you know.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Magnus hit it off with excellent mimicry, and the room was in a buzz
+of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall say," he went on, "that my sisters are in quite
+another package, and that to ensure her having a good time, she has
+promised all her walks to me."</p>
+
+<p>"She hasn't at all," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"She will&mdash;by that time," said Magnus confidently; enjoying the
+pulsating colour in Cherry's face, and comparing it with the unmoved
+tinting of poppy leaves. "Why, even to-night she'll not walk home with
+anybody but Cadet Kindred, in full canonicals."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus!" said his mother, "I think you are absolutely beside
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Do cadets all talk in that style?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Not all so brilliantly as I do, by any means, but in the same
+general way."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I think they need a professor of common sense at West
+Point."</p>
+
+<p>"And I think you had better go to bed and to sleep," said Violet.
+"We'll walk home with Cherry. Your brain is getting overexcited."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence and solitude will calm it down," said Magnus. "If you all
+go, there will be a chatter, but Cherry and I know each other so well
+that there is no need to speak. She will not try to keep me, mammy;
+I'll be right back."</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt but Cherry was laughing when they set out, partly
+for nervousness, but also in part for the mere infectious atmosphere
+of frolic. She gave no sign, however, being much under the spell of
+the tall, erect figure at her side. Whenever she looked up and tried
+to throw off the glamour, one glint of the bell buttons brought it on
+worse than before.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't we walking very fast?" said Magnus mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you told your mother you would be right back," said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"From your front door&mdash;not from ours." The laugh rippled out at
+that, as Cherry moderated her pace.</p>
+
+<p>"No use, you see," said Magnus, falling into an easy saunter. "I can
+do the double faster than you can. I knew you meant to scoot away by
+yourself, the minute I went to change myself into a cit."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"You."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell upon this; then Magnus began again:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I really wanted to have you alone awhile&mdash;I wanted to
+ask tidings of an old friend of mine. I thought perhaps you could tell
+me where to find her; girls always seem to know about girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do not!" said Cherry hastily, running over in her mind all
+the girls she had ever heard of. "You should ask Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose doesn't know everything. I dare say you can tell me if she has
+moved off. I thought so much of her!" said Magnus pensively, gazing
+up at the stars. "We used to be very intimate. I left my heart in her
+keeping&mdash;whatever she did with it. Why&mdash;you will hardly
+believe me&mdash;but she used to live here, in your house. And when I
+was going away to West Point she kissed me right at this very gate."</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't!" cried Cherry hotly, and then hung her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do know her then?" said Magnus. "Why didn't you say so
+before? And where do you suppose she probably is now?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry resolutely stopped and faced him; what though the full
+moonlight effect well nigh swept off her self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "you are talking great nonsense. It may be the
+West Point fashionable way of talking sense, but we are plain folks out
+here and have not had your advantages."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And here Magnus made a bow so profound that it sent Cherry's words
+to the right-about.</p>
+
+<p>"What next?" said Magnus. "That is all more or less true, so far,
+but well begun is only half done."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is no use to talk to you!" said Cherry. "And it never was,
+for that matter."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> talking is of some use, however," said Magnus. "I have quite
+succeeded in bringing myself back to your recollection. What more did
+you want to say, pretty girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you are extremely silly," said Cherry, with the laugh getting
+into her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no contenting these women of sense!" said Magnus. "If I
+fib, she scolds: if I tell truth, she flouts me. If Derby drill will
+only handle this line of approaches, I shall learn how, in time. Don't
+walk so fast, wise damsel."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come in and see papa to-night?" said Cherry, not
+slackening her pace in the least.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, hardly," said Magnus. "I like to make it all safe with the
+daughter before I rush into the paternal presence."</p>
+
+<p>If Cherry had been that sort of a girl, I think she would have lent
+him a very earnest and hearty little cuff. As it was, she gave him
+one hopeless glance and slipped through the little gate, as her next
+neighbour would have said, "spryer'n an eel."</p>
+
+<p>But quick steps were play to Magnus, and before Cherry's foot had
+touched the doorstone he was beside her. His hands met round but not
+touching her, putting the girl in a charmed circle of space; and the
+strong, clear voice chanted out an old playtime couplet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Open the ring and let her in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And kiss her when you get her in."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus! do hush!" Cherry said desperately. <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+"You are altogether wild to-night. And everybody will find it out!" she
+added, as if that doubled the case. She made a quick motion to dive
+under "the ring" and get away, which was quite fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand still," Magnus admonished her. "Unless you want the prison
+walls to converge, as in that old tale of the Inquisition. I am going
+to put you straight through the catechism. First of all, will you
+confess that you are a humbug and a fraud?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am only myself," Cherry faltered, but standing so still now that
+she hardly dared breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"Only yourself&mdash;a very good answer. Well, I never want you to
+be anything else, more or less. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"The words are tolerably plain," said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if you are 'only yourself,' why didn't you welcome me
+home?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did you want me to say?" said Cherry, with again a little
+break in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Say?" repeated Magnus. "You should have thrown up your hands and
+eyes, and then taken down the dictionary and used every word there was
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>But now Cherry laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You would have had a pretty mixed dose, if I had," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is past," said Magnus; "you can't do it now. So you must
+have the catechism. Are you glad to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"You are delighted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"&mdash;a little slower.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of your wits with joy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Cherry; "you are the only person out of his wits."</p>
+
+<p>"Ready to do anything I ask you?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"In reason"&mdash;again slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You will dream of me to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"You will go wherever I want you to while I am here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;think so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will walk with me three times a day at West
+Point and with nobody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be at West Point. Magnus, do stop fooling
+and let me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Bid me good-night, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the way we said good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way I said good-bye," Cherry answered.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't the way <i>I</i> said good-bye," said Magnus. "<i>This</i> was
+the way. And this is the way I say good-night. Cherry, you are a
+transparent fraud."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must go," Cherry urged, very grave and quiet now. "If you
+do not go, you never can come again!" she added, as a last argument.</p>
+
+<p>"What a wise girl! I believe she could tackle warped surfaces."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they any harder to manage than you are?" said Cherry. "You
+know"&mdash;but she checked herself. It would not do to mention her
+father again, even to save his being waked up by all this talking under
+his window.</p>
+
+<p>"Know what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Less than you think," said Cherry coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"The professors have been trying to din that into me for the last
+two years," said Magnus, "but I never thought to have you take it up.
+What were you going to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sugar and spice," quoted Magnus. "Shows what I have to expect at my
+first wild frontier post."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you what to expect before that," said Cherry. "If you
+stay here moonshining any longer, you 'will be pale to-morrow,' like
+your namesake in Dickens."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can hand over some of your pinks," said Magnus. "Besides,
+my dear, I must inform you of a well-known West Point fact: truth
+misapplied ceases to be useful. Mr. Peter Magnus was storing his good
+looks to propound a certain question next day. Whereas I, having
+settled it to-night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But just there Cherry made a quick movement of her pretty head,
+stooped under the enclosing arms, and was out of sight in a second.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus ran down the hill, whistling at the top of his power. I am
+not sure that Cherry knew what he whistled; and I doubt if he knew
+himself; but I think it was "The Girl I Left behind Me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy," said Mrs. Kindred, as her cadet came in, "you forget
+that it is night in these Western regions. Have you been round the
+neighbourhood whistling people up?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus threw himself down on the floor at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy, if you'd not been allowed to whistle for two years, you
+would know how good it feels."</p>
+
+<p>"Not allowed to whistle? What could comfort you?" said the mother,
+laying her hand caressingly on his head. "Well, I suppose if three
+hundred boys got to whistling, the effect might be rather powerful."</p>
+
+<p>"What kept you so long, boy?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry. She is a rather slow girl, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't!" cried Violet. "<i>Never!</i> She is just the quickest girl
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry&mdash;as I have found her," said Magnus gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Do all cadets tell fibs?" inquired Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I am a shining exception, they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do they all look like you?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Making allowance for the difference of men," said Magnus, with easy
+assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"What are those things on your arm for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rank, power, and responsibility. They are not 'things,' they are
+chevrons."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the sense of cutting your hair so short?"</p>
+
+<p>"So as to see better how to skin us for 'too much shirt collar,'"
+replied Mr. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls," said the mother, "you must really let him go to bed. I do
+not think he half knows what he is about."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I, though!" cried Magnus, springing up. "Just one hour and a
+half ago tattoo beat, and I wasn't there to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>And once more the cap did duty in the air, as Magnus gave a
+tolerably quiet version of the class yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, child," his mother repeated, smiling at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must," said Magnus. "Cherry said I should be pale to-morrow.
+It is worth while going to sleep, with no reveille gun ahead."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII<br />
+OFF LIMITS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Forgotten the sounds of drum and fife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forgotten the winter days so drear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But all was keen with the glad new life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That throbs in the veins in the furlough year.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Howitzer of 1891.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was just like the cross grain of human nature that without a
+sound but the singing of birds to rouse him, our young soldier should
+wake up at precisely reveille gun time. In fact he did it for three
+days, to his great disgust; and then, as he said of himself, learned to
+know how happy he was.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, this first morning at home, with everything before him
+except drills and regulations, going to sleep again was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>So with the sublime unconsciousness of other people's slumbers which
+marks young men of his age, Magnus lay still and began to whistle. And
+with that other line of forgetfulness which shows the inferiority of
+the feminine mind, there was not a woman in the house but would have
+given her best sleep to hear him.</p>
+
+<p>They were not asleep, however, but up and stirring; and it was
+perhaps some closing door or opening window, or the long unheard voice
+of the coffee mill, which reminded Cadet Kindred that in these regions
+there was no preparatory drum; and that such a noise as he had been
+making would quite rule out the thought of any private suggestions at
+his door. Wherefore, he had better get up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+But what fun&mdash;to dress as he liked, in what he liked, and be as long as he
+liked about it.</p>
+
+<p>With these thoughts came another to hasten his motions: would Cherry
+come to breakfast? And if she did, then just when would she come? And
+here Magnus paused before a piquant illustration of the young lady
+herself, drawn from memory&mdash;or, as the <i>real</i> novelists put it,
+"which had been photographed on his heart in one brief moment." And
+thus it seemed:</p>
+
+<p>A tall, delicately formed girl, with dark hair, which did not
+crinkle and curl like his own, but parted in shining waves and rings;
+a complexion colourless in general, but where the rosy tints came and
+went like a pink cloud, in swift pulsations. The eyes&mdash;no, Mr.
+Kindred thought he had not a fair look at her eyes last night, and that
+was one thing to do to-day. Also her hand was a soft and fresh thing to
+touch. And at this point Magnus opened his door and passed out.</p>
+
+<p>On the way downstairs he peeped into his mother's room, but no one
+was there, and he went straight on to a small room on the first floor
+which was a sort of offshoot from the house, and hardly bigger than a
+good-sized bay window.</p>
+
+<p>But the picture he found there Magnus never forgot.</p>
+
+<p>The room had been his father's summer study. Too cold for winter
+use, but in June perfection, with every window open to the air. Roses
+and honeysuckles climbed up and ran across and strayed in; amid the
+tangle birds sang and twittered and builded. Further off were cattle
+and chickens, with an old drum major of a turkey cock strutting before
+the barnyard throng. The scent of hayfields was mingled with the yet
+rarer fragrance of new-mown grass.</p>
+
+<p>If the room had been larger, the minister's old library would have
+made small show; but as it was, the strips of wall between the windows
+were quite well covered. It was a very old affair in every way; leather
+covers much worn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+with handling, shutting in truths that were but the brighter for much
+believing. Very old-fashioned books. You could not find a copy of "Why
+I am a Doubter"; nor a single treatise on "The Eternal Equilibrium of
+Things." The glad toiler in Christ's vineyard had had no use for "The
+Trammels of Faith, and how I Got beyond Them"; and as little for "The
+Proper Sphere and Limit of the Bible, Set Forth and Defined."</p>
+
+<p>But there was Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," which the minister
+himself had also preached; with Bunyan's "Holy War between Diabolus
+and the Town of Mansoul," the which he himself had also waged; there
+was "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," upon which he now had entered.
+There was also old Matthew Henry's "Commentary" in its six volumes,
+which gave people so much to do on the plane of the lower criticism,
+that they had small chance to wish for the higher; with Fox's "Book of
+Martyrs," and "Lives of the Port Royalists," and Doddridge's "Rise and
+Progress of Religion in the Soul."</p>
+
+<p>Only two chairs were in the room: one, where inquirers had so
+often sat and troubled hearts found peace, was pushed back now, its
+service done; but the minister's chair still stood by the minister's
+table where lay the minister's Book of books; and in the chair sat the
+minister's widow.</p>
+
+<p>She was not reading at the moment: I think she had been listening
+to the gay sounds upstairs; and a tender, happy smile was on her lips,
+in perfect keeping with the words on which her eyes had been. But
+everything in that room was in keeping, to Magnus: his mother's cap
+looked to him not a whit purer than her face; nor was the shine outside
+the windows more gladsome than the look she turned to him. The young
+cadet was at her side in an instant, down on his knees with his head on
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"What waked you up so early, child?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The echo of that reveille gun came clear across the Continent for
+the express purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly. I heard you whistling some time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I disturb you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not do that," said the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"But you were reading."</p>
+
+<p>"Thoughts of you are never far away from the Bible, nor the Bible
+from thoughts of you. Where have you been reading this morning,
+Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've not been reading anywhere. Mother, do you think I had better
+run up for Cherry? or will she be here all right on time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Time for what?" said Mrs. Kindred, rather opening her eyes at this
+very rapid transit.</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say she would come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;no," said Magnus. "I took it for granted."</p>
+
+<p>"Never take anything for granted about Cherry, except that she will
+do just what is right. She never goes anywhere, Magnus, until she has
+given her father his breakfast and seen to his morning comfort in every
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think she might come," Magnus said discontentedly. "It's
+my first morning home. He could get along for once."</p>
+
+<p>The mother smiled a little at the wide space demanded by the young
+people in these days, and the side corner deemed enough for the elder;
+but the usurpers are too lovely and beloved to be resisted. And
+besides, there is a sort of "while they can"&mdash;that checks many a
+word; the tender, pathetic force of Dr. Bonar's thought:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Take thou my place, and be thy feast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweeter than mine has been!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Cherry will not come, Magnus," she said. "She never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+gets free before ten or eleven o'clock. So tell me why you have done no
+reading to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the habit," said Magnus. "I never do it in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your Bible time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I can be said to have one, it is more apt to be at night,"
+said Magnus. "I don't always read then, but most generally I do."</p>
+
+<p>"At night?" said the mother, carefully hiding all signs of the
+underground shock that made her heart tremble. "I like to read at
+night, too. But then, dear, if you do not read in the morning as well,
+you have no fresh heartful of the blessed words to live by through the
+day." And she looked round at Magnus with such eager, anxious, pleading
+eyes as went straight to his heart. Which truly was not far to seek,
+that morning. He jumped up and put himself in the other chair, drawing
+it up to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "let me tell you about it. It's this way. The gun
+wakes me up. And I tumble downstairs half dressed, and declare at the
+top of my voice that I am myself, and nobody else. That is, the first
+sergeant calls 'Kindred!' and I yell back 'Here!' Then I rush in again,
+and tumble into bed, clothes and all, and get the very best nap you
+ever dreamed of."</p>
+
+<p>"Another nap? For how long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two minutes and a quarter, drum time. Then I finish dressing and go
+to breakfast. And after breakfast, we don't have very much time before
+recitation."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you read then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once in a while I do," said Magnus. "Not always. Maybe I do a
+little boning in math. Maybe I take a walk with the nicest girl there
+is round."</p>
+
+<p>His mother could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you always get the nicest?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" Magnus answered easily; "unless she happens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+to be somebody else's best. Sometimes then. You see, so long as she
+doesn't look me in the face, she can fancy I am her 'best' man."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Magnus!" his mother said, half laughing now, but really
+anxious; "how do you behave, to make that possible?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed too, with great delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough," he said, "how do I? Maybe I go through the
+motions."</p>
+
+<p>And now it was Mrs. Kindred who, after a moment's pause, changed the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, dear," she said, laying her hand on the open Bible, "I was
+reading just here: the parable of the sower. And my thoughts had been
+going back and forth from the seed which the fowls of the air were let
+pick up, to that other which fell in an honest and good heart, and
+'with patience,' brought forth an hundred-fold."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus ran his eyes over the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"There are lots of fowls of the air at the Academy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe no more than elsewhere. But they have no business in <i>your</i>
+life, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"No, mammy, they haven't," he said, hesitating a little with the
+difficulty of making his case plain. "All the same, they come in. I'll
+go to a right down good prayer-meeting Sunday night, and come back
+meaning to be the joy of your heart from that time on. Think I'll go
+straight to bed, so as to be sure and keep good till morning. Well,
+the moon is coming up as I get back to camp, and there is Randolph
+with pink and white gowns in tow; and I stop to speak, and they all
+say: 'Oh, come for a little walk!' I don't want to, and I half turn
+away&mdash;and then I go. The prayer-meeting isn't all gone by the
+time I get back, but there has been more of it picked up than you'd
+like."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the mother answered, thinking in her heart that she had not
+prayed half enough for her boy in his hard places.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I've seen a man stay to Communion," Magnus went on, "and when
+we came out, there was Pretty Newcomb waiting for him in the rain, at
+the foot of the Chapel steps. Just walked him off alongside of her
+umbrella&mdash;or under it. And what are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. But, Magnus, you said 'Sunday' night. What sort of girls are
+at the Camp Sunday night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Summer girls," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear," said the mother, the cheerful tone coming back to
+her voice, "the Lord is 'able to keep you from falling,' even in the
+most difficult places; and to make you 'fruitful to every good work,'
+in spite of all the fowls of the air that ever fluttered down. But
+remember, that on your part the word is: 'Hold fast that which thou
+hast, that no man take thy crown.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I know." But then Magnus remembered something else, and was
+suddenly silent.</p>
+
+<p>And now came a soft, imperative call to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as
+the mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up
+at him with her true eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, <i>never</i> 'go through the motions,' as you call it, with the
+wrong woman. <i>Never</i>, as a sham. It dishonours the woman and degrades
+the man, and robs the other woman&mdash;the right one&mdash;of somewhat
+that belongs to her alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never really have, mammy," said Magnus gravely; "so make
+your mind easy. And I never shall&mdash;unless the right one throws
+ me over. I don't know what
+I'll do then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And in spite of all previous warning Magnus looked round the
+breakfast room for Cherry, and not finding her, felt very much
+aggrieved.</p>
+
+<p>There was no lack of talk and laughter, however; the joy of those
+four people in being together was extreme, and of course, the others
+did not miss Cherry, not having expected her, but Magnus did. The
+reserved, dainty girl had taken him by storm. They had always been
+inseparable as children, and as true boy and girl, though never with
+any freedom on her part, even then, that passed the prettiest bounds.
+Now she had stepped off a little, regarding him from a safer grown-up
+distance, and Magnus was wild to annihilate both time and space, and
+whatever else came in his way. She had bloomed out into something much
+rarer than he knew could be in the world, and Cadet Kindred surrendered
+at discretion, and without a summons. I believe he found that last
+fact the crowning charm. If Cherry had held forth her little finger to
+draw him on, or had in any way shortened that new indefinable distance
+between him and her, I think Magnus would have struck off a percentage
+from her perfections. It vexed and bewitched him equally.</p>
+
+<p>So the young man sat opposite the open window, where the smoke from
+the other house curled softly into view, and thought himself ill-used
+and happy in about half and half mixture. He watched the winding path,
+but it remained empty. Then he looked at his sisters; how handsome they
+were, too! Splendid girls, both of them; and wouldn't they make a stir
+in first-class camp? Of course his mother had always been perfection.
+And here his eyes came round to her, with a smile of such joyful love
+and content that poor Mrs. Kindred was very near making a goose of
+herself, as she would have phrased it. What it was to have her boy home
+again!</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot see why they don't move down here!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+Magnus broke forth irrelevantly. "Living on there all by themselves in
+that stupid old house."</p>
+
+<p>"Stupid?" cried Violet. "Why, it's the very prettiest house in all
+the State."</p>
+
+<p>"You had best not let Cherry hear you say such things," remarked
+Rose. "She loves that house with all her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" said Magnus. "She'll have to leave it some time."</p>
+
+<p>"She will not while her father lives," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, girls do it every day."</p>
+
+<p>"Girls&mdash;but not Cherry," the mother answered; and Magnus was
+so charmed with the saying, and the fair little pedestal on which
+it placed his heart's delight, that he adopted it for a private
+phrase of his own; used many times afterwards, it may be said, when
+"girls&mdash;but not Cherry," were around.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, when she will not come, you go to her?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she always comes," said Violet; "some time in the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Some time in the day!"</p>
+
+<p>"According to what she has to do. Only letter days she always came
+early, and left the work till she got back."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of it," corrected Rose. "But there's no letter due from Magnus
+to-day, you know, so we cannot tell when she will be here."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that is too bad!" said Mr. Kindred, pushing back his chair.
+"Coming to hear my letters, and not coming to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the letters were very interesting, you know&mdash;&mdash;"
+Violet began, and then thought it prudent to vanish.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear," said Mrs. Kindred, "as you must of course go up
+there this morning yourself before you pay any other visits, I do not
+see how it really matters."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+"No, of course," said Magnus briskly. "Oh, mammy, I wish you'd pick
+out a lot of such easy duties for me."</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot go with you," said Rose, "because we also have something
+to do; but we will come after you. You must wear your cadet clothes for
+Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus put himself in trim, and charging his sisters not to hurry
+on his account, and promising faithfully to wait till they came, began
+to mount the hill. Good for him the girls were busy&mdash;and yet,
+suppose that other girl were hid away in some part of the house to
+which Rose and Violet could go, while he could not?</p>
+
+<p>Magnus whistled his thoughts down the wind, as he went on, and then,
+with a sudden fancy to approach unnoticed, hushed his tones and even
+his steps, and went in, seeing nobody. Through the hall to the back
+door&mdash;and there got another picture to think of in barracks.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII<br />
+ON EXHIBITION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">Wise men always<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Affirm and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">That best is for a man<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Diligently<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">For to apply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">All business that he can.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sir T. More.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Red House had been set very near the branch road by which
+he came up, and in front there was only a short path and a bit of
+greensward, but at the back lay a big old-fashioned garden, sloping
+gaily down towards a bit of woodland and a talkative brook.</p>
+
+<p>Overlooking all this was a very wide porch with sashes on all sides
+which could be shut, but which on this warm still morning were all slid
+back. The porch within was full of flowers, with various rustic holders
+to hang and to stand and to rest on the sills, a wonderful basket of
+lilies of the valley being the centre piece on the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>There were traces in the house of other days and more Eastern
+regions, and the little spider-legged table was dark with long years
+of service, the spoons were slim-stemmed and delicate, the dishes of
+exquisite blue and white.</p>
+
+<p>But the dishes held very simple viands: bread, milk, wheat, with
+fruit and flowers, were about the whole, for some hurts or injuries
+dating back to the war time had slowly brought Mr. Erskine to a
+semi-invalid state, and Cherry wanted nothing but what her father
+had.</p>
+
+<p>I have told you nothing about Mr. Erskine&mdash;and yet he was a
+very noticeable man. Hair whitened more with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+sorrow than years (it had changed suddenly upon the death of his wife),
+cheeks where the native red still lingered, setting off the look of
+extremely delicate health, with features refined and above-board in
+every line. The eyes were both soft and flashing, the smile&mdash;once
+the merriest in the world&mdash;now never lost its shade of pathos.
+Everything about the man was refined, the daintily cared-for hand, the
+plain, scrupulously neat dress. Across one edge of the placid brow a
+red scar swept down and hid itself among the thick locks of frosted
+hair, and now, as you looked further, you could see that the right hand
+had lost its mate, and the left sleeve hung empty.</p>
+
+<p>With one hand resting lightly on that shoulder and kneeling at her
+father's side, Cherry read to him from a book laid open on the table,
+while Mr. Erskine was slowly finishing his plate of strawberries,
+dipping them, one by one, in the white sugar. Now and then a word of
+question, of comment, of explanation, passed between the two, with
+heads lifted and eyes meeting each other, then the reading went on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>This was what Magnus saw; and though he made out no words, the mere
+tones of Cherry's voice seemed to him as sweet as any bird or brook
+or leaf-stir in the whole morning concert; and I know not how long he
+might have stood there in the shadows of the hall, if little Snip, the
+terrier, being officer in charge and scenting mischief, had not rushed
+in from the garden on a tour of keen inspection coupled with much
+comment. Cherry rose quickly to her feet, Magnus stepped out upon the
+porch, and catching hold of her hand, as he went by, dropped down upon
+one knee by Mr. Erskine, in laughing glee at his astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus!" he cried. "My dear boy, is this you? Can it be possible!"
+The one arm came round the boy and drew him close.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is what made you stumble over your report of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+last night," Mr. Erskine went on, turning to Cherry; "you were hiding a
+secret." Cherry blushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I stumble, papa?" she said, carrying off the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much, for you. Well, my boy, there is no need to ask you how
+you are. Stand off there, and let me have a good look."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to come in war paint, sir," said Magnus, as he
+obeyed; "but they said at home you would want to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. Well, they certainly turn out&mdash;showy fellows
+over there." Mr. Erskine hesitated over his adjective, as if to choose
+a safe one. Cherry bit her lips, Magnus laughed and coloured too.</p>
+
+<p>"They try for it," he said; "but we hope to be useful also, some
+day, Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the 'some days' for being useful, I have ever found to-day
+the very best. Sit down and give an account of yourself. Let the cloth
+wait, Cherry. I suppose you want to hear it all, too. Unless you heard
+it last night."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, sir," said Magnus. "I did not have a chance to tell her
+half." This with a glance at Cherry, which she did not mean to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," she said, "it will take but a minute to finish the table,
+and then we can listen so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"Have your own way, love," her father answered, smiling. "My dear
+love!" he said under his breath, watching her. Then he turned to
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we know a good deal about you," he said, "for we have
+read and reread your letters, but I think I can understand them better
+now. And so these are the famous bell buttons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, the regulation sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, they are pretty bright," said Mr. Erskine, with an amused
+smile. "Are the coats still pocketless?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+Cadet Kindred disclosed the hiding place of his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"I should call that hard lines," said Mr. Erskine. "Your mother gave
+us a description when she came home, and I rather think Cherry cried
+over it. 'What <i>will</i> Magnus do without pockets?' she said. 'Because,
+you know, papa, if there was ever anything he did <i>not</i> have in his
+pocket, it was only what he could not find.' Do you remember, love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," said Cherry, much abashed at both the story and the laugh it
+brought, "I think it is enough to have said silly things without having
+them repeated."</p>
+
+<p>She fetched her work basket, and placing herself at the other side
+of her father, took out some bit of white stuff, and began to fold and
+hem with great speed and dexterity. Magnus watched her, wishing it
+were something for him. He had now and then seen a girl with a crochet
+needle in these two years, or straining her eyes over a piece of mussed
+unhappy looking drawnwork, but everything about Cherry and her basket
+was as fresh as the morning. Her strip of muslin might have just come
+from the shop, and have gone straight back there again, for all the
+disturbance it had from her neat handling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's a busy child," said Mr. Erskine fondly, noting where the
+eyes were bent; "busy and sweet as the day is long. But come, Magnus,
+draw up your chair, and let us have the story. Of course, as I said,
+we have heard a great deal, but we want the whole thing now, don't we,
+love? Do you wear all that finery every day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir, except when nobody is supposed to see us. We have an ugly,
+comfortable blouse for study, and meals, and recitations. With fatigue
+suits, of course, for drills."</p>
+
+<p>"Look your worst at recitations, hey? I should think it good policy
+to look your best."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't make any difference with those old buffers,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+said Magnus. "They don't care if you fess perfectly frigid. They'd just
+as soon give you zero as anything else."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine's mouth took on a quizzical look.</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds like cold weather, doesn't it, love?" he said. "But let
+us go on regularly. Suppose it was term-time, how would your day
+begin?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the gun, always, sir. Unless I am boning math. and have waked
+myself up for early study. I'm too much of a sleepyhead to do it
+often."</p>
+
+<p>"Best not; you need the sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but when you want to max it, and have been getting two-nine
+for three days running, you see that will not do," said Magnus. "And I
+will not bugle; and I can't fudge worth a cent."</p>
+
+<p>The comical look passed into a laugh this time, low and very
+pleasant, Cherry joining in, after a vain attempt to keep herself
+quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Next in prominence to the gun comes breakfast, I suppose," said Mr.
+Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, breakfast&mdash;slumgudgeon stew, and the rest of it," said
+Magnus. "But the bread and butter and milk are always good. They've
+taken to calling the roll after breakfast, as well as before, in case
+slumgudgeon should have laid some slain man under the table. Then comes
+a bit of release from quarters. If I've been fizzling lately, maybe I
+put in the time on French; but I am more apt to take a walk."</p>
+
+<p>"That is well," said Mr. Erskine. "A brisk walk puts the brain in
+good order."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not always a brisk walk, though," said Magnus. "Most often I
+go dawdling along with some girl."</p>
+
+<p>And now Cherry was so still that only the swift-flying needle seemed
+to move. Mr. Erskine looked amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think that a poor preparing for the section room," he said.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+"Can't be helped if it is," said Magnus. "There's such a lot of
+girls&mdash;and summer girls&mdash;about, it takes every minute you can
+get. Chappy comes up and says: 'Kin, just give my sister a walk, will
+you? Awfully nice girl, but if I don't bone a little I'll be found in
+French, sure guns. And besides, my best girl is here.' So I go. Then
+Miss Beguile says: 'Oh, Mr. Kindred! I've <i>never</i> seen Fort Putnam.
+Please take me!'"</p>
+
+<p>How they both laugh at him&mdash;Cherry holding back a little, then
+letting her merry notes ring in.</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds stringent," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you notice, love, his
+fine distinction between 'girls' and 'summer girls'? That is something
+we simple people know nothing of. By the way, I suppose <i>you</i> must be a
+summer girl&mdash;as he never sees you in the winter."</p>
+
+<p>"If anyone ever dares call her a summer girl," said Mr. Kindred
+promptly, "I'll knock him down quicker than he ever had it done
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"Hands off! I'll not call her so," said Mr. Erskine, laughing. "She
+is an everyday girl, and better each time. But Magnus, suppose <i>your</i>
+best girl happens to be also on hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"She never is, sir. She has not been at the Point since I went
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Hard on you, if she went there before; you speak as if she were a
+fixed fact. Do you know, Magnus, I am rather sorry to hear that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir?" demanded Magnus, noting the pulsating colour in the fair
+face bent over the needlework.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when I thought of it, I hoped you would keep clear of all
+such entanglements till you knew what you wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"I did, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course! I beg pardon; I should have said till you had seen a
+little more of the world."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+"Do you think the world is the place to choose, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine smiled, half sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only an old matchlock," he said, "and cannot cope with you
+young sharpshooters. But my boy, what I meant was this. When the boy
+goes off to college and grows into new mental strength and riches,
+and the girl stays at home and gets not half a chance, poor child, to
+do anything but wash dishes or (now do not glower at me) perhaps does
+not wish for higher things, then the man comes home raised to a plane
+where she is not fitted to stand by his side, and she can never be the
+helpmeet for him that she should."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus listened respectfully; watching that lovely, flitting colour,
+it was not hard to sit still.</p>
+
+<p>"You think," he said, "that some girls wouldn't amount to much at a
+one-company post. When a man was hard up for comrades?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless they were 'best girls' in truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, mine is," said Magnus confidently, "the very bestest
+sort. I don't know how much she knows&mdash;but if I stay at the
+Academy two years longer I shall have a stuffed head, full enough to
+lend on every occasion. Besides, it's not needful for a man's peace of
+mind that his wife should understand wave motion, is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine laughed at him, and Cherry laughed too, though now
+colouring furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is not needful," her father said, not noticing her,
+"unless in practice. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you.
+I had a friend, Magnus, who got entangled, as I call it, very early,
+went away to college, and when he came back with all his honours, his
+mother forbade the bans on that distinct plea; she said the girl was
+too ignorant. I think my friend would have gone straight on through it
+all, but the girl was not of that sort. She refused to enter any family
+by the side door. So they waited, the engagement was virtually broken,
+and years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+went by. Then the mother died, the man sought his old love and married
+her. But Magnus, the girl had spent those years not in lamenting, not
+in flirting, but in solid, hard study. So that when at last they went
+forth in life together she had passed him, and was the better educated
+of the two."</p>
+
+<p>What was Cherry laughing at? For while the cheeks had not all cooled
+down, the lips had parted in but half-controlled curls of fun.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if she was proficient in warped surfaces, I hope they enjoyed
+talking it over in their play-spells," said Magnus. "I've no use for
+some of those things, they sift out too many good men. We all felt bad
+to have Chuck go."</p>
+
+<p>"Finished his course?" said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"At West Point, sir; graduated at the wrong end, dropped. He did
+everything to stay; ran a light after taps, cut society, and sat night
+after night with his feet in cold water and his hands in his hair
+(what there was of it)," Magnus added in parenthesis. "But nothing did
+any good; he'd go next day and fess on a clean board. 'Mr. Simpkins,'
+the instructor asked him one day, 'are you as stupid at drill as you
+are in the section room?' And Chuck turned with the blandest face and
+answered: 'Nigh on to it, Lieutenant!' And he was."</p>
+
+<p>How the listeners laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"But that was Simpkins," Cherry remarked. "You said 'Chuck.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Chuck' was his cadet name."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they name everyone?" asked Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Very generally. But some names go with the office. The fattest man
+in the class is 'Tubs,' and the oldest 'Daddy'; while the cleanest-face
+man in all the Corps may be 'mud,' because his pred. or his resemblance
+owned the name. 'Deacon' and 'Squire', 'Mile-High' and 'Shorty',
+'Pretty Jones' and 'Lady Crane.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+"What is yours?" said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Only 'Kin'; sometimes with the 'Kith' added. Do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see that you are a very wide-awake set of boys," said Mr.
+Erskine. Cherry slowly pulled off her thimble.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," she said, "I sent word that they must all come here to
+dinner, and it is time for me to go and see to things."</p>
+
+<p>"I will come and help," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," Cherry answered him gaily. "Housekeeping is one of
+the few things you have <i>not</i> studied. Stay and talk to your mother,
+she is just here."</p>
+
+<p>So while the two girls followed Cherry, the other three people sat
+talking over many things, the two elders closely scanning the young
+cadet; and he, all unconscious of their scrutiny, showing himself
+just as he was in truth. Certainly the stories and pranks he rattled
+off were full of mischief, and as surely they gave small token of a
+reverent respect for regulations. But there was no taint of anything
+mean or low, no word that savoured of "conduct unbecoming an officer
+and a gentleman." The mother breathed freer with every new light thrown
+upon his West Point life, and felt that her boy had come back to her
+pure as he had gone away. The eyes of the two old friends met in
+joyful sympathy time and again, as Magnus talked and told, and their
+laughter had no reserve of anxious questioning. And when at last Magnus
+detailed himself to go and look after the girls and dinner, Mr. Erskine
+stretched out his hand to the happy mother.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a splendid fellow," he said; "a grand boy! I congratulate you
+with all my heart."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX<br />
+SKIRMISHING</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">O wha can prudence think upon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sic a lassie by him?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O wha can prudence think upon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sae in love as I am?<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Old Song.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus, meanwhile, with quite as much of the "boy" as the "grand"
+about him, despite his inches, tiptoed off along passages and through
+doorways that he knew by heart, following the hum of voices. So
+presently came out into the small summer kitchen, where a pleasant
+smell of good cookery steamed and puffed and whiffed from various
+vessels within and upon the stove. Dishes stood ready on the table,
+with white-covered pans of rolls just waiting to be baked, but save the
+old cat, winking and blinking by the oven door, there was nobody in
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus gave her a toss up in the air for old times' sake, peeped
+cautiously out at the broad back steps, then let himself easily down
+through the open window and came round the other way upon the scene of
+the sweet chatter that was going on.</p>
+
+<p>The three girls were on the steps, Rose and Violet hulling
+strawberries, while Cherry in a wide check apron, sat on the lowest
+step of all with a basket of lettuce at her side, picking over the
+fresh green leaves, and dropping them into a pan of cold water. A thick
+clump of lilac bushes served as a screen.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," Rose was saying, "I cannot believe it,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+yet. I think I cried for joy a little bit, when I waked up in the night
+and remembered that Magnus was really here."</p>
+
+<p>"And doesn't he look well?" said Violet; "and isn't he a beauty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not tell him that," Cherry answered with discretion. She would
+have given a ready enough answer a week ago, but somehow, with the
+continent no more between them, the young damsel had grown wary.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid everybody else will tell him," said Rose. "But he is not
+spoiled a bit <i>yet</i>. Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very mild way of giving her estimate, and Cherry scolded
+herself that she could not answer freely, as she had always done;
+called herself to account for the shyness which had sprung into life
+with, indeed, the very first coming of that photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"I am such a goose!" poor Cherry thought, bending down low over the
+lettuce basket. "What shall I do to myself? If only he had not acted so
+last night!"</p>
+
+<p>And just here, by way of composing matters, two hands came softly
+round her head, and were laid lightly and respectfully upon her eyes.
+It was one of his old teasing ways with her.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry's start passed almost into a tremor. She put up her hands to
+remove the obstruction, and they were taken and held fast; and what
+more Magnus might have dared had there been no witnesses, will never be
+known.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry lifted her face, trying to speak sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "you have not improved one bit. I thought
+West Point was to make a man of you&mdash;or a better man&mdash;or
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"It has made 'something' of me," he retorted, gazing down at her.
+"Give you three guesses."</p>
+
+<p>"Too much else to do. Set that pan of lettuce on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+table, please. Don't you see how busy I am?" And Cherry drew towards
+her a basket of green peas and began to shell with all her might.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it&mdash;to the depths of my heart," Magnus answered as he
+did her bidding. "Here, Viola, give us your apron. If I don't sit down
+and help this girl, I shall have her fainting away on my hands."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you will not," Cherry said very decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus spied a spare apron on a nail, and, tying it carefully
+round his neck, he put himself down on the doorstep, and dived in among
+the pea pods. Always taking, if he could, the very one of which Cherry
+had laid hold, and then dropping that and seizing her fingers, and then
+mysteriously scattering the peas from his own hands or shaking them
+out of hers, so that the rolling things had to be sought on all sides.
+Which last process Cadet Kindred pursued so zealously that more than
+once his face and Cherry's shining locks came very near together.</p>
+
+<p>The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two
+had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough
+to play, and to see it all go on again in the old fashion was too good
+for anything. Of the subtile difference that had crept in, their young
+eyes took no note. And Cherry herself tried hard to ignore it, laughing
+with the rest, and very well holding her own, but dimly conscious all
+the while that things she would have ventured once, she did not venture
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, why do you tie that string round your neck?" said Rose. "Have
+you forgotten how aprons are worn?"</p>
+
+<p>"A lost art. But this is the improved style, which I mean to
+introduce at West Point. I cannot see how the Tactical Department
+has overlooked aprons so long. We're too young to know when to wear
+overcoats, so aprons to keep our trousers clean would be just the
+thing. I'll introduce them."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+"When you go back, I suppose," said Rose sarcastically. "I'll lend
+you mine for a pattern."</p>
+
+<p>"When I go back as Com.," Magnus answered with dignity. "When I am
+Com. and Cherry is Supe. <i>then</i> you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"You could see now, if you would look," said Cherry, as a podful of
+peas rolled down the step.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking with all my eyes.&mdash;And they dare to call you a
+summer girl!" Magnus broke forth, watching the lovely pink cloud of
+colour that came and went with such swift changes.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you <i>please</i> tell us what a summer girl is like?" said Violet.
+"She has danced about a good deal in your letters, but we everyday
+people don't know what she is. Come, boy, describe her."</p>
+
+<p>"Her!" Magnus repeated. "She is to the full as plural as she is
+singular."</p>
+
+<p>"Many of them at West Point, are there?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Car loads; stunning, too, as they can be, some of them. Take your
+breath away. Say, girls, where's the old banjo? In existence yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes," said Rose. "Only no one has played it since you
+went away."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is here, too," said Violet. "Mother made us bring it this
+morning, because she was sure Mr. Erskine would like to hear you
+sing."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew <i>she</i>
+couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss
+Erskine first. About her namesake&mdash;and some other things."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the
+doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the
+peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was
+softly beating to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+stiff froth. The other girls had finished their berries, and sat
+near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed over clover and
+mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen. Behind him, Magnus
+could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went on within the
+house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long, plaintive moo,
+and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the wealth that
+came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head against the
+doorpost and listened.</p>
+
+<p>"That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold
+of him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls
+watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose
+bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and
+scents from hayfields and hills&mdash;it came upon Magnus Kindred like
+a spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the
+graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then
+sang out from the depths of his heart:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Home, home! Sweet, sweet home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O there's no place like home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had
+indeed never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices
+which can never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two
+years he had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and
+sweetened it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls.</p>
+
+<p>The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before;
+Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat
+in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there
+came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her
+breast as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at
+the singer, and then could not take her eyes away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his
+wont, being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things.
+From "Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"&mdash;back and forth as the band had
+done&mdash;so went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up
+some special association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful
+eyes that were fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their
+handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We twa hae paidlet in the burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Frae morning sun till dine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we've wandered mony a weary fit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sen auld lang syne."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is just what we did, Cerise&mdash;do you remember? And just
+what I have done, since."</p>
+
+<p>"But oh, Magnus!" she cried, "were you so homesick as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Homesick? Your blue apron is rose-colour to it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad we did not know," Cherry said with a long breath,
+beginning slowly to beat her cream. "You were very good not to
+tell."</p>
+
+<p>"And did nobody help you or speak to you?" questioned the two young
+sisters, coming up nearer to sit at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I had help enough," said Magnus, softly twanging the strings of his
+banjo. "Everybody from the Com. to the third-class corporals bade me
+brace up. And if I wanted a lonely walk in the open air on Saturday, I
+had only to wear my hair long and dishevelled as a sign of grief, and
+they'd give to me without asking. And if I dead-beat and went to the
+Hospital to get a chance to mope a little, Dr. Pestle would give me
+some compound to <i>make</i> me sick, lest I should lose my time and be down
+there for nothing. The Tacs were so afraid I should 'wet my couch with
+briny tears' that they made me keep the old thing tight rolled up till
+bed time. I was too tired to cry, then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+"Queer help," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"The best that could be, Rosy. They made me mad, and then I was all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"I should call that poor comfort," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing like it, however," said Magnus. "Dries up your feelings
+quicker than fourteen pocket-handkerchiefs. You owe the world one, and
+you mean to live till you pay it. So suicide can wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I wish you would not talk so," Cherry said appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now there is Cerise," Magnus went on. "If I could once make
+her thoroughly angry with me, she wouldn't mind anything else that
+happened. The thing is how. I haven't found out yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And you never will," said Rose. "You cannot do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot, hey? That is good to know. Gives me great freedom of
+action. I'll store up the information for future use."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you call her Cerise?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Practising my French. Of course I never thought of her in common
+English when I was away."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry, he cannot be with you five minutes without beginning to
+tease," said the girls, laughing. "He is the very same boy he always
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he has made good progress in the art of telling fibs," said
+Cherry in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Fibs!" Magnus repeated, with much unworded scorn. "You'll see
+about that. I mean to tell the truth while I am home now, if I never
+do again." And with the most funny, rollicking tone Mr. Kindred caught
+up his banjo and dashed off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me"; rattling
+it out, throwing in recitative here and there, and putting such spirit
+and vim into the performance that now the girls all laughed till
+they nearly cried again; but this time Cherry kept her eyes on her
+cream.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+Then quick and easily as the band had done, Magnus dropped once more
+into the plaintive burden of:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Home, home; sweet, sweet home;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But now, when he stopped playing, his two sisters came round him
+caressing him, hanging upon him, and even Mrs. Kindred looked in from
+the other room and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, don't play that any more. You break my heart. I shall never
+be able to let you go back again."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laid the banjo aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fret now, mammy," he said. "It has been pretty tough, but the
+worst is over."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX<br />
+A MORNING TALK</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Hope rules a land forever green:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Are confident and gay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clouds at her bidding disappear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Points she to aught? The bliss draws near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And fancy rules the way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That was a wonderful day. But it may be remarked, that Mr. Kindred
+went home more than ever discontented with the length of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Living up there," he said, "when we are all down here. It is too
+bad. How many times a month does Cherry walk down here in the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"She need not walk in the sun," said the girls, laughing at him.
+"There is shade all the way if she wants it. Why, she comes every day,
+you foolish boy."</p>
+
+<p>"At what hour, generally, you foolish girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all sorts of times," said Violet; "after breakfast, and before
+dinner, and after tea. But they are both coming down to-day to dine
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will just go up and make sure they understand that,"
+said Magnus. "Cherry does not always take up an idea as quick as she
+might."</p>
+
+<p>And away he dashed out of the house and began to double-time it up
+the hill, the three women at home watching from the window in admiring
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the best looking fellow that ever was," said Rose. And the
+mother answered as Cherry had done:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but do not tell him so."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+Then the girls laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother," they cried, "you do it, every time you look at him."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus meanwhile sped lightly up the hill. He had his reasons for
+liking to go at this particular time; the picture yesterday was too
+lovely for him not to long to see it again, and it might be that Cherry
+read to her father every morning. Then what was the book? Cherry had
+closed it so suddenly upon his coming, that he caught no glimpse of
+the inside; but the outside stirred his curiosity. It was an old
+book, bound in the dainty old-time vellum, once marked and embossed
+with gold; but that was much faded and worn away. It did not look
+like a Bible, and yet that, Magnus felt, was the correct thing for
+Cherry&mdash;such a girl as she was&mdash;to be reading to her father
+at breakfast time. Other people's duties are marked out in such very
+distinct lines that even colour blindness is rarely doubtful over
+them.</p>
+
+<p>But no murmur of voices met him, as he paused at the front door; and
+something warned him to go quietly round the house to the steps that
+ran down into the garden. And sure enough, he had his picture, but a
+different one this time.</p>
+
+<p>A little white-covered tray on the upper step held bread and milk
+and berries, and on the step below sat Cherry, with a book in her lap.
+She jumped up at the sound of his footfall, and put the book away,
+coming back instantly to her place.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Erskine out?" Magnus asked, as he took position at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not out. It is one of the days when that old bullet wound
+gives so much trouble that the best thing is to keep quite still."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't read to him, such days?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has had the reading&mdash;and he had his breakfast,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+said Cherry; "but he made me come down and take mine in the fresh
+air."</p>
+
+<p>"And instead of doing it, you fall to reading again," said Magnus,
+reaching up his hand to the milk pitcher and filling her glass. "Please
+to begin at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Please to have some too, then. There are more strawberries on the
+table inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Two breakfasts to-day, against some other morning when I shall have
+none," said Magnus. "What are you waiting for? Something else I should
+get?" For Cherry sat lingering, and had not touched her spoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Magnus repeated, watching her. He had a spoonful of berries
+on the way to his mouth, and still her hands had not stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus&mdash;you haven't&mdash;will you ask the blessing?"
+Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>The berries came down with a rush.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said, with an odd change in his voice. And Cherry bent
+her head and spoke the few sweet words as simply and gladly as if they
+were but a breath of native air. Magnus was stirred more than he cared
+to own.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven and earth come pretty close together where you are," he
+broke out, eating his berries and forgetting the sugar.</p>
+
+<p>"Where anybody is," said Cherry. "Heaven must be near when the Lord
+is close by, 'with you,' and 'at your right hand.'"</p>
+
+<p>She was all changed this morning; so quiet, so self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," Magnus went on impulsively, "one gets out of
+practice. I've not heard a blessing asked for two years, till I came
+home. Except when mother and I had our picnic."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in your Mess Hall?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+"Well, I should say not!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can always ask one silently for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus gave a long groan.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe your flag is sixty feet long," he said. "What do you
+suppose the other three hundred men would say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Not care, I dare say. Well, to begin, they'd give me a silence,
+just as like as not."</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"A silence. That's what we give a Tac who oversteps bounds, or a
+party of women who are brought in to see the animals feed. There's a
+universal din up to that moment, and then every man drops his knife and
+fork, stops his tongue, and looks. You don't know what silence means
+till you've heard that."</p>
+
+<p>"What a very queer custom! And that is what they might do to you?
+But it could not last long, I suppose, because they would have to eat
+their breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it would not last long!" said Magnus ironically. "First Rig
+begins: 'Hello, Kin! Most through? Lose your breakfast?' And Crane:
+'Say, Kin! Come and bless what's left on our table.' And Crinkem would
+yell: 'Shut up, and let him alone! He's praying for strength to eat the
+steak.'"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's colour flitted back and forth as he spoke; then her eyes
+lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not sound pleasant," she said; "but Magnus, if I were you,
+I think I would try it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt you would," said Magnus, thinking his own thoughts.
+"Sixty feet long in all weathers. But Cerise, besides all that, there
+isn't time. We have but just so many minutes for breakfast, anyhow; and
+while I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+my eyes shut, somebody else might get my roll. No great
+gain, but still a loss."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be very sad," said Cherry, with a comical smile. "But
+then, you would enjoy the rest so much better. Magnus," she went on
+seriously, "did you ever think how many faint-hearted Christians there
+may be in the crowd who would take courage from you to do right?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so help me face the silence?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is grand to face wrong things for right reasons!" said Cherry,
+her eyes like two opals, showing their hidden fire. "'And they departed
+from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
+shame for his name.'"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, talk to me," he said. "I want all the talking to I can
+get. But I can tell you, Cerise&mdash;do you mind my calling you
+so?"&mdash;he broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no," the girl answered. "It does not sound quite natural."</p>
+
+<p>"Not like old times&mdash;no, of course not. Well, would you like
+Chérie better? I think I should," said Mr. Kindred, watching the
+pink tinges with a delightful sense of having the reins in his own
+hands again. "It is more closely descriptive, and just as good for my
+French."</p>
+
+<p>"You are without question the most absurd boy this side of West
+Point!" said Cherry. "Have you emptied your strawberry basket? I must
+put these things away."</p>
+
+<p>"We must, indeed," said Magnus, handling dishes and bearing them off
+into the house. "You know I have come to take you back with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you! It might have been wise&mdash;not to say civil&mdash;to
+state that before."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to go," said Magnus. "I'd rather have you all to
+myself here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, will you please stop practising your favourite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+wave motion, and keep out of my way?" said Cherry, much hindered in her
+progress by finding Magnus before her at every turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't studied it yet,&mdash;so there. Now, Cherry, you surely did
+not mind what I said about wave motion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I said about women's not needing to learn it."</p>
+
+<p>"If all the men understand it through and through, that might leave
+the women free for other work," said Cherry critically, as if she were
+weighing the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Magnus; "now you are beginning to talk like yourself. I
+haven't half known you since I came home. Tease away, ma Chérie."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, don't you want to run upstairs and get papa's tray? He must
+be done with it by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," said Cadet Kindred. "Only&mdash;this is the
+second time you have sent me to him,&mdash;and as I remarked the other
+night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I declare!" Cherry exclaimed, giving him a good sight of the fire
+sparks. But then she turned and darted away up some back staircase so
+fleetly and softly that he could not even tell by which way she had
+gone. And when the pursuer by ordinary routes had reached the room,
+Cherry was in calm conversation with her father.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was sitting by the window, and certainly looked rather
+surprised at the headlong style in which Magnus rushed in; but smiled
+and shook hands very cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry sent me to get your tray, sir," the young man explained;
+"and she was so high-strung over my seeming hesitation that, after
+that, I stumbled upstairs as fast as I could."</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;chaffing each other as usual," said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," Cherry put in, safely ensconced now behind her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+father and her work basket, "you must not believe one word these cadets
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"These cadets!" Magnus retorted. "Please to be more personal in your
+remarks. I stand up for the veracity of the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"And represent it, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who is wandering into fib-land now," said Magnus. "Mr.
+Erskine, if you take her at her word, and never believe anything I say,
+I shall live to see the day when, with tears in her eyes, she will
+assure you of my perfect truth and reliability."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you will not," said Cherry. "Unless you live to be a hundred
+and ten."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine laughed heartily. Just so had those two been sparring
+ever since they were in leading strings; perfect inseparables, but
+never together ten minutes without getting up a skirmish of some
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry this is one of your bad days, sir," Magnus went on;
+"but the sun is very bright, as you can see, sir, and the air is
+soft&mdash;you can <i>feel</i> that. I like to back up my words when I can.
+And perhaps you will kindly take hold of my arm, sir, and judge if it
+is likely to give way under the weight of your hand down the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"All which means," said Mr. Erskine, "that I am expected by the dear
+people down there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And I think mother will be disappointed if you don't
+come&mdash;but I'll scoot down and get a note from her to say so. And
+Rose will cry out, 'Oh, dear!' and Violet will exclaim, 'Dear me!' At
+least," said Magnus, correcting himself, "it will be something like
+that. Even warped surfaces cannot always help a man to know just what a
+woman will say."</p>
+
+<p>And Cadet Kindred stood back with the air of one who, having just
+sent a shell from the siege battery, and seen it hit the mark, feels
+that he deserves well of his country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+"Why 'warped surfaces'?" said Mr. Erskine, laughing up at the handsome
+young fellow, whom he loved next to his own daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncertain, sir. And incomprehensible. Greatest puzzle I know," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said his friend slowly, "you are a good persuader, Magnus.
+Cherry, you are going, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do, papa."</p>
+
+<p>"Not else? Then I must try. I know you want to see all you can of
+your old playmate. It is better than letters, isn't it, love? I can
+tell you, Magnus, there was no keeping her at home letter day, no
+matter what the weather was."</p>
+
+<p>If Cherry sighed inwardly, "Oh, papa!" she gave no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very happy to hear it, sir," said Magnus, in his stateliest
+tones. "It was beautiful filial devotion in Cherry. Of course she knew
+how anxious you were to know that, as yet, I was out of light prison. I
+hope she never took cold, or injured her health in any way, going out
+in all weathers to relieve your anxiety."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, it was not all for me," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you remember,
+love, the week when the track was snowed up? and the overdue letter
+that never came at all? Magnus, those were dark days. I believe Cherry
+went down to the other house six times between sunrise and sunset; and
+then when at last the mail-bag came, our letter did not."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very beautiful of her to take so much trouble to quiet
+your mind, sir," said Magnus, watching the swift, pulsating colour in
+Cherry's fair cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I took very little of it to myself," said Mr. Erskine, going
+calmly on, as men will, through they know not what. "My heart ached
+for her that day when she came back with her pale face, and said so
+patiently, 'We must wait till to-morrow, papa.' Then at night they all
+came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+up here; and I had to say over everything I had ever known or heard
+about trains, letters, and&mdash;boys. You ought to be a good fellow,
+Magnus, with four such women-hearts watching over you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Don't you think it might further the cause if they told
+me a little more about it?" said Magnus, with an innocent face.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa&mdash;he knows quite enough for his good," Cherry
+remonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he might not like to hear it all," Mr. Erskine went on, in
+the same unconscious fashion. "Poor little girl! How her voice shook
+when she began to read to me that morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did she read, sir?" Magnus questioned, with an odd change in
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we were in the Revelation just then. Were we not, love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, papa,"&mdash;very low.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember. 'The sea of glass,' and 'them that had gotten the
+victory.' Cherry read it as if she was ready to have the time come."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa!"&mdash;it was almost a cry. "Why will you go back and bring
+that all up again? Cannot you find pleasanter things to tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he cannot, and you know it very well," said Magnus decidedly.
+"Leave fib-land to me. I wish you would show me the very chapter,
+please, Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>"Hand me the book&mdash;there it is, love, on my table."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring you another, papa,&mdash;" and Cherry went swiftly to
+the next room.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, however, had his own private reasons for thwarting her
+whenever he could, if it was only in the choice of a book; and before
+she could get back he had brought the other volume to Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, this is better," Cherry said, coming in; but Magnus
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+shook his head at her, and she silently came down to her seat again.
+Then came a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had been so busy watching her that neither book had had
+much notice. Now, as Mr. Erskine turned the leaves, saying: "Here,
+this is the place," Magnus bent down over his friend's shoulder
+to look, and behold! he could not read one word. It might be the
+Revelation&mdash;but it was also Greek. At least, so he supposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, which was the book she was reading from that day?" he
+said, looking at Cherry, who now sat perfectly still, with the other
+Testament in her lap and her hands folded upon it. And if it had not
+been impossible, he would have thought she was biting her lips hard to
+keep back a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the very one," said Mr. Erskine, all unconscious. "She
+always reads in this&mdash;we both like it better. It is worn on the
+outside," he went on, turning the book over and giving the vellum
+affectionate touches, "but I like these old bindings, don't you? The
+time-stained cover for the things which time can neither stain nor wear
+out. This was the book and the place where she read that morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to hear her read it now," said Cadet Kindred, feeling
+considerably dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it to him, love," said Mr. Erskine, giving the old book to
+her; and without raising her eyes Cherry obeyed, but in tones so low,
+that but for their clearness, the eager listener could hardly have
+caught one word. Understand one word he did not.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnificent, are they not?" said Mr. Erskine. "But the English
+version holds its own," he added musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"'And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them
+that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and
+over his mark, and over the number<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that was it. You see, my boy, if you had indeed gotten the
+victory, and passed on into the exceeding glory and the joy, it did
+not so much matter if, for a little space, we broke our hearts down
+here."</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange, wholesome ten minutes for Cadet Kindred; and I
+think as he stood there looking down at Cherry, he took the measure of
+his smallest storm flag more accurately than he had ever done before.
+In fact he could hardly find it to measure, but seemed to hear the
+empty halyards whipping against the staff. And that girl had been
+staying her heart with the thought of his victory and crown!</p>
+
+<p>"That was the first hard day," said Mr. Erskine; "and the letters
+did not come for a week. What was our next reading, love? Magnus would
+like to hear them all."</p>
+
+<p>But now Cherry's answer burst forth:</p>
+
+<p>"Papa&mdash;I cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>The father's hand came tenderly on her head.</p>
+
+<p>"That is too much to ask," he said. "Those days are better out of
+sight. Go and get your hat, love, and we will try to reach our dear
+friends down the hill. Poor little girl!" he said, as Cherry sprang
+away; "it was a very hard time for her. And everybody looked to her for
+comfort. Violet would come up and cry on her shoulder, and Rose would
+beg her to go down and talk to your mother; and Cherry went and came,
+and reasoned and hunted up possible causes, and cheered everybody but
+herself. With a smile always ready, but pale as the winter sunshine.
+You see the lines were down, so that we could not telegraph, and when
+the first train broke through, even then there was no letter. She is a
+brave heart."</p>
+
+<p>"She is the very dearest girl in all the world!" Magnus said
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+"About that," her father answered&mdash;"well, love, here you are. Now
+we shall see what this brave young shoulder that is so ready to be
+useful, can do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, as you will not need me, papa, I will run on ahead," and
+Cherry slipped in among the trees, and was out of sight directly.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI<br />
+THE SUMMER GIRL</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>No man has complained that you have discoursed too long on any
+subject, for you leave us in an eagerness of hearing more.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20"><span class="smcap">&mdash;Dryden.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The other two walked slowly on. They had always been cronies, as a
+man and even a small boy can be; and now Magnus found his old friend
+full of the keenest interest in all the new life and varying work of
+which the young cadet had so much to tell. Slowly down the pretty hill
+they went; Mr. Erskine taking from Magnus what help he could for his
+lame side, and the cadet trying to make the regulation step know its
+place. And it was so pleasant to see, so like the dear old times, that
+the four at the cottage dropped everything to watch them as they came.
+Then Mrs. Kindred hurried out to welcome her guest, the two sisters
+got hold of Magnus, and Cherry went quietly back to finish setting the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt she was not minding her business too closely, smiling to
+herself over the words and laughter that came past the half-open door
+of the closet where she was sorting out spoons; for she never heard
+what stealthy steps drew near, and her first warning of danger was the
+sudden darkening of the closet by the shutting of the door. Cherry
+sprang towards it just in time to hear the bolt shot and the key
+withdrawn. Then came a struggle outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus, stop! Cherry is in there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Safe as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the key! She wants to be out here."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then why did she go in?"</p>
+
+<p>"She went for the spoons, you intolerable boy," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Do to talk of," said Magnus coolly. "No, my dear; she went because
+this intolerable boy was around. So you perceive it is very kind of me
+to keep her where she cannot see him. Come, chicks; let's get the old
+banjo, and I'll sing you the 'Song of the Summer Girl.'"</p>
+
+<p>"If you sing one single note when Cherry is not by to hear, we will
+stop our ears," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will not be able to tell her about it afterwards," said
+Magnus. "Come along."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you cannot have your dinner till we get the spoons," said
+Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"At West Point we eat with forks&mdash;when we have them," said
+Magnus. "When we do not, we take our fingers. Where is that banjo?"</p>
+
+<p>The girls followed him, talking and scolding and threatening to tell
+Mr. Erskine, but Cherry had no idea of waiting for outside help. She
+was a girl of resources, and the case in hand was not very hard. For
+this was an outside lock, simply screwed on; an old knife made a fair
+screwdriver; and, when Magnus had just reached the next room, a soft
+chink made him look round, and there was Cherry, calmly putting the
+spoons in place.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you come from?" he said, turning back.</p>
+
+<p>"The spoon drawer. Do I understand that West Point cadets scorn both
+spoons and forks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll teach you something about West Point cadets, before I go,"
+Magnus asserted, stepping towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"How good of you!" said Cherry mockingly, as she slipped round
+the table. "We're such an ignorant set out here. Magnus, if you
+would announce a lecture on warped surfaces, I really think it would
+draw."</p>
+
+<p>What Magnus would have said or done, and how Cherry
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+might have suffered for her temerity, does not appear. Rose came
+in, bearing a dish of such chicken pot-pie as Magnus declared never
+grew on a reservation; Violet followed with potatoes and peas and
+beets&mdash;the pretty red, white, and green of the summer garden; and
+they all sat down to dinner. Then Magnus found that he had neither
+spoon nor fork.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Violet, how careless," the mother said, as he made known the
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>"No, mamma, not I."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry, "Magnus said that West Point cadets
+could eat with their fingers, so I thought if he enjoyed it, we should
+like to see how it was done. And it would be one less to wash. And the
+chickens are cut up," she added gravely. Mrs. Kindred laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"If you two are having a fight, I'll keep out," she said. "Go and
+help yourself, Magnus." And this he would have done from Cherry's
+plate, if that young damsel had not laid fast hold of her property; so
+he took Violet's instead.</p>
+
+<p>But it was a delightful dinner: what though the courses were few
+and simple, and the trained waiters only the three girls. Then the two
+elders carried Magnus off to the porch for another talk while the girls
+cleared the table, and then they also came out, bringing the banjo.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the summer girl!" they cried, and Magnus left his place for
+one on the steps at Cherry's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She</i> has been called 'a summer girl,'" he said, "and I want to see
+how she likes her portrait. This lay is named: 'The Idle of the Summer
+Girl.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Your writing?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"If you admire it, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, child," said Mrs. Kindred, "do they waste your time out
+there writing poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better
+believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+time means if I didn't filch a little for my own use, now and then.
+This is: 'The Idle of the Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,'
+Cadet Rig being the other party. All the weak lines are his. There's
+another touching ditty on the same theme, much sung in camp at the time
+of full moon, but it takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from
+a specimen verse."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing
+voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in
+his own:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>1st Cadet</i>: "O the Summer Girl has come to town."</p>
+<p><i>2d Cadet</i>: "Alas, my heart!"</p>
+<p><i>1st Cadet</i>: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail&mdash;ing gown."</p>
+<p><i>2d Cadet</i>: "Alas, my heart!"</p>
+<p><i>3d Cadet</i>: "Steady on that, you haven't got any."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>At least four voices cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Go on! Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much the way."</p>
+
+<p>"And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?"
+inquired Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her
+justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork
+quilt:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I sing the song of the Summer Girl;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She feels for the lonely cadet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I seem to taste them yet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>("N. B.&mdash;The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station
+probably.")</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The peaches she threw at my head at drill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The apples she dropped at my feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little pound cake that she made me take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">First biting, to make it sweet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;she didn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose&mdash;she did!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you eat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on
+Chappy. Robins aren't fetched up particular, as I was.
+Why, that's nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of
+sugar between her teeth and comes round offering everybody
+a bite, that is rather steep."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And yet, long life to the Summer Girl!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Far be it from me to flout her.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But what could we do without her?<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There were two spoons and a single dish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two hearts that beat as one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we sat by the wall before recall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Eating ice cream in the sun."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who
+had grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row?
+Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted
+for one of the blackbirds?"</p>
+
+<p>"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out
+of anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally
+careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the
+partition wall grows thin."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got
+ice cream."</p>
+
+<p>"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets
+gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a
+summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature
+smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country
+store up in business."</p>
+
+<p>"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Contraband sweets of life, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would
+confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em.
+Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the
+hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I
+do not like to have you breaking rules."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not
+make 'em so fragile."</p>
+
+<p>"If they are fragile, keep off."</p>
+
+<p>"Just can't, mammy. Here we've had breakfast at half past six. Then
+we go head over heels into math. and heels over head into tan bark;
+and not another regulation mouthful to be had till one o'clock. Flesh
+and blood can't stand it, you know. We just <i>have</i> to have a barrel of
+apples handy, and a box of crackers; and any other trifles we can pick
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"A barrel of apples!" said Rose. "And 'smuggled' in! Wherever in the
+world do you keep them?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to be such a favourite with the Tacs next summer, I
+think I will not tell," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor starved boy!" said Rose. "And he has been home two whole days,
+and not even half a dish of ice cream, yet."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+"I have had all the ice I want, thank you," said Cadet Kindred, looking
+up at Cherry, who as I said, had been very silent while all these other
+girls filled the air. "<i>Cream</i> has been scarce. Perhaps if you two
+would stir up some sort of stuff to-morrow, Cherry would come down and
+freeze it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall freeze it yourself," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed&mdash;with her to help me." And laughing up at her with
+mischievous eyes, Magnus finished his song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But never you trust the Summer Girl,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or you will find to your sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That just as she smiled on Tubs to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She'll smile on Daddy to-morrow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII<br />
+LAYING FOUNDATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pronounce
+in any language, but which no man or nation that cannot
+utter, can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I
+was wrong.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The early tea was over, and long shadows were falling as the little
+party broke up. The three girls were still debating what sort of ice
+cream they should make, when just beyond the gate a neighbour, driving
+by, offered Mr. Erskine a seat in his buggy. Then Magnus turned to his
+sisters.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here, you girls," he said. "I have to speak to Cherry very
+seriously; and I doubt if she likes to be lectured before people. Run
+in."</p>
+
+<p>The girls laughed and obeyed; but perhaps Cherry did not choose to
+wait for lectures, nor mean to have them, for she spoke first. They
+were going slowly up the hill, Magnus falling into the West Point
+saunter, to which Cherry rather unwillingly conformed.</p>
+
+<p>"We are walking very slow," she ventured. "And you used to walk so
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point style. The very first day they impressed it upon my mind
+that fast walkers want to get somewhere. And, Cerise, just now I do
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said suddenly, "what did you really mean by a 'storm
+flag'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Cadet Kindred, in a tone of deep satisfaction, "now I
+have got it. I thought it could not be long before Cherry would take me
+in hand."</p>
+
+<p>"But whatever did you mean?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path
+to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what
+was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get
+it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag
+flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never
+came into your true heart. You know what it means to strike your
+colours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;oh, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what it is to keep them flying,&mdash;for you do it every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You
+did not like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely
+flying."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant more than that&mdash;or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a
+storm flag is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you
+think, and so you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run
+up another that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that
+hardly shows it is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a
+good light, you can see the colours; but that is about all. It does
+not encourage the world much, and tells of hard weather more than of
+victory and joy. Do you understand now, dear girl?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations
+of colour came and went.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus," she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Chérie. Say whatever comes into your heart to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is a little short time every now and then when the
+colours are really down?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+"Yes. And the harder the gale, the longer it takes to get them
+up again. It is often slow work, anyhow," said Magnus, with some
+bitterness at himself.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry sat silent, looking down.</p>
+
+<p>"What would happen to the other flag&mdash;the big one&mdash;if you
+left it flying?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"In a gale? Go to ribands, probably&mdash;the real one."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the real one. But that is just what the bullets do to it!"
+said Cherry, her eyes glowing and deepening. "And everybody only loves
+such a flag the better."</p>
+
+<p>"And you love me the less."</p>
+
+<p>The girl started slightly, with the sudden transfer of the subject
+to herself, but she made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak!" Magnus said, getting hold of her hand and giving it a
+little shake. "Cherry, you've <i>got</i> to speak. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered slowly; "you know that could not be. We have been
+friends too long. I was a little disappointed, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose there are few wholesomer views a man can get of himself
+than through the eyes of the right sort of woman; but the wholesome is
+not always the sweet. Cadet Kindred said to himself just then that it
+was extremely bitter. He had been disappointed in himself, of course,
+more than once, but that was another matter. One gives little softening
+touches to one's own private lectures; excusing and explaining. Now,
+this true heart, which he well believed would never flinch in the
+direst extremity, had counted the minutes when the colours were down,
+measured the storm flag, and been "disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>If she had said sharper things, he could have borne it better. Was
+this weak girl going to sail away from him on every tack? This morning
+she had read pages where he knew not a word; this afternoon she was
+ready for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+forefront of that life battle where he had at least <i>thought</i> of
+dodging behind a tree.</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking down, slowly swinging her hand back and forth,
+thinking of the days and times when he had trained with the wrong
+crowd, giving countenance to what at heart he disapproved. Nothing so
+dreadfully bad, perhaps, but very small work for him, a servant of the
+Great King; not loyal, not dauntless.</p>
+
+<p>True, he had afterwards called himself to order; had "braced
+up" spiritually, and even for a time won the title of "saint"; but
+"steadfast, immovable," he had not been. And in that swift way in
+which thoughts work, there flashed upon him the story of one of the
+battles of the Wilderness, when, as the young colour-bearer was shot
+down, another caught the banner from his hand&mdash;and another from
+his, until for a few minutes the colours just fell and rose, fell and
+rose&mdash;but never allowed to touch the ground; not once.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please to look up and speak?" The tone was deprecating,
+the dark eyes wistful and grave.</p>
+
+<p>"There does not anything please me just now, except holding your
+hand. No, you cannot get it away. You see, Cherry, this is how it is:
+there's a strong tide there, setting the way you shouldn't go."</p>
+
+<p>"Everywhere," put in Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"So mother says; but I speak of what I know. When you first get to
+the Academy, you are so homesick that you'd like to pray and read the
+Bible all the time; it seems more like home than anything else. Then
+you are plagued, and get provoked. Then upper classmen drive you to
+prayer-meeting, and of course you don't want to go. Then you get so
+tangled up in the work and the hazing that you'd give your own dog two
+cents to tell you who you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+are. You can't keep Sunday,&mdash;at least, you think you
+can't,&mdash;with guard-mounting in the morning and dress parade at
+night, and in barracks a lesson a mile long for eight o'clock Monday
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus, you do not study on Sunday?" Cherry said anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I did once&mdash;and maxed it straight through, had a splendid
+week, and saw visions of Willet's Point. So I thought I'd try it again.
+And that week I just went down; got the worst marks I ever had, and,
+instead of the doughty Engineer Corps, had the Immortals in full view.
+So I concluded to get back into the good old ways and stay there."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry laughed, but her eyes glistened. "That was one of the Lord's
+gentle rebukes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it lasted," said Magnus. "I haven't done that thing
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"And they make no allowance for the day before's being Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. Why, one of the instructors advised us to have our
+prayer-meeting early Sunday night, that there might be more hours for
+study."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you told them, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"They would just think I was shirking. You see we could not ask in
+numbers enough to be a power, for many of the men do not care. That's
+another thing in one's way; see a first classman as meek as Moses at
+prayer-meeting, and then in camp have him just as hateful as Pharaoh
+and all the Egyptians."</p>
+
+<p>"To you yourself, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was a pleb once, you know. And nothing was too bad to do to a
+pleb, for the best of men. No, I take that back; we had&mdash;and we
+have&mdash;some splendid upper classmen; men who dose you with good
+counsel. It is not always pleasant to take, Chérie, but it did me lots
+of good, for they lived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+up to it themselves. They help, too, in other ways. Get a pleb in out
+of the sun, and give him some play work in a tent, and so keep him away
+from the hazing parties and give him time to breathe. Mr. Upright was
+always doing such things."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think everyone would love him very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you mustn't," said Magnus, giving her hand a little swing.
+"You are not to love anybody but me. However, Upright isn't there now;
+graduated, and gone to make enlisted men good and happy, wherever he's
+stationed. Trueman is such another; and Starr, in our class. Ugliest
+little man you ever saw, and the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I do not believe he is the ugliest," said Cherry decidedly.
+"But it was not like that last year, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! Yearlings have leave to step out and show themselves. Get
+invited to picnics, some of them, and go to the hops, most of them, and
+are wild for fun, all of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Chérie, you see how it was. I have not been as bad as I
+might, nor anything like as good. They think me a pretty reliable
+fellow over there, but I'm not by any means what you would call
+a shining light. Six in studies, and one in discipline, and a
+double-first at all sorts of mischief."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"The very same boy you always were," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty much. Only this is mischief that tells. Chocolate parties in
+rooms after lights are out."</p>
+
+<p>"After lights are out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Supposed to be. Explosions on the area coming from nowhere and
+nothing; and post dogs, painted to admiration."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What, my lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> do not do such things?"</p>
+
+<p>"I drank the chocolate&mdash;should have got skinned for it, too,
+only I stood behind something when Towser came in. And I looked at
+the dog. And I did not go out of my wits with astonishment at the
+explosions. Queer, too; for when you get together a bell button, a
+match, a white feather, a little powder, and a second classman, they
+make more noise than you would suppose possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they kept such watch of you," Cherry said. "We have
+wasted a great deal of sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"No you haven't, and yes, they do; that's the fun. Some of the men
+will tell you that breaking regulations is all the fun they have."</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not I exactly. I never can quite get rid of a certain respect
+for law and order. But you would laugh yourself; you couldn't help it,
+to see a solemn-looking Tac inspecting for apples, and know that they
+were within an inch of his nose, where he couldn't find them."</p>
+
+<p>"And you all kept grave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stood attention, like the sweet boys we were, till he was
+gone,&mdash;and stood on our heads afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry did laugh, but rather doubtfully. "I suppose it must be fun,"
+she said, "but I wish you would let the other boys have it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the only sort, by any means," said Magnus. "One day
+Miss Flirt had brought Crinkem a basket of pears. Well, he stored them
+skilfully in parts unknown, till friendly darkness should come to help;
+had to go to drill, and told Carr (who hadn't) to keep an eye on the
+basket. Which Carr did. Wasn't a pear there when Crinkem got back."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Crinkem?"</p>
+
+<p>"First classman, then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+"And who is Miss Flirt?"</p>
+
+<p>"A summer girl who stays all the time, and flirts with
+everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"With you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, because she can't. She jeered me when I was a poor candidate,
+and I vowed revenge."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say revenge lay in the other direction," remarked
+Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for her. She's been on tiptoe to rope me in, ever since I wore
+chevrons. I did half think I would teach her a lesson when I got to be
+first captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus, don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help
+even the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately
+of the dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you
+know how salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and
+ready to spoil?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he
+held.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if
+I can. But Cerise, I only said <i>thought</i>. And I have not thought it
+any more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the
+subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."</p>
+
+<p>"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some
+of the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that;
+I'd like to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest
+look which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched
+her for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been
+holding, and turned half away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you
+should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any
+shape, while they are at the Post?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote
+taken by each class,&mdash;'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall
+they have wine&mdash;or shall they not? I have heard of one class who
+fought it through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority
+protest; but so really a minority that the other was counted as the
+class vote; and their names should be gold-starred in every register.
+Our class had no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the
+usual results followed."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to
+look at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so
+highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely.
+"They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get
+upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible
+persuasions to keep some of them down."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have
+gone to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus,
+what did the minority do?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus glanced up at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some
+did not. And of those last, Cherry, I was one."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that
+the young man felt as if he had been struck. Not another
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+word followed, but he could see that she was trembling from head to
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in
+any open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first,
+and for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."</p>
+
+<p>And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's
+self-control. She exclaimed once more:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p>But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly
+as only those women who rarely cry at all can do&mdash;silently,
+uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which
+had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look
+up nor speak.</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after
+a minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in
+its distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort
+of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of
+himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another
+man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But
+he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the
+scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!</p>
+
+<p>Would Cherry ever speak to him again?</p>
+
+<p>And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress
+had slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus
+looked at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.</p>
+
+<p>There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be
+hindered, Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was
+taken possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the
+summer girl's eyebrows?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+"They are not always her own. What are <i>you</i> about, chicks? wandering
+round at this time of night."</p>
+
+<p>"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you
+were coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast
+will be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said
+Magnus absently.</p>
+
+<p>"But what were you at, sure enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."</p>
+
+<p>"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us
+go."</p>
+
+<p>And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had,
+Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their
+young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and
+true.</p>
+
+<p>This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should <i>he</i> ever mar the joy
+of these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for
+him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's
+head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to
+the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and
+of course he must take his place.</p>
+
+<p>There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will
+do; and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she
+read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as
+soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked
+the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could
+he even think out anything clearly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days
+had confused everything.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go,
+to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have
+nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see
+the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their
+vote. Why had not he?</p>
+
+<p>It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought
+the word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of
+standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very
+much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more
+open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth"
+heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand,
+flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.</p>
+
+<p>As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the
+servants in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters
+and against the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there,
+and with no one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could
+find, from her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.</p>
+
+<p>Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to
+the Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing;
+had not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely
+ever tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and
+forth progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily
+growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the
+wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but
+that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.</p>
+
+<p>Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of
+her, whether or not. If the joy of his life
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+was gone, and sometimes Magnus felt that it was, yet honour and truth
+remained. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world
+and lose his own soul?"</p>
+
+<p>Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts
+passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and
+when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his
+noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII<br />
+BUILDING THEREON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ever made by the Hand above?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A woman's heart and a woman's life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And a woman's wonderful love?<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">You have written my lesson of duty out;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Manlike have you questioned me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">While I shall question thee.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Browning.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew
+would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a
+restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst&mdash;if
+worst it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill
+after breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus
+went off with the most eager alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr.
+Erskine greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling
+hand, and no look at all.</p>
+
+<p>"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you
+sit down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if
+Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went
+straight on with her reading.</p>
+
+<p>But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+fell; more than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at
+last, midway in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a
+moment's brave struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head.
+"She is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a
+white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words
+and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg
+pardon. This was it,&mdash;a grand passage:</p>
+
+<p>"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the
+Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall
+see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But you should not break down there, love. <i>That</i> is all
+victory."</p>
+
+<p>"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do
+you be one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field.
+'As a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that
+girl needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with
+me, I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do
+you want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly
+displays your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus
+is right."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+"I wish I could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then
+you see she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old.
+'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine
+accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her
+this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I
+came in."</p>
+
+<p>A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment,
+as Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was
+too well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at
+it.</p>
+
+<p>So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid
+hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of
+the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on
+the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but
+notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of the
+tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor did
+she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted the
+deep quiet of his face&mdash;very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear
+steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's
+face now, a boy's no longer.</p>
+
+<p>Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching
+her, for he caught the look.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here
+is a good place for you."</p>
+
+<p>But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close
+at her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap
+down on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+your dear heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only
+do me good."</p>
+
+<p>Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for
+at first she could bring nothing out.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see
+what sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they may&mdash;and I have been looking at you. Cherry,
+have you been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might
+as well go and drown myself at once."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help
+matters.</p>
+
+<p>"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry,
+trying to speak lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus;
+"you don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it,
+Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation,
+and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry
+over <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at
+him with her eyes full.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came
+in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+deserve it, but that does not generally make things much easier."</p>
+
+<p>"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."</p>
+
+<p>"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a
+thing to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.</p>
+
+<p>"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like
+sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling
+what I may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at
+once, and have them off your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, I thought it was to cure my <i>head</i> you brought me here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out
+with you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave
+me your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling
+that detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.</p>
+
+<p>"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns
+don't go off."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"</p>
+
+<p>"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on
+by myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth
+straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night
+I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any
+woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the
+world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody
+else&mdash;and never shall. Never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+could, for that matter. And I've been a fool, and a poltroon, and
+anything else you like; and so she has thrown me off, and has no use
+for me any more. And it makes me just mad to sit here and think that
+I have lost her. And some day I shall get her wedding cards, with the
+name of some nice man who never tied his shoestrings in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other
+feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That."</p>
+
+<p>"What has come over you?"</p>
+
+<p>"This."</p>
+
+<p>"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching
+her breath a little.</p>
+
+<p>"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus.
+"We always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I
+knew I loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I
+saw you again, that first night, I knew that I never should&mdash;never
+could&mdash;love anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and
+ninety-nine, and you got in love with forty other men."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer
+nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that would cure you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through
+all night."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said
+very low.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and
+never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you
+last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there
+was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+I didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very
+reason I wanted it so much."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that
+'could' is in the past."</p>
+
+<p>"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life
+and a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"</p>
+
+<p>"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus,
+I did not mean it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If
+there were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men.
+Why, half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat.
+Give it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't
+know what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty
+hard not to swallow it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse
+it altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they
+look, for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever
+happen to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know
+who it is."</p>
+
+<p>Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take
+heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there
+are men enough there now who never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+touch anything stronger than water. And I never did, till that unlucky
+night. But I've been in lately, somehow, with the other crowd."</p>
+
+<p>"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they
+began to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your
+mind, and bid me go? What do <i>you</i> want of such a Derelict?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you are very hard to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My
+beauty, and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all
+the world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything
+else. I, hard to <i>you</i>? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in
+her keeping. And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was
+anything but true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I
+did not care a red cent for the whole lot."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you
+were not true to yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you
+for a missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled
+specimen that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything
+about me except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I
+have told you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing
+to work it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and
+you brushing the mud off with your own little hands&mdash;you can say
+that, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."</p>
+
+<p>"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there
+was? We can't have the marriage service
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+made over just for us two, I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and
+better, every day I live&mdash;but you've got to <i>take</i> me 'for better,
+for worse.'"</p>
+
+<p>I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have
+her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals,
+unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection.
+To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked
+"human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A
+good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better;
+letting the woman down&mdash;or up&mdash;to her proper station of
+helpmeet. Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow,
+her eyes dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of
+dreams and imaginations.</p>
+
+<p>Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to
+the hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life
+lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in
+the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome&mdash;and
+the old words of the apostle confronted her:</p>
+
+<p>"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."</p>
+
+<p>Could she do that? For suppose&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even
+to herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted
+once&mdash;what if it happened again, or again?</p>
+
+<p>And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell
+out the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning,
+eager; a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he
+could do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again,
+and dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never
+cried before.</p>
+
+<p>"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+with himself. "You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho
+or the moon, as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could
+you want with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame
+you, Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to
+be killed two ways at once. Cherry&mdash;stop! Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up,
+pushing the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long
+clearing-wind breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A
+breath at once of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain,
+but telling of courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a
+time been followed by a shout of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes
+turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still,
+after all: the young head with its short, curling hair, already showing
+that West Point barbers were far away; the smooth cheek giving faint
+tokens of what soon would be. The very hands looked so young. They were
+not clasped nor folded, but lay absolutely still, with that air of
+intense waiting which the whole figure wore. Cherry gazed at them, one
+and another scene of her young life wherein those hands had played a
+part coming up before her. Played it so well and so kindly that she had
+every line of them by heart; sledding, strawberrying, nutting, riding;
+the broken toys they had mended, the strong help they had been in many
+a rough place. Always gentle and patient for her, always ready to do
+her bidding; the tenderest hands when she was hurt, the most untirable
+for her need.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry almost cried out aloud, for the sudden stricture of heart,
+but she kept herself in hand, and now her look went up to the face
+again, and she found that Magnus was watching her, with the intensest,
+hungry, longing eagerness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+He did not stir, but sat still in that attitude of waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do not you speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say, Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I have said all I can. I might promise never to grieve
+you again; might promise all sorts of beautiful things; but you
+know&mdash;and I know&mdash;that something stronger than mere love of
+you, dear, must do the work, and that the work must be done, whether
+you ever love me again or not. I believe I did not know I could be
+tempted&mdash;and I have been left to find it out. If I tell you that
+I have sworn unto the Lord and will not go back, it is not to plead my
+cause with you, Cherry; but because I know that just for old-time's
+sake, your dear heart will always care that your old playmate should
+grow into a man and not a beast."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, in that same sudden way.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is what it amounts to. That was what I called myself
+next morning. And then with the joy of getting home and among
+you all again&mdash;and the wonder of seeing what you had grown
+into&mdash;everything else went out of my head. I was so eager to have
+you that I took it for granted you would have me. Then I remembered
+that for two whole years you had seen nothing of me, and the more I
+loved you the more that thought kept coming up. So then I gave you the
+whole story, and lost all I care for in this world. But it had to be
+done&mdash;and I should do it again. You needn't look at me so, dear,
+and try to hide how you feel. You could not help being disgusted. I do
+not blame you in the least, Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried again. "How can you use such words about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+"What words shall I use? You were disgusted, and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"What then? Choose your own words, and tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought my heart was breaking," the girl said, pressing both
+hands upon her breast. "That was all."</p>
+
+<p>"Was that all?" Magnus said, with a sort of quiet rage at himself.
+"Had I done nothing but that? Only broken the truest heart that ever
+beat? Nothing more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, please!" Cherry pleaded. "Magnus, I cannot talk to you if
+you say such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on then, you, and do the talking. Didn't I tell you I had
+nothing more to say?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry hesitated a moment, and then she put out her hand and laid it
+softly on that other which had grown so brown with handling guns and
+pontoons. Magnus winced, as at the touch of sharp steel, but his own
+hand never stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he said rather shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;does your mother know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, do not! There is no need," Cherry said earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much use, perhaps," he answered in a gloomy tone. "She's bound
+to be my mother, through thick and thin."</p>
+
+<p>"Promise!" Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got to do with it?" Magnus asked her, looking up.
+"What business is it of yours, anyhow? You have washed your hands of me
+and my concerns."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you <i>know</i> that is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it will not take more tears to do the work," he went on in
+the same tone. "There have been enough shed now, to clear away fifteen
+years of memories."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think so, or you would not say it," poor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+Cherry protested. "You are just trying to make me contradict
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" said Magnus, with a half laugh. "Well, go ahead and do it,
+then. Say nothing could ever make you forget me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ever could."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you did love me with all your heart when I went away."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And all the time I was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"All the time."</p>
+
+<p>"And when I came home."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the girl answered in her grave, sweet tones.</p>
+
+<p>"So little while ago!" Magnus said, with a deep breath. "Cherry, you
+were very distant to me at first&mdash;have been, all along."</p>
+
+<p>"You were a little bit of a stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"And now you know me too well. So it goes. If I had not told
+you&mdash;but it is better so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are
+terrible things between people who&mdash;care for each other."</p>
+
+<p>"How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same
+hard way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, that is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you stop to think what to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then."</p>
+
+<p>"People stop to think for different reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me
+why."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+"and as tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could,
+and hurt me the least."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry,
+her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is
+just what I said."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"No need to play it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am
+going home till you come back to your common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down
+and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while
+longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the
+world throw you off."</p>
+
+<p>She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face
+telling all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well
+read in girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl
+in the world'&mdash;but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not
+do that. Unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless what?" he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I knew you had <i>chosen</i> such ways," the girl said, growing
+very white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV<br />
+AMBUSHES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Soft silken hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Open suns, shady bowers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Crashaw.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though
+Cherry was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away
+the effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare
+say; but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused,
+till she appeared again.</p>
+
+<p>But he gave not a hint of the morning's work; about that, both
+parties most interested held their peace. I think they both craved
+silence for a while, and so kept in hiding; not ready yet to hear
+common tongues discuss the new-found wonder of the world. Cherry had
+been too shaken and bruised&mdash;there were too many sharp details
+still vividly in sight&mdash;for her to go straight to her father, as
+perhaps at another time she might have done; she needed to steady her
+own thoughts first. And for Magnus, too, the morning had been a hard
+one, even with its culmination of joy. Besides, counting Cherry his own
+from that time forward, the small ceremony of asking for her could well
+wait. Probably Mr. Erskine needed no telling how things stood. And if
+it were indeed a secret, what fun to keep it such! He wanted no words
+on the subject, just now, save from Cherry herself. Not yet.</p>
+
+<p>All the family from the other house came up the hill to tea next
+day, but saw nothing new. If Cherry was more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+quiet than usual, that was not strange, after such a headache; and if
+Cadet Kindred, on the other hand, was as full of pranks as the veriest
+boy could be, it was not such an unheard-of thing as to draw any
+special attention. One thing they might have seen, that his mischief
+and frolic never came near Cherry; towards her his manner was a silent
+devotion of the most tender and serious sort, but he kept everyone else
+in such a breeze that no one gave heed.</p>
+
+<p>Speeding back from the post-office with a handful of letters, Magnus
+announced that Messrs. Twinkle and Rig&mdash;alias Cadets Starr and
+McLean&mdash;were coming to make him a visit in the course of their
+furlough wanderings, and everybody at once went into committee on the
+proper and possible means of delighting them.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, indeed, turned off the matter very easily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done to your hand," he affirmed. "Mother's cake and pies and
+bread and butter&mdash;with two girls&mdash;would make the average
+cadet almost too happy to support life."</p>
+
+<p>"Two girls!" Rose commented. "You seem to leave Cherry out."</p>
+
+<p>"I did&mdash;that's a fact," Magnus said, with a queer gesture. "But
+then you also leave me out, and I am a third cadet; so it's all right.
+She'll not stand in the cold."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she will, if the others have any sense," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"The average cadet has not much, when there are girls around," said
+Magnus. "He has such hard rubs all day from the Profs and Tacs that
+their soft ways get the better of him."</p>
+
+<p>"We have no soft ways, here," said Rose decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me, I know; but wait till Twinkle comes along."</p>
+
+<p>"Twinkle&mdash;what a name!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+"He couldn't miss it, being a small man called Starr," said Magnus.
+"And he's not a blazer, by any means; keeps down well near the horizon,
+and never even poses as a first-magnitude man. Sometimes when he fesses
+more than usually frigid, we sing him to sleep with:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Twinkle! Twinkle! little Starr!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How I wonder what you are."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I think that is perfectly mean!" said Rose indignantly. "Making
+sport of each other's misfortunes."</p>
+
+<p>"We should die if we didn't make sport of something," said Magnus.
+"And you laugh easier when you take another man's scalp, than when he
+takes yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the lingo that ever was heard, I think your cadet
+slang is the queerest," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad it meets your approval," Magnus said, with a bow. "Say,
+Cherry, just promise you'll walk with nobody but me, while those
+fellows are here. Have a previous every time. These girls are so
+keen-set for brotherly kindness that they'll be sacrificing themselves
+on me to let you have the strangers. You're too tall for Twinkle, and
+Rig will turn your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Or she will turn his," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that is it. But it wouldn't do for Rig to get rattled.
+The poor boy has got to go back and bone for dear life. Rose will
+keep him up to his duty; talk geometry to him, and make his life a
+burden."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose will?" said that young person, lifting her eyebrows. "Well, I
+wish Cherry would talk some sense into you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody can do it half so well," said Magnus, with a change of tone.
+"And she is going to try; she is to give me a special private lecture
+every day I am here. So that it is really quite providential to have
+Twinkle and Rig on hand, for they'll keep you two girls amused and out
+of the way."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+"Indeed! And who is to amuse mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry and I."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus stooped down by his mother, with arms about her neck, and
+laid his face close to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry and I, mammy," he said softly. "Do you understand? Cherry
+and I?"</p>
+
+<p>Only Cherry saw the little start, the eager look at him, and the
+slight nod with which Magnus answered. But Mrs. Kindred was a wise
+woman, and said no word. Perhaps she prayed a little more for the two
+after that; though really I do not know whether she could. There sprang
+up an instant wish in Cherry's mind, however, that no word should be
+said to anybody else until the two strange cadets should have made
+their visit and gone. Magnus was quite wild enough, even with this
+slight check upon his proceedings. And an unconsciously deprecating
+look went over to him, which the young man caught, read, and answered
+with a profound bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lady," he said; "your commands shall be obeyed. Even to the
+half of my fortune. Or, as I haven't any at all, perhaps the whole will
+not be too much."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Mr. Erskine, noting (and somehow resenting) the
+pink tints that came up in Cherry's cheeks; "what has become of that
+'very best sort of a girl' you talked so fast about last week?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of her?" Magnus repeated, standing involuntary
+"attention."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"At home, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not ask where that is, as I have not permission," said Mr.
+Erskine, smiling now; "but what does she say to your coming here first
+and staying so long?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has made no objection as yet, sir. So I do not think she
+will."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she ought, if she cares enough for you," said Mr.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+Erskine. "Boy, I'm afraid you have got yourself tangled up in a foolish
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What should you call 'enough,' sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;all she can," said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"How much <i>could</i> any first-best girl care for me, sir?" said
+Magnus, moving a step or two for a better view of Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you need not try the modest game here," said Mr. Erskine,
+laughing at him. "It is too late in the day for that. If she only
+cares a little, let her go; and find one who will love all there is in
+you, and a good deal more that she thinks is there. I wouldn't give a
+counterfeit five cents for a tepid girl."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine spoke with such disgustful energy that everybody laughed
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"But what girl is this?" Rose demanded. "Someone you never told us
+of?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are fifty girls I never told you of."</p>
+
+<p>"And besides, Rose, he is only attitudinising," said Mr. Erskine. "I
+do not believe the girl is in existence that could get him away. He is
+just young man enough to like the part of an easy-minded lover."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus remarked with some energy that it was better than the part of
+an <i>un</i>easy-minded lover, every time. But now the fun of the thing got
+hold of him, and sealed his lips in earnest. No, if really people could
+not see, they could wait.</p>
+
+<p>Several other things came in to further and abet the silence.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, the neighbourhood waked up to the fact that a
+prospective brigadier was among them, and the inroads to see Magnus,
+and to hear him tell his experience, were many&mdash;and "a nuisance."
+So he himself declared, making wry faces over his popularity.</p>
+
+<p>Then, Mr. Erskine had one of his suffering weeks, when
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+troubling him with questions was not to be thought of. Magnus detailed
+himself as head nurse, taking all the night work, sending Cherry off
+to bed, and gathering up the reins generally in his own hands, proving
+himself most tender and efficient as well as strong. Of course, things
+must be talked over before he went back; but even Cherry herself could
+not think this a good time.</p>
+
+<p>On the back of all these hinderances, and just as Mr. Erskine began
+to be about again, came the other two cadets.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV<br />
+OF COURSE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Admire my daughter! Sir, you're very good.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Tales of the Hall.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>There followed such a round of teas on the hill and dinners at the
+cottage; of picnics, walks, drives, and berry-scouts, that the days
+gave up their ordinary rate of progress, and flew. June had long been
+out of sight; and now July was ending, and August close at hand. Magnus
+indeed closed his ears to the soft flutter, as the days winged by; but
+not so Mrs. Kindred, and not so Cherry. The girl began to look forward
+with absolute dismay to the drawing out from her daily life of this
+gold-twisted silken thread. What should she do, when Magnus was away
+again?</p>
+
+<p>If I say that she was getting bound to him in deeper and finer trust
+and love, with every new day's experience, it is no more than the
+truth; and no more, I think, than he deserved. Love for the right sort
+of woman puts a man at his best, and brings him out wonderfully. Count
+the minutes? Ah, yes! two hearts at least did that. In just so many
+days more Magnus must leave them all.</p>
+
+<p>Then suppose Mr. Erskine&mdash;no, it could not be; and yet, after
+every such decision, one always goes back to say the "suppose" over
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I do wish you would have your talk with papa," Cherry
+ventured one day.</p>
+
+<p>"You recommended that at first&mdash;twice, if I recollect right,"
+remarked Cadet Kindred.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+"I did nothing of the sort. But I should think you might have
+commended it to yourself by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"It is such fun to puzzle him."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will not be fun to grieve him," Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he going to be grieved? Then it will all come upon your hands.
+You know you can wheedle any bird off any bush at any time."</p>
+
+<p>"'Wheedle' papa!" Cherry said with some energy. "Not I, I promise
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know you mean to keep all your promises to me," said
+Magnus. "But come along, and see me throw myself at his feet. Then he
+can save time, and give us his blessing together."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not going," Cherry said, pulling her hand away and trying
+not to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"You are worse than Lord Ullin's daughter," said Magnus. "She
+plunged into all the danger there was around. Chérie, will you send me
+a letter every single day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not talk about letters yet!" Cherry said, in such a pitiful
+tone that Magnus forgot all about Mr. Erskine, and gave himself up to
+the task of comforting her. And it was the father himself who at last,
+unawares, brought on the talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Only twenty days left," he said one morning, when Magnus came into
+his study and sat down, with an absent-minded air.</p>
+
+<p>"Nineteen, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you settle down to hard work again."</p>
+
+<p>"For two years, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I take my diploma and a three-months' leave, and come back
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Three months&mdash;till October."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+"That is better than nothing," said Mr. Erskine; "but we shall all
+think it very short."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot stay until quite October," said Magnus, "but towards
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I take Cherry and go to my post."</p>
+
+<p>But now Mr. Erskine sat straight up, grasping the arm of his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Take Cherry!" he repeated. "My baby! It is <i>Cherry</i> you want to
+take to San Carlos?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may not be San Carlos, sir. Of course, I must take her wherever
+I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you need not get up before gunfire to bone assurance," said
+Mr. Erskine. "My Cherry! And what do you suppose she will say to this
+brilliant plan for her happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she much cares where we go, sir," Magnus answered,
+with easy confidence.</p>
+
+<p>It was an indescribable pang that shot through the father's
+heart. His one treasure, his pearl of all the world, already did
+not "much care" where she went, so long as she could be with this
+youngster&mdash;put her hand in his, and go!</p>
+
+<p>"It may happen that I shall care," he said huskily. "What makes you
+think I will give her up to go anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you can go, too, you know, sir," Cadet Kindred answered,
+with that same calm tone which ignores the hard and cuts through the
+impossible. "We have talked about it a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"It strikes me that a little of the talking should have come to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; but then you are so seldom alone&mdash;always reading or
+something on hand&mdash;it was hard to find a chance. And then you were
+sick. And I thought you must see for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+yourself. And then, if you didn't, it was such fun to puzzle you,"
+Magnus said honestly.</p>
+
+<p>"So seldom alone," Mr. Erskine repeated rather bitterly. "I suppose
+it will be often enough in the future. No, do not say another word to
+me now. Take yourself off, young man, and get out of my sight, and give
+me a chance to draw my breath. My Cherry!"</p>
+
+<p>It was perhaps just as well for everybody that the two guests were
+still there, and the fun and frolic at high-water mark; the best
+intentions thereto, or even the justest cause, could not make anybody
+look grave or stiff or anxious. Therefore Mr. Erskine had time to study
+up his hard question unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>"Question," indeed, it hardly was. Mr. Erskine knew, without
+thinking, that he loved Magnus Kindred like his own son; and it took
+very little awakened observation to show him that, on Cherry's part,
+the old childish affection had passed into the deepest and strongest
+that a woman can know. Reserved and self-contained as she always was,
+her father could see a hundred little tokens which he marvelled he had
+never noticed before. He watched Magnus, too, with very keen-set eyes,
+studied him, weighed him in all sorts of scales, and, on the whole,
+was well content. Just about as much of a boy as ever, only more of
+a man; gay, saucy, absurd, and sensible; but through it all now, in
+whatever touched Cherry, there was an indescribable tone of reverence
+which became him well, as it does any man who has won for himself the
+priceless trust of a true woman's love. His own love and devotion were
+patent enough. Magnus had certainly "taken it hard," as people say.
+The father noted it well, and judged it all of a quality that would
+wear.</p>
+
+<p>Once making up his mind to the situation, it was amusing enough; and
+the two elders of the party had many a quiet laugh at the skill with
+which Messrs. Twinkle and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+Rig were headed off, and never allowed to improve their acquaintance
+with Cherry. It was always somebody else with whom they were fated
+to walk, and to whom they might make pretty speeches; and with all a
+man's recklessness about possible damage to other hearts, and lest his
+tactics should be found out, Magnus hunted up other girls&mdash;old
+acquaintances of the neighbourhood&mdash;to share the burden which at
+first Violet and Rose had borne alone.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus!" Mrs. Kindred protested one day, "you go on like
+crazy boys, you three. Girls about here aren't used to young fellows
+who say everything they do not mean. My dear, I fear you are sowing
+mischief. Jenny Mott went home last night with her head more than half
+turned."</p>
+
+<p>"Easy job for Rig to finish, then," said Magnus. "Never mind, mammy;
+keep up your spirits. We're not so unlike other boys as you seem to
+think. It <i>is</i> getting to be rather serious with Twinkle and Viola."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Kindred said, with her hand on his arm; "now,
+Magnus! you must not put any nonsense into that child's head!"</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't if I would," said Magnus; "not an inch of room. You
+couldn't get a grain in sideways after Twinkle's been talking to her.
+He's a right good fellow, mammy; don't drink, don't smoke, don't
+flirt&mdash;much; and if his light isn't of the very biggest, it's
+always there, which is better. She might do worse."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus, Violet is hardly grown up."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you tell Twinkle so, and ask him to wait?" said Magnus,
+with a very grave face. But then he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mammy!" he said, "when cadets are about, it's 'all luggage at
+the risk of the owners.' I <i>had</i> picked out somebody else for Vio, if
+only he's not gone before she gets there. What a thing it is to have me
+well settled in life before your anxieties over the girls come on!" And
+then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+Magnus kissed her, and set his face towards the other
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus!" said Mrs. Kindred, calling him back, "you have not
+told me what Mr. Erskine says. Do you know yourself? He knits his brows
+so sometimes, when he is looking at you, that I never dare ask him. Is
+he willing, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will be, before I get through with him," said Magnus
+confidently, and he went whistling up the hill, as though that small
+task were done to his hand.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI<br />
+SAN CARLOS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Mix up a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions
+and rattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat
+the stones red hot; and set the United States army loose over the
+place chasin' Apaches; and you've got San Carlos.</p>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<span class="smcap">U. S. Soldier</span>, <i>in Harper's Magazine</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And I suppose so it was; the task was really ended when the idea
+came in. A strong protector for his darling when his own care should
+fail, had been the longing in Mr. Erskine's heart for many a day, and
+Magnus Kindred had always been second only to Cherry in his heart. Yet
+to give her up before the time, and, instead of leaving her, to have
+her leave him, it was sharp enough. No wonder he knit his brows now and
+then in the midst of all the gaiety, and almost put out a hand between
+his child and this youngster who claimed such rights and took them with
+such assurance. No wonder if he frowned a little now, to-day, as Magnus
+came whistling up, and throwing himself down on a lower step of the
+porch, waited for the older man to speak.</p>
+
+<p>But for a while the silence was unbroken, as Mr. Erskine made a
+sort of final examination; obliged to come back to the judgment he had
+given weeks ago, that Charlemagne Kindred was "a splendid fellow." The
+critical eyes could find no fault.</p>
+
+<p>Very serious the face was now, as he sat there looking off,
+schooling himself to patient waiting, once in a while almost starting
+up at some sound of Cherry's voice or step within the house. I am
+afraid Mr. Erskine took a malign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+pleasure in keeping him where he was. The malignity was not deep,
+however, for once, when some scrap of a song floated down from an open
+upstairs window, there came a look over the face of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred&mdash;a sudden light and love and joy&mdash;to which the
+father's eyes gave such sympathetic answer that he was fain to screen
+them with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, young sir," he began at last, "I suppose you want to know
+what I have to say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Furlough ends next week," Magnus answered, without
+looking round.</p>
+
+<p>"Then back for two years more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Back for two years, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, what sort of an inner life have you lived at West Point?
+They have made a soldier of you outwardly; we can all see so much; but
+it is possible for a man to be that, and yet have no soldier's heart
+within."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he said. "I know it. And that has been true of me a few
+times, Mr. Erskine. Never but once in any great thing."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no little things in right and wrong, boy."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I should have said, in what people call great."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was silent with sudden pain; he had not looked for such
+an answer. Then Magnus turned round, and sat facing him, looking full
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"I have told Cherry the whole thing, straight through," he said;
+"and now I will tell you, sir, if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine drew a breath of relief. If he had told Cherry, it
+could be nothing very bad; and that he <i>had</i> told her half cleared it
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"No, do not tell me," he said. "If Cherry knows, that is enough.
+But, Magnus, I never expected <i>you</i> to lack the soldier heart!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+The boy's eyes flushed, and his lips were unsteady as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I, sir. You cannot possibly be half so disappointed in me as I
+was in myself."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause. What that bit of schooling was to Magnus it
+would be hard to describe; but he said not a word to shorten it. With
+head well up, and eyes looking gravely off at the fair landscape, of
+which they saw not a thing, so he sat; and Mr. Erskine watched him. His
+whole heart went out to the boy in tenderness and up for him in prayer.
+Not a hero in his own right, perhaps, but a better, stronger thing is
+the man whom God keeps, and who trusts the Lord for all power to keep
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The people that know their God, shall be strong and do
+exploits."</p>
+
+<p>"You told Cherry," the elder man began at length. "And what did
+Cherry say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Broke my heart into little pieces," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Erskine's turn to have wet eyes, though he smiled too.</p>
+
+<p>"So!" he said. "My boy, did you ever realise that you might break
+<i>her</i> heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me to realise it any more than I do, sir," Magnus
+answered, with a troubled voice. "You see she minds things that some
+people call trifles."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a true woman," said Mr. Erskine. "I am glad she does."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I!" said Magnus, with hearty emphasis. "There is not a thing
+about her that I am not glad of. But I have told her everything, Mr.
+Erskine," he added, "and she forgives me."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a woman again," thought the father. "And she is ready to go
+with you to San Carlos?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why you will persist in sending me there, sir," Magnus
+said, with just a touch of impatience. "That
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+seems to be your favourite post. We have not spoken of
+San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose all your talk has been of Fortress Monroe, Governor's
+Island, and West Point," said Mr. Erskine, in a mocking tone. "Those
+are the usual first posts for young second lieutenants."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point!" Magnus repeated scornfully. "If you had the faintest
+idea, Mr. Erskine, what West Point is <i>without</i> Cherry, you would know
+that San Carlos will be the ranking post in the country when she gets
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>And the young man sprang to his feet, as if tenter hooks were
+restless things.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine held out his hand. "Forgive me, my boy," he said. "I
+will not tease you any more. Go and find my treasure&mdash;and take her
+for <i>your</i> treasure, and guard her with your life. I do not mean in
+the common sense of dying for her, but in the nobler, costlier way of
+living for her. Shield her from any touch of shame, from any sense of
+loss, from any shadow of pain or sorrow that is not Heaven-sent. Live
+so that she will be prouder of you every day. Magnus, my darling is a
+<i>trust</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was something very sweet and solemn too in the way Magnus took
+the extended hand, and dropping on his knee kissed it earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"As such I take her, sir. My most dear trust, for every hour I
+live."</p>
+
+<p>But then he sprang up again, threw his arms round Mr. Erskine with a
+hug like a young bear, and with a joyous shout of "Ho for San Carlos!"
+darted away into the house to find Cherry.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII<br />
+RUSHED INTO CAMP</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Whither I must, I must.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>King Henry IV.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>If love does sometimes contrive to do for itself what the poet
+wished, and "annihilate time," over the "space," alas! it has generally
+no power. Those last days at home were to Magnus only quarter-days;
+but once in the cars, and the miles drew out a lengthening chain that
+fairly seemed to clank in his hearing. Two years now, almost, away from
+those dear faces; two years more without Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, she was coming to first-class camp; that was something.
+She had not said she would, but she must; or he should simply die, and
+the authorities would have to send him home.</p>
+
+<p>As the train flew on, tossing everything behind its back, classmates
+began to straggle in, catching the express from one point or another;
+each State giving up its contingent of much-disgusted men, all equally
+gloomy and rebellious. What was the use of the old concern, anyhow? So
+they grumbled, keeping down each other's low spirits, and ever and anon
+launching forth upon the departed joys of the last eight weeks; opening
+their hearts less or more, according to the man. For in some coat
+pockets lay hid a little glove, carefully wrapped in rosy thoughts, and
+(I was going to say) here and there also a mitten, in different-hued
+tissue paper. But no, I take that back; nobody ever gets a mitten on
+furlough, which is perhaps the reason why so many engagements date back
+to just that point.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+They felt very small just now, with love and home behind them;
+speeding away towards drums, Tacs and the reveille gun. I think some
+of them would have liked to slide off on a railroad "Y," and so ride
+backwards all the rest of the way, as under protest.</p>
+
+<p>Through all the grumbling Charlemagne Kindred was profoundly silent,
+only jerking his words out when they must come, in a way that made the
+others pronounce him "a gingersnap." But snaps are sweet, and he was
+not.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think," Rig said lugubriously, as he dropped into the seat
+by Magnus, "this time to-morrow I shall not have even the show of a
+pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"That's square; you'll have nothing to put in it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got three confinements to serve out the first thing," said
+Crane, in front.</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;you went in for them," said Magnus, with a
+comfortable consciousness of his own clear score.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't; I went out."</p>
+
+<p>So the talk went on, and Magnus sat vaguely listening, seldom
+joining in, his whole self reaching back towards that beloved region
+whither he could not go. He longed to have the talk stop, the train
+stop, the world stop&mdash;almost: anything, to change the pitiless
+rush and roar with which he was speeded away from all he loved
+best.&mdash;Mile after mile, hour after hour; till he felt ready to
+start up and cuff somebody, if only so he could make a change. They
+talk of homesick plebs, and those fellows have it hard enough; but I
+doubt if it compares with the <i>mal de pays</i> of the furlough men when
+they come back.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred fought it, wrestled with it; then suddenly turned
+and began to fight himself. For was not this West Point life the very
+thing singled out just now for him? The surest, best, and quickest way
+in which he could win education, position, and the means to live? The
+shortest road to that fair home for Cherry which tinted even his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+dreams? Had it not been the Lord's appointment, far more than that
+which dated back to Congressman Ironwood? I do not think the ache died
+out, a bit; but the antagonism did. Ready for duty, ready for all that
+might come with duty; yes, that should be true of him. As clearly as
+to-morrow he would answer to his name at roll-call, so now in his heart
+Charlemagne Kindred said: "Yes, Lord, here!" What were they all praying
+for him at home? Not only, not chiefly, that he might win the honours;
+but that his daily life might <i>be</i> an honour to the cause of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The miles did not shorten after that; home still shone oh, how
+vividly! and shoulder-straps looked dim and hazy in the distance, and
+graduation but a myth; but the brave heart addressed itself to wait,
+and to work, and to endure.</p>
+
+<p>The great city was reached, and trunks and men conveyed across to
+where the swift steamer lay taking in her living freight. The whole
+class, gathered now from all sides of the great country, mustered in
+"cits" for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>As I think, it was a happy thing for these young schoolmen, that in
+the year of which I write, the "rush" was still in its glory; not yet
+found out to be unmilitary and dangerous. But now the first classman is
+supposed to forget that he ever was a boy.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I am glad to know this for a clear fallacy. No power
+on earth, not even time, can ever drive the mischief out of some men,
+or kill the frolic that lies hid behind those sober suits of grey. The
+most sedate bearing may belong to the plotter of the most consummate
+exploits; and the gravest men take your breath away telling what they
+have done. Ah, it is not the boy in them that needs watching, but the
+undisciplined man.</p>
+
+<p>But as I said, in those days the hopeless task was not begun. So
+when the boat reached the landing, and her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+signal went sounding up the hill, a rousing reception was ready.</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men had been watching with sober eyes, as one grey wall
+after another peered through the trees; and now they stepped wearily
+along the steep, winding road, bags in hand; a dusty, rebellious lot.
+Then paused at the top of the hill and clustered together in front of
+the Library.</p>
+
+<p>Before them lay the cavalry plain, brown and powdery with sun and
+riding; the black guns of the Light Battery; then the camp. Rank after
+rank, in their exact order, the white tents gleamed in the sunshine. A
+moment the travellers saw it all.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the nearer side there gathered a grey and white swarm of
+figures; the furlough men spread themselves in a long single line,
+and, joining hands, began to double-time it across the plain. The grey
+figures dashed out across what was afterwards the famous "Post No. 6,"
+swooped down upon the furlough men, and "rushed them into camp."</p>
+
+<p>There followed ten minutes of utter Babel-like confusion; hats,
+caps, handbags, and men were on the ground or in the air, as the case
+might be. I think Mr. Starr lost his foothold on firm earth several
+times, while Magnus Kindred made things just as lively for one or two
+small first classmen. Men hugged each other or shook hands, according
+to the various degrees of size and friendship. The ladies on the seats
+clapped hands; the yearlings, on their way to dancing, turned and gave
+a cheer. Then the hubbub was over. The furlough men dived into their
+tents, and came forth to dinner roll-call full blown cadets, with very
+sober faces. The rush helped them for the minute, but it could not
+last; they were a sorry-looking lot.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne Kindred came out too, after a while (anything but his
+own thoughts!), and was most effusively greeted by Miss Beguile and
+Miss Saucy. But being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+promptly bid to stand and deliver a full, true, and unvarnished account
+of the summer's work and play, he got off as soon as he could and
+took his sergeant's chevrons and his loneliness down Flirtation for a
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>How unbearable these average girls were to him after Cherry! Cherry,
+with her quaint, womanly ways, and low-toned voice, and earnest eyes; a
+hundred times fairer in her fresh print dress than they with all their
+silks and streamers! "A trust"&mdash;ah, she was one worth having. And
+it was with a very moved and joyful heart that Cadet Kindred realised
+how surely upon his keeping of that trust, hung all the joy and
+brightness of her sweet life. Hers&mdash;and theirs; four true women
+looking up to him.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, it was a very good bit of thinking the young sergeant
+did there, with the lovely river sweeping by at his feet, and the
+leaves in a glad rustle behind him. Yes, every new bit of honour that
+he could win, in any line, would be gilded anew for them. He must send
+them a correct drawing of even the new chevrons.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus again mounted the hill, but at the edge of the broken ground
+he faced about and took off his cap to the flag.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see you, old friend!" he said. "Henceforth, you and I are
+going to run things together. I'm enlisted now, for all the storms that
+blow."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII<br />
+HIGH GROUND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">But never sit we down and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"There's nothing left but sorrow."<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We walk the Wilderness to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The promised Land to-morrow.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gerald Massey.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was much wedging and crowding in the camp that night,
+lightened somewhat by the big hop which shortened the night for so
+many. Not for Magnus. He went to bed, thinking the night would be two
+nights long: quite sure he should not close his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But youth, and health, and the long journey, and even sorrow, quite
+upset his calculations. When the hop men turned in, Magnus hardly
+roused up enough to give a short answer to some details; and when the
+sharp voice of the reveille gun spoke in his ear, it was as clear a
+wake-up&mdash;and alas! as disgusted a one&mdash;as Cadet Kindred had
+ever known. But breaking camp at least would be welcome: hard work
+suited his mood just now much better than play.</p>
+
+<p>Yet before the hour drew on, he strolled out towards the visitors'
+seats; the exquisite morning, the dainty wreaths of mist, and the
+sweet, pure air, making him so homesick that he craved even a chatter
+of tongues that should stop his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The seats were a waving line of colour. Hats turned up, and
+hats turned down; bonnets too small to be seen, and hats like
+umbrellas; ribands, laces, streamers of every kind. Plenty of grey
+coats, too; first classmen and yearlings in their glory, with other
+disconsolate furlough men, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+searching the crowd for a friend, if possibly such a thing remained
+to them east of the Rockies, or north of Mason and Dixon's line.
+Everywhere a busy chatter, with introductions, greetings, inquiries,
+and much swinging of cadet caps. Sugar-plums abounded. On the grass a
+group of children sunned themselves in front of the grown-up people,
+sometimes aping their ways.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was taken possession of rapturously,&mdash;had to touch a
+half-dozen gloves in as many seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"And where have you been all summer, Mr. Kindred?" Miss Fashion
+inquired in gracious tones.</p>
+
+<p>"In a much better place than this old camp, Miss Fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"That goes without saying," chimed in Miss Saucy. "Any place where
+<i>you</i> were, would of course overtop the rest of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It might," Magnus answered, thinking of the oak shadows where he
+had sat with Cherry. I am not so sure that he heard Miss Fashion's next
+words, looking over her head towards the Western sky. The West! The
+West!</p>
+
+<p>"And of course your desire for study is immense," the young lady
+went on, a little louder.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite insatiable!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're too good to be true!" said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you feel all out of training?" said another girl. "I
+should think it would come awfully hard at first."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I feel in better training than ever in my life
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is <i>awful</i>!" said the Kitten. "Back from furlough 'in
+training'? Why, Magnus, you'll come out blue."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it," said Magnus, with a bow. "That is what I am aiming
+for."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+"Now <i>that</i> I call mean," said the young lady; "taking one up so.
+How sharp you have grown all of a sudden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your
+fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."</p>
+
+<p>"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go
+to your heart to cut off your moustache?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred
+touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of
+the colour line.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West
+Point season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her
+heart as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall,
+when that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go
+to spend the day!"</p>
+
+<p>"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent,
+"but <i>they</i> can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes
+along and turns them out."</p>
+
+<p>"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said
+Miss Saucy. "Do you know, I just <i>made</i> Clinch look at me the other
+night as he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest
+thing to break camp before cold weather. There it goes!&mdash;our
+camp!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums
+under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that
+nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.</p>
+
+<p>The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold
+fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and
+flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very
+special chums together.</p>
+
+<p>Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+He waited till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his
+loitering comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across
+the plain and took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the
+flag.</p>
+
+<p>Two whole years&mdash;two years and three months almost&mdash;since
+the first day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of
+brave allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to
+scan the two years' record.</p>
+
+<p>In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor
+fealty. But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this
+love as for the other he must <i>live</i>, as well as be ready to die. The
+honour of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American
+fought out his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields
+sometimes than Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No
+name on a tall column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps,
+while the fight lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall
+speak the "Well done," when he comes to survey the field.</p>
+
+<p>Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that
+devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country;
+winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain;
+keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained.</p>
+
+<p>"Winning victories"&mdash;he repeated to himself, looking up
+again at the lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as
+negative."</p>
+
+<p>Bible words are very positive.</p>
+
+<p>"He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He
+that gathereth not with me, scattereth."</p>
+
+<p>"But they don't leave us time for anything like that," Magnus
+thought, in half excuse. "It takes so long just to <i>be</i>; to look after
+your own prayers and reading. There isn't any chance to <i>do</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+And now he remembered the lovely, constant shining of Cherry's life in
+even the commonest, everyday things; the halo that was always about
+her. Set her at any sort of work, in any sort of company, and you could
+never doubt for a moment whose she was and whom she served. The King's
+seal was there. Such a life is positive, by its very nature.</p>
+
+<p>"But then she is like nobody else," Magnus went on, as his rapturous
+thoughts finished off with a long, heavy sigh. "And she has a little
+space to breathe in, too. But here&mdash;just math. and chem., study
+and drill, from dawn to dark." Then other words came up before his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily; as to the Lord, and not to
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
+Jesus."</p>
+
+<p>"Even those old lessons," commented Cadet Kindred. "I rather suspect
+I've been setting my study books at the wrong angle. I know Cherry says
+that drudgery fades out, if you write the name of Jesus on it. Wonder
+if it would work so with anybody but her?"</p>
+
+<p>And a long, dull procession of days rose up in sight; each one
+loaded down with hard, monotonous work. Not prettily varied, with one
+day this and next day that, but a steady, straight on pull in the same
+lines, for weeks together.</p>
+
+<p>"And we can't turn and twist about as you do, old flag," he said,
+"but have got to stand attention (or sit it) every time. It would feel
+sort o' good, if we could just choose our own positions for firing off
+blunders."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever in the world are <i>you</i> holding up the flagstaff for?" said
+Rig's astonished voice, as that young man came up from among the guns.
+"Beastly dull here, isn't it? I say, Kin, when's that awfully pretty
+sister of yours coming?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+"Which one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, both, then," corrected Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"After you graduate&mdash;if you ever do."</p>
+
+<p>"You may well say if. But you'll be gone yourself, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I shall not let them come at all. There are too many girls
+here now." And Magnus cast cynical eyes towards several free-and-easy
+damsels who were sauntering across the plain, well attended.</p>
+
+<p>"There they go," he said; "men and girls and parasols. And the
+parasols are the only things in the lot with a grain of sense. Just
+hear that pink girl laugh! She's got Duncy in tow, telling him: 'Oh,
+Mr. Duncy! you are <i>so</i> amusing!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't wonder if she wasn't. I think he is, sometimes, myself,"
+said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a consistent goose," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, now, Kin, you're out of humour," Rig said soothingly. "You'll
+feel better after dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"No I shall not," Magnus answered crossly. "Last Thursday I had
+chicken pie and apple fritters."</p>
+
+<p>Rig gave a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "it can't be helped, so eat all you can. And there
+goes the drum."</p>
+
+<p>The two set off for barracks, but if Magnus had eased his mind, he
+had certainly given his heart an extra load.</p>
+
+<p>"Kindred's as glum as a post," remarked a smart first classman.
+"Easy to see his girl's gone back on him."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus caught the words, but then came a thrill of joy. No, <i>that</i>
+could never be true; and his girl was the very best in all the world.
+The sights and sounds about him grew indistinct; and with thoughts two
+thousand miles away, Cadet Kindred finished his dinner and never knew
+what it was. Only "Company A, rise!" awaked him from his dream.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX<br />
+MORE GIRLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Pray to God, but continue to row to the shore.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Russian Proverb.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But work did come hard! The reveille gun was such an impertinence
+after the lazy summer mornings at home. Every officer figured as an
+enemy, every drill was an unmitigated bore. And despite what people
+say about changed seasons, it rained Saturday afternoon then, as it
+always does now; while if it rained other days too, yet it was sure to
+clear up in time for drill&mdash;or the cadets thought so, which did as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Such meals, too, three times a day! Fair enough in ordinary, and
+easily disposed of by the healthy young appetites, whetted with hard
+work and open air; but thrown into utter disgrace just now by the
+background of "mother's" dainties and "home" cream. They were sober
+enough, these furlough men. But it is hard for even quiet steeds to
+go calmly back from pasture into the traces; some other fiery young
+coursers were simply rampant. A good deal of mischief went on in those
+first weeks in barracks.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred kept out of it, partly because he had Cherry's image
+before his eyes; but also because he liked his freedom better than
+anything else, and had never learned to confound license with liberty.
+No amount of fun on Monday, would pay him for spending the next
+Saturday afternoon on the area.</p>
+
+<p>So while other men "ran it" to the Hotel or to Highland Falls,
+paying that unpleasant penalty, Cadet Kindred <span class="pagenum"><a
+name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> kept his playtime
+free, taking long, long walks over the mountain or in other leafy
+regions where the squirrels and woodpeckers had it all to themselves.
+Studying the fanciful piebald of the autumn leaves, gathering the
+quaint yellow witch-hazel blooms, and the white ladies' tresses; and
+bringing back to barracks such a clear head for study that he went
+up hand over hand. Men said he was in love&mdash;which was certainly
+true; and some, that he was trying to "bootlick the Supe," which was as
+certainly false. And again others, that he was "boning Willet's Point."
+But no; he was doing better, and simply "boning" the highest stand he
+could reach.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, to grace the lovely fall weather, several new
+flowers&mdash;or birds&mdash;might be seen at parade and on the
+sidewalk. And Magnus had been duly presented, and had done his first
+devoirs to the fair strangers. But after that he thought he might
+please himself again, and muse and climb among the beloved old
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>"Where <i>does</i> Mr. Kindred go every Saturday?" Miss Berry demanded
+of Rig one day. "You know I'm visiting at the corner house, and can
+watch both ways. But while I'm running from one window to the other, he
+always contrives to vanish; and I never can tell into which house."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I cannot say, Miss Jo," Rig answered, "because you know
+I never get round the corner. The minute I see you watching for me, I
+stop and come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Watching for you! I think I see myself," said Miss Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see something very sweet, when you do," said Rig
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be something pretty sour, if you're not careful," retorted
+Miss Berry. "But say&mdash;I'm awfully curious to know. Where does he
+go most, Saturdays?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, nowhere, to visit, they say," said the hostess.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/300fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="354" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+"Isn't there someone he cares about out West, Mr. McLean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has two charming sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course!&mdash;all you cadets have charming sisters," said
+Miss Jo impatiently. "Anybody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of girls there," Rig replied. "They haven't all come East by
+several."</p>
+
+<p>"What do Western girls look like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Angels, some of 'em," said Rig, thinking of Violet's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see Mr. Kindred's best girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather suspect I saw three of them," Rig answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Three! Why, the man's a Turk. Wasn't one better than the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," said Rig. "It's a matter of opinion, I suspect."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Miss Jo, with beautiful ease of manner. "It's no
+more possible to get the truth out of a cadet, than&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Than to get it without him," suggested Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get at it somehow, you'd better believe," said Miss Jo. "What
+were these three girls called?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of them seemed to have a sort of French title; the other two
+answered to plain English."</p>
+
+<p>"French&mdash;that's a likely story. What do you know about
+French?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," Rig confessed. "Don't be hard on me, Miss Jo. I expect
+to be found in January, but you might leave a fellow hopes till
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will <i>not</i> tell us a thing about Mr. Kindred," joined in
+another girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now"&mdash;said Rig,&mdash;"that's putting it rather strong.
+But here comes Kin himself; he ought to know. He's of age, ask him, as
+the Jews said in the Bible."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+And Mr. McLean stepped to the window and hailed his friend, who
+had not had the faintest intention of calling upon anybody that
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>However, so summoned, there was nothing else to do. So Magnus came
+in, hung up his cap in the hall, shook hands with his hostess and the
+other ladies, and then, after the manner of cadet chaff, asked Rig what
+he was fooling there for? wasting his own time as well as Miss Jo's?</p>
+
+<p>"She said she hadn't any to lose, so I'm safe there," answered Mr.
+McLean.</p>
+
+<p>"Make the most of it,&mdash;that won't carry you far," said Miss Jo.
+"What <i>do</i> you suppose he has been doing, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Could not guess&mdash;when it is Rig."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely quoted the Bible to me. I came so near fainting away
+that he called you in for a tonic."</p>
+
+<p>"Quoted it pertinently?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, impertinently. Oh, Mr. Kindred, will you let me have a walk
+after chapel on Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;but I cannot take you to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that passes for cadet wit," said Miss Jo, pouting. "Why
+cannot you, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something else to do: a previous."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't fool me so," said Miss Jo, shaking her flaxen head. "You
+<i>know</i> your best girl isn't here."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is nobody else you need walk with. I think you're very
+unkind, Mr. Kindred. And I've got such a box of candy as <i>you</i> never
+saw."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see it now," said Magnus, smiling. "Destroy ignorance
+wherever you find it."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I will! No, I'll give that walk to Mr. Clayton, and nobody
+else shall have a crumb."</p>
+
+<p>"Or a smile."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for Clayton," said Rig. "Then he won't have to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+dead-beat to the hospital Monday morning, but can go there for good and
+sufficient reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you ashamed!&mdash;as if my candy was poison," said Miss Jo
+indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred," said the hostess, "my curiosity is astir about this
+'best girl' of yours; I should like to know your taste. What is she
+like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like herself: I know nobody else," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"So then she really does exist somewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you asked about her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course I did; but then I didn't know but Mr. McLean had
+been fooling us."</p>
+
+<p>"Would he dare do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's my belief he fools about everything," said Miss Jo. "And you
+too. I don't think you cadets know how to be serious about a single
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Grinds <i>are</i> almost the staff of life here," said Magnus. "But you
+do Rig unjustice: he'll be serious enough when he gets zero in wave
+motion."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak of wave motion Saturday afternoon," pleaded Rig. "It's
+the only time in the week when anything stands still and right side up.
+The air waves, and the light waves; and not a thing is steady, from
+Saturday night to Saturday noonday."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you do not study wave motion on Sunday," said the hostess
+reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Only practises it in chapel, you know," said Magnus. "Rig goes
+to sleep systematically, and keeps up in wave motion by a series of
+graceful nods."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Rig. "Well, I sometimes do, that's a fact.
+Somebody stuck a pin into me last Sunday. Wasn't you, was it, Kin?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not my pin. Come away, Rig, you've got another visit to pay
+before retreat," and the two bowed themselves out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+"I don't believe I'll call on Miss Saucy to-day," said Rig, as they
+walked along. "I got thinking about your handsome sisters, and that
+takes the taste out of other girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, does it!" said Magnus mockingly. "If you say that again, I'll
+report you to the Com. for a cannibal. There&mdash;the Kitten is
+tapping on the window for you, and you can go to Miss Saucy later. Run
+in; there's a lot of girls staying there."</p>
+
+<p>And Rig ran in. But in the hall, while giving himself those
+finishing touches in which even men indulge, Rig found that Cadet
+Kindred had slipped away to parts unknown.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL<br />
+ON FORT PUT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Think truly, and thy thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shall the world's famine feed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Speak truly, and each word of thine<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shall be a fruitful seed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Live truly, and thy life shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A great and noble creed.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Dr. Bonar.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>No, Cadet Kindred was in no mood for "other girls" that day; had he
+not just been writing his heart out to Cherry? and was not her last
+letter lying <i>perdu</i> up his sleeve? You could not expect him to have
+any relish for common doings.</p>
+
+<p>So with the easy, steady gait which I wish all men might copy,
+Magnus went swiftly on to the west end of the officers' row. Past Miss
+Saucy, who signalled him from her friend's porch; past Miss Bee, who
+bowed from an open window; past the talk and the laughter, the scent
+of chocolate, the certainty of sugar plums. Then at the last house of
+the old "west limits" he turned sharply round the corner, and began
+to mount the hill. Small danger of "other girls" here, or of other
+men, unless a few homesick strollers like himself; and these were
+passed with only a nod. The real denizens of the roadway were wild and
+sweet as the day. Red squirrels and brown chipmunks darted across the
+path, whisked into holes, or chattered in the treetops; "the sound of
+dropping nuts," the rustle of leaves, the voice of a crow or a gull,
+only made the stillness more exquisite. The rocks were cushioned
+with mosses; the ferns and the early fallen leaves of chestnut and
+butternut <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg306]</a></span>
+made a lovely carpet all about; the clear air seemed strung and tuned
+to the last pitch of harmony. Far down, down, the winding river, in
+its varying shades of blue and grey, flowed silently among the hills,
+flecked with the white wings of two or three sloops and schooners; but
+all too distant for the murmur of the little waves, the creaking of
+cordage, to reach him.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred paused several times at points where the view opened;
+then addressing himself to the hill again, and choosing the old broken,
+steep-pitched track of a hundred years ago. The Revolutionary style
+suited his mood to-day; and he sped up the last steep incline with a
+will; passed through the old sallyport, sprang up the parapet, and sat
+down to gaze.</p>
+
+<p>At his feet the rough hillside went in tumbling, breaking fashion
+down to the little fringe of houses in the officers' row; and beyond
+them the green plain spread out its fair expanse, with Barracks and
+Academic Library and Chapel, walling it in on the south. Elsewhere the
+river, and beyond that again the hills. From above the trees on Trophy
+Point the fair, curling folds of the flag, with an action which would
+have been lazy had there been any call for haste, lifted and drooped
+at the top of the tall white staff. Magnus Kindred stood up again and
+saluted, with a flourish.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, old friend," he said, "we are sworn comrades now, whatever
+happens. One full summer more for me here, and then away to the ends of
+the earth: but that blessed old rag will fly just as well at San Carlos
+as at West Point, and be just as ready to read me a lesson."</p>
+
+<p>And with that, Magnus stretched himself out on the green slope,
+pulled forth Cherry's letter, and read it through twice.</p>
+
+<p>Then he studied the flag again; musing over things he
+had heard and read. Of the men who ran up the colours
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+when their ship was sinking in the deep, dark sea; of standards dyed
+with the life-blood of their defenders. Of the failures that yet were a
+triumphant success.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My half day's work is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And this is all my part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I give a patient God<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My patient heart:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And grasp his banner still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though all its blue be dim;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These stripes, no less than stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lead after him."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I wonder if that fellow loved anybody," Magnus questioned with
+himself, a stricture coming over his heart at thought of the young
+soldier under whose death-pillow the brave, pitiful lines were found.
+"And I wonder if I could have said it in his place? But that is
+what it means. That is just what I have to do for the old Stars and
+Stripes&mdash;and for the Lord's banner."</p>
+
+<p>And secure against the criticisms of chipmunks and chickadees,
+Magnus began at the old ballad of the "Star-Spangled Banner," and sang
+it straight through.</p>
+
+<p>"Well sung, and to the purpose," said a pleasant voice, and Magnus
+started up, to find a gentleman close behind him; and, as he saw at a
+glance, no less a person than his friend of the candidate journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain, however, that Mr. Wayne did not know him. How could he
+find in the close-cropped hair the wayward, curly locks of two years
+ago? or see, in this happy compound of uniform and drill, the homesick
+boy whom he had cheered and comforted?</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let me disturb you," said the newcomer, taking a seat near
+Magnus. "I was wandering round among the old walls, thinking how much
+had crumbled and how much grown up since their day, not knowing there
+was anyone up here but myself. And when suddenly the dear old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+song rang out, I could not help coming near to listen. Has
+it come into fashion again, in these latter days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not especially, that I know of," said Magnus. "But I was brought up
+on it."</p>
+
+<p>"So was I. And where were you brought up?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus named his State.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange!" said Mr. Wayne. "The first boy I ever spoke to who was
+coming to West Point was from that State; and now so is also the first
+full-fledged cadet I meet with here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we have a good representation from all our districts," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you men from the same State always hold together in any special
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against all the rest of the world, yes," said Magnus. "But we often
+choose our chums from the Antipodes."</p>
+
+<p>"For private and personal reasons, rather than public; I see. But
+then of course you know them all, more or less; and so you must know
+the man I am after."</p>
+
+<p>"A relation of yours, sir?" Magnus inquired gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not at all; only an acquaintance of a day and a night.
+But I should like to see him again very much; in fact that was why
+I stopped over a day here. I wonder if he is in the corps still?
+Must be, I think; he did not look like a fellow to be 'found' in
+anything,&mdash;unless caution and self-control."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bad showing," said Magnus. "I'd rather chance it in
+math."</p>
+
+<p>"You must know him, of course, if he is here," Mr. Wayne went on;
+"for he was from your State, I know. I had his name down&mdash;and I
+also had my pocket-book stolen! Can you tell over the list of your
+State delegation?"</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus began.</p>
+
+<p>"Smith, J., 2d; Jones, L.; Devius, E.; Smith, T. A.; Marston,
+Kindred&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+"That's the man!" broke in Mr. Wayne; "Charlemagne Kindred. And you
+say he is here still?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, he's here," said Magnus, with a half groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Doing well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doing all sorts of ways. He is just back from furlough, and as blue
+as a mouldy cheese."</p>
+
+<p>"Back from furlough! Ah, then he has seen his mother again. That
+ought to cure him of doing 'all sorts of ways.' Where does he stand in
+his class?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he keeps out of the Immortals," said Magnus with a shrug.
+"Might max it oftener, if he didn't read so many magazines and write so
+many letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Letters, hey? These 'left behind' girls have a good deal to answer
+for. And yet such a trust as a woman's life and happiness, ought to
+steady any man, and put him at his best."</p>
+
+<p>"He has four just such trusts," said Magnus. "I don't know that
+they'd all die if he went to the bad, but two of them would."</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;you seem to know him very well," said Mr. Wayne, turning
+to look more narrowly at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir: sometimes I think I do, sometimes not. He takes
+me all by surprise every now and then," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>But with that he turned his eyes full upon Mr. Wayne, and the
+recognition was instant.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is you!" said Mr. Wayne. "I see it now. Indeed I think I
+felt it all along. Sit over there, and let me look at you."</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus changed his seat for another, and went through a new sort
+of inspection; differing <i>in toto</i> from that of any member of the
+tactical department. For Mr. Wayne's eyes passed rapidly over grey
+cloth and bell buttons (Magnus feeling quite sure the while that any
+dulness <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+or disorder there would have been noted) and came to the young face,
+with a look so searching and wise that the sunburnt cheeks reddened,
+and the eyes went down. Only for a moment, however: then they met the
+search squarely, and with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Cadet Kindred, "that is just about what I am."</p>
+
+<p>Privately, Mr. Wayne had been thinking to himself that just what he
+saw was a remarkably fine-looking fellow, whom anybody might be proud
+to call son or brother. For the eyes were steady and true; and when the
+face broke in a smile or a laugh the mouth had the same utterly clean
+look which had marked it two years ago. Mr. Wayne noted it all, and
+drew a deep breath of rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>"I give most humble and hearty thanks," he said, reverently lifting
+his hat. Magnus sprang up and came back to his old seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you so doubtful of me, sir?" he said. "And what made you
+doubtful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not doubtful of you, my boy, but certain of the world. And the
+world&mdash;even this little world here&mdash;is a hard place."</p>
+
+<p>"This is an awful place!" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so now, because you are just back from furlough. But
+you will find the world power in full force still, when you get to
+some far-off frontier post. Very few lives have a steady fair breeze
+straight into heaven. 'Ye must take the wind in your face if ye will
+fetch Christ,' said old Samuel Rutherford; and most of us find it so.
+But then, 'How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where
+Christ is.'"</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus remembered instantly that ever since he came to West
+Point, he had hailed the west wind, because it seemed to come from
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you always tell, sir, whence it comes?" he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+asked suddenly. "Being disagreeable doesn't prove a thing right."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly no. But you know what Christ himself is, Mr. Kindred; study
+him, his character, his will, his throne. It is not hard to match your
+colours, if you are really so minded. West Point is not so unlike
+everywhere else as you seem to think. I remember a young man who went
+from here to Texas, and wrote back that he was still fighting the
+world, the flesh, and the devil. Finding the world perhaps a little
+less down there, but the flesh and the devil about as usual. And so you
+will find it. 'The kingdom of God is within you'&mdash;not outside:
+whether at Governor's Island, or San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you speak of San Carlos, sir?" Magnus said, with almost
+a start.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the worst posts in the army, is it not?&mdash;or counted
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid of San Carlos," said Magnus decidedly. "The devil
+always has to clear out, when an angel comes in."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne turned and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"So!" he said; "that is all settled, is it? But no, my young sir:
+Satan held a dispute with an archangel once, long enough for some
+pretty strong words on both sides. And you are going to take an angel
+to San Carlos!"</p>
+
+<p>Almost just what Mr. Erskine had said.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever there, sir?" Magnus asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't the place need angels?"</p>
+
+<p>And now Mr. Wayne laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You have the best of me there," he said. "Yes, not a doubt of that,
+it does. And it is the very place that the white wings love to brighten
+if they can. But Mr. Kindred, if your particular angel is to live at
+San Carlos&mdash;or anywhere&mdash;and not break her heart; spread her
+white wings <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+and fly away from earth and you together; you have got to fight the
+devil yourself; hand to hand, and wherever you find him. These earthly
+angels are not quite so robust as the old painters make out the
+heavenly to be."</p>
+
+<p>"She is the very centre of my life!" cried Magnus. But Mr. Wayne
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened once," he said, "that a young graduate of West Point
+brought his three-months' bride not to San Carlos, but to Fortress
+Monroe. Of course, the 'pleasant fellows' of the garrison went to work
+to entertain him, and one of them told me this story:</p>
+
+<p>"'We had a little supper party,' he said. 'Not very large, but
+correct and choice; and we kept it up pretty late; and X. Y. got more
+than he could manage gracefully. So some of the stronger heads among us
+set out to get him home. Late, as I said; servants asleep, lights out,
+and I guess we knocked and rang more than once. Then X. Y.'s young wife
+came down, candle in hand, to let him in. Poor girl&mdash;I did feel
+sorry for her when I saw her white face, as the candle flared out upon
+him.'"</p>
+
+<p>There came up before Charlemagne Kindred, as his friend spoke, the
+vision of another face; so blanched, so stricken in its grief, and all
+for him. He bowed his head upon his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne asked never a word. He looked at the fine young man beside
+him, not knowing just what he might have touched, and then away over
+the fair hills and the soft flowing river. What a world! Peace written
+everywhere on the exquisite setting; and everywhere in the picture the
+sharp life and death conflict. Then the glad words in the Revelation
+made answer:</p>
+
+<p>"And I saw, and, behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a
+bow: and he went forth, conquering and to conquer."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen!" Mr. Wayne said aloud: adding half under his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+breath: "'Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest
+come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence!'"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Only an old habit of mine," Mr. Wayne said, smiling at him. "I
+live so much alone, that I very often talk to myself for lack of a
+listener."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to see these mountains flow down?" Magnus asked, gazing
+in his turn at the fair hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Not these in themselves; only I long for all which the prophet's
+words imply. To see the crooked made straight, and the rough places
+plain; to hear the royal proclamation of the Prince of Peace sound
+out across this burdened earth; one could be willing to have 'every
+mountain and island' moved out of their places. To have that trumpet
+blast fill all the air:</p>
+
+<p>"'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and
+of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No more miserable captives to the power of evil; no more strong men
+'whom Satan hath bound at his own will."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"No midnight shades, no clouded sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But sacred, high, eternal noons."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"How naturally the words follow:</p>
+
+<p>"'We give thee thanks, O Lord, because thou hast taken to thee thy
+great power, and hast reigned.'"</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus began and told him the whole story; pouring out details,
+and not sparing himself in the least. And Mr. Wayne listened in deepest
+silence, with a grave, tender face which drew on confidence. Magnus did
+not once name Cherry, only at the end he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I told her everything. And if I thought I should ever again make
+her look as she did then, I think I would shoot myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+"Powder is very cheap," Mr. Wayne said slowly. "It is the meanest,
+smallest, silliest back door through which a man ever shirked his
+difficulties. But to live a strong life, to have one's self in hand
+and keep a tight rein, that costs, and costs tremendously; demands
+a man's whole will-power, and the mighty grace of God. There is no
+promise whatever to the one who runs away; they are all: 'To him that
+overcometh.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir, I know," Magnus answered him. "But instead of costing, it
+seems to me the only life that pays."</p>
+
+<p>"And where do you get dividends, but from investments?" said Mr.
+Wayne quickly. "You gain from what you put in: knowledge from study,
+health from exercise, advance from toil. You bone discipline, and you
+stand one; you bone mathematics, and you max it every time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't," said Magnus. "Not some of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more
+brains than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower
+fellow maxes it <i>for him</i>; the dividends are as large as the stock will
+warrant. And to my mind, that is the only ambition worth a copper. I've
+no patience with this trying to get ahead of somebody else in any line.
+Get ahead of yourself; break your own record."</p>
+
+<p>"Not making other men your measure," Magnus said.</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's the way Paul puts it: 'I press toward the mark for the
+prize'; not to get ahead of Peter or James or John. The colour markers
+always in advance, flagging out new ground."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you count a man's colour markers, sir?" Magnus said,
+looking amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps clean purpose of heart and loyalty to God would come near
+it. The Great Captain has thrown open to you&mdash;to every young
+man&mdash;a wondrous Promised Land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+He says: 'Go in and possess it. Ye are well able to overcome.' The land
+is not all 'fish and cucumbers and melons,' with a good deal of garlic,
+like the Egypt degradation and bondage; but 'a goodly land of springs
+and fountains, of oil olive and honey; whose stones are iron, and out
+of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.' I do not believe you cadets are
+half aggressive enough."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every way. Suppose your colour markers had been up to their duty
+on that sad night, and you pressing forward for the Lord's 'Well
+done.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Magnus answered, with a thrill of pain that somehow got into
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Or suppose," Mr. Wayne went on, laying a tender hand on the young
+man's shoulder, "suppose you had been praying for those other men whose
+ways you knew; working with them, persuading them into the service of
+Christ?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that could not be," Mr. Kindred said decidedly. "At least, I
+might pray for them, of course, but I could not say much."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against cadet code, sir. We let each other pretty well alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Cadet code!" Mr. Wayne repeated. "You tease each other now and
+then, I fancy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always!"</p>
+
+<p>"And laugh at each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without stint."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps introduce each other occasionally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, sir!" Magnus answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And probably the cadet code would permit you to pull a man out of
+the river, or tell him the barracks were ablaze? It is framed only
+against the important things, hey?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+"Don't you call it important to pull a man out of the river?" Magnus
+asked, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather. Nothing like pulling him into the kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>The clouds sailed silently by, river and hill darkening and
+brightening as the shadows fell and passed; the leaves rustled softly
+among the oak branches and stirred with a different music among the
+pines. Then from far down below sounded a drum&mdash;Magnus started
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Wayne!" he said earnestly. "Come to the guard-house
+before call to quarters. I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"I will walk down with you," said his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must run!"</p>
+
+<p>And away he went, springing down the hill through every short cut
+that could be found; the grey and white showing, and hiding, and coming
+out again further on.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne watched him with great interest, taking his own pace the
+while down the hill; and now, as he went, from every other quarter came
+just such flying figures. From the woods, from Flirtation, from the
+river; from lingering last words on doorsteps, and girls and bonbons in
+the houses. Hastening along with the graceful ease of long practice,
+hurrying to lose themselves behind the grim grey walls of barracks.</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Wayne watched and laughed; but then his eyes grew grave.
+Will they make such haste at every call of duty, these gay youngsters?
+on hand and "ready" at each noble muster? Alas, no! Even now some are
+getting an "absence," and some a "late," and of others the guns are
+not cleaned and the bell buttons will be tarnished. Ready! it is a
+short word; but it means a man's whole ceaseless purpose, self-denial,
+and care. How little those speeding figures on the green guessed that
+anybody on the old hillside was praying for them; but I believe the
+very skill and swiftness with which they darted along, gave stringency
+to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+the prayer; such power for good, such forces for evil; such ease in
+doing the right thing, such recklessness, sometimes, whether it was
+done or not. Through his glass, Mr. Wayne could study it all out.</p>
+
+<p>See that one now; a tall fellow, going over the ground at a rate to
+take common people's breath away. It is not altogether his fault that
+he has to run for it; his best girl is on hand to-day, and this was a
+critical walk round Flirtation. Drum-calls were scarcely heard, and
+minutes flew unheeded. No carelessness of orders kept him back, and no
+contempt for them make him linger now. He does not mean to have even
+a late; and so dashes on and wins. There is some jeering and clapping
+as the tall figure comes up; "Two-forty" being his affectionate
+soubriquet; but all the same he is there, in ranks, with about ten
+seconds or less to spare.</p>
+
+<p>Another&mdash;Oh, yes, he set out to run; anathematising the
+drum, the parade, and the regulations, and so soon stops; runs
+again&mdash;and stops, with a sort of what's-the-use air. "How much
+time?" he asks another, who is walking calmly on.</p>
+
+<p>"None at all."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon he quickens his steps; but not so the second. The
+drum-beats come thicker and faster&mdash;that makes no odds. It is only
+a "skin" more or less, he says to himself; and he's sure to get it some
+other way, if not this; and he has lost his Christmas leave already.
+So, while the rest fall in, and answer to roll-call, he comes leisurely
+up to barracks, some minutes after the last man has shouted "Here!"</p>
+
+<p>That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll
+"fess cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may
+get and still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of
+meaning there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it
+here and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times,
+and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post.
+He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured
+glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and
+unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's
+counsels and his father's rules.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>You see he is such a pleasant fellow,&mdash;handsome, rich,
+plausible; a great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about
+equally divided between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all
+thrown away; and worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks
+for other men. But he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much
+more courage to do wrong than he has to do right.</p>
+
+<p>It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the
+Post, a day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth
+is swelled, his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine
+proportions. But he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his
+side gazes up into the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the
+first defenders of the country, newly risen from the shadows of old
+Fort Clinton.</p>
+
+<p>To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of
+Mr. Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried
+to win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite
+privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do
+<i>that</i>, every time.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every
+minute that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out
+of doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it
+most.</p>
+
+<p>"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on
+earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+the afternoon they walked up from Battery Knox, and paused in the
+little clearing where "Dade and his Command" will be thought of for
+many a long day. "Such wonders of beauty on every side, in mountains
+and sky and river; and whichever way you turn, such reminders of men
+who have 'fought a good fight' on the field of honour. Look at the
+old flag, and think how it has been shot at and insulted; defied and
+threatened; yet how splendidly it floats off to-day! And the guns that
+lie sleeping beneath its shadow were captured by men who knew no such
+words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And the great iron links once stretched
+across the river tell of other chains triumphantly broken, in the face
+of fearful odds. On all sides you find written: 'Faithful unto death.'
+Life purpose, life and death effort, life-blood, have done it all; the
+blood of men who 'counted not their life dear unto themselves' when the
+country had need. And the one traitor among them&mdash;why, you will
+not have his name even in sight! His tablet is a blank."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to
+himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?
+for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for
+the name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when
+we parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends
+with the flag; <i>now</i> I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think
+you Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If you cannot reach the nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gather in the men you know:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teach your friend the way to glory&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Draw your comrade where you go."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred stopped short and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Mr. Wayne said, answering the look; "I know
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+all about it. But the Lord said: 'He that gathereth not
+with me, scattereth'. And if you think it will be easier to
+take positive ground and begin positive work for Christ
+among a lot of strange officers at your first post, <i>I</i> think
+you are mistaken."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI<br />
+UP CROWNEST</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Crowds of larks in their matins hang over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Jean Ingelow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If Cadet Kindred rose up next morning with the very spirit of the
+Crusades astir in his heart; ready to charge down upon the Saracens,
+lance in rest; he said to himself as the day went on, that if Mr. Wayne
+had ever been a West Point cadet, that gentleman would know some things
+he did not know now.</p>
+
+<p>Here had Magnus been dreaming all night how he knocked a bumper
+out of Randolph's hand; how he had run Rig up to the first section in
+French; and how he had pitched Clinker back over the Commissary wall,
+just in time to prevent his being missed and "skinned." Also how he
+himself had been publicly thanked for these exploits by the Academic
+Board in full session. But, alas! "the stuff that dreams are made of"
+fades in the morning sun, and from these pleasing nocturnal visions Mr.
+Kindred passed to a particularly tough recitation, with corresponding
+low marks, and thence to the stubbornest horse in the hall, that would
+not take the hurdles, and made him instead take the tan. And now, as
+he sat in his room, tired and growly, the mail brought him nothing but
+a desperately perfumed pink note. Magnus said "Phew!" and moved to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Sent the whole shop, hasn't she?" said Rig. "That's Mrs. Newcomb, a
+mile off."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+"Just listen, will you?" said Magnus. "She wants to give a picnic
+on Crownest, and tells me to bring men enough for five girls! How many
+apiece, do you suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unknown quantity; all depends on the girls. Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't tell. Miss Pretty, of course, for one; she is a niece or
+something. Then there's another girl, 'just from abroad,'&mdash;'and
+the rest you know.' Well, I'll take the new girl, at a venture."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll not have to think up any new grinds," said Rig. "Lucky
+man. And I'll take Miss Pretty. If she's heard all mine before, she
+won't say so. So we are two."</p>
+
+<p>"And Clinker's three&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you have him for?" said Rig. "He's in every single
+thing&mdash;when he isn't on the area."</p>
+
+<p>"She wants him. By name," said Magnus. "Hopes 'dear Mr. Clinker will
+be at leisure.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a neat way of hoping he's out of Con." said Rig. "Say,
+didn't she have a granddaughter or something, getting rubbed up in
+Paris? That's the new girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Granddaughter!" said Magnus. "Just let Mrs. Newcomb hear you say
+that! But I'll take the rubbed-up girl, whoever she is, my risk. And
+Miss Frisk will take <i>you</i>. She's sure to be along."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure to get Clinker, if she is," said Rig. "Wonder if the little
+Busy Bee will come? Kin, you're hard on that girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't want me to be soft, do you?" said Magnus, with the drum
+cutting him short.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the names of the party were all out before Saturday; the
+girls could not talk of much else. And as for cadets, each girl might
+have had five, had the limits of the lunch basket agreed thereto. The
+day was perfect, the dresses faultless, and Mr. Clinker happily "at
+leisure," for once.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+Not everybody knows&mdash;but few <i>try</i> to know&mdash;how witching
+that climb up Crownest is, if you take the old "Cadet Trail." The way
+goes along for a while at the level of the plain, but then betakes
+itself to the air; presently mounting up and up with a straight pitch
+before you. There come turns, of course, winding round some unscaleable
+rock; and gentler going over a small knoll or two, and quite a level
+stretch around the shoulder, in the "Nest." But very often it is just
+a steep ladder of a path, to be climbed as best you can. A wilderness
+of grey rock and green woods; feathery hemlocks, sombre oaks, ash
+trees, maples, and hickory. Below these, dogwood and other "cornels,"
+with ironwood, shad blossom, witch hazel, and laurel. Lower still
+ferns&mdash;unlike those in the valley; with orchids of a new type,
+yellow gerardias, purple gerardias, partridge berry, and wintergreen.
+Then the brown leaves of last year, half covering the mosses, and
+thickly sprinkled in turn with the red and yellow of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The rarest scents are in the air: the balsam breath of the sweet
+brier, and from the new-fallen and falling leaves that special
+fragrance of the autumn woods&mdash;sweet, racy, heart-piercing, a waft
+from days gone by and withered, their work all done.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the birds have already gone South; but robins are here, and
+chickadees, and the cry of the gulls is in perfect keeping with the
+cool air and the white caps on the river.</p>
+
+<p>Up through this wilderness of wild and fragrant things, the little
+party went joyously along; or if not quite that on Mrs. Newcomb's
+part, yet it is painful to relate that her trips and stumbles did but
+heighten the fun for all the rest. In many a place it took two men to
+get her on at all. Magnus would leave his pretty companion safe on some
+high standpoint, jump down again himself, and with Crane on the other
+side carefully engineer Mrs. Newcomb to a place
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+beside her niece. It might also be noticed that Mr. Clinker and his
+convoy generally lagged behind at such crises, or got into some tangle
+themselves, from which they came out, safe and suddenly, as soon as
+Mrs. Newcomb was disposed of. And by and by Cadet Kindred, being quite
+alive to the situation, quickened his pace, and passed on too far ahead
+for any new service to be required of him.</p>
+
+<p>On and up the two flitted along&mdash;like grey and red squirrels,
+averred the toiling Mrs. Newcomb; but even for themselves there were
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Here, for instance, stands an immense rock that stops the way. And
+as Miss Lane measures it with her eyes, behold! there is Magnus on top
+of it, reaching down his hand to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect me to climb up there?" Cadet gives a little gesture
+of the head which Dickens would have said meant, "He rather thought
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get there yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Came."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any snakes up there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so many as where you are."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the
+rock, then looked down complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did.
+Oh&mdash;what was that&mdash;a rattle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must
+people always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."</p>
+
+<p>Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder
+self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came
+out upon the mountain's lovely head, and,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+after a shout of victory, sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how
+wonderfully fair earth is from the top of Crownest!</p>
+
+<p>On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in
+seven shades of green&mdash;slope beyond slope&mdash;till it touched
+the soft horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range
+rose, shoulder to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely
+pile. Then on the south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay
+shimmering in the sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the
+river on its eastern shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart,
+and you could see the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like
+grim ribs, running eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river
+itself was decked with various craft; over all there wandered a faint,
+fitful north breeze.</p>
+
+<p>From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the
+toiling party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special
+charm just then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the
+next time she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest;
+the girls might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly
+chafing against the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally,
+sometimes, when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig
+was laughing to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally;
+and aloud at the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the
+party fumed a little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How
+came those two to get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the
+grey and the red.</p>
+
+<p>"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you ladies are."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not talking of the whole human race," said Miss Lane: "it
+is cadets that are so odd, so unlike other people."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>
+"That is good," said Magnus. "One would not wish to be like
+everybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"How you chop one up. I mean other students. Do you try to be unlike
+all other cadets?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I get the credit sometimes, without trying."</p>
+
+<p>"And I can see you deserve it, too," said the girl. "You would have
+tugged Aunt Newcomb all the way up here, if you hadn't thought Mr.
+Clinker meant you should."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call that being odd?" he said. "It is just even."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, instead of standing off like a shirk, you did the
+polite thing and ran away. Do you always run from difficulties, Mr.
+Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bad for me if I do," said Magnus. "A foe in the rear is worth two
+in front."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you generally fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"People, or things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as to the people," Magnus answered, "I have not been much
+tried. It depends on yourself somewhat, I fancy; and I have never been
+challenged since I entered the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do if you were?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I would, is one thing," Magnus said rather slowly. "By my good
+leave, I should say no."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you&mdash;and be pointed at?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure to be pointed at for something," Magnus answered
+lightly. "It's a choice of cases."</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot imagine a man like you saying no!" said the girl
+eagerly. "Not fight, if you were challenged? You are brave, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know? If I am, I shall never fight for fear of being
+pointed at."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+"But why?" Miss Lane repeated, her bright eyes searching his face.
+"Tell me quick, Mr. Kindred. They'll all be up here directly, and I
+cannot possibly wait to know till to-morrow. Why wouldn't you fight? I
+believe you could whip any man in the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"There is one rule," said Magnus, meeting her look, "which I have
+sworn to keep. It is an old rule, and a short one, but it covers a
+great deal of ground. 'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in
+the name of the Lord Jesus.' I could not so endorse my acceptance of a
+challenge."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him with wide open eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find those old rules of yours terribly in the way,
+sometimes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure sign that I am off the track, then," said her companion,
+smiling. "Fences don't matter when you mean to keep the road. But
+doubtless most good things have their inconvenient side."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Newcomb, for instance," said Miss Lane, changing her tone. "I
+think I should count both sides 'inconvenient,' if I had to pull her up
+the hill. By the way, Mr. Kindred, why didn't your rule oblige you to
+take the brunt of the burden to the last?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might in some cases," said Magnus; "not in this. Clinker had to
+earn his lunch, and there was no other way for him to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there they come," said Miss Lane, rising up, "to cut short
+our talk; I am quite sorry. You interest me, Mr. Kindred; cadets with
+'views' are a novelty. But I rather wish you would fight!"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say I could get a broken head in the riding-hall some day,
+when I'm on Dangerfield&mdash;would that do?" said Magnus, laughing
+back at her as he went forward to give Mrs. Newcomb a hand, which was
+gratefully taken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred&mdash;thank you! This has been certainly&mdash;the
+most awfully grand&mdash;walk I ever experienced."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a
+clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my
+best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five
+walks on hand for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into
+the sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at
+once, and save what is left of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me
+to have two."</p>
+
+<p>"Much you care for regulations, up here."</p>
+
+<p>"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the
+baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"</p>
+
+<p>Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all
+around them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and
+here and there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and
+chips, dry and bleached and just ready to burn.</p>
+
+<p>Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily
+spread, a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee
+put under&mdash;or over&mdash;its care. Then busy hands unpacked or
+uncovered the baskets. Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late
+peaches filled a third. Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat
+luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut
+cakes, and sweet chocolate; and the wind kept still, and did not blow
+even a napkin away.</p>
+
+<p>But the last time Magnus Kindred had been at a picnic,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+it was in the far-away home region, and with just the home group around
+him; and now it all came back to him in a moment; with the tones of his
+mother's voice as she asked for a blessing on their day's pleasure. And
+I suppose it was this that made him pause unconsciously, after he had
+taken his stand by the fire to pour out the steaming coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" said Mrs. Newcomb, in her plaintive voice. "Not hot
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Freak laughed out, and Miss Newcomb looked at her, and
+Miss Lane watched this cadet who had "views."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aunty!" cried Miss Freak, "don't you know he's one of the
+too-good-for-this-earth boys? Why, coffee out of an ice box would scald
+his throat, if somebody didn't pray over it first. He's waiting for you
+to say grace, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting for me!" Mrs. Newcomb repeated helplessly. "But your uncle
+always does it, you know, Freaky."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he isn't here," said Miss Freak. "Come, aunty!" The girls
+were choking themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs; the cadets,
+better used to endurance, kept their gravity intact. Charlemagne
+Kindred stood absolutely still; but his thoughts went flying back to
+the honeysuckle-wreathed porch, and Cherry, and how she had waited for
+him. Blessings on her! she never came near him but to do him good.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't the man pour out his coffee?" Miss Lane was saying
+impatiently to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred," said Mrs. Newcomb in a sort of appeal&mdash;"girls,
+be quiet&mdash;I am ashamed of you. Mr. Kindred, will you be kind
+enough to say grace yourself? Of course, it is quite proper to have it
+done, and a man can do it so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"Not this man!" So shot the feeling through Cadet Charlemagne. This
+man, who had never even come near such a thing in public. But quick as
+Nehemiah got his orders, so on the instant the young cadet had his. Was
+he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+not pledged to shun no point of witness-bearing? And, with again one
+swift thought of Cherry, Magnus obeyed; standing there by the little
+fire, while good Mrs. Newcomb bowed her head, and the others watched
+him from their mossy seats. And the words were Cherry's own, as she had
+said them on that well-remembered morning.</p>
+
+<p>"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in
+much." This was a very small thing to do, but I think nobody ever
+guessed what it cost Magnus Kindred. And as little did he imagine,
+how that small bit of open confession broadened out and took its full
+proportions to other eyes. There was something in the serious face,
+something in the reverent voice, something about it all, indeed, that
+everybody felt. As Mr. Kindred came forward now with Mrs. Newcomb's
+coffee cup, Clinker looked at him curiously, McLean with a sort of
+wondering veneration, while Miss Lane said to herself: "Fight! Of
+course he could!" But then Magnus threw himself into the fun, and in
+two minutes had fanned the frolic to a point that quite outshone the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"So nice to have a private chaplain along," Miss Freak had said
+airily, trying to throw off her thoughts. But the other girls frowned
+down all attempts at fun in that direction, and harmony reigned. Or, to
+speak more correctly, the lunch baskets reigned in a very harmonious
+atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting about on moss or stones, after the good cheer had vanished,
+the cadets got off so many "grinds" that poor Mrs. Newcomb declared
+she should have no strength left to help her down the hill. Then they
+sang songs, and gave out conundrums. The girls made chains of the pine
+needles, and the men in grey put them on, and declared them emblematic
+and imperishable.</p>
+
+<p>On her part, Miss Lane went on with her study of Magnus Kindred,
+watching him keenly. She noticed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+though he took the frail green links from her hands, putting them round
+his cap, twining them about his arm, he said no word of their being
+"fetters"&mdash;called them garlands, instead. She felt that in all the
+light play, the cavalier-like deference, there was no sham devotion,
+no hint of deeper things. Yet he wore his class ring. And she knew she
+was pretty, and felt certain she was well dressed. It piqued her; she
+would have liked to see those green chains press hard, with a permanent
+sensation. And then, when she went off to look at some side view which
+Mr. Clinker recommended, what did Mr. Kindred do but seat himself by
+Mrs. Newcomb and talk to her! It was extremely trying.</p>
+
+<p>I think, to me, the way down Crownest is more difficult than the way
+up; taking hold perhaps upon a set of less-used muscles; but the party
+all came safe and sound to the lower level and easier going of the
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you must be sure and come to us at Christmas," Mrs. Newcomb was
+saying, as they parted. "We shall expect you all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't come, sorry to say," Mr. Clinker answered with a
+laugh. "I've got a previous with the Com. Awfully hard lines for
+me&mdash;but it's just my luck."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>XLII<br />
+CHRISTMAS LEAVE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they were men that stood
+alone.  &mdash;<span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Cold weather came early. Mrs. Newcomb's picnic was the last of the
+season, and most of the human birds of passage grew chilly, and took
+their bright plumage back to city streets. A few visitors lingered on;
+people with no children to put to school, or with some son or brother
+in the Corps.</p>
+
+<p>Only the steadfast old hills flung out their hardy colours&mdash;and
+flung them off; decking themselves with an occasional white cap
+instead. The blue river rolled by in deep foamy wrinkles; the distant
+Catskills had donned their snow.</p>
+
+<p>No parades now, but noisy drills, with light battery, siege battery,
+and sea-coast guns, making the hills roar out in countless echoes. Only
+Battery Knox lay quiet, unmoved in all the commotion, keeping silent
+watch near the white shaft of "Dade and his Command." While far away
+beyond the hubbub, a small army of white and grey and brown stones told
+of other soldiers, who had fought their last battle, and answered to
+the last command. Very little told there, indeed, but of the <i>soldier</i>;
+the <i>man</i> almost left out. But on one old, old stone are words to make
+one's heart leap up for joy:</p>
+
+<p>"He that doeth the will of God, abideth forever."</p>
+
+<p>October ran its bright course, and the shorter, darker days of
+November came softly in, but very fair, even yet. The hills set
+forth their rocky heights and fastnesses, <span class="pagenum"><a
+name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> stripped now of the
+softening leaves, and still the cold grey of the stone was warmed and
+clouded with the wilderness of brown tree stems. And every here and
+there rose up a tall hemlock or cedar or pine, in its dark, dauntless
+green, while not a few red oaks still sported the tatters of their
+autumn flags. Along the river on the lower ground, black alder bushes
+showed a wealth of "winter berries," beautiful as coral beads, and a
+close match in colour.</p>
+
+<p>Drills ceased, and dress parade began; and in the dusky time between
+gunfire and supper the men had chance for a good constitutional upon
+the well-swept sidewalk of the officers' row. Wrapped in long grey
+
+fearnaughts, with steady, swinging step, they went up and down, in ones
+and twos and threes, almost like an open procession; talking, talking,
+and discussing. Now the last blunder of the "Com.," now the latest whim
+of the "Supe"; then the marks of the day. Here, consigning all tactical
+officers to the prompt dealing of a drumhead court-martial, and here
+busy with the charms of some fair new girl. Oftenest of all, perhaps,
+dwelling on Graduation, Furlough, and First-class camp.</p>
+
+<p>But you never saw them walk arm in arm, like other
+students,&mdash;this would strike any stranger. Close together, but
+both hands free. Perhaps the regulation salute, with its frequent,
+instant, and exact demands, may be partly the cause of this.</p>
+
+<p>A fellow once hastening over to the hop with a girl on one arm, and
+her shoes and fan laying claim to the other, passed a certain dignitary
+with only a bow of the head, and was of course reported.</p>
+
+<p>Going next day to explain and get the report off, he was told:</p>
+
+<p>"Drop the girl! Drop the shoes! Salute, salute!"</p>
+
+<p>Another feature of West Point life which I think would strike
+unwonted eyes, is the universal opening of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>
+front doors at four o'clock. Up to that time, after the midday
+refection of whatever name, West Point on the plain might be a city
+asleep, with slow pacing sentries guarding its slumbers. But when
+the sweet four o'clock bugle sounds out, waking the echoes and the
+antagonistic dogs, the houses wake up too. Bonnets go on, gloves slide
+into place, and the fair wearers come forth with a delightful sense
+of expecting or being expected (for both things are in place), and
+the thinnest veil of unconcern to hide it all. It is a very pretty
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>Officers and professors come hastening back from the section room,
+gay turnouts wheel hither and thither, and the cadets are presently
+out in force. For drill, for parade, for walks, according to the time
+of year and the state of the weather. Football was not yet the rage,
+in Magnus Kindred's time, nor bicycles; and so every man you met was
+practising the noble art of walking, or showing how splendidly West
+Point can ride.</p>
+
+<p>As November speeded away, Christmas leave began to rise up in the
+distance, and to claim many thoughts. Men who had lost it were down on
+their "luck" (the cadet spelling for carelessness), men who had won it
+debated in what way the few dear hours of freedom should be spent; and
+many a fellow from some far-down or far-off corner of the land stood
+pledged to go with his happier friend whose home was nearer by.</p>
+
+<p>In all these joys, as usual, the poor fourth classmen had no share.
+They walked, indeed, like the rest; one must do something; but they
+talked gloomy things. No Christmas leave for them&mdash;and not much of
+anything else but hard work. They were not supposed to need anything
+else. No damsels on the sidewalk proffered them sugar plums, very few
+people even knew them by sight.</p>
+
+<p>I will do Magnus Kindred the justice to say that the keen memory of
+some of his own early days at the Post
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+made him a little bit thoughtful of these forlorn young strangers. It
+was no great credit to him, perhaps, if he now and then passed on to
+fourth class hands a box of Miss Flirt's best candy, but he did better
+than that. He gave words of encouragement and counsel, cheered up the
+faint hearts, and would smile and speak to a pleb on the sidewalk, just
+as if he himself had not been first sergeant, and a prime favourite
+with the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Some people will say he could have had no time to look after anyone
+but himself, but you never know how much you have, till you divide
+it up with needy people. And I doubt if helping takes more time than
+hazing. It is rather a question of which word you will say, what look
+you will give. And there had come to Cadet Kindred the wholesome
+perception that he could be a power for good or for evil, with all
+these younger boys. Consciously or unconsciously, they were watching
+the upper classmen, and taking tone from them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is in the way of your living just as earnest Christian lives
+here, as at home?" he had said one day to some plebs who were gradually
+sliding back from all their good home habits. And one answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Because we are so far from home, sir, and can't go to church so
+often, and can't keep Sunday as we have been taught."</p>
+
+<p>But another said boldly:</p>
+
+<p>"Because the first classmen are so different in camp from what they
+are in prayer-meeting."</p>
+
+<p>And it set Magnus to thinking. His own pleb days were not so long
+past that he could forget how he used to watch Mr. Upright, to see what
+all his brave words in the prayer meeting came to in the week; finding
+the first captain's straight everyday walk a constant help. And just
+such service he himself was called upon to render to these new men.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+It had been a doubt with Mr. Kindred, as the holidays drew on,
+whether after all he would use his Christmas leave. He had it, easy
+enough, but what should he do with it? Home was too far away to be even
+thought of, and short of home, what was there he cared for? Magnus
+rather thought he would stay at the Post.</p>
+
+<p>However, as the time drew near, and Mrs. Newcomb renewed her
+invitation, and Mrs. Beguile sent up hers, Magnus yielded to the
+prospective charms of the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, and New
+York harbour; and joined the gay party that were going to town. Five
+days' escape from the reveille gun was, after all, worth something.</p>
+
+<p>Busy, gay days! In their quiet "cit" dress the cadets roamed about
+all day, and then at night, in correct cadet costume, went to dinner
+here and supper there, until Magnus thought he must have been presented
+to all the pretty girls in town. Rooms were full of floating sashes and
+falling lace and skirts that could "stand alone": and the men in grey
+moved about among the airiest kind of clouds and billows; a maze of
+bewildering scents and sounds and visions, with old friends and new on
+every hand.</p>
+
+<p>The last night of all there was a large gathering of young people at
+the house of Mrs. Beguile, and of course the West Pointers were petted
+and wondered over to their hearts' content. In fact Magnus had more of
+it than he wanted; he grew tired of being asked for bell buttons, and
+telling how often he had his hair cut. McLean enjoyed it, and Randolph
+could never have too many girls around, even if the fair creatures
+had to stand on tiptoe and peep over each other's shoulders. But Mr.
+Kindred was in a very critical mood, thinking of Cherry; and found
+himself comparing necks and shoulders on every hand. He was saying
+stringent things to himself anent one of the prodigal owners, when Mrs.
+Beguile touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+"I do not wonder you are lost in admiration," she said, following
+his eyes, which were just then fixed on the youngest Miss Fashion; an
+extremely handsome young lady, too much of whose dress seemed to have
+slid down to the floor in a mass of curling frills and furbelows.</p>
+
+<p>"Like Venus rising from the sea, is she not, Mr. Kindred, with her
+white foamy draperies?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus considered this rendering.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did Venus rise from the sea?" he asked abruptly. But now Mrs.
+Beguile looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she repeated. "Dear me! how should I know? I'm not the
+least bit classical. Because she liked to, I suppose. But my dear
+Mr. Kindred, as our great poet has beautifully remarked, 'Life is a
+business, not good cheer.' Will you come with me and make yourself
+useful?"</p>
+
+<p>"What an opening&mdash;to a man who has been totally useless for
+the last four days!" Magnus answered, as he followed his hostess
+to the supper room. "But if your poet had seen that table, Mrs.
+Beguile, he would have written down life to be good cheer and not
+business&mdash;couldn't help it, you know; it would have confused his
+mind to that extent."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beguile took this as a great joke, and went about repeating
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Cadets have such pretty ways of saying things," she remarked. "Oh,
+Busy, here's Mr. Kindred. You used to see him at West Point, you know,
+and he's just as nice as ever."</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Miss Bee! Did she need to be assured of that? But she
+bore herself gallantly, was just glad enough and not too glad to see
+him, gave one thought to her dress&mdash;so unfashionably high and
+plain&mdash;and never found out with what deep approval Cadet Kindred
+noticed its modest cut and simple trimmings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+"Cherry might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids," he thought.
+Poor little Mabel!</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin," Rig confided to him as he went by with Miss Flirt's
+empty plate; "just two things not here, cast-iron pancakes, and
+'Sammy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And the first captain," added Randolph, "yelling out 'Battalion,
+rise!' before we're half through."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of this, for Commissary beef?" quoth Twinkle,
+devouring a sandwich in blissful ignorance of its component parts.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred! Mr. Kindred!" called out Miss Freak from a window seat
+behind him; "do please get me a glass of punch. I'm just dying with
+thirst."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stepped over to a side table and brought the young lady a
+glass of sparkling cold water. Miss Freak promptly handed it back.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you bring that for?" she asked. "I didn't say water, man
+alive!"</p>
+
+<p>"Best thing I know, when you are thirsty," said Magnus. "Try it
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"Try it once," the girl repeated mockingly. "Do you suppose I never
+have?"</p>
+
+<p>"She wants punch," remarked Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks she does."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>knows</i> she does," said Miss Freak, with a stamp of her little
+foot. "You'd better believe she knows what she wants."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard that ladies could not be mistaken, did you?" said
+Magnus provokingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Beguile! Mrs. Beguile!" called out Miss Freak, "here's one of
+your guests very rude to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Freaky?" asked the good lady, bustling up. "Rude to
+you? Oh, I guess not. Mr. Kindred will take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>"If she will let me."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+"Why, he's the very man!" said Miss Freak. "I want some punch, and
+he'll not get it for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not get it for you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doused me with cold water," said the young lady, pouting.</p>
+
+<p>"Doused you!" Mrs. Beguile looked at the pink draperies, which gave
+no sign of such heroic treatment; then she turned to Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to take care of her, Mrs. Beguile," Magnus said.</p>
+
+<p>The good lady looked at him,&mdash;the clean, clear face, the
+bright eyes; looked across to the great punch bowl, where the ladling
+and quaffing went ceaselessly on, her own boys among the crowd, and a
+shadow fell on her placid face.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you drink nothing but water yourself, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even punch?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Another look went across the room, and then Mrs. Beguile said with a
+half sigh:</p>
+
+<p>"Freaky, if I were you, I'd let him take care of me as he thinks
+best; and of himself, too. You are a brave man, Mr. Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"'The Lord cover his head in the day of battle,'" said a low voice
+behind Magnus. He turned quickly, but perhaps the speaker had turned
+too, for he saw no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you wouldn't fight?" said Miss Lane, laughing up at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>As for Miss Freak, she pouted, and made believe cry; and Randolph
+darted over to the great bowl, coming back with a glass of punch in
+each hand, one for his own companion and one for Miss Freak.</p>
+
+<p>"Such airs!" commented portly Mrs. Chose, sailing by. "Setting
+himself up above the rest of the world. Just
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+the way with those West Pointers. I told you so, Miranda; more strut
+than sense. I'll never take you to West Point again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes you will," said Miss Miranda cheerfully, "because I'm
+going. Give me the strut, every time."</p>
+
+<p>"I admire your courage, Mr. Kindred," said another lady; "it is
+quite touching in so young a man. But I am always sorry to see a fine
+thing wasted, thrown away: misdirected zeal, you know, for instance.
+You cannot think for a moment that one of those small glasses of punch
+could affect a person in any way?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might make him want another, Mrs. Bright," Magnus answered
+respectfully. She was a very pleasant, sensible woman, and had always
+been very kind to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Want another? Well, let him have it. Two such glasses of simple
+punch? Why, the head that wouldn't stand that isn't worth the
+purchase."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine would be worth more before than it would after," Magnus
+answered gaily, but not without a twinge.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are you particularly susceptible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if you are," the lady went on, "you do right to let it
+alone. But you might grant others the pleasure. Really, I think it is
+rather narrow of you, Mr. Kindred, and so I don't like it. You know you
+have always been my model cadet."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Fences have a narrow look, I do suppose," he said, "but they are
+good things, in spots. And I'd rather disappoint you so, than in some
+other ways, Mrs. Bright."</p>
+
+<p>The two stood silent for a moment, looking off towards the punch
+bowl. Men came and went, and went and came, with other people's
+glasses; and then stood still and emptied their own. Young men, old
+men, with women on the outskirts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+"And you will not get <i>me</i> a glass?" said Mrs. Bright; looking up at
+her favourite.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, if you please," Magnus said, with very winning
+deference. "You will not ask me, Mrs. Bright?"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot think there is any risk for <i>me</i>? Would it be against
+West Point regulations? But they are not in force here."</p>
+
+<p>"No; although West Point honour is mine to guard, wherever I am,"
+answered Magnus. "But I have said it to myself, that I will never take
+nor give the stuff in any form. For a regulation older than West Point,
+Mrs. Bright."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the
+world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'"</p>
+
+<p>Very hilarious voices from the region of the punch bowl emphasised
+the clear, brave words.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it," said the lady frankly. "You upset all my
+ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"But why do you keep him mewed up here in the corner, Mrs. Bright?"
+said Miss Saucy, who had been listening intently behind backs. "I
+don't believe he's had one scrap of supper. Have a cup of tea; do,
+Magnus. You can't live upon air, man, even in the plural. Here's some I
+brought you myself. Taste it and see how good it is. You like lemon, I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus took the cup from the glittering fingers, expressed his
+thanks, and tasted as he was bid. Then instantly turned and set the
+full cup down on the table, coming back to his place without a word.</p>
+
+<p>A great burst of laughter greeted him. Miss Saucy fairly sank down
+into a chair, and Miss Newcomb and a half-dozen more clapped hands with
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>"What is all this?" said Mrs. Bright sternly; the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+screaming style was not to her taste, and she had caught the sudden
+flush and gleam on the face of Charlemagne Kindred. "What is all this,
+girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rum," Magnus said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't!" cried Miss Saucy; "it was good, honest tea, Mrs.
+Bright."</p>
+
+<p>"With dishonest seasoning."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a very unladylike trick," said Mrs. Bright. "Girls, I am
+extremely astonished at you. Rum in tea? Why, I never heard of such a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aunty," cried Miss Freak, with her hands on her sides, "there's
+lots of things you never heard of!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am glad I have heard of <i>you</i>!" said Mrs. Bright, giving
+Magnus a good grip of her hand. "Glad I have heard you, too. And now I
+must go."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lane, who had been a keen looker-on at all this, came up a
+little closer.</p>
+
+<p>"How does it work?" she said softly. "You know I warned you those
+old rules would get in your way."</p>
+
+<p>"They have not yet," said Magnus. "I am all standing, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see; straighter than ever. It's a great thing to have 'views,'"
+said Miss Lane, with a laugh. "When they materialise like yours."</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes the air was full of "See you at the New Year's
+Hop"&mdash;"Take you to the Hundredth Night"&mdash;"Come for
+first-class camp." Then the company separated, the lights went out, and
+the punch bowl was left to its own reflections.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>XLIII<br />
+THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will leave West Point retreats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will walk the city streets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will wear their suits of cits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will boast of spooning fits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who'll lose their cents but not their wits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>West Point Howitzer of '93.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The January examination that year came on and went off, bearing
+with it but few wrecks. One or two hard-working men who were cut out
+for lines of life where mathematics counted less; with two or three
+careless ones who coveted lines where there was no work at all. And now
+in everybody's mind the cold days and hard studies ranged themselves
+in a shortening vista, with June at the end. June! the short word
+for first-class camp, furlough, yearling camp, and graduation. While
+to Charlemagne Kindred and many another, was added in the thought of
+friends at home who had promised to grace June with their presence.
+Some men talked about this, but he never did&mdash;at least, not in
+full. To his roommate he did sometimes speak of his mother and her
+coming, but not of his sisters; never of Cherry. No one knew that she
+existed, except the men who had been there, and they had been very much
+thrown off to the other girls even then. And as Magnus was extremely
+popular at West Point, there were always girls at hand to suggest
+unlimited chaffing, without crossing the continent to find occasion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+thereto. Letters came and went in troops, of course, but so they did
+for other men. Three girls he never heard of wrote to Magnus, desiring
+a correspondence, and he turned the letters over to Mr. Trent, who had
+quite a lively time. Thus, one way and another, the weeks swung on,
+and Washington's birthday was close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter
+morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm
+exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the fourth classman
+detailed to announce the date might have been chaired and borne back to
+barracks on the shoulders of the crowd, had such doings been allowed
+at the Academy. As things were, however, all that could be given him
+was the further privilege of announcing next morning, that the days had
+dwindled to ninety nine.</p>
+
+<p>But just in here came the Hundredth Night extravaganza; like
+Hallowe'en, or the Carnival, or any other special occasion when wits
+run wild.</p>
+
+<p>If I should try to give you the details of any one particular
+Hundredth Night frolic, I might either make anomalous blunders or else
+mark out and specify some one special year, and so date my story. Let
+me rather, then, give a chance medley from many celebrations, of things
+that were done&mdash;or might have been done&mdash;only vouching for
+the general truth of its details.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Magnus Kindred was in the forefront of everything, with
+his untiring energy, fine voice, and ready wit; and no beavers could
+have worked harder over a winter house, than these men over one winter
+frolic. Plans, dresses, scenery, jokes, and poems, with here and there
+an elaborate mock-machine; what patience, what perseverance, what
+endless fertile wits, they did display. Every Saturday afternoon, every
+minute of release from quarters, went into the work. Ladies were called
+upon for hints<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+and materials; good-natured officers gave their accoutrements and their
+advice. The very professors lent their coats to the wicked boys who
+were preparing to "skin" their benefactors, in the only way possible to
+cadets.</p>
+
+<p>For the men in grey may not argue, remonstrate, or petition; may
+not even ask why. "Theirs but to do and die," as they themselves would
+put it; until the Colour Line comes round, or the Hundredth Night.
+Then, twice in the year, they are allowed to state their opinions,
+grievances, and desires, though still within certain limits. Woe be to
+the man who ventures to disagree with his instructor in the section
+room; but at the Hundredth night he may make what fun of him he
+can&mdash;within limits.</p>
+
+<p>Of late, however, the censorship over these frolics has been so
+strict that they are shorn of their old glory. The wild garden effect
+has changed into more "correct" growths, well trained and trimmed: less
+distinctive, less individual. Wits will not play without space to play
+in. But in those times of which I write, it seems to have been thought
+that steam pent up was more dangerous than the same blown off; and that
+the quips and jibes and flings, so dear to cadet hearts, were most
+innocuous when well shaken up and aired twice a year.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet rebukes rarely miss the mark through being wrapped in too much
+cotton. But if a few cuts and scratches follow they are not deep, and
+the surrounding fun half heals them. I defy anybody to look grave, when
+that grey house "comes down" in a roar of merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, many of the jokes are so local and technical that a
+stranger would be puzzled. West Point affairs, personal hits at cadets,
+or memories of the section room, figure largely. But whether you
+understand or not, you have to laugh, just for the rollicking joy that
+goes on behind you.
+
+The jolly storm of applause sweeps you helplessly along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+There are years when you go to the Hundredth Night between snowbanks
+as high as yourself, and along slippery white paths; there are others
+when the hills are clouded, and the mist hangs low, and the gas lights
+twinkle and peer through a grey veil. There are still others when air
+and hills and sky are at the brightest and bonniest, with a clear,
+hard, brown earth; and you cross the plain amid a glory of contesting
+lights:&mdash;gas round the quarters; a young moon dipping her lovely
+crescent behind the hill; Newburgh's electric lights winking and
+blinking like live things, from ten miles away; and close before you,
+the whole front of barracks in a blaze of lit-up rooms. It is so fair,
+so weird, that you can only look and look, back and forth, from side to
+side.</p>
+
+<p>As you gaze and loiter, small parties pass you on the way: people
+intent upon other effects than those of light and shadow. Generally a
+cadet with a girl&mdash;or two girls; with sometimes a chaperon, and
+sometimes not. But remember that every West Point cadet is held to be a
+knight <i>par excellence</i>; a gentleman all through; and so, by long usage
+and experience, judged to be a fit and sufficient escort on every such
+occasion. It is the regular thing.</p>
+
+<p>And then when the figures flit by you side by side or arm in arm;
+pink and grey, or grey and yellow, or, as now, furs and cadet cloth,
+all your comment is for the pretty combination. And when some solitary
+greatcoat goes speeding along to meet an appointment at the Hotel
+or the houses, you instantly hope that the girl will not keep him
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>For the minutes are running on; and whoever wants a good
+seat&mdash;or a seat at all&mdash;had better not delay.</p>
+
+<p>There is a grey throng about the steps of the old Mess Hall, and
+girls in quantity.</p>
+
+<p>They press up the stone steps, and pour into the hall, pretty and
+flushed, proud and sufficient. Officers with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+their families join in, and now and then a distinguished stranger;
+and these fill up the front seats. Then come civilians, visitors, and
+their escorts. Behind the curtain mysterious sounds of tools at work
+tell of preparations not quite complete. There is music, a pause, and
+more music; and then from behind the curtain a tall, grey figure steps
+gravely forth, bows low to the audience, and begins the regulation
+Hundredth Night address. It is the president of the first class.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever makes the speech, and whatever else he puts in it, the
+refrain is always:</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>I think I never knew but one exception; and I missed the old words
+then; but this night they were in full force. Yet the speech was in
+some ways as unlike most others as he himself was different from many
+men. Strong, tall, square shouldered, both mentally and physically,
+Cadet Trueman no more thought of turning a stone wall, or dodging a
+river, than if they had been pebbles and rivulets. Which way he ought
+to go, that way he went; the only sort of a steeplechase in which no
+man comes to grief. Not a brilliant man, but a diligent; "hard work and
+hard praying" had brought him nobly through. Trueman stood high, wore
+high chevrons, and knew less (experimentally) of the area of barracks
+than any man in his class. No ladies' man, as you might guess; although
+the chevrons, or something, won him many admiring looks. But if ever
+you met Mr. Trueman meandering round Flirtation with a girl, you might
+be sure it was a case of philanthropy, pure and simple, and that the
+damsel was on his hands by no volition of his own. And he never asked
+for the further favour of a walk after chapel, or on O. G. P. He always
+acquitted himself well on such occasions, but that was the last of it;
+and he joyfully slid back among the bachelors again. And now, as he
+came forward and bowed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+expectant throng, no thought of any&mdash;or all&mdash;the bright eyes
+in the room made his pulse one throb the quicker. He had stir enough,
+in the mere heading of his speech:</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" whispered a stylish new girl for whom Magnus Kindred
+played cavalier.</p>
+
+<p>"Fort Put. In moments of deepest affection, 'Old Put.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd you cadets always are! Wherefore do you call him
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only thing in the neighbourhood like him. Crownest is a trifle
+large for even his inches."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked indignant, as if she thought Magnus was fooling her;
+but then the speech began.</p>
+
+<p>Happy for you, perhaps, that no complete copy has come to my hands;
+you are spared the danger of being even asked to read it. But the
+last sentences so fixed themselves in Magnus Kindred's mind that he
+sent them off to Cherry next day, word for word. And of course I have
+unlimited control of the correspondence. "Ladies and Gentlemen" figured
+politely in the opening words, but Cadet True soon forgot them; looking
+clean across the gay flower garden in front to the grey mass behind:
+the vivid, eager, forceful lives hid away beneath those trim dress
+coats.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June! To freedom, to power, to Life! Men
+of 18&mdash;, shall your freedom be liberty or license? your power
+sworn in for good, or for evil? Shall life be a failure&mdash;or a
+success? The names that rank highest to-day, will they keep their proud
+position? The names that stand lower, will they show the world what
+they could have done here, but for Wave Motion and Spanish?"</p>
+
+<p>And now Mr. Trueman had to pause, for this mention of their dire
+enemies brought the grey house down.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be&mdash;it can be, if you will," he went on. "Every
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+man has it in him to do royal work. 'The people that know their God
+shall be strong, and do exploits.'</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fight the fight, Christian!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Jesus is o'er thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Run the race, Christian!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heaven is before thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee from the love of Christ<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nothing shall sever:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mount when thy work is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Praise him forever."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The grey figure bowed and disappeared behind the curtain amid great
+cheering.</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you, Old Put!" cried Magnus heartily. "You see," he
+explained to his companion, "True's just the same (or a trifle better)
+in barracks than he is at prayer-meeting. That's how he won his name.
+Nothing but treachery could have put the old fort in the hands of the
+enemy,&mdash;and that failed. I believe," said Mr. Kindred, turning
+bright eyes on his companion, "that if Arnold had carried out his plan,
+the rocks on the hillside would have risen up and fought back the
+invaders."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cray looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very patriotic, aren't you, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," Magnus answered with dry emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been abroad so long," said the pretty girl, "I get puzzled. I
+do know about Arnold. There's his tablet in the chapel, you know. But
+who were Grant and Sherman, anyway? Didn't they figure in the last war,
+somehow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some people thought they did," said Cadet Kindred, with a face that
+had no expression whatever. And then, happily, the curtain drew up.</p>
+
+<p>But how shall I give any idea of the performance to one who has
+never seen the like? Hits at officers, burlesques of unpopular orders,
+take-offs of the girls, with jibes and chaff at each other that would
+have made anybody but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>
+cadets just savage. Being cadets, they caught the fun, stood the jeers,
+and laughed&mdash;roared&mdash;till the Mess Hall rang.</p>
+
+<p>With all this, songs&mdash;often very good; or a charming bit of
+"silent manual"; and scenes and situations sometimes true, always
+possible, and very droll. Then some mock machinery that one wondered
+how they ever found time to make; unheard-of problems and discoveries
+worked out in most ingenious ways, with just enough flavour of this or
+that instructor's style to "adorn the tale"&mdash;whether any moral
+came in or not.</p>
+
+<p>Enter a donkey, carefully compounded of four plebs within&mdash;and
+I cannot guess what without. Ears and tail of the proper length,
+hide of the proper colour. He is slightly jerky and uncertain about
+his first coming in; but that is all in keeping for a descendant of
+the donkey "what wouldn't go"; and there is no hitch whatever in the
+performance. I believe one of the legs fainted as time went on; but the
+little beast (I mean the donkey), being skilfully pulled by the tail,
+beat a masterly retreat upon the other three.</p>
+
+<p>A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon
+sketches of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams,
+and first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the
+other, with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of
+glowing praise and liking&mdash;and lo! there stands before you the
+life-size "counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly
+enlarged by the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the
+men cheer! They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes,
+but they love him none the less.</p>
+
+<p>Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming
+daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come
+flirting and fanning, bridling and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+prinking, in a way to instruct some <i>bona fide</i> girls. The butterfly
+poise of these airy damsels is quite admirable, and could only have
+been won by long and careful study of the originals.</p>
+
+<p>A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a
+tail&mdash;longer than the donkey's.</p>
+
+<p>There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post;
+whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith
+not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner
+away, the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands
+unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to
+the old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in
+place at West Point,&mdash;and no one was caught. It was told, <i>sub
+rosa</i>, and with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The
+dog has been painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the
+chief culprit first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all
+this had passed, and the dog was himself again.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and
+helmeted, went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when
+suddenly from behind the scenes slid in the dog&mdash;the paint stripes
+in order as they had been before, and the medallion on its side with
+the number of its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded
+little body gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin.</p>
+
+<p>Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the
+cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly
+saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical
+department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog
+was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons.
+But words cannot give the utter drollery of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>
+the thing, nor tell the perfect way in which it was carried
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Then came more music, and the reading of the <i>Howitzer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A cadet <i>Howitzer</i> is a small, wholly original newspaper, full of
+everything in general; grinds, burlesques, sharp hints and comments,
+with bits of ridiculous fact as well; free as air, and sometimes as
+breezy. Verses to the cadet girl, verses <i>at</i> her, as well as touching
+the stringent professor, and the unpopular drill. Grievances painted in
+high colours, and jokes about cadets that are as merciless as they are
+many.</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Riding hall.</p>
+
+<p>Lieut. B.: "Mr. H., let go that horse's mane, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Cadet H. "I&mdash;I&mdash;I'm afraid he'll fall down if I do,
+Lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is T. like necessity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he knows no Law."</p>
+
+<p>"A first-class horse&mdash;the Spanish pony."</p>
+
+<p>"Mabel, what became of that West Pointer you were engaged to?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, he turned out to be a disappointer."</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Section room.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet L.: "Stucco is made by mixing gypsum with a large
+solution."</p>
+
+<p>Instructor: "Large solution of what?"</p>
+
+<p>Cadet: "The text does not state, sir. It just says it is mixed with
+a solution of size."</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Section room.</p>
+
+<p>Professor: "Now, gentlemen, the Indians made signs of natural
+and living objects their language. For instance, if they wished to
+represent the Little Horn River they drew a little horn; and if they
+wished to represent the Big Horn River, they drew a big horn."</p>
+
+<p>Cadet C.: "Professor, how did they represent the Little Big
+Horn?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+Such, and such like, keen-worded trifles; a line, or a page long;
+often very bright, seldom complimentary, but always most impartial in
+their bestowal of hits.</p>
+
+<p>Miranda: "I think Mr. W. is the most absent-minded cadet I know."</p>
+
+<p>Jenny: "How so, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were
+just sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"</p>
+
+<p>"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of
+Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on
+'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"</p>
+
+<p>So goes the <i>Howitzer</i>; and the audience are kindly told that at the
+end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass
+in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a
+day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."</p>
+
+<p>I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the
+saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold
+black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one
+laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the
+local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much
+explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his
+boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe
+urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last
+letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess
+what sort of hands will open the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well
+made-up damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed
+presently by a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering
+anxiously from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too
+disappears.</p>
+
+<p>The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+the scene. He also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this
+way."</p>
+
+<p>Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly
+assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written
+all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as
+he dives in among the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy
+amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old
+Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents
+pertaining thereto, laughable enough.</p>
+
+<p>But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is
+Saturday night.</p>
+
+<p>The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the
+gay company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is
+over.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>XLIV<br />
+PRESSING ON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I work with fury and delight, because I must get on, and I do get
+on. &mdash;<span class="smcap">Baron Bunsen.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Morning by morning now the shortening roll of
+days makes part of the cadet breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-nine days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-eight days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-seven days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>And all listen, and every heart takes a lighter bound. Ask any man,
+from now on, what is the news, and the odds are that you will get for
+answer:</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-six days to June!"&mdash;or forty-six, as the case may be. I
+had a note once from a cadet, dated:</p>
+
+<p>"Barracks. Sixty-four days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>But then he forgot to sign his name. That did not matter.
+<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>It is a strong pull, each man for himself, for the next three
+months; a sort of individual "tug of war." I think Magnus had never
+worked so hard in all the time he had been at West Point. Perhaps
+chemistry and wave motion had something to do with this, for our hero
+was no genius. Nothing but honest work carried him on. Higher thoughts
+than of rank lit up the musty pages, and made music for the dull
+company drills. Truly he was not unmindful of the charms of an engineer
+post for Cherry; but several born mathematicians stood between him and
+any hope of that. Yet all he <i>could</i> do, he would. The honour of the
+Christian name, no less than Cherry's sweet life, was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
+in his trust, to dim or to brighten; and no man should ever adorn the
+tale with the name of Charlemagne Kindred, when saying that religion
+spoiled men, and should be left to women and children.</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus had his own secret joy over every high mark. Never had he
+enjoyed "maxing it," as he did that winter, and never had he done it so
+often.</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago, when the graduating class received their Bibles,
+and Dr. Wm. M. Taylor made the presentation address, he bade every man
+cull from his morning reading&mdash;no matter how brief it was&mdash;a
+sort of rose-in-the-buttonhole word for the day. Something like that
+our young cadet had learned to do. Nothing had hindered his daily
+reading since furlough, hard as it seemed to spare the minutes, some
+days, when work was unusually pressing. But perhaps that very pressure
+taught him to dive right into the meaning of what he read; catch up
+a message, and bear it away. Now a promise, now a precept, now a
+prayer; a breath of joyous hope, a gleam of unearthly glory. That real
+rose-in-the-buttonhole which dress coats and blouses may never wear,
+would have drooped in the drill, fainted in the section room, and been
+lost in the tan bark. But it seemed to Magnus as if his invisible
+blooms grew only fairer as the day went on. The fragrance was royal, as
+it came and went in such variety.</p>
+
+<p>"Hopeth all things, endureth all things."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto
+men."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Nobody knew all this; few people read the signs; though they did
+note the high marks, and could say that "Kindred" (in his own way) was
+the gayest man in barracks. But I fear they deemed him a crank, all the
+same. Rig would look up at the clatter caused by "Analytical Mechanics,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+as it struck the corner of the room; and then see Magnus with
+an odd smile on his face make a rush for the obnoxious volume, and
+plunge into it again with all his might. "Studying like mad," as his
+easy-going comrade phrased it; but Magnus only called it "heartily."</p>
+
+<p>Or in the section room, with his wits gone a wool gathering, and his
+ideas in May-day confusion; every thought he had, tangled up with those
+last letters from home; desperately tempted to "bugle it," and let some
+other man bear the brunt; then the sweet "royal law" he was wearing
+that day gave its counsel, and braced him at once to do the right
+thing. He would answer, ready or unready, when his turn came. No man
+stumbled or doubted the truth of religion, because of any section-room
+meanness or selfishness on the part of Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>And so an unwelcome order, from perhaps a disagreeable man, turned
+round in the wind and came first (for him) as the Lord's command. "Obey
+them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." You will
+easily guess that Cadet Kindred remained high in discipline.</p>
+
+<p>And later on, first in studies also? No, by no means. Willet's Point
+never showed its head on the horizon; the leaders in the class were not
+men to be dislodged. And some studies came hard. Then (and now perhaps
+it is well I am far away from some of my friends) Cadet Kindred would
+have nothing to do with "ponies." Those seductive little frauds looked
+just as enticing, maybe, to him as to other men; but common sense and
+loyalty made him let them alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Common sense&mdash;for what am I here for," he answered Rig one
+day, "but to tread the paths of learning? And that does not mean going
+pony-back."</p>
+
+<p>"You can sort of line out the ground, you know," Rig said; "and then
+wear out your shoes all you want to at San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+San Carlos! What visions came with the name. For a moment Rig's face
+showed through a golden haze.</p>
+
+<p>"But besides," Magnus went on, bringing his thoughts back, "it's not
+doing things 'heartily.' The Lord gave me this appointment to make just
+the most out of it I could. I cannot look up to Him from a 'pony,' and
+say I have learned my lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Bible says, He always helps those that help themselves,"
+remarked Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it doesn't; not the first word. You have borrowed some man's
+'pony' for that. It says 'Fear not, for I will help thee,'&mdash;"
+and Magnus plunged into his lesson again. The Divine strength that
+is trusted in, is a wonderful power; and Cadet Kindred pushed on and
+pushed up, every now and then took some other man's scalp, and never
+lost his own.</p>
+
+<p>And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed,
+by a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now
+and then guard duty; but between whiles full of quiet time to think.</p>
+
+<p>It was such a pleasure to pile up the study books Saturday night,
+and leave the dark mass untouched till Monday morning. It took
+faith&mdash;a good deal&mdash;in some crises of work, but it paid well.
+The free time was so good. Not hours snatched unlawfully, but taken of
+right, according to that most wise and blessed law of the Lord: "In it
+thou shalt not do any work."</p>
+
+<p>In fine weather Magnus kept himself much out of doors, letting the
+dust of the week clear all away from eyes and heart and brain, till the
+balance of things, so often confused in the weekday rush, swung steady
+and true once more.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you do it, Kin," said Randolph one day. "Do you run
+a light after taps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," said Magnus. "I study all I can Saturday, and as early as I
+can Monday morning."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>
+"Always ready for eight o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not say the details are always just as clear as
+they were on Saturday, but then my head is so much
+clearer. I get along, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should say you did!" commented Rig. "Maxing
+it every blessed day last week."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>XLV<br />
+NOTHING SERIOUS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Conversed as they sat on the green.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alonzo the brave was the name of this knight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The damsel, the fair Imogene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lewis.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>One of the mild amusements of this spring for Magnus was watching
+Rig. For Mr. McLean had fallen in love. Not deeply, for that implies
+certain other depths&mdash;or hopelessly, for there was every
+likelihood that he would get out again all safe; but unmanageably.
+Unutterably, Rig called it, and Magnus unendurably.</p>
+
+<p>So the young man mooned over photographs, sported (in his room) an
+end of pink riband; tumbled his hair all he could, and went down in
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rig!" Magnus admonished him one night, "keep out of the
+'immortals,' whatever else you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot do much of anything," Rig answered mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd try, if I died in the effort," said Magnus. "Bone
+chevrons; your charmer has a quick eye for them."</p>
+
+<p>"She has a quick eye for everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Wearing bell buttons." But Rig did not heed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Confess, Kin, you never saw such eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Only about five hundred and forty times, when I used to go
+cat-fishing. Ever notice catfish eyes, Rig?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're so blue!" said Cadet McLean. "So deeply,
+darkly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't shut up," Magnus shouted at him, "I'll
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+try if I can't shake some sense into you. Quit sighing like a furnace.
+You nearly blew the gas out."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can't expect you to understand," said Rig. "You live
+only in books, far away from all this sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, this sort," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, my heart is larger than my head," said Mr. McLean. "Always
+was."</p>
+
+<p>But now Magnus threw down his book, and pitched into his friend
+very literally; pounding him, hustling him, getting him into a real
+fisticuff fight to protect himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel better, don't you?" said Mr. Kindred, when the two faced each
+other, flushed and panting. "Balance of power restored?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how I feel!" said McLean. "I've lost all my ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't advertise them at any high figure," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let 'em alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And they will come home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With their little tails behind 'em.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Sit down and study, like a reasonable being. If I were a woman, I
+wouldn't <i>look</i> at a man who couldn't hold his head up when my back was
+turned."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite impossible for me to look at a book," said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good; sit still and sigh, and I'll write your explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom? What about?" Rig sat up now and gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Prof. To-morrow. As follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'Sir: I have the honour to state that I have fallen into a six-inch
+mud puddle, and cannot get out in time for recitation. So wave motion
+must wait.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" McLean said rather angrily.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+"Stuff, and nothing but stuff. Rig, when you get fired in June,
+your dear devoted will not turn her head to see which way you go to
+take the train. Not much!" said Magnus, relieving his feelings with a
+bit of slang, and then diving into his own problems for the next day.
+And Rig could get neither word nor look more that night. But whatever
+traditions may say, unlimited chocolate creams do not help a man with
+his tactics; nor does plum cake after taps provide him a clear head for
+next day's wave motion.</p>
+
+<p>"You could make better marks, Mr. McLean," said the Superintendent
+one day, meeting Rig. "Why don't you, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>And if Rig had been openly honest, he would have answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Love&mdash;and mince pie, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus scolded his friend, fought him, jeered him; then tried other
+measures.</p>
+
+<p>The days were softening and lengthening, with grass and flowers on
+the jump. Visitors were arriving in numbers; and for Magnus had come,
+from away across the continent, a bunch of snowdrops in Cherry's last
+letter. Somehow his own great happiness made the young cadet anxious
+for his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Trent," he said one day to another classmate, "can't you
+pitch in and spoon that Curry girl? Rig will be ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"Spoon her yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't time. One more will make no difference to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. Rig will put a bullet in my head, if he suspects."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your brain always did need fresh air," said Magnus, "so that
+will fit. Why, to-day, in the section room, Hammer asked him the colour
+of old red sandstone,&mdash;and Rig answered:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>
+"'Blue, Lieutenant.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trent. "But isn't this rather a queer
+business to be talked up by our high and mighty magnate of the tender
+conscience? The man who keels over at the mere sight of a 'pony.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! if it was some girls," said Magnus. "But it will
+make no difference to her either. You've both worn your hearts
+out&mdash;supposing you ever had any."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks&mdash;awfully! And you think Miss Curry might be induced
+to hand over 'those fossil remains that she terms her affections' to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"To your temporary care. You wear chevrons," said Magnus. "And your
+affections are as fossilised as hers, allowing for the argument's sake
+that such things ever existed. Just stroll up on the other side, when
+Rig's around. She'll be delighted. And as neither of you could possibly
+fall in love with anybody, there'll be nobody hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"Except Rig."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig!" Magnus said impatiently. "Rig ought to be cut in little
+pieces and sewed up some other way."</p>
+
+<p>"Kin," said Mr. Trent, striking an easy attitude across the back of
+a chair, "you amuse me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, clear out and amuse yourself," said Magnus. "I've got a
+previous with this old book. And if Catkins finds you here, you'll be
+skinned for all he is worth."</p>
+
+<p>Which warning Mr. Trent saw fit to heed.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI"></a>XLVI<br />
+TRYING LETTERS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Though there's always enough to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">There is always something to do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We have never to seek for care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When we have the world to get through.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Charles Swain.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle?
+Magnus was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed
+human moths, wings grow anew very fast.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but
+she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost
+his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool
+applications did but heighten the fever.</p>
+
+<p>From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet
+weather." Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time
+for drill, except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the
+rain sets in with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.</p>
+
+<p>Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself
+in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog.
+The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with
+spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and
+azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How
+fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the
+small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in
+another month <i>his</i> birds of passage would be here, and the air full of
+their voices.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half made him
+wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a one-sided
+leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down on the moss
+and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to the top of
+a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to the passing
+trains, and saluted the old flag.</p>
+
+<p>The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at
+them, he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on
+him. He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world
+to creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a
+swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it
+made.</p>
+
+<p>Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak
+a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly;
+and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And,
+of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself
+agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean
+cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming
+frankness:</p>
+
+<p>"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your
+back hair down."</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share
+of what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."</p>
+
+<p>Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring;
+and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average
+cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And
+the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when
+one gauzy creature looked up at him and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it strange? You know I've always wanted to live at an army
+post&mdash;but I'm not engaged yet,"&mdash;then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+Cadet Kindred grew silent, and as soon as possible resigned in favour
+of Mr. Clinker.</p>
+
+<p>So the hope-gilded days flew on: but with the end of May came a
+check.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got back from a long walk, to find two letters on his table.
+I know it is the correct thing for hero and heroine to "tear open"
+their letters, but Magnus cut his as carefully as if the very envelope
+might hold its quota of words.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Magnus," so the clear handwriting began, "I am
+afraid&mdash;no, I suppose I hope&mdash;that you will be very sorry.
+For I cannot go East with Mrs. Kindred and the girls."</p>
+
+<p>And here, truth compels me to say, Cadet Kindred threw down
+the letter, and stamped about the room in a small tempest of
+displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" queried Rig, who had noted the postmark. "Hasn't gone
+back on you, has she?"</p>
+
+<p>For which harmless suggestion, Magnus promptly tumbled the offender
+out of his chair, and left him to pick himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"I say! Steady on that, you know," commented Mr. McLean. "Girls are
+plenty; but where will you find a friend like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was a beastly insinuation!" said Magnus in hot wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it? Girls are all alike, old boy." And Rig heaved a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"They're not! And this isn't what you mean by a girl. It's
+a&mdash;a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An angel, perhaps," said Rig. "Then allow me to inquire what
+business you have to be rattled, with anything an angel sees fit to
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig," said Magnus seriously, pausing before him, "do you know
+whereabouts we are in barracks?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+"Second floor, first div.," Rig answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can have a chance to measure the breadth of the window,
+and the depth to the ground, just as soon as you want it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, I'm sure," said Mr. McLean. "At this moment, I am hard at
+work on the problem of your temper, minus your common sense. What does
+the letter say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know yet," said Magnus. "I've only read three lines."</p>
+
+<p>Rig looked at him, and then gathering up his own books, he carried
+them over to the cold steam pipes, laid them down, and perched himself
+at one end.</p>
+
+<p>"You must excuse me," he said; "you are so plainly insane, that a
+due regard to my personal safety brings about this temporary coolness.
+'Distance lends enchantment'&mdash;but you are more irresistible near
+by."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus flung back into his chair again, with a half groan, and took
+up the letter. If it had been release from quarters he would have gone
+to Fort Put for the reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of
+reading on? She will not&mdash;and that's just where it is." And yet he
+read.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey;
+and I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'&mdash;but I cannot, Magnus.
+Not this year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the
+girls are to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all
+to me; and maybe when you graduate we can all be there."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk
+of anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are
+fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each
+other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought
+over and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always pick you out
+from all the three hundred. Good-bye.&mdash;Your Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his
+disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board
+of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.</p>
+
+<p>"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one
+day. "Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say
+that when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes
+must find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly
+be.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush
+at everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his
+scholarship.</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on
+the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him;
+won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.</p>
+
+<p>But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after
+Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition
+to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay
+with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I live
+till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,&mdash;and two such
+journeys cost."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat back in great gloom, and declared that June was "fizzling
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the next word will be that Viola and Rose have some sort
+of a previous at the North Pole," he said.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII"></a>XLVII<br />
+MRS. CONGRESSMAN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Pure was her mind and simple her intent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Crabbe.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave
+home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who
+had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some
+things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she
+liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it
+drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional
+and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her
+girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance
+of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his
+place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his
+sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about
+the bills.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and
+where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's
+business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be
+the first."</p>
+
+<p>So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey,
+and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm
+afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for
+then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman
+voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always
+ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+was as good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on
+the side track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened
+the whole car; curled everybody's feathers...."</p>
+
+<p>It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into
+"Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet
+in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned
+and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even
+of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the
+words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs.
+Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the
+country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in
+the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on
+their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M.
+C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of
+rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the
+11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.</p>
+
+<p>People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it
+is to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time
+of year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an
+endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will
+change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing
+cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north
+wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern
+Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now
+decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to
+shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white
+paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+reports, with little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the
+edge.</p>
+
+<p>It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river
+in full flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east
+wind. The green of the hills&mdash;the endless shades of the young
+leafage&mdash;seemed almost to change while you looked. The girls grew
+too breathless to talk even about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes
+of Mrs. Congressman, there was positive refreshment in the way those
+two arm-chairs whirled on their pivots, for last glimpses and new
+effects.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired&mdash;how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just
+see that vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what
+Cooper means by 'wing and wing.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I
+wish it would;" and she plied her fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the
+entrancing view.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I
+know a little."</p>
+
+<p>"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose
+gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking
+amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people,
+to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one
+direction all the time, there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!"
+And the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other
+still.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman,
+tying her bonnet strings. "Well, children,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+I'm glad you're so happy, and it's a real pleasure to have you along.
+Some girls are just a nuisance at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking
+out all the while.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose,
+studying the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You
+know we have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we
+get there, how to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs.
+Congressman, who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which
+now and then came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you
+will. The chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as
+much as a girl, and that you both are, always."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might
+just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only,
+girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."</p>
+
+<p>This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.</p>
+
+<p>"Not anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, you do not mean Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one;
+of course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things
+there!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take
+it out socially."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked
+aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight
+of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets
+(except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said,
+pressing close to her window.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads,
+the fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very
+amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they
+reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who
+would have a word to say to that statement.</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody
+there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched
+every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their
+leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf,
+that decked the road up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm
+that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the
+usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey
+cloth in view from the omnibus.</p>
+
+<p>"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless he's in the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"In the hospital!"</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained
+his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss
+Somebody's cake."</p>
+
+<p>But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart
+wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the
+girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must
+tell you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with
+me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>
+circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes, and
+they'll think you mean <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near
+Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint
+spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the
+quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to
+the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.</p>
+
+<p>The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off
+quiets one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It
+was an extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman
+into the dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner,
+surveyed the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.</p>
+
+<p>"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's
+before you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to
+ourselves till we go away."</p>
+
+<p>"What is to happen to us?" said Violet merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Walks," said Mrs. Ironwood. "And talks. And stands. I hope you've
+both brought plenty of shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed the stones, as we came along," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Stones! It's the soft going that tells on the shoes, child.
+I brought Mary Gates here one rainy spring, and she finished her
+overshoes in a week, and I had to send her home."</p>
+
+<p>"In a week! Did she dance instead of walking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Danced attendance," said Mrs. Congressman. "I didn't mean to pun,
+girls, but that was the fact. Now I should take you straight off to the
+guard-house to see Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The guard-house?"</p>
+
+<p>"The visitors' room, there, silly! but work begins at two o'clock,
+and we shouldn't find him. So I'll go and get a snooze, and you'd best
+do the same."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+"We could not possibly sleep," said Violet. "We'll sit out on the
+piazza and look."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fine view, whichever way," said Mrs. Ironwood; "but the Land
+of Nod is more to my mind just now. Sit out here, then, or do what you
+like, only don't go off hotel limits. There's no town crier here. And
+call me at a quarter past three. And girls"&mdash;she put her head
+inside the door again&mdash;"whatever you do, don't go down and stand
+at the hotel fence."</p>
+
+<p>The girls listened to the retreating footsteps, but then they looked
+at each other and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"West Point must be an odd place," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"And she is the oddest woman! What ails the hotel fence, any more
+than all other fences?" said Violet. "It looks pretty strong."</p>
+
+<p>However, they obeyed orders, and wandering about a little, as all
+doors stood open, came presently out upon the north piazza and the
+north view.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII"></a>XLVIII<br />
+THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">The little birds sang as if it were<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The one day of summer in all the year.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I do not know when Mrs. Congressman would have been roused from
+her nap, if the clock on the old tower had not told its tale of the
+passage of time. But when three sonorous notes had sounded, after that
+the girls kept close watch, for soon Magnus would be but a half hour
+away.</p>
+
+<p>They passed round to the west side, and sat watching the hills and
+the plain and the clock, by turns; and it wanted two minutes of the
+quarter when they went in. And Mrs. Ironwood was prompt. She waked up
+at once, donned a fresh gown and an astonishing bonnet; looked her
+girls over critically, to make sure their simple preparations had come
+out all right, then sailed away down the steps and across the plain,
+with her pretty convoy close following.</p>
+
+<p>Late spring everywhere, blue sky and hot sun; a ravishing green
+carpet, and just a stir of such air as breathes nowhere but in the
+Highlands. Gaily dressed women spotted the green, dark-blue officers
+came and went; the bugler at the sallyport handled and toned his
+bugle.</p>
+
+<p>Straight through the sallyport the Western dame led her two
+girls, passing grey coats on the way across the area, and meeting
+others at the guard-house; nodding to one, hailing another, but
+giving no introductions; until after making known her wishes to the
+magnificent officer of the day, she turned to her girls, and presented
+Cadet-Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>
+Trueman. Then panted up the narrow staircase to the visitors' room,
+which was hot, and not magnificent.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/377fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="348" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">PARADE REST IN CAMP</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood and her fan at once absorbed the window, the two girls
+stood shyly behind her; and back and forth before their eyes went the
+slim grey figures in the area. Some who knew Mrs. Ironwood and doffed
+their caps to her gave just a swift second glance at the two new faces.
+For a cadet never stares, or does it so surreptitiously from under his
+visor that nobody knows.</p>
+
+<p>But the minutes seemed long. Mrs. Ironwood's fan plied back and
+forth, the girls stood watching.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes them all look just alike?" said Violet. "I should say
+that man has been across six times already." Mrs. Ironwood laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he has," she said. "You'll bring the chaos to order in a day
+or two. Look very monotonous, don't they? I suppose you'll not even
+know Magnus when he comes."</p>
+
+<p>But a little cry from both the girls answered that. Another grey
+figure came hurrying across the open space, swung his cap high in air
+beneath the window, and came tearing up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>After the first words, Mrs. Ironwood went back to her seat, and left
+them to themselves, interviewing at more length some of her friends
+below; but then she made a move.</p>
+
+<p>"We must get out of here," she said. "There come more bonnets, and
+there'll be more cadets, and we shan't have standing room."</p>
+
+<p>"When the bugle blows," said Magnus. "I can't leave here till four
+o'clock. But it's close on that now."</p>
+
+<p>"And then we can have you all the rest of the afternoon," said
+Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"No, little peach blossom, you cannot. There's a review on hand.
+I'll take you down to the seats. There it goes&mdash;" And the sweet
+four o'clock call rang out in front of barracks,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+repeated then at different points, and answered by soft echoes from the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>The little party made their way out, and down among the old trees
+by the officers' row, where already the seats were filling up. But
+Magnus found them a good place, and himself stood in front; mounting
+guard over his treasures with a joy and pride it was pleasant to see.
+He quite ignored the suggestive looks that came from other men in grey.
+Just now, he wanted his sisters all to himself. And the way they gazed
+at him could not be told.</p>
+
+<p>To see how he knew by instinct when an officer came by; instantly
+whirling around to salute, to note how very often that cap came off to
+some embodiment of fashion and finery, was a great study. For Magnus
+was on tiptoe, and put in all the flourishes the law allowed. Only at
+the sound of the first drum did his exalted state come down.</p>
+
+<p>"That drummer ought to be hung at the sallyport," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is all so pretty," said Rose. "And so in keeping,
+Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know drums," he said. "That call means: 'Charlemagne
+Kindred&mdash;and every other cadet out for a breath of fresh
+air&mdash;walk straight off to barracks.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it?" said Violet. "Then why don't you go? We'll walk over with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit still! Why don't I go?" and Mr. Kindred gave fresh utterance to
+his disdain.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it sounds again," said Rose. "Is that a second invitation to
+'walk'?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; this one says: 'Magnus Kindred&mdash;and every other man who is
+enjoying himself&mdash;run!'"</p>
+
+<p>"O, then, do go, dear!" pleaded the girls. "O, Magnus! <i>do</i> not be
+late. See, those men are running."</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus gave no sort of heed. He bowed to Miss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>
+Newcomb, looked after the speeding grey coats, and remarked calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"Let them run. They want practice." But when the next call sounded,
+Magnus turned.</p>
+
+<p>"That spells," he said: "'Magnus Kindred&mdash;and every other poor
+fellow who doesn't mean to be skinned&mdash;scamper!'" and scamper he
+certainly did. The two girls watched him, breathless and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"There are three ladies right in his way," said Violet. "Oh, I hope
+they'll not stop him!"</p>
+
+<p>But no, indeed; a cadet dodging a "late" is not so easily stopped.
+Magnus knew them, took off his cap to them, spoke some words of
+greeting, but never stayed his pace; and his sisters had the pleasure
+of seeing him dive in through the sallyport before the drum said
+another word. Then they looked at each other and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a boy!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"But how he did run," said Violet. Then they both were silent with
+intensest interest. For the old grey barracks presently took to itself
+the well-known likeness of a beehive in swarming time, and ignorant
+eyes could as little tell what was going on as the uninitiated can
+guess that the bees are searching for their queen. Hanging round the
+doorways, clustering in front, with new forms all the time pouring out,
+until, like the tin pan of the farmer's wife, that mysterious drum
+brought order, and they settled down in a long, long line upon the
+sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this point, with all the dangerous element in safe bonds,
+Mrs. Ironwood left her girls for a while and went for a chat on one
+of the hospitable porches behind her. Several other people also moved
+away, for a walk or a talk; and the vacant seats were taken by a
+handful of girls just come on the ground, and who, noting the new
+faces, were now in the keen pursuit of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>At first, however, they seemed more eager to give it, talking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>
+fast and loud, and sometimes across the two young
+strangers who were watching every movement on the plain.
+But when the march down from barracks ended in another
+motionless line upon the green, and each girl began to
+pick out her friends and favourites, despite the confusing
+chin-straps, then it was impossible not to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at Mr. True," said one; "he's a mere mathematical line."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd be adorable, if he wasn't such a poke," said another.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd give more to see that man brought to terms!"</p>
+
+<p>"What terms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unconditional surrender. Down on his knees."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Randolph is just behind him," said the first. "And Mr. Crane is
+fourth from the end in B Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Which is Mr. Kindred?" said Rose, turning to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Second man with the cross-belt. Do you know him?" said the young
+lady, much surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I have met him several times."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anybody who knows Magnus Kindred after meeting him 'several
+times,' may go up head," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a poke, too?" asked Violet, with a grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he's too wicked for that," said Miss Cray.</p>
+
+<p>"Wicked?" said little Miss Wren. "Why, he's one in discipline all
+the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he'd better be two, and have a few grains of civility," said
+Miss Cray. "Absolutely he left me all standing in the middle of the
+plain yesterday, just because that ridiculous drum chose to beat!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that was a very good way to be left," said Rose merrily.
+"Perhaps if you had been all falling, he would have stayed."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine idea to work up!" said another girl, laughing, but Miss Cray
+tossed her head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+"Nobody cared, either way," she said. "How do <i>you</i> know what
+'perhaps' he would have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are both his sisters," said Violet. And for once in her
+life Miss Cray was taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy it!" she said. "Where are you staying?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"We are at Cranston's. Who is your chaperon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ironwood."</p>
+
+<p>Which was better care than Miss Cray herself could boast, and so the
+force of circumstances dealt another blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't serve me out too large a slice of humble pie," she
+said. "I'm awfully fond of Mr. Kindred, myself. The trouble is, he's
+not so awfully fond of me. And wounded hearts, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. McLean were here, he'd say: 'Steady!'" remarked Miss Wren.
+"Do you know Mr. McLean, too?" she said, turning to Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Met <i>him</i> 'several times'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must come from the West?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are quite a number of people out there," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"And one can visit, even on a prairie," said Miss Cray politely.
+"But it seems so odd."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps for a freer discussion of the oddity of things, that party
+moved away, and Mrs. Ironwood came back to her charge. But social
+duties still claimed her to such a degree that she hardly looked at the
+review, and not at all at the girls, for a good while. Then in some
+moment of silence, a soft, long-drawn breath made her turn her head.</p>
+
+<p>The cadets were just passing, double-timing round the square, and
+the good lady saw that her two girls had hold of hands, and that the
+eyes of both were full. What about? Only for one particular dress coat
+with a white cross-belt,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>
+one particular pair of shoes that darted past; the owner whereof was
+so far from feeling himself a hero that he was just pronouncing under
+breath the whole review a mean contrivance to keep men out in the sun.
+Ah, young brothers! have you any faint vision of what your sisters see
+in you?</p>
+
+<p>"Pull up your wraps, girls," said Mrs. Congressman. "It turns cool
+here, the minute the sun drops behind the hill. And I suppose wild
+horses wouldn't get you away before parade. Well, they'll have dealings
+with that man."</p>
+
+<p>The end of the battalion was just passing, one single cadet officer
+bringing up the rear; and this man's sash had come untied. And as he
+darted on, one long red streamer trailed gracefully behind him; too
+heavy to float, unless with more wind astir.</p>
+
+<p>The girls were in fits of merriment; only our two girls looked
+grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think!" whispered Rose; "it might have been Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"But why doesn't he stop and tie it up?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop and tie it up?" said Mrs. Congressman, who caught the words.
+"Why, if his head was off, he couldn't stop to put it on. Not in a
+review."</p>
+
+<p>Between review and parade there was a charming bit of free time when
+Magnus came down to see his sisters. Miss Cray and her party took for
+granted he was coming also to see them, and there was some bridling and
+handling of sugar-plum boxes. And it was quite a shock, when Magnus,
+after bowing to them, turned away, and found himself a seat between
+"those two Western girls," whom he could see any time.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet brief minutes; I wonder if unlimited free hours can ever have
+the subtle charm that used to hang over the now-and-then release from
+quarters?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Starr came up to claim acquaintance, and presently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>
+coaxed Rose away to introduce her to the sidewalk, as he said;
+Cadet-Captain Trueman appeared, preferring the same claim, though of so
+much later date. And Miss Cray looked on.</p>
+
+<p>As for my two girls, they were more than content; Violet finding
+the grave, dark-browed Mr. True a very interesting person indeed; and
+Rose so taken up with Mr. Starr's sallies of fun and comment, that she
+missed all the admiring glances bestowed upon her own sweet eyes and
+laughing mouth. The first drum came all too soon.</p>
+
+<p>Starr went on to just the point where they had turned before, came
+slowly back and led Rose to her seat; then standing before her and
+going on with his talk. And Miss Cray listened.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Trueman," she said presently, putting in her word, "we had a
+wager about you last night."</p>
+
+<p>"About me? That certainly speaks you all ladies of much leisure."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't begin to preach," said Miss Freak. "Be good for once,
+and tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"And what, if you please?"</p>
+
+<p>"The point was this," said Miss Saucy. "Kate said that before you
+will go down on your knees to a woman, you must have a cushion a mile
+high. The rest of us thought that perhaps a yard might do."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me!" said Mr. Trueman, with some energy; "if ever I kneel to
+a woman, I shall want no cushion!"</p>
+
+<p>And the tall cadet captain bowed gravely to Violet, touched his cap
+to the others, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>A quick clearance of grey coats from about the seats followed. Over
+by the innocent-looking reveille gun stood two soldiers in blue, at the
+foot of the flagstaff were two more. The flag showed off its beauties,
+lifting, falling, floating away in circling folds upon the fitful air;
+then drooping, a mere line of colour against the staff. Then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>
+came a series of wild yells from the front of barracks, answering the
+roll-call, and then parade.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the dignitaries who generally "assist" at a review,
+adding all that position or plumage can give, they never get off
+anything at West Point that is quite so good as an old-time dress
+parade. I use my adjective wittingly, for&mdash;no disrespect to the
+new tactics, they hurt the effect. To-night everything was perfect,
+even the music. The band struck up "Money Musk," or some other
+time-honoured quick-step, known in those happy days before "Boulanger"
+was heard of; the grey files came down the green in absolute order, and
+drew up in a long, unbroken, glancing line, before the seats.</p>
+
+<p>The hills across the river were in a glory of sunshine, the higher
+heads that sentinel the north entrance to the Highlands showed sunlight
+and shadow, too. The river went silently along, you could just hear the
+paddles of the <i>Mary Powell</i>, as she speeded round Gee's Point on her
+northward course. All this, while the adjutant dressed the line, and
+brought it to parade rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Sound off!"</p>
+
+<p>It matters little what they played then, for as the drum major
+raised his baton and struck his attitude, and the throng of bandsmen
+went nimbly after him, our two Western girls were absolutely and wholly
+bewitched. To see the black plumes slanting off as one before the
+breeze, with the stir of a red sash here and there, and the glinting of
+breast-plates and bayonets and bell buttons in that long moveless line.
+Then to behold the band of musicians getting tangled up in a maze at
+the turn, but coming out all right, and playing for dear life through
+it all,&mdash;they were so wrapped and lost, no wonder the gun made
+them jump.</p>
+
+<p>Then the wonder of the manual, to unwonted eyes; the comical
+different voices in which the sergeants reported, with hand on heart
+(supposedly), and the amused guesses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
+as to how in Company D there should be two privates absent and
+unaccounted for. Even the jumble of the orders was delightful.</p>
+
+<p>"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., May 10,
+18&mdash;" so much was generally plain. As also "Special Order. No.
+forty three-e-e!" But whether it gave Cadet Nameless leave of absence
+for two weeks, or said he was to be shot in two days, only the nature
+of the case made clear. To their ears, it might as well have been the
+one as the other.</p>
+
+<p>The reading ends, the adjutant tucks the folded paper into the
+breast of his dress coat, comes neatly round on one heel, and waves his
+sword to the officer in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, the orders are published."</p>
+
+<p>"Dismiss the parade, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Another skilful pirouette, and the adjutant faces the line and
+sheathes his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Parade dismissed!"</p>
+
+<p>The swords of all the cadet officers rattle down into the scabbard,
+the adjutant steps loftily back to his old place by the line.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward! Guide centre! March!"</p>
+
+<p>And with another gay burst of music, the cadet officers come
+forward, salute the officer in charge, and disperse (in these days
+draw up behind him); the long, grey line breaks into companies, the
+music changes its measure, and away they all go to barracks, to the
+sweet strains of "Pop Goes the Weasel!" Every right arm swings just so,
+every black shoe sole displays its regulation state, in most regulation
+order. But how many furtive blessings brushed the head of Cadet Kindred
+as he went by, that obtuse young fellow never guessed.</p>
+
+<p>Tea at the hotel, after all this, was prosaic enough, but doubtless
+the most soaring bird comes down to rest, and finds the lower lands
+quite bearable, with further flight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
+in prospect. So the two girls relished their bread and butter and
+strawberries with no alloy, for was not Magnus coming after supper for
+a walk? Magnus, and perhaps two more.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is so unusual," Rose said; "it makes one feel quite
+distinguished. Think of walking 'till call to quarters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, think of it," said Mrs. Congressman, carefully creaming her
+black tea. "Then you've been in the cars night and day since Monday.
+You must excuse me, young ladies. I know girls are untirable where
+cadets are concerned, but I am too old a bird for that sort of chaff,
+and I am going straight to my bed, as soon as I see you off. With your
+brother along, you'll not need me."</p>
+
+<p>"May we sit on the piazza after we come back? Or must we go to bed,
+too?" asked Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit there? Yes. Must you go to bed? No. Sit there and gaze at the
+barracks till shutting up time comes, and then go upstairs and carry it
+on from your window. You're not obliged to go to bed at all, while you
+are at West Point. Who's coming to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, of course, and Mr. Trueman. And Mr. McLean said he would,
+if he could."</p>
+
+<p>"Three for two girls; you begin well. There, they are coming out,
+and you can go stand at the fence, and I can go to my bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we stand at the fence?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Mahomet and the mountain,'" said Mrs. Congressman. "Bell buttons
+cannot come any nearer, without a special permit."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not like that," said Violet, drawing back. "You know you
+bade us not. It looks as if we were waiting for somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Silly girl! That is just what you are doing: now isn't then. Come,
+I'll see you safe to the fence."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
+So under that broad, protecting shadow the girls went down the walk;
+shy, and glad, and expectant, and just a trifle afraid; for were there
+not <i>four</i> dark figures coming rapidly across the plain? It was all so
+strange and entrancing; the straight shadows, the measured step.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, here you are!" cried Magnus. "Good-evening, Mrs. Ironwood."</p>
+
+<p>"How d'ye do again," said that lady. "How d'ye do, Mr. Trueman, and
+Mr. McLean&mdash;and, as I'm alive!&mdash;Mr. Bouché! I suppose two
+of you have come for me. I'm so broad, you think one wouldn't hear
+what the other was saying, and you could both fool me to your heart's
+content."</p>
+
+<p>There was a laugh and a protest (very honest, so far as the coming
+for <i>her</i> was concerned), and then the young people turned away, and
+Mrs. Congressman went to her much coveted repose.</p>
+
+<p>"She fulfils her destiny," said Mr. Bouché, as he placed himself by
+Rose. "The only possible use of a chaperon is to go to sleep."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIX" id="XLIX"></a>XLIX<br />
+FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">When feelings were young, and the world was new.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pringle.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>There is no need to describe that walk, nor the many that followed
+it. Anybody who has been a girl&mdash;or had care of a girl&mdash;at
+West Point, knows without telling; though doubtless the walks vary
+according to the girl. But hither and thither, then as now, went Peace
+and War, in endless new combinations. Down among the grey rocks and
+green mosses of Flirtation, where the tide flowed by as softly as the
+minutes, and all the pretty whispers sounded true. Or up on the old
+fort; green enough once, but in these days pathetic as well as lovely
+in its helpless decline, and where much history might have been talked,
+and was not. Kosciusko's garden, Fort Clinton, even the Officer's
+Row&mdash;what tales they might tell, and are silent.</p>
+
+<p>I must do Mrs. Ironwood the justice to say, that she did not fulfil
+her destiny after that night, so far as it involved going to sleep
+when she should be on duty. And she did the duty well, as befits long
+habit. Always accidentally on hand; keen-eyed, though taking no notice;
+interfering when she must, in a way that was wholly pleasant&mdash;and
+unmanageable. The two girls, so unlearned in the world, could not have
+had a more wisely careful friend. Violet never guessed how it was that
+she was generally free to walk with Mr. Trueman, nor why Mr. Clinker
+always fell to the lot of Mrs. Ironwood herself. "She must be very fond
+of him," thought the girls. And Magnus was careful,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
+too, in a way, and would by no means present everybody he knew to his
+two young sisters.</p>
+
+<p>So within that twofold invisible fence Violet and Rose moved
+joyously on, and had&mdash;as they wrote home&mdash;"the very loveliest
+time that girls could."</p>
+
+<p>And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon
+ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other
+girls were borne meekly; and the days when he was on guard called forth
+less lamentation. In short (in the prettiest sort of way) the cadet
+fever had claimed our two young Westerners. As how should it not, when
+they were in such demand? Men did not stand round them to see "what
+those girls would do next," the poorest sort of a compliment; but came
+for the real liking and appreciation of the fair womanliness, of which
+even faulty men have an idea&mdash;or an ideal. Then fresh common sense
+is very pleasant when you find it; and if Rose was thought too sensible
+by some&mdash;or too sedate, Violet was as full of fun and frolic as
+any young, unspoiled nature ought to be; so they set each other off.
+But the fun was not pointed with slang, nor did the frolic show out in
+shrieks of laughter, or in familiar ways. It never occurred to either
+of them that it was witty to say "Get out!" or ladylike to beg for
+buttons and buckles. Or interesting, to give a kiss to some man who was
+unmannerly enough to ask it. But nobody dared that of them.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood's "sleepy" eyes saw all these things; saw also,
+by degrees, some others. She could tell, to a time, how often
+Cadet-Captain Trueman had walked with Violet, as also that Violet
+seemed quite unconscious that he came oftener than other men.</p>
+
+<p>"Great pity!" said Mrs. Ironwood in her heart, waving her fan there
+on the hotel piazza. "He's the best fellow living&mdash;and she's the
+girl of girls for him. But she hasn't
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+a sou&mdash;and <i>he</i> hasn't; it would never do. I did try to keep Rose
+in the way&mdash;but my! he'd get round a standing army. Study, drills,
+examination, don't head him off one bit. A fine piece of three weeks'
+work! And in ten days more he graduates, and there's an end."</p>
+
+<p>And just at that very time, this is what was going on among the
+casemates at Fort Putnam.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you could live on a second lieutenant's pay?" Trueman
+was saying. "It is not much, you know&mdash;but then at first we should
+probably be stationed at some small one-company post, where it would
+not be needful to make a show."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never lived where it was needful, or possible, to make
+a show," said Violet, with a bit of a laugh at the idea of being
+"stationed" anywhere. "But you know I have had no chance to think of
+anything yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," said Trueman; "it's all very sudden to you. But
+the first minute I saw you I knew I had met my fate, and I have done
+nothing but think, ever since. Thinking out the fairest story that ever
+came into any man's heart. And I am going so soon. Write home to-night,
+will you, Miss Violet, and get <i>leave</i> to promise?"</p>
+
+<p>And then with the sound of coming footsteps, the two drew apart a
+little, and walked decorously down the hill; Trueman screening himself
+carefully with Violet's blue parasol from the sun without, and she
+conscious only of a strange new sunlight within.</p>
+
+<p>Rose, meanwhile, was having a different sort of talk with Mr.
+Bouché; an American, despite his French name.</p>
+
+<p>He was a handsome fellow, stood well up in his class, and was
+proficient in more than West Point learning; but as much adrift as any
+unpiloted boat in all matters of faith, and some of practice. Why he
+sought out Rose Kindred (as he had done persistently from the day she
+came) it <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
+would be hard to tell, unless from that peculiar masculine contrariness
+which, as Mrs. Ironwood phrased it, "makes Arctic men always swear by
+the South Pole."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Bouché's special delight to get Rose away from everyone
+else, find her a splendid seat in some leafy nook, throw himself down
+on the grass where he must needs look up and so could properly gaze
+into her face, and then draw her into an argument. I do not know that
+Rose was more wedded to her opinions than other women, but she knew
+what she believed, which they do not all. And when the point was of
+importance she could fight, and fight well; zeal and love of the truth
+holding their own fearlessly against more polished weapons. Even as
+did the old "Queen's Arm" in the hand of one of her ancestors at
+Concord.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular afternoon, every place seemed taken. Gee's
+Point, of course, but also the seat by the river edge, and the almost
+unscalable rocks, and the grey stones that lie about the way to Battery
+Knox.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," Rose said. "I am not tired. I would just as leave
+walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Tired! You? No," said Mr. Bouché; "you are the most rested creature
+that ever lived. But I am a lazy fellow, and I want a comfortable
+place, where you can lecture me."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon your laziness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon what you will. I need it all round."</p>
+
+<p>"There will not be time for an all-round lecture before parade."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother parade!" said Mr. Bouché. "Why need you remind a fellow
+of parade, just when he's happy? Here&mdash;come this way. Now we
+can dive through these bushes&mdash;look out for your dress, Miss
+Rose!&mdash;and we can sit on the rock and be out of the way of all the
+spoons. And Catkins himself couldn't find us."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+Laughing at him, guarding her dress, following through the tangle
+like a true fresh-air girl, Rose presently forgot everything in the
+loveliness that was all about. Behind them, trees and bushes were both
+shade and screen; but in front there was only rock, river, and hill.
+The grey ledge on which they stood took a sudden dip almost at their
+feet, and went down, down, sheer and smooth, with little to break the
+line till it ended in a low fringe of riverside bushes. And the stream
+itself, curling rapidly round Gee's Point, went in full flow through
+the broadening channel towards Anthony's Nose and the "Race." One or
+two sailing vessels beat up against the breeze; from under the fringe
+of bushes came the measured dip of oars. The east-side hills, with
+their wavy outline, caught the full glory of the sinking sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how beautiful!" Rose cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said Mr. Bouché, who had been eyeing the girl much as she
+studied the landscape; "just what I was thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"It is like nothing I ever saw anywhere else," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," assented her companion.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I have never been just here before," said Rose, turning at
+the somewhat peculiar tone of voice. "Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure&mdash;that I have," said Mr. Bouché, considering with
+himself whether certain sensations in the region of his heart could
+possibly (in a cadet of such wide experience) mean something new. "It
+rather seems to me not. What are you going to lecture me about, Miss
+Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you are!" cried Bouché, rousing up. "That's not fair. It
+is in the bond that you are to lecture."</p>
+
+<p>"Who signed the bond?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;for self and partner," said Bouché audaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'Himself and he,'" said Rose, quoting Cowper.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/392fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="351" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">FLIRTATION</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
+"Now, that is truly unkind," said Mr. Bouché, with an injured air;
+"and therefore not like you, Miss Rose. And people should always speak
+in character. I am surprised at you. Do you believe that I never think
+of anybody but myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose when you are speaking to me, you must be thinking of
+me a little," said Rose, a faint tinge coming into her cheeks as she
+made the admission. "Look at that eagle flying across the river."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him fly&mdash;" said Bouché. "You really suppose I think of
+you 'a little,' then? When it's week days and Sundays, Saturdays
+and common days. When the reveille gun has grown sweet to my ear,
+because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now hush!" Rose interrupted him. "That is a good place to stop.
+Nothing ever yet made the reveille gun sound sweet to a cadet."</p>
+
+<p>"Other cadets."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are just another cadet," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Bouché burst into a laugh, in spite of his efforts to look
+tragic.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said; "she's making fun of me. It's all up. I am only
+'just another cadet.' One more in her train. Only so many additional
+bell buttons, and a pair of chevrons thrown in."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the professor of nonsense here?" Rose demanded. "I never saw
+such proficients as you cadets are, in all my life. Have you had forty
+pages to learn? and are you trying them off on me? Very well recited,
+Mr. Bouché."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't at all. You are getting off grinds on me the whole time,
+and that's not fair. I should think conscientious scruples would hinder
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Conscientious scruples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Bouché. "The way you throw away opportunities tries even
+my conscience. You see, Miss Rose, <i>I</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+never had folks to stand round me and keep me straight. I've been a
+Topsy boy, all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Topsy-turvy?" suggested Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Bouché drew a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"There it goes again," he said; "I shall have to take it, I suppose.
+But I guess it's true. And now, when somebody has a chance to set me
+right, she don't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What could she do?" Rose asked, seriously now.</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, she could take a long, long walk with me on Sunday.
+Keep me out of mischief the whole afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistake, Mr. Bouché," said Rose, turning her clear, grave eyes
+upon him. "Getting into mischief one's self, never helps anybody else
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"How would you get in?" Bouché said eagerly. "I'd max it on care of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, I do not doubt. But&mdash;I was not brought up so," Rose
+said, hesitating over her words. "At home, Sunday is such a special,
+set-apart, happy day. We never take it for common things."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a very special and happy day for me, if you would take
+the walk," said Bouché. "Of course <i>you</i> would count it 'common' doings
+to go with me, any day."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not fair to twist my words," said Rose, looking troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if it would be <i>un</i>common, you can go. You are throwing down
+opportunities, Miss Rose. I'll take you to some remote, far-wilderness
+corner, and you shall preach to me till the drum beats. I'm as meek as
+skim-milk on Sunday. Why, if you only tell me to take my cap and go to
+chapel, I shall do it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better believe I wouldn't be there else," said Bouché. "But
+I'll listen to you a quarter longer than we give the chaplain."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+"I do not think you will&mdash;for I shall not speak, on Sunday,"
+said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Not speak! Turning into 'a sweet, silent Carthusian,' and thinking
+up hard things to say to me on Monday."</p>
+
+<p>Rose did not at once answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché," she said, "I think you make a great mistake about the
+chapel."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the biggest-sized mistake to make me go there."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you went willingly, you would forget all about being made to
+go," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>How Bouché laughed! Rose coloured a little, but stood her ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," she said, "the bonds you strive against are the ones that
+press hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Good beginning," said the cadet, controlling himself. "Go on, Miss
+Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "then you need not have laughed at me quite so
+much. But somebody says, there are two ends to a sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"Only one here," said Bouché, "and that's at the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"Two ends," Rose went on steadily; "the human and the Divine, the
+text and the preacher. If you begin with the preacher, one man may not
+like him, and another one may&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That man hasn't reported yet," Bouché interrupted her.</p>
+
+<p>"And it would be just the same," Rose said, "if an angel came and
+preached to you. Some men would be sure to criticise him, and study the
+length of his wings."</p>
+
+<p>"Wishing he'd use 'em to fly away with; that would be me, every
+time&mdash;unless he wore your bonnet."</p>
+
+<p>"So the best speaker would not please you all," Rose concluded. "But
+if you would begin with the text, you could not dispute that authority,
+nor question that style.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+You would not <i>dare</i> to criticise it. And if you were studying the text
+all the way through, no sermon could seem dull, because it would have
+such living light upon it, from the Lord's own living words."</p>
+
+<p>There was such a light and glow on the girl's own face, that Mr.
+Bouché gazed at her with evident admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"All depends," he said. "Give me my particular angel for the
+preacher, and the text may go."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché," said Rose, rising up, "I am sure I heard a drum."</p>
+
+<p>"You can always hear a drum here, any time of day or night."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that drum; listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy drum to be listened to."</p>
+
+<p>"But seriously, we must walk on; you will be late."</p>
+
+<p>"'One private absent.' Hard on the Com. But it's not imminent yet,
+Miss Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you do not look!" said Rose. "See how the shadow lies on the
+river. Please go! Just run on; never mind me."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind you!" said Bouché, taking leisurely steps at her side.
+"Not if I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché, you will be late."</p>
+
+<p>"Like enough. The first sergeant of D Company will tell it with
+his hand on his heart, regretfully adding: ''Tis true, 'tis pity;
+pity 'tis, 'tis true.' And old Powder Flask will jump for joy in his
+regulation shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chance of skinning me for the ninety-ninth time this week."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll not be responsible for his joy," said Rose. "Good-bye!"
+And as they came to one of the many cross-paths that led towards the
+plain, Rose suddenly turned up the ascent, running so lightly and
+easily that it was almost as pretty to see as the regular double-time.
+Bouché stood <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+open-eyed for a second, and then came up with her, fuming.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this is atrocious, preposterous, unheard of!" he said. "I don't
+care a button for a 'late.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you should," said Rose, laughing round at him, keeping
+her pace and her breath admirably. "And this might turn into a cold
+absence. You ought to care. Magnus says discipline counts. There's a
+different sort of text for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I vow!" said Bouché. "Don't you give me any of <i>his</i> wise sayings,
+or I'll punch his head when I get back to barracks, the first
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the <i>first</i>," said Rose with a gay laugh, as they reached the
+edge of the open, "Look! there goes the band. Run, Mr. Bouché!"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I hadn't been running!" said Bouché, much aggrieved. "Miss
+Rose, I'll owe you one better for this."</p>
+
+<p>And then, run he did.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="L" id="L"></a>L<br />
+FAIRYLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their banners and their crests waving in a row.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Frere.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I
+had best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather,
+the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail
+delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out
+and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited
+taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave
+the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and
+frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than
+they.</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have
+grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary
+chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost
+graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels
+repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But
+alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere&mdash;with you!" That might
+have been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are
+down; and Choice opens its eyes and waits.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the
+looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or San
+Carlos: comes also the question
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+of comforts and climates. These delicate creatures can walk all day
+and dance all night in West Point air. But what will their high heels
+do at Huachuca? and how will their fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle
+Pass? Are they brave to be left with only soldier attendants when the
+young lieutenant is ordered off on a scout after Indians? Can they
+make bread, where the baker does not come round? and keep their sweet
+patience when some "ranking" new arrival swoops down upon their pretty
+quarters, and bids them move? Or again, what if the modest pay of a
+second-lieutenant should not comport with twenty-dollar bonnets?</p>
+
+<p>Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known
+for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's
+acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And
+no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for
+just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which
+the men have won their shoulder-straps.</p>
+
+<p>Among all the unwonted eyes that ever saw June come over West
+Point, none could get more delight than did Cadet Kindred's two young
+sisters. The mere shining out of the whole post in white trousers was
+an event. And the guns that greeted the Board of Visitors were, to the
+full, as imposing, as the various "planks" in that respected body. The
+girls watched every point of the welcoming review, and then studied
+the chosen guests as they trooped into the "big house" reception. But
+better than chicken salad indoors, was the music discoursed by the band
+in the pretty grounds outside. It may be said, however, that Violet did
+not fail to see Mr. Trueman, in sash and plume, go up the steps with
+the rest of the graduating class, and to think for one brief moment
+that it might be pleasant to go there too.</p>
+
+<p>Only parade that night, but a wonderful walk after supper;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
+and next day, and every day for ten more, a series of varied pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>The examinations in the library were positively awe-inspiring; such
+battle plans, such hieroglyphics. There was some trembling of heart
+the first time they saw Magnus under fire; but he so plainly knew
+what he was about, that fear soon passed into rejoicing. And when Mr.
+Clinker was set to read Spanish, and the story (as translated) sounded
+unutterably ridiculous, Mrs. Ironwood declared that her two girls
+behaved better than she did.</p>
+
+<p>Something of this in the morning; at night a concert; in the
+afternoon a drill. Perhaps on the cavalry plain with the ear-tearing
+racket of the Light Battery; where the guns were sometimes pointed at
+the ladies, and the ladies cried out, and stopped their ears, and ran
+away; and the hills sent back the thunder, and the descending sun half
+glorified the clouds of dust. Or maybe they went down by the river, and
+saw Mr. Trueman and a throng of unknown men build the pontoon bridge,
+themselves sitting on the grass in a blaze of sunshine, which the north
+wind softened down. With gay dresses on every side, and grey-and-white
+men standing behind them, or down on the grass too. Sugar-plums
+
+in many hands, the perfume of flirtation in all the air; and certainly
+their own attendant cavaliers were well disposed for both these soft
+delectations. But if Rose looked round, it was generally to put some
+intelligent question, which Bouché could only answer in kind; and
+Violet's bright eyes were too eagerly watching what Mr. True did with
+his boat, to heed what Randolph whispered about <i>them</i>.</p>
+
+<p>How skilfully those huge grey pontoons swung into line; how stirring
+was the sounding tramp of the plank-bearers; how curiously they locked
+arms going back, and how very charming was the walk over that strange
+bridge when it was done.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/401fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="361" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">CADET BOAT AND CREW</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
+Another day came skirmish drill, with the grey files in all sorts of
+varied action; the men scattered over the plain as a sower casts his
+seed. Speeding down in the hollow, dashing up the ridge, disappearing
+behind the trees, and firing straight at the pretty spectators. In
+those days, the short midway rest was all right for visiting; and so,
+when the other men dropped down on the grass, Magnus and Mr. Trueman
+and quite a little crowd came over to the seats, cap in hand. Smoky,
+and dusty, and hot&mdash;and charming&mdash;for a few minutes of lively
+talk. To the begrimed warriors every girl looked perfectly resplendent,
+in her fresh summer dress.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee
+to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers
+standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the
+chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each
+straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass.
+Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground&mdash;but for these!
+It was all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the
+ground sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched
+up with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and
+fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the
+guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark
+figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass
+which the crimson fire caught in its red glow.</p>
+
+<p>Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry
+drill on the plain and the grand charge.</p>
+
+<p>In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in
+watchful waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent,
+and caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There
+was one lady in particular,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody, whose son was in the
+drill, and whose fears were many and public. In the midst of the most
+harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it, "on thorns"; and she
+danced about as if it were true.</p>
+
+<p>Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see
+at all; with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or
+expostulation&mdash;it was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch
+her when the charge really came,&mdash;and forgot her as July forgets
+December.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by
+the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining
+his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them
+looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a
+better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then
+quicker, till the word was given:</p>
+
+<p>"Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas
+cyclone upon the resounding road.</p>
+
+<p>In some of the quieter moments before the charge, Rose and Violet
+had picked out two or three men they knew, noting their horses (they
+were not all dark then); and now, even in that dusty whirlwind,
+the grey and the black could be seen and followed. And&mdash;yes,
+certainly&mdash;Mr. Trueman's horse has leaped the Hotel fence, and the
+plucky rider puts him at it again, and comes bounding back. And Mr.
+Clinker's steed has swerved at the crossroad and gone dashing along
+towards Trophy Point, for freedom and Highland Falls. However, he
+missed in both, and everything came out right, and nobody was hurt; and
+the drill was pronounced in every way first-class. But for days after,
+when Violet shut her eyes, she seemed to see the flashing sabres, and
+hear again the ringing shout; and to watch that particular grey horse
+as he leaped the hedge.</p>
+
+<p>Then came graduation; and Violet had the first sight of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+Mr. Trueman's diploma, as soon as he could step aside and show it. And
+Magnus was made first captain, and Mr. Bouché shone forth as adjutant;
+and even Mr. McLean found his arm adorned with three bright bars, to
+his own astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"All owing to Kin," he confided to the two sisters. "If he hadn't
+pinched me black and blue every day since Christmas, I should be on my
+way back to Kansas, to hoe potatoes for the rest of my life."</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Trueman lingered at the post
+for a few days in "cits," and finally departed with a permit to show
+himself in the Western home, and plead his own cause there.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood lingered, too, even longer, to let her charge have a
+taste of the pretty concerts and guard-mounting in camp; and then the
+girls packed their trunk, and saw the hills fade away in a mist that
+was all in their own eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LI" id="LI"></a>LI<br />
+THE HOME-STRETCH</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A gold fringe on the purpling hem<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of hills the river runs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As down its long green valley falls<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The last of summer suns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Along its tawny gravel bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Broad-flowing, swift, and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if its meadow-levels felt<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The hurry of the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Noiseless between its banks of green<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From curve to curve it slips;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The drowsy maple shadows rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like fingers on its lips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Whittier.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To come down from two girls of your own to none, is a long step; and
+I think if ever Cadet Charlemagne was ready to put the full value on
+the many fair and gay women at the Point, it was just then, when his
+sisters had gone. Not another sight of his own to be hoped for till a
+whole long year should roll away. First-class camp though it was, I
+think he would have liked the busy term-time better.</p>
+
+<p>But he talked with Miss Lane, he walked with Miss Newcomb; and did
+the civil thing to a handful of new visitors; went to picnics, teas,
+and such like merrymakings; and through it all found himself pining for
+Cherry, and wondering what they were all about at home. In the very
+midst of the frolic, with bright eyes and soft hands on every side, the
+refrain of the old song would keep coming up:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O this is no' my ain lassie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fair though the lassie be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such a mood works differently with different men; with Magnus it
+wrought in a very becoming fashion. For the high mark put upon the
+three girls far away, set the standard for his behaviour to those
+near by. "Help them," Cherry had said. And so, over his ordinary good
+manners and winning ways, there had come that grave air of chivalry,
+that deference to women <i>because</i> they were women, which sets off a
+man's own manhood as nothing else can. His heart was elsewhere, but
+his best service was theirs to command. Now and then he ventured a
+reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not do that," he said one day to Miss Lane; receiving an
+instant "Thank you!" which spoke her good stuff. And even when he came
+between Miss Saucy and some lawless escapade with a firm: "You shall
+not do that!" the words were so courteous and earnest that the girl
+yielded with:</p>
+
+<p>"There, there&mdash;I won't. Hush up!"</p>
+
+<p>It was kind work to do, and the giving pleasure was always pleasant;
+but for his own delights Magnus fell back into his solitary woodside
+walks, with now and then a long pull upon the river. Up and down the
+shining current; fighting the wind, breasting the tide; tossed with
+mimic billows, or shivering a mirror of blue; so he went. Now coasting
+along at oar's length from the shore, where the hills rose up in
+castellated masses of rock and the cool shadow lay deep; then resting
+on his oars, and gazing through the peerless north gateway at the
+flood of sunset over Newburgh Bay. Sometimes showing it all to Cherry,
+"on their wedding trip"; or again, sent back here as Commandant, with
+Cherry the fair Frau Commander of the Post. And then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A faint strain of music broke in upon his dream; the oars hung
+motionless, dripping their bright drops.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
+A soldier's funeral was passing slowly up the winding Camptown road;
+the grave notes of the band coming clear and soft across the water;
+the flag drooped midway. Magnus reverently bared his head. Then he sat
+listening.</p>
+
+<p>There was so little tide that a dip of the oars now and then kept
+the boat in place; and Magnus sat there motionless, until the third
+volley rang out among the echoes, and to the usual lively racket the
+men came marching home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" he said to himself, as he began to pull down stream again.
+"When the time comes for Old Glory to wrap me up, let them bring me
+here and lay me there, to sleep among the hills."</p>
+
+<p>And with a shake of the head at his own musings, Cadet Charlemagne
+made the boat fairly spin till it reached the landing, and dashed into
+the sallyport with full five minutes to spare.</p>
+
+<p>The Fourth of July that year rose exceedingly hot. A misty haze
+veiled the mountains, the dew lay thick on every blade of grass; the
+silent black-mouthed guns were dripping with moisture.</p>
+
+<p>Being a holiday, even the reveille gun took an extra nap; and
+the camp lay in absolute stillness for a half hour beyond its usual
+time. Only the sentries paced up and down in the heightening glare;
+and far away in the Logtown regions you could hear the sputtering of
+fire-crackers and know that Independence Day was begun.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, by the same token, a lively ambush was preparing in the
+quiet camp&mdash;a thing not distinctly set down and forbidden in West
+Point rules, and with what we call constructive evidence cadets concern
+themselves but little. And so with happy unconcern, Magnus and Twinkle,
+and pretty much all the first class who were not on duty, arranged the
+frolic. And for once the plebs liked their orders.</p>
+
+<p>Up came the sun, touching Crownest, gilding Fort Put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>nam,
+peering into every bush and tree; and from the other side up came the
+band, their white helmets making a winding line of light across the
+plain. They took post at one corner of the camp; and then, as the Stars
+and Stripes swung slowly up to the head of the flagstaff, began their
+march and their music, saluting the colours.</p>
+
+<p>You have all heard how the piper of Hamelin played the rats out,
+where none were seen before; and something like that happened now. The
+camp was for all useful purposes asleep. But as soon as the inspiring
+notes of "The Red, White, and Blue" broke up the stillness, there came
+a stir.</p>
+
+<p>At quick step, and to a full-blast medley of national airs, the band
+passed through the camp; up A Company Street and down B Company Street;
+and as they went, out poured a chance-medley crowd to match. A crowd of
+plebs, wrapped in sheets, in blankets, in every sort of harum-scarum
+costume; with brooms for muskets, and the strict orders of upper
+classmen for regulations.</p>
+
+<p>With all other cadet eyes peering through tent curtains to watch,
+the crazy throng came after the band in full procession. And even when
+the officer in charge woke up to the state of things, these agile boys
+kept out of the way; slipped through between tents to the next Company
+street, and then re-forming and marching on joyously, until, as the
+band came round to its starting point, and "Yankee Doodle" filled all
+the air, the queer contingent drew up in order before them, solemnly
+presented arms (alias broom-sticks) scattered, dived, and disappeared.
+And only the most sedate and orderly faces could be seen at roll-call.</p>
+
+<p>That was great fun. Better than the Fourth of July dinner, Magnus
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>The usual festivities graced the morning. The muster, and the march
+across the plain to the old trees before the library. The band played,
+Magnus read the "Declaration,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+and Mr. Bouché made a speech which proved him, in theory,
+a model patriot.</p>
+
+<p>Then the midday salute of forty odd guns thundered out among the
+hills; returned by them in six times as many echoes; and the work of
+the day was done. Once upon a time, when powder was cheap, there used
+to be a salute at sunrise, too, and at sundown.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus strolled away to one of his haunts by the river, and sat
+himself down to watch the tide come in. It was almost full flood; the
+water creeping silently up, hiding every mud-stained rock, floating off
+the drift from every corner. One could see how it picked up its freight
+of chips and sticks and sawdust; but the current was so strong, the
+water so bright, that the dark streaks hardly counted. In fact, Magnus
+enjoyed the whole process, finding fair images for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," he thought, "would the June-tide set in, when:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Whatever of life has ebbed away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into every green inlet, and creek, and bay."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Bearing away then, of course, to parts unknown, all the
+disagreeables of life; studies, drills, and regulations. Wave motion
+giving place to Cherry. "It is so pleasant," said one of these
+pre-graduates to me, "to think of never again having to do anything I
+don't want to do!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was so deep in his dreams down there one day that a step
+close by made him start. This was no gauze-winged vision, however, but
+a poor, homesick pleb. In the gray, baggy suit of first initiation,
+with clouded brow and an air of general forlornness, he looked as
+little like flood tide as a fellow could do.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the trim first classman down among the bushes, went a
+few steps on, turned, hesitated, and finally came up behind Magnus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>
+"Shall I disturb you, sir?" he said deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No; come on. Rocks are Government property. You're Mr. Renwick,
+aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The boy sat himself down at the water's edge, and looked gloomily
+off. He was a slight fellow, just touching the regulation age;
+fair-skinned, soft-haired, with an unmistakable air of love and petting
+about him. "A mother's boy" all over. There were hearts aching for a
+sight of him somewhere, without a doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus eyed him a while from a first-class standpoint; then his look
+softened. What wretched, desperate hours he himself had spent in that
+very dress among those very rocks. And then of a sudden Cadet Kindred
+fell to wondering what the Lord would say to this poor heart, were he
+there himself in bodily presence? And the reply was instant:</p>
+
+<p>"Be pitiful, be courteous."</p>
+
+<p>"You were in the pleb formation on the Fourth?" he said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Liked it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. At least I liked it well enough, but I didn't
+enjoy it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last Fourth was better."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, was it!" said Magnus ironically. "Did you think to bring
+home-doings in your pocket when you came to West Point?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," said Renwick, with a sigh. "I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"If you had all you wanted at home, why didn't you stay there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had <i>not</i> all I wanted," said the boy, rousing up. "I wanted an
+education, and we were too poor for me to get it anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
+"My case precisely. And to-day you think home is worth all the
+education that ever was heard of. So have I, a thousand times. But it
+isn't, for all."</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>you</i> ever feel so, Mr. Kindred?" said the boy, changing his
+seat for one a little nearer. "Everybody says you've had a clear run of
+luck, straight through."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" Magnus answered him. "Are you a Christian, Mr. Renwick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Hope so! Well, are you an American?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I am."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know? You may be a Chinese."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know&mdash;whether I can tell how or not," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain sure where you belong in this world, and not sure at all
+where you belong in the next. Unsound business, Mr. Renwick."</p>
+
+<p>Renwick looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a queer man!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"My one distinction. Found I couldn't lead off in anything else,
+here. What are <i>you</i> going to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"A success&mdash;if I can, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the only way to success is, to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I know as much as that myself, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Practise it then. You might as well try to take that hill at one
+jump, as think to be a success in January and June, and a failure all
+the rest of the time. Unless you're a fine mixture of laziness and
+mathematics. I am not myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Very little mathematics about me," said Renwick; "and they speak as
+if that was everything here. So I don't see what I am to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do?" Magnus said. "Why, dig like a prairie dog! Things are not so
+deep down that they <i>can't</i> be routed out. And get all the help you
+can, and take all you can get."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
+"Do you mean 'ponies'?" said Renwick with a doubtful look.</p>
+
+<p>"I do <i>not</i> mean 'ponies'!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they say <i>you</i> are always so busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, I'm busy enough; have to look out for my own scalp, you
+know. My advice is always at your service, but my time most generally
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I don't see what you mean, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a Bible, Mr. Renwick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Read it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at one of those rare intervals," said Magnus, "put three
+marks in it. A red one here:</p>
+
+<p>"'Call upon me here in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>The boy drew a long sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother's verse," he said. "But that will not bring me home."</p>
+
+<p>"No, and you don't want to go. Then a long blue one here:</p>
+
+<p>"'What time I am afraid I will trust in thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on there," said Renwick. "I'm not afraid, sir, and I don't
+expect to be."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be, quite unexpectedly, some day, when you get into the
+section room and find you have left your wits in barracks. But put a
+broad white mark here, and <i>keep</i> it white:</p>
+
+<p>"'Walk in the light.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep out of all dark ways, Mr. Renwick. You can have the Lord's
+help every time and all the time, on those terms."</p>
+
+<p>Renwick looked at him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of getting through West
+Point <i>so</i>," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiptop way, you'll find," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is your whole list of directions?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>
+"Finished up with the first one: dig! You must work like all the
+beavers between whiles, or you'll never have the face to pray such
+prayers."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you were odd," was Renwick's comment.</p>
+
+<p>"And now you think the half wasn't told you. Sound doctrine,
+nevertheless."</p>
+
+<p>"But mathematics!" said the boy; "and natural philosophy! and
+Spanish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Know them all through now, don't you?" said Magnus; "and so want no
+help."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, sir! of course not. But I mean&mdash;Mr. Kindred, do all
+the head men get to the top of the class your way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you lay it out for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only sure way I know."</p>
+
+<p>"To push me up head?"</p>
+
+<p>"To put you somewhere where it's worth while for a man to stand,"
+said Magnus. "You might come out head&mdash;and be a disgrace to
+the service. You might go down before French twistifications, get
+dropped&mdash;and live to bless the country some other way."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you meant I should be sure to graduate," said Renwick,
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"There's but one thing sure." And rising to his feet, Cadet Kindred
+chanted out a scrap of an old hymn.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Looking off unto Jesus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I go not astray:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My eyes are on him<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he shows me the way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The path may seem dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As he leads me along;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But following Jesus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I cannot go wrong."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Does it ever seem dark to you, sir?" Renwick said wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of times."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>
+"It is so hateful here," the boy burst forth; "the place, and the
+drills, and the cadets, and everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, isn't it!" said Magnus heartily. "I have felt just so. Why,
+there are days when I should like to shoot the cadets, burn down the
+barracks, pitch all those old study books into the blaze, and tie the
+Tacs within roasting distance."</p>
+
+<p>The two looked at each other, and then both broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid old place, isn't it?" said Mr. Kindred. "And the drills
+are as good as the rack for stretching a man. And the cadets aren't
+much worse than the rest of the world. You and I are two of them. Come
+on! Let's go take a look at the flag. That always puts me to rights
+when I turn sour. 'Hail, Columbia, happy land!' and West Point is part
+of it."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The sweet red, white, and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The brave red, white and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has done so much for me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And done so much for you."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LII" id="LII"></a>LII<br />
+THE BIG RECEPTION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">When shall I come to the top of that same hill?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">&mdash;&mdash;You do climb up it now; look how we labour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A very busy six months followed first-class camp; the autumn full
+of drills and study, the winter of examination, hard work, and the
+Hundredth Night. With the opening spring poured in the usual flood of
+tradesmen and their wares; company drills began, early visitors came,
+and June was coming. The lower classmen, as usual, were on tiptoe with
+glee and excitement; and, also as usual, were the ballasting thoughts
+in many a first-class head. Questions of regiments, of posts, and of
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>But for Charlemagne Kindred all that was settled. If he were ordered
+to the North Pole, and stationed on the tip end of it, he should still
+take Cherry. And if he could not keep the wind from roughening her
+soft hair, Lieutenant Kindred would be a much more incompetent person
+than Cadet Charlemagne thought possible. Cherry was just the girl for
+Arctic regions; she would sketch the icebergs, sing to the seals, and
+teach them Greek. And in the long evenings by their driftwood fire,
+they could plan out where to live when he wore three stars on his
+shoulder, and was retired on full pay for special services as yet
+unknown. A little soon for that, to be sure; but there is no harm in
+being beforehand, even "quite some," as they say in New Jersey. They
+could draw plans for the house, and so save on architects when the time
+came.</p>
+
+<p>Other big questions came up for other men. Should this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+one assume at once the debt which the dear home people shouldered so
+patiently to send him to West Point? And how much can this other save
+from his slender pay, to help educate his young brothers and sisters?
+It touches one's heart to see the dainty articles of dress that are
+bought for the girls at home, whose life has been chiefly homespun.</p>
+
+<p>Then what work will they find to do at the strange, far-away posts?
+Work in that other army to which, as boys, they were mustered in? For
+there are many church members in the corps; and I doubt if there is
+one to whom the old vows do not come up in mind before graduation.
+Sometimes, perhaps, with a never-so-keen perception of what Paul meant
+when he said: "I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." Paul
+could have claimed the lower honours too; learned, skilled, an acute
+theologian, a matchless writer. But no earthly plaudits were in his
+thoughts; only the Lord's "Well done"; the crown which those Royal
+hands would give him "at that day."</p>
+
+<p>The spring flew on, tossing off its freight of snowdrops, violets,
+columbine, and apple blossoms. Twenty-three days to June, twenty-two
+days; then came more tidings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was failing, so the mother wrote; failing steadily and
+fast. It was doubtful if Magnus would see his friend again; and the
+young cadet's heart went out with a great yearning to the lonely girl
+of whom he would so soon be the chief earthly protector. And once again
+Magnus gave thanks for that grace which had brought him through the
+fire, and made him fit to take such a charge. But none of them could
+come for graduation.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we cannot leave Cherry," so Violet wrote; "one of us
+is up there all the time. Cherry looks like a white wind-flower. O,
+Magnus, I wish you were here!" And Magnus gave a groan and turned to
+his tally: twenty-one days to June.</p>
+
+<p>But he did what he could. He wrote Cherry a letter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+every day, saying everything he could to beguile her thoughts. He sent
+the last picture of himself, and the class picture, and a photograph
+of the up-river view. In every letter went his marks for the day,
+with what bits of mischief or of news the Post could furnish. He told
+what girls he had walked with, and of his rambles alone; giving her
+much to read and to talk of. With all this he studied untiringly,
+refused invitations, went up in his marks, and was often fagged enough
+when tattoo beat; but less with the work than with excitement and
+tension.</p>
+
+<p>He had applied for a regiment not then near San Carlos; but so much
+depended upon how many men went to Willet's Point that he could guess
+little as to his own placing. One thing was sure, he was learning
+fast. Lessons of patience, of self-control, of trust; so winning true
+promotion, day by day. Finding out also, with new understanding,
+the exceeding helpfulness of prayer; learning to lay down cares and
+questions at the feet of that blessed Lord Jesus who "doeth all things
+well." Rank and post, life and death, could safely be left with Him! A
+great peace and a great strength were in the face of Magnus Kindred in
+those days.</p>
+
+<p>If he seemed graver than usual, it was that with every chance his
+thoughts flew away. Or, rather, were some of them always in that
+far-off sick-room. For whoever else might be with her, Magnus knew,
+unerringly, how Cherry's heart reached out for him. How, in every hard
+moment, with every new token of the coming sorrow, the longing for him
+leaped up and grew. Sometimes it made him almost desperate enough to
+go, at all risks.</p>
+
+<p>As a last comfort to himself and to her, Magnus took off his class
+ring and expressed it on, bidding her wear it till he came to put
+another in its place. She would not take it last summer, but she must
+<i>now</i>. And there was no telling
+
+what that ring was to the girl, and to her father as well,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
+making the bond so tangible and real. Cherry studied it in her lonely
+night watches, and Mr. Erskine's heart gave thanks at every gleam of
+the stone as her hands' sweet ministry came about him. While far away,
+Magnus, on his part, was verifying and honouring all their trust.</p>
+
+<p>So came on June, with her rose-trimmed slippers; and it seemed
+that first summer afternoon as if the whole countryside poured down
+upon West Point. Long before four o'clock the seats were full, then
+crowded; the wagon-load of campstools vanished as they came; and soon
+even standing-room was at a premium. And when the Board of Visitors
+had reviewed the Corps, and the Corps the Board, everybody who had the
+right crowded in to the reception, while the left-out throng whirled
+round with one accord, and sat staring with all its eyes at the open
+door and solid front of the Superintendent's quarters. If only X-rays
+had been on hand! The interest grew to a keen point when the first
+class (all together then, though now they go scattering in) passed
+through the gate, doffed their plumed hats, and vanished within the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was claimed by old friends and presented to new, had a great
+grip of Mr. Wayne's hand, and brought little Miss Bee a plate of
+lobster salad deeply bordered with sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>I think Cadet Charlemagne had learned a little more about girls
+than he once knew; and the light and colour that came into this
+particular shy face at sight of him, smote him with a sense of at least
+possible past mistakes. She had no need to think so much of his small
+civilities. And Mr. Kindred bowed himself away, and made merry in a
+gauzy circle of colours near by. And then, when Miss Bee looked so
+left out in the cold, Magnus rushed up again, took her plate, brought
+her an ice, and made things worse than ever. Manlike, he thought the
+fast-and-loose plan worked to admiration.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
+Now privately, Miss Bee cared nothing for lobster and very little
+for ice; but it felt so good to be noticed and to have something to
+do, that I think she hardly knew what she had. And had not Mr. Kindred
+said the ice would "refresh" her? So she ate a little, played with it a
+little, and heard, nolens-volens, a good deal of talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here is Mr. Kindred!" said one of his Christmas friends. "All
+on tiptoe for shoulder-straps."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred has small occasion to stand on 'tiptoe' for anything,"
+said Miss Lane. "But what have you done with your beautiful class ring?
+Not lost it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly, since I know where it is. Lost things are said to keep cool
+company in the moon."</p>
+
+<p>"What is keeping company with your ring?" said Miss Saucy. "Your
+heart, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she be here for the hop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since when were hearts feminine? No, I do not think 'she' will,"
+said Magnus. "Hearts are best at home, hop nights."</p>
+
+<p>The talk went on, the crowd drifted; and little Miss Bee in her
+corner held her plate and ate her ice, and tasted nothing. Of course,
+she had seen that the ring was missing; but then no girl had boasted
+its possession. And men took whims.</p>
+
+<p>What tales dark corners could tell; of hard-pressed fights, of
+struggles, of victory! The band played, the throng increased&mdash;then
+began to thin out. Presently Magnus came and took the plate from the
+weary fingers, asking if she would have anything more.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the
+smile and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch
+a handful of the gayest bonbons and mottoes, and bestow them in Miss
+Bee's own hands. A man's blunder, again! And yet perhaps not.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>
+Of course the sweets were not eaten; they were conveyed away and stored
+among Miss Bee's few chiefest treasures; but I think in time they
+became a comfort, too; shining tokens of what a friend she had had in
+one of the foremost men of the Corps. It could not be helped that this
+put other men at a discount.</p>
+
+<p>For the ten days that followed no one saw much of Cadet Kindred,
+in any of those between-times that he could call his own. West Point
+outlines had cast their lovely spell about him; and with every chance
+he was down by the river, up among the rocks; climbing the leafy ways;
+saying good-bye, and then coming back to say it again.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LIII" id="LIII"></a>LIII<br />
+THE FIRST POST</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A ravelled rainbow overhead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lets down to life its varying thread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love's blue,&mdash;joy's gold,&mdash;and fair between<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hope's shifting light of emerald green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With either side, in deep relief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A crimson pain, a violet grief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Whitney.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I never understand how people can chatter all through the graduating
+parade. Standing before other people who fain would see, but with their
+own backs to the show; gabbling on about trains and stages, weather and
+wraps, to the utter discomfiture of the quiet souls who are straining
+their ears to catch the "standing," just then read out by the cadet
+adjutant; and finally pausing long enough to wonder "Whatever is he
+talking so long about, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. Special order, No.
+fifty-nine!" So much with the knowledge that comes by iteration, you
+make out; but the human wall shuts off the rest. Such people should
+stay at home.</p>
+
+<p>If you are a stranger and unwarned, you may easily miss some special
+points in the show to-night. You will not know that, when the battalion
+comes marching down to the tune of "The Dashing White Sergeant," it
+means that from fifty to seventy of its men are on dress parade for the
+last time. And as they come nearer and wheel into line, you will hardly
+notice, that among those orderly grey figures, there is every here and
+there one who carries only side-arms, his musket left behind. And when
+these come out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>
+and form a quiet line in front of the rest, you will not guess that
+they are never again to go through the manual or be mingled with the
+other men. Also for this night, the Commandant himself steps out upon
+the ground, instead of the usual officer in charge.</p>
+
+<p>The line is dressed, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Parade rest!" and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sound off!"</p>
+
+<p>And with sweet, clear rendering, the band begins to play:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In cottage or palace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherever I roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be it ever so humble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There's no place like home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Home! Home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet, sweet home!"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>O what does it mean, to those men who (except for the short
+furlough) have been four years in exile! They give no sign; motionless
+as so many statues; the black chin straps merging faces, and hiding
+what may be there. The June air stirs the soft edges of the black
+plumes, floating them off as one; the sunset glitters on buckle and
+bayonet; the great garrison flag curls and uncurls its mighty folds.
+"It may be for years and it may be for ever," before the men of
+that front rank will look upon the scene again. They have hated it,
+sometimes, and longed to get away, but now they know how well they love
+it. What things those old hills and they have gone through together!
+from the forlorn pleb days until now. And even with that thought, the
+band lapses softly into another mood:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never brought to mind?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and every heart answers to the pleading of "Auld Lang Syne."</p>
+
+<p>For these classmates, after to-morrow, will be scattered to the four
+winds. Some, not to meet again till they are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+grey-haired men; never <i>all</i> to stand together, until the day when
+before the King "in his glory," "shall be gathered all nations."
+Believers or unbelievers, they think of it now. They may not speak nor
+touch each other, nor turn the head, but they think.</p>
+
+<p>It is as well, perhaps, that "The girl I left behind me" puts in her
+word just here, and you have to laugh, partly because you were so near
+crying. But Lang Syne and Sweet Home have the last saying, as the band
+comes back to its place.</p>
+
+<p>Parade goes on, and for once everybody is "present or accounted
+for." The orders are published, the standing read (not always, in these
+days), and then the graduating class come forward, and with dress hats
+off and held at the correct angle, shake hands with the Commandant and
+have a short address from him. And while the little company pass down
+and stand in line before the trees (not that either, now), the old
+Commandant turns hastily away from the show, and seeks his own front
+door. It is a long ago "Lang Syne" that he remembers, and far better
+than these youngsters, he knows what all this means.</p>
+
+<p>But the music begins again, with another change. "I see them on
+their winding way" fills all the air. The lines break up; and buckle
+and bayonet, sash and plume, come gaily past the seats, and then as
+they pass the waiting graduates, again the plumed hats come off, while
+cheers ring out in eager greeting from their comrades marching by.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I shall cry when it comes to that!" said a gay young first
+classman to me. And I have no doubt he did. But there are no lookers-on
+in front of them, and the old plain tells no tales.</p>
+
+<p>The next ten or twelve waking hours are little but hurry and rush.
+The big hop on hand for society men: with farewell visits, last ends of
+packing, and countless bits of red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>
+tape to be tied in regulation knots. Then last looks at the river, and
+hands laid lovingly and for the last time upon some of the old grey
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the library a platform is raised, and draped with the
+star-spangled banner, and a canvas canopy stretches across from tree
+to tree. Strong ropes wall in the space below, where stand the chairs,
+rank after rank, and as the morning hours run on, sentinels guard
+the ropes against all intruders. The seats, of course, are, first of
+all, for cadets and people of the Post, but just there does the dear
+general public wish to sit, and for whom the chairs are placed affects
+them not at all. So, for an hour or more, there is a sort of running
+fight&mdash;a skirmish line&mdash;all round the lines of rope, and the
+sentries well nigh meet their match. Demands, complaints, exclamations,
+are loud-voiced and many, and neither orders nor fixed bayonets win
+much respect.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the orders, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not responsible, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, no one allowed inside the ropes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit there? Those seats are reserved for the mothers, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>we</i> are the mothers," cried one good dame to the stony
+official. And as the guard turned to ward off some new intruder, one
+could but laugh at the adroitness with which she slipped in behind
+his back, to be again ordered out. At last come dignitaries in such
+very full feather that the crowd stands back and becomes a trifle more
+modest. The hands on the clock move on, cadets who were wandering about
+with mothers and friends leave them and go off to barracks. Men for
+the platform come leisurely along, sure of a good place; the upper
+ten for the seats below make more speed, seeking the best. Then the
+superintendent, the adjutant, and all the glittering people in train of
+the Board of Visitors, mount the platform, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>
+make it a study of sheen and colour. Drums sound in the distance, then
+nearer, and the whole battalion comes marching down. They halt at the
+back of the crowd, stack arms, and the graduating class file in and
+take their seats.</p>
+
+<p>There is a short prayer from the chaplain, "Hail, Columbia!" from
+the band, and then the address&mdash;or, maybe two. From the president
+of the board generally, followed often by words from some high ranking
+officer, or some notability in civil life. Addresses sometimes wise,
+sometimes more&mdash;otherwise&mdash;than one could wish; very seldom
+vivid and instinct with fire. The country figures, of course, and "this
+Institution," and the flag, with the service, in a mild sort of way.
+All eyes are fixed upon this particular class, and the army welcomes
+it with open arms. And the cadets have done well, and the professors
+have done their best. On the whole, the sort of speeches to which you
+would like to apply a match and bring them to either a blaze or to
+ashes. How rarely&mdash;Oh, how rarely!&mdash;have these veterans in
+camp or council one word of real cheer, wisdom, and fire, for these
+"youngsters," these smooth-faced new recruits.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it makes less difference than I think to the grave young men
+waiting there, bare-headed and absorbed; they have been at such high
+pressure, and have so much else to think of. They listen, and applaud,
+from time to time, and generally in the right place. Once in a while
+you may notice that just <i>there</i> the Southern hands are silent.</p>
+
+<p>More music follows, and then the adjutant with his stack of diplomas
+comes to the front and stands behind the Superintendent, or whoever is
+to give them out: in the old days, it was often General Sherman. One by
+one he takes the parchment from the adjutant, and the names are called
+off in order of standing.</p>
+
+<p>"Harvey Linton!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
+A tall, dark-haired young fellow rises from the grey mass, comes to
+the foot of the platform, and with a low bow takes the credentials for
+which he has toiled so bravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you, sir," says the donor; "not so much for being
+at the head as for the hard work which has put you there,"&mdash;and
+Linton bows again, and goes back to his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he has done very well&mdash;ve&mdash;ry well," so his father
+in the crowd answers friendly words, trying hard to seem unconscious
+that his son has carried off first honours.</p>
+
+<p>"Anson Dent!" and this time it is a broad shouldered Wisconsiner,
+followed by a Virginian, a fair haired Hoosier, and all the rest. But
+you notice other differences among the men. For while some smile and
+bow gratefully, others give the briefest sort of nod, and some none at
+all. Some flush, and some grow pale, and some hands almost grab the
+diploma as if a right had been long withheld. And one casts furtive
+glances towards a certain bewitching bonnet in the crowd, as he goes
+to his seat, and the next sends a deeper gaze across the gay lines,
+seeking a face and dress the plainest there, but the best beloved in
+all the world; while many see only the friends a thousand miles away.
+One man unrolls his diploma and studies it with all his eyes, his
+neighbour plays with his, as if it were the veriest trifle&mdash;a mere
+bagatelle.</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>And I am bound to own that this man went forward in a dream. With
+one swift glance at Mr. Wayne, he did catch the loving interest in that
+face, but the rest of the people might as well have been a fog bank. He
+was feeling so much that he seemed not to feel at all, until when they
+broke up, and Twinkle pressed through the crowd, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my mother! I want my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>And then Magnus could have shaken him, for daring to put his own
+heart-cry in words.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+Indiscriminate cheering was not the fashion in those days. A
+specially popular man, or one who had done his work against special
+odds, might have some hearty plaudits. But generally the applause was
+kept for "the last man," who by brilliant carelessness or industrious
+breaking of regulations, footed "the immortals." Of course, they
+all cheered <i>him</i>. Had he not kept someone else from being "last
+man?"&mdash;even now and then (it is whispered) closing up the class
+end so that no one else <i>could</i> fall through. But after all, <i>somebody</i>
+must be last, so cheer him on. He may outrank you yet, in life.</p>
+
+<p>The scene changes. Everyone rises to the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
+there is the benediction, the cadets march away to the "Left Behind
+Girl" once more; and then girls present, who will not accept the
+situation, tear along to the front of barracks to hear the new
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>The companies are drawn up in line, never again to stand together
+there, and the adjutant publishes the orders for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long reading. Lists of the men who graduate, of the men who
+go on furlough, and of the new cadet officers; and again the friendly
+chin-straps do the part of words, and "conceal thought." But if you are
+near enough, and know the faces, you can see a gleam in the eyes of the
+men who are to wear chevrons, or gloom on the faces of some who are
+left in ranks, while the furlough men are almost dancing. But not even
+a half-inch stir, anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>When the reading is done, and they break ranks, then indeed frolic
+breaks loose, and every sort of thing is on hand. Graduates rush
+to their rooms, clasping a hand here and there as they go, to put
+off the grey once more and forever. Furlough men also "scoot" away,
+eager to come out in "cits" for the journey; while the others hug and
+congratulate each other in a threefold tangle, sometimes; the new
+officers hurry to put on their chevrons; and (lest the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+fun should be one-sided) are now and then caught and borne away and put
+under the hydrant by the zealous yearlings.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the sallyport fills up with girls, matrons, friends, old
+graduates, and people in general. The gay overflow pours out into the
+area of barracks, all waiting to see the young lieutenants and the
+furlough men shine out in "cits." And they are about as different from
+each other, when they come, as they were in the old candidate days. One
+tall man in an extra tall hat, the next neat and harmonious down to
+his small handbag, and this one just a trifle loud and mixed. Twos and
+threes and one alone, hardly to be known at first, with their canes and
+neckties. The furlough men shine all over with joy, the young graduates
+have thoughts. So this face grows grave over a handshake, and this
+other stalwart fellow breaks down in his words of farewell, and leaves
+them unsaid.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne stood there with the rest, watching for Magnus, and then
+having a word with him from time to time, until that matter-of-fact
+regulation drum beat the call for dinner, and the new cadet officers
+marched the men away.</p>
+
+<p>The air is still full of hurry, for most of those who are going want
+to take the down boat, and there are a few last calls to pay, and some
+unfinished business with the commissary or the "Com." But one way and
+another the area is cleared, the men slip out of sight, and graduation
+is over. Few words may tell the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine had passed away from this earthly life, during that
+very week in June; and it was a very pale and grief-stricken girl,
+much needing him, that Magnus took in his arms when he reached home.
+And later on in the summer there was a quiet wedding, with just a few
+classmates in full-dress uniform to light up the room, and Mr. Wayne to
+join the two hands in a bond which should never be broken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>
+And their first post? What does that matter? However, it was one
+with plenty to do, and some things to bear; a good place wherein to
+shine as the Lord's true servants, and an excellent one from which to
+look up to Him.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, it stood on high ground, with a fine outlook, and a
+fair climate. It was called Fort Content.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h2>Transcriber's Note</h2>
+
+<p>Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Blank pages have been removed.</p>
+
+<p>There are inconsistencies in the display of attributions in the poetry and
+quotes following chapter headings. These have been retained.</p>
+
+<p>In the body of the text closing quotes have been omitted before poetry,
+after a colon and in correspondence. The text reproduced here is true
+to the original.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pgx" />
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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #62275 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62275)
diff --git a/old/62275-0.txt b/old/62275-0.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, West Point Colors, by Anna Bartlett Warner
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: West Point Colors
+
+
+Author: Anna Bartlett Warner
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 30, 2020  [eBook #62275]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST POINT COLORS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by MWS, Val Wooff, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations
+      and recorded music.
+      See 62275-h.htm or 62275-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/62275/62275-h/62275-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/62275/62275-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn
+
+
+
+
+
+WEST POINT COLORS
+
+
+[Illustration: THE FLAG]
+
+
+WEST POINT COLORS
+
+by
+
+ANNA B. WARNER
+
+
+_"My only regret is that I have but one life to give
+for my country."_
+
+NATHAN HALE.
+
+
+[Illustration: Colophon]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York Chicago Toronto
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+London and Edinburgh
+
+Copyright, 1903, by
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+(October)
+
+New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
+Chicago: 63 Washington Street
+Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
+London: 21 Paternoster Square
+Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER,                             PAGE
+
+  I.       THE BOY,                       9
+  II.      MEANS TO AN END,              14
+  III.     THE NIGHT EXPRESS,            21
+  IV.      READY FOR DUTY,               26
+  V.       THE FLAG,                     36
+  VI.      A LONELY CANDIDATE,           54
+  VII.     IN FOR IT,                    60
+  VIII.    RUBS THE WRONG WAY,           67
+  IX.      CAMP HARD,                    73
+  X.       BAND CONCERT,                 78
+  XI.      ON GUARD,                     88
+  XII.     _Off_ GUARD,                  92
+  XIII.    A BLUE CHRISTMAS,             97
+  XIV.     CAMP GOLIGHTLY,              106
+  XV.      SIGNALING FOR HELP,          112
+  XVI.     RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY,       117
+  XVII.    THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER,    124
+  XVIII.   HIGH SUMMER,                 129
+  XIX.     THE VISITORS' SEATS,         138
+  XX.      JUST THEE AND ME,            142
+  XXI.     ME ONLY,                     150
+  XXII.    GIRLS,                       157
+  XXIII.   THE GRIM GRAY WALLS,         167
+  XXIV.    NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE,    173
+  XXV.     FURLOUGH,                    180
+  XXVI.    CHERRY,                      189
+  XXVII.   OFF LIMITS,                  199
+  XXVIII.  ON EXHIBITION,               209
+  XXIX.    SKIRMISHING,                 218
+  XXX.     A MORNING TALK,              226
+  XXXI.    THE SUMMER GIRL,             238
+  XXXII.   LAYING FOUNDATIONS,          245
+  XXXIII.  BUILDING THEREON,            258
+  XXXIV.   AMBUSHES,                    272
+  XXXV.    OF COURSE,                   278
+  XXXVI.   SAN CARLOS,                  284
+  XXXVII.  RUSHED INTO CAMP,            288
+  XXXVIII. HIGH GROUND,                 293
+  XXXIX.   MORE GIRLS,                  299
+  XL.      ON FORT PUT,                 305
+  XLI.     UP CROWNEST,                 321
+  XLII.    CHRISTMAS LEAVE,             332
+  XLIII.   THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT,         343
+  XLIV.    PRESSING ON,                 355
+  XLV.     NOTHING SERIOUS,             360
+  XLVI.    TRYING LETTERS,              364
+  XLVII.   MRS. CONGRESSMAN,            369
+  XLVIII.  THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE,     376
+  XLIX.    FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES, 388
+  L.       FAIRYLAND,                   398
+  LI.      THE HOME STRETCH,            404
+  LII.     THE BIG RECEPTION,           414
+  LIII.    THE FIRST POST,              420
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, FACING PAGE
+
+
+  THE FLAG,                         _Title_
+  THE BARRACKS IN WINTER,                97
+  THE COLOR GUARD,                      109
+  MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON,  170
+  CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS,               300
+  PARADE REST IN CAMP,                  377
+  FLIRTATION,                           392
+  CADET BOAT AND CREW,                  401
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THIS TALE OF A POSSIBLE CADET
+
+Some of my friends in a certain cadet class beset me to write a West
+Point story; promising me incidents at will, a plot, a name, and a
+tactical officer for "the villain." Perhaps it was because I declined
+this last sensational detail that they backed out of all the rest, and
+having given my boat a shove into deep water, left me to row and pilot
+as best I might.
+
+However, help came from other men, in other classes. I was cheered on
+in my work, and given story after story, with full leave to use them as
+I chose; and so it falls out that my book is quite true.
+
+Not that all the happenings ever came to any one cadet, or within the
+bounds of any four years' course. But they have almost all, at some
+time, been part of somebody's cadet life at West Point. With what men,
+or in what years, it does not matter: the last decade of the nineteenth
+century nearly enough covers the whole.
+
+I have tried hard to have the small technicalities quite correct. Yet
+as rules do vary now and then, even at West Point, everything may not
+always _seem_ right, to this or that graduate. And, of course, I may
+have blundered here and there.
+
+Certain points in cadet life I was especially asked to handle; and if
+once or twice I have told only what _might_ have been, even there I had
+the warrant of cadet opinion.
+
+As for the fancy names, it was so hard to find plain ones that were
+not down in some Army List or Visitors' Book, that I made up a few,
+choosing rather to give caps which nobody would put on than others
+quite sure to be appropriated. Truly, I did not name Miss Dangleum: a
+young officer did that, and Cadet Devlin was also dubbed by one who
+knew.
+
+Since certain words of my story were written a few changes have come
+in. The cadet classes have pledged themselves to abolish hazing;
+the Hundredth Night (in its old wild glee) has been forbidden; the
+Cadet Howitzer is spiked. The shady nooks along "Flirtation" have
+been cleared up; Fort Clinton is a memory, the tents are brown, and
+Dade's white shaft now stands in the gayest and sunniest of all the
+thoroughfares. But human nature survives,--and "boodle"--and the girls,
+so that my book is declared to be still "absolutely true."
+
+Sometimes when I watch that grey throng in the Chapel, I have a great
+wish that I could see the other little army with whom they are to join
+hands. So much depends on them. For womanhood sets the standard for the
+world of men.
+
+    "She's like the keystone to an arch,
+      That consummates all beauty;
+    She's like the music to a march,
+      That sheds a joy on duty."
+
+Such she should be.
+
+  A. B. W.
+
+  MARTLAER'S ROCK.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE BOY
+
+ The lions, if they left not the forest, would capture no prey; and
+ the arrow, if it quitted not the bow, would not strike the mark.
+
+  --_Arabian Nights._
+
+
+The precise date of my story does not matter: the world strikes a much
+more even average than we are apt to think; and still, as of old, "the
+thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
+done, is that which shall be done."
+
+Once upon a time, then, there was a boy whose name was Charlemagne
+Kindred.
+
+"Magnus" was the home version. I think his two young sisters were
+perhaps rather proud of the royal-republican title, and would by no
+means let it come down to "Charley," and so lose itself in the crowd.
+Once in a while, when a longer lecture than usual was called for, Mrs.
+Kindred would say Charlemagne: but I doubt if it had much effect,
+unless to give Magnus some slighting thoughts of the ancestor who had
+first borne his name.
+
+Mrs. Kindred was a widow of ten years' standing; and she and Magnus,
+and the two young sisters, made up the family. There is nothing on
+earth sweeter than girls can be; and these two filled out the fair
+pattern, with few breaks or flaws. But no history or inheritance of
+even a name had been wasted on them, and they set out in life as plain
+Rose and Violet, named for their father's favourite flowers.
+
+Magnus had not at all, however, the same reverence for his sisters that
+they felt for him, which was a pity; for really I think they deserved
+it better.
+
+But another drawback to the perfections of my hero,--a common one
+enough with heroes, and which after all proved him the real thing,--he
+had not five cents to his name. And failing this, the question came up
+very naturally, what else he could have "to his name," to make that
+worth the carrying.
+
+"Mamma, he'd make a beautiful minister!" said Rose, who, enshrined in
+the very rosiest corner of her heart, had a faint, far-away picture of
+her father in the pulpit.
+
+"He would make a beautiful anything," said the mother, her eyes shining
+at the mere thought of her boy. "But he cannot be a minister, Rose, at
+least not in his father's church, without going to college."
+
+"And that takes money," said Violet. "Mamma, if I were Uncle Sam, I'd
+have free colleges. I can't see why not, just as well as free schools."
+
+"I do not like to hear you say 'Uncle Sam,' Violet. It is not
+respectful to the Government."
+
+"Magnus does."
+
+Mrs. Kindred might have answered that the bump of reverence was not as
+yet developed in that young magnate's head to any alarming degree, but
+no such disloyal words came out. She sat thinking.
+
+"The Government has one free college, you know, girls," she said; "at
+least, I suppose it may be called that. Two, in fact: the Naval Academy
+at Annapolis, and the Military Academy at West Point. I wonder it never
+occurred to me before."
+
+"West Point!" exclaimed both the girls, open-eyed.
+
+"Then he'd be a soldier, and wear a uniform," said Violet.
+
+"Yes, and then there would be a war, and he would get killed," said
+Rose.
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said Violet. "Catch Magnus letting anybody shoot
+_him_. He's a good deal too quick for that. Besides, people can get
+killed anywhere. Missionaries do, sometimes."
+
+"I wonder I never thought of West Point," Mrs. Kindred repeated. "Hush,
+girls; don't say such things. There is no war now, and maybe there
+never will be again. Magnus would like it, too."
+
+"He'd be splendid in uniform," said Rose, "he's so tall."
+
+"Too tall," said the mother with a sigh. "Magnus grows altogether too
+fast. Perhaps West Point would be just the thing for him, and make him
+spread out a little. You know, girls, what big fellows some of those
+army men are, in papa's book of officers?"
+
+"Yes," said Violet doubtfully, "big enough. But then Magnus never could
+be as broad as he is long, so we needn't worry."
+
+A cheery whistle, strong and sweet and clear, pierced through the
+summer air outside; and with one consent the three talkers hurried
+to the window to look out. It was a back window, commanding easily a
+woodshed, a small garden, and a barn.
+
+In the woodshed, hard at work upon a somewhat elaborate dog-house,
+stood the young future victim of mathematics and wave motion. Coat off,
+hat tossed down, hands busily chiselling out some bit of ornamentation;
+the head with its shock of brown curls bent low over his work. And very
+appropriately just then, for the thoughts that filled the air, Magnus
+was whistling "Yankee Doodle": his limber young tones going with great
+force and discernment into all the ups and downs of that delightful
+old melody. Do not mistake me and think the words ironical; I am
+extremely fond of "Yankee Doodle," myself.
+
+"How queer he should be whistling that!" said Rose. "Oh, Magnus!"
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Come up here. We were just talking about you."
+
+"Talk away."
+
+"But mother and all!"
+
+"Good I am down here, then," said the boy, eyeing a bit of board along
+the edge to see if it was straight.
+
+"Why?" cried Violet.
+
+"You know she doesn't like to praise me to my face," said Magnus,
+carefully planing the aforesaid edge.
+
+"Conceited boy!" said Rose.
+
+Well, I suppose he was that, just a little; but what can happen to
+average masculine nature, with three such bits of the feminine to stand
+round and gaze at its perfections? Magnus brought his board to a nicety
+of straightness, tossed off the shavings, gave another toss to his
+brown hair--then looked up at the sweet cluster of faces in the window
+and laughed.
+
+"All's safe up there, so long as I stay down here," he said.
+
+The three were silent.
+
+"He is such a beauty!" said Rose under her breath. "He grows better and
+handsomer every day."
+
+"But we want to talk to you!" said Violet.
+
+"I can wait."
+
+"Suppose we cannot?"
+
+"Front door's open," said Magnus, falling to work with his hammer, and
+once more lapsing into the sweets of "Yankee Doodle."
+
+"Mother, may we tell him?" said Rose. "May we ask him how he'd like
+it?"
+
+"Why, yes, dear; that can do no harm," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+So the girls went down to the woodshed, perching themselves on some
+hard places each side of their big brother.
+
+"Magnus, how would you like to be a soldier?"
+
+"When there's a war, you'll see."
+
+That was beginning at the wrong end; the two young faces grew suddenly
+grave. But, after all, there was no war then, and probably never would
+be, as their mother had said.
+
+"But we mean _now_," Rose went on. "How would you like to go to West
+Point?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Why, to learn to be a soldier!" said Violet impressively.
+
+Magnus laughed in high derision.
+
+"Soldiers!" he said--"Popinjays. Parrots and popinjays. There was one
+of those fellows at Clear Spring last summer, and he had airs enough to
+fly a kite with a tail a mile long."
+
+Again the two young sisters were silent.
+
+"But _you_ would not, Magnus, when you came home," said Violet. "Oh,
+Rose! just think of his coming home on vacation!"
+
+"And if all the rest are like that, you could be what mamma calls
+a 'beautiful example,'" said Rose. "I heard Cherry speak of that
+'fellow,' as you call him. She said his uniform was very interesting."
+
+"Cherry doesn't care a copper for such stuff!" said Magnus hotly.
+
+"I suppose she can admire a uniform," said Rose.
+
+But to that Magnus made no reply.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+MEANS TO AN END
+
+ The nightingale flew away, and time flew also.
+
+  --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+Charlemagne got his appointment. In a very commonplace way, after all,
+like most other boys; in spite of his long name and his longer list of
+qualifications. Some relative knew the Congressman of the district,
+had done business with him in the pre-official days, and in one of the
+intervals of home rest after Washington fatigues, young Kindred was
+taken over to the dignitary's whereabouts, and presented as one who was
+eager to serve his country in another line. There was nothing heroic
+about the whole proceeding, and the man was not an ideal Congressman;
+but he answered the purpose.
+
+The interview would have made a fine subject for a picture. The boy,
+on his dignity every inch of him, making believe that he did not care
+a continental about the matter; but too unskilled in dissembling to
+prove the fact, and keep down the quick flashes of eye and flushes of
+cheek. The introducer, the childless uncle to whom his sister's son
+was the one boy of all the world. Opposite them the old Congressman,
+with chair at an uncertain angle and hat ditto; tilting back in the
+cool shady porch, and listening with a scarce hid smile to the tale of
+Charlemagne's attainments.
+
+"Has he room in his head for anything more?" he demanded, when Mr.
+Thorn paused. "He'll want a little, over there."
+
+"I am ready to learn all they teach, sir!" said young Magnus, firing
+up. "You think I don't know anything now--and maybe I don't."
+
+"Maybe--" said the Congressman drily. "How about the _outside_ of your
+head? You'll get it rough and ready, at West Point."
+
+"I've got hands!" said Magnus with another flush.
+
+"True," said the Honourable Miles Ironwood. "Well, take good care of
+them."
+
+"And I have understood," put in Mr. Thorn, "that hazing is quite
+stamped out at West Point."
+
+Mr. Ironwood skilfully rocked his chair upon its two hind legs, a
+mocking smile upon his lips.
+
+"Ever see a bit of woodland that was half trees and two-thirds rocks?"
+he said.
+
+"I was brought up on just such a place," said Mr. Thorn.
+
+"Ever fight a fire there?"
+
+"Many a time."
+
+"H'm--I thought perhaps you hadn't," said the Congressman. "Well, Mr.
+Thorn, this district is not represented at West Point just now; last
+appointment resigned some months ago, and I suppose it had better be
+filled. And this young man doesn't look as if he would give the Tacs
+more trouble than common. And if they go for him, that is his lookout
+and not mine."
+
+"Who are the Tacs, sir?" inquired Magnus.
+
+"Men who come round every morning to see if you have washed your face,"
+said Mr. Ironwood, without moving a muscle of his own. "And every
+night, to tuck you up and bring away the light."
+
+Magnus coloured indignantly; but a certain twinkle in Mr. Ironwood's
+eye kept him silent.
+
+"What do they teach there, chiefly?" said Mr. Thorn. "What had Magnus
+better learn before he goes?"
+
+"Learn everything you can, when you are going _anywhere_," said Mr.
+Ironwood impressively. "They teach riding--a little--at West Point. And
+mathematics--some."
+
+"Charlemagne can ride," said his uncle proudly.
+
+"On his head?"
+
+"Why no!" said Mr. Thorn. "Will that be required?"
+
+"I've seen 'em on their heads, in that riding-hall," said the
+Congressman with an easy change of position.
+
+"They teach the classics, of course?"
+
+"He'll hear something about Achilles, like as not," said Mr. Ironwood.
+"Hector, too. Not so much of either as he will of Charlemagne."
+
+Again the suggestive gleam of the eye acted upon the boy as both spur
+and check.
+
+"And you have no general advice to give him, Mr. Ironwood, as to what
+he had best do to prepare himself?"
+
+"Prepare himself?" Mr. Ironwood brought his chair down on all-fours
+with considerable force. "If that boy wants to get ready for West
+Point, let him do every blessed thing he _don't_ want to do and not one
+that he _does_, between now and next June. Good-morning: I'll attend to
+it."
+
+"He's an old buzzard!" said Magnus as they walked away.
+
+"A little sudden, sometimes," said his mild uncle. "But he's a smart
+man--a very smart man. And now I think of it, he was there once
+himself, and didn't get through. That's what makes him so down on the
+place."
+
+"Must have been a very smart man if he couldn't get through West
+Point," Magnus said, with a boy's easy contempt.
+
+But smart or not, Mr. Ironwood was as good as his word. And so in due
+course it was set forth in the _Army and Navy Journal_, that among
+the candidates for the Military Academy the following June would be
+found one Charlemagne Kindred. And the local paper of Barren Heights
+(albeit not generally concerning itself with West Point) got hold of
+the item and copied it out in full. And so astonishing was it to see
+Charlemagne's name in print that the family copy of said paper would
+have been quite worn out with much study and handling, if Mrs. Kindred
+had not rescued it, and laid it safe away among the family archives.
+
+As for Cherry, after first privately breaking her heart because Magnus
+was going away, she then plucked up courage and common sense, and
+became the proudest little maiden that could be found among all the
+patient readers of the _Barren Heights View_.
+
+It is safe to say that Magnus reversed Mr. Ironwood's wise counsel
+at every point and every time. Having himself been a failure at West
+Point, the Congressman's opinion was counted a failure too; would have
+been, anyhow, I fancy; and Charlemagne Kindred got ready for West
+Point by doing every possible thing he wanted to do, and letting the
+things he did not want to do, alone. Even when the rainy days of May
+went weeping by, and the fateful June was close at hand, what that boy
+did--and was allowed to do--would not bear telling. "He is going away,"
+hushed every reproof; and "when I am gone," forestalled criticism.
+Refuse him? scold him?--the three gentle hearts at home were quite
+beyond all that.
+
+To be sure, he ought to have studied hard, the whole time; but then
+Magnus was so quick and bright it could not be really needful. And if
+Mrs. Kindred now and then sighed, and wondered what the end would be,
+if the beginning was so lawless, and what her husband the minister
+would have said to his only son becoming a soldier--the girls had the
+answer ready.
+
+"Why mother, it is to defend the Country! My father went to the war
+once, himself."
+
+"Yes, in time of need," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"But Magnus says that when there is no danger is the time to prepare,"
+said Rose.
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Kindred said again with a smile and a sigh, pleased at such
+wisdom in her boy; although it was a principle of sound business which
+Magnus had never been known to act upon, in any one single case.
+
+But even he sobered down a little, as the last home day drew on. When
+the new trunk was packed, and Magnus had said good-bye to all the
+neighbourhood, and taken his last walk with Cherry; cheering up her
+forebodings in various efficacious ways best known to himself and to
+her; when there was nothing left but the good-night, and the early
+breakfast, and the parting--then, indeed, things began to look serious,
+and the boy too.
+
+He sat that evening, taking the clearest sort of mental photographs.
+He saw the grief that lay back of his mother's brave words and tender
+smiles: saw it, as it were, on that other background of the older
+and deeper sorrow which never left her face. He noticed the white
+lines that marked the brown hair above her temples. He studied her
+hands: slender, white, but with that unmistakable character of use and
+usefulness which some hands have.
+
+He looked at his sisters: fair, innocent slips of girls as you could
+find, East or West: their tears coming and going, their smiles playing
+hide and seek. Who ever had three such blessed bits of womankind
+entrusted to him? and who would take care of them when he, tall
+Charlemagne Kindred, should be far away? Magnus registered in his heart
+some vows that night, which to his honour he kept.
+
+Then his eyes went down again to his mother's hands. They were quietly
+folded in her lap; but as Magnus looked, he seemed to see them busy
+in a hundred different ways, and always for him. Steadying his baby
+steps, cooling his aching head; binding up scratches and cuts; sewing
+on buttons, knitting socks, mending gloves. Now laid tenderly on his
+shoulder in some time of persuasion or entreaty--and now held out, both
+of them, to receive the penitent.
+
+But here Magnus jumped up and fled away, out of the room, out of the
+house; and poured forth his agony of tears in the old orchard, under
+the quiet stars.
+
+At his age, however, such showers are brief, and often end in a highly
+exalted state of mind. Magnus came back to the house protector of his
+mother, defender of his sisters, and knight-errant for all womankind in
+general--especially Cherry.
+
+Cherry would have given what coppers she had in the world, and some
+silver to boot, to spend that last evening and morning at the Kindred
+house, and the girls had entreated her to stay, but she was a very
+self-contained little damsel and said no. "Little" is not descriptive,
+however, for Cherry was growing up tall and straight as a plumed reed
+by the river side; with a wealth of dark brown hair, and large serious
+eyes, and delicate brows that, when they laughed, went into curves as
+lovely and mischievous as the proverbial bow of Cupid. The whole of the
+demure face laughed then, with dimples here and dimples there.
+
+Brought up until six years old with a frail, invalid mother, and since
+then by a student father, the child had early learned to keep herself
+to herself with severe decision. And keep herself hid according to
+her own ideas, Cherry feared she could not, if she was at hand to see
+Magnus Kindred go. Besides--Magnus himself had not asked her!
+
+"But why will you not stay, Cherry?" the girls persisted.
+
+"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise
+Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady
+steps toward her own gate, so soon as tea was over. To be sure, Magnus
+did see her and come bounding after; and, to be sure, she found out
+then that she was not really in such haste as she had thought: but
+still Magnus would never have got the sort of farewell he did, if
+he had not been saucy and taken it. Though, alas! I am afraid his
+after-memory of the parting was for a time less tender and true than
+hers.
+
+So there were only the three home faces about the boy that last
+morning, and only the three sore hearts to plan and prepare his
+breakfast and every other possible sort of ministration. And magnate as
+he was, Charlemagne found those three as much as he could bear.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE NIGHT EXPRESS
+
+  Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,
+  There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;
+  Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"
+
+  --LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down sentiment
+and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty and
+feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at the
+shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer a
+kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway"
+mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a
+good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines
+until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty."
+But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and
+you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round
+you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark
+line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across
+the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally
+ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than
+wait.
+
+Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and his
+setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being
+late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after
+the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but
+pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not go with him
+to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so much faster
+alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him loiter.
+
+So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and
+waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe
+indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the
+greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother,
+and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed
+to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's
+house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why,
+the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West
+Point. Nevertheless, he went on--
+
+    "For men must work and women must weep."
+
+Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic
+than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their
+tears.
+
+The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with a
+derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother, and
+the three girls.
+
+As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic
+to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you
+would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed,
+there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth
+remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly
+aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving
+for seats.
+
+Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly
+the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its
+exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new fact.
+
+The first day and the first night went by wearily enough. Magnus had
+decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his anxious
+mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And so he
+could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that long
+first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were softer
+(as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of the night
+express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car! What gruff
+voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him. Disgust,
+fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands, until, as
+the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He wondered what
+was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be ill: and never
+guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly homesick.
+
+The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a little
+country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been sitting
+far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had called forth
+no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and roar ceased
+for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes of the
+little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in the
+moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked down
+the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up the
+darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late
+fellow-passengers--then as the way opened, and the mother moved on,
+the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to that
+small, unknown world.
+
+"Dood-night, folks!" she said--and was gone.
+
+I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus
+quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch
+of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger
+than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was
+he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point to him? If
+indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should die by the
+way.
+
+He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down
+over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion,
+and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small
+stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place,
+where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally
+brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of
+viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out.
+Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides
+had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch
+_them_--look at them even--in his present mood, he could not.
+
+The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness
+and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors.
+It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too
+short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the
+passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest,
+and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had
+had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy
+could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A
+somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place
+of others left behind at the station.
+
+Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat, and
+only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the
+train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of
+a different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build;
+close shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and
+in order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and
+not from that tailor to all the crowned heads, High Style. Over the
+whole man was that look of absolute cleanness--mental, moral, and
+physical--which a smooth face always sets off to the best advantage.
+Step firm and businesslike, eyes quick and kind. A man "at leisure from
+himself," for all the work his Master might set before him. Was there,
+perhaps, work here?
+
+The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping off
+at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night drew
+on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there one
+by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car, and
+from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing that
+he would come and sit by _him_.
+
+That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of the
+chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another, "Run,
+speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no
+audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the
+car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by
+young Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+READY FOR DUTY
+
+    The man that wants me is the man I want.
+
+    --DR. EDWARD PAYSON.
+
+
+"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the
+stranger said as he sat down.
+
+"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the
+answer broader than the question.
+
+"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on softly
+to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul, wait
+thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"
+
+"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a
+minute or two.
+
+"They had supper at Beaver Junction."
+
+"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"
+
+"No, sir. I didn't want any."
+
+"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said Mr.
+Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They _used_ to stop
+at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the road."
+
+He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the conductor
+was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that another
+chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where they
+had to wait for the train from Combination.
+
+"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.
+
+"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.
+
+"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a closer
+survey.
+
+"No, indeed, sir."
+
+"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"
+
+"No, sir. It will not be near _me_ for two years," said Magnus, trying
+to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his travels, and
+far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and him.
+
+"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was almost a
+groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West Point?"
+he said the next minute in his quick way.
+
+"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his
+surprise.
+
+"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr. Wayne,
+smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get to West
+Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you will
+see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first
+thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd
+better do a little at it before you get there."
+
+If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the
+merry glance that went with them.
+
+"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"
+
+"Often."
+
+"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up in
+his interest.
+
+"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr. Wayne.
+"With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart to, and
+never get it back."
+
+"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.
+
+"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All sorts."
+
+"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.
+
+"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,
+
+    "Be it ever so homely,
+    There is no place like home."
+
+"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember
+varieties?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was waste
+time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get through."
+
+"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near
+home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"
+
+"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so
+everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.
+
+Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But here
+is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my guest, and
+when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you don't want to
+go, and eat when you are not hungry."
+
+And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly
+lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer
+railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from
+munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time
+seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came
+back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise
+and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into
+life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole
+little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.
+
+And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a
+sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and
+sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when
+Magnus roused up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and
+the young head sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back
+of the seat, then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had
+vanished, and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.
+
+"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the clear skin and
+pure colour, "and well brought up"--for unmistakable lines of truth and
+intelligence marked the face. "Warm-hearted--almost--as a woman, and
+wilful enough for two! What will he do at West Point? and what will
+West Point do to him?"
+
+The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that
+longing petition of the Lord himself:
+
+"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that
+thou shouldest keep them from the evil."
+
+So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep, until
+the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside world.
+
+"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two new-made
+friends went back to their car after breakfast.
+
+"Ordered to report to-day?"
+
+"No, sir, not until Friday."
+
+"Where will you stay to-night?"
+
+"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything at
+West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"
+
+"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in town
+with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."
+
+"Do you live in town, sir?"
+
+"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."
+
+Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred,
+and he entered into this plan with great alacrity; nor ever guessed,
+till he went home on furlough and put up at the same hotel, how large a
+part of his fare that night was paid by Mr. Wayne himself.
+
+It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least
+according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands
+on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two
+o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.
+
+Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him sleep
+a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened again
+until broad daylight.
+
+The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus,
+the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own.
+Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat,
+orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading
+his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and
+then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his
+own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came
+a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then
+Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone,
+which was all that could be wished.
+
+In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together. There
+their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road, while
+Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.
+
+"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said Mr.
+Wayne, as they stepped along.
+
+"Hard work, sir."
+
+"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you expect
+to keep yourself at it?"
+
+"My own will, sir."
+
+"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to its
+duty?"
+
+"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.
+
+"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and
+often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow
+up the whole concern."
+
+"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy with
+some quickness.
+
+"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the wrong
+things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to have the
+'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working order."
+
+"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be for
+four years."
+
+"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at West
+Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the United
+States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether you like
+it or not, whether you understand it or not."
+
+"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.
+
+"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing
+to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but
+that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and
+neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the
+least."
+
+"That sounds hard," said Magnus.
+
+"It _is_ hard."
+
+"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus
+with a boy's air of competent criticism.
+
+"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If the
+authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I would
+have that written up over your door in gilt letters."
+
+"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.
+
+"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the
+absolute needs-be."
+
+"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a wondering
+look at his new-found friend.
+
+"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and a
+few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may come
+to."
+
+Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.
+
+"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been _there_?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad I
+am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all
+that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got
+shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as
+much in grey as you ever will in blue."
+
+"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.
+
+"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls is
+the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else,
+from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders--sworn in to
+obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"
+
+"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.
+
+"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must have
+forgotten. He never _means_ to disobey.'"
+
+"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring, too.
+
+"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on
+this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name,
+it is a West Point tactical officer."
+
+"Who is he?" said Magnus.
+
+"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue,
+specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."
+
+"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see if
+you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that on
+me!"
+
+Mr. Wayne laughed a little.
+
+"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that you
+haven't got does not pay at West Point."
+
+"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with
+growing distaste.
+
+"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and that
+often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear to obey
+orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come out. From
+the time you get up till the time you go to bed,--and after."
+
+"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive
+lift of the brows.
+
+"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being asleep
+will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will come
+round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if you
+are not _too_ tired, I think you had better get up.'"
+
+It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that the
+boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.
+
+"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his
+self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"
+
+"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with
+corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it
+comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."
+
+"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that
+kind office for himself.
+
+"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have another man
+detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.
+
+Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house by
+his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was not
+all of enjoyment.
+
+"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"
+
+"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered
+Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you
+can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you
+must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and
+pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."
+
+"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up the
+other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I _am_ rather lazy."
+
+"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I want
+you to make friends with the flag."
+
+"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the
+time? That is glorious!"
+
+"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm flag
+in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What
+would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came
+by who did not like it?"
+
+"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said Magnus.
+
+"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to
+offend?"
+
+"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.
+
+"But Young America can _suppose_, for the argument's sake," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling.
+
+"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as you
+say. And I say, the man would come down, a long sight ahead of the
+Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending anybody, for the flag."
+
+Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.
+
+"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point.
+Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are open."
+
+So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train moved
+slowly out of the Grand Central.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE FLAG
+
+    What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
+    As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
+    Now it catches the gleam
+    Of the morning's first beam;
+    In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.
+
+    --FRANCIS KEY.
+
+
+It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you leave
+the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in the
+long passage under ever-arching streets; and whatever the Harlem end of
+New York may have been, it is not delightsome to look upon now.
+
+But the way to the turn is not long; and once round that corner, and
+racing along the river side, there is enough to see, well worth the
+seeing. And it was all new to Magnus. The wonderful rush of the mighty
+river, rolling its blue waves in endless curls and undulations; the
+stately Palisades, with their drapings of June green; the white-winged
+craft on the water, and the white-winged gulls in the air; all made the
+boy's heart leap. Here went a steamer, ploughing her crested furrows;
+now and then the train stopped for breath at some station with a
+strange name. It was all a wonderful new world.
+
+With his face close to the window Magnus looked eagerly out; sending
+his gaze as far up the river as the headlands and bends would let him;
+and at last in the distance beyond the narrowing waters of Haverstraw
+Bay, and above the nearer hillsides, rose lovely mountain-heads. Not
+towering and stupendous, such as he might have seen many a time in the
+Western States, but soft, rounded, exquisite; just high enough, in
+fact, to claim the dignified name of mountains, as distinguished from
+mere hills. What they were, and where they belonged, Magnus could not
+tell. They rose up, and stretched out, and locked in, in an impassable
+sort of way; as if they might be miles off from the river. He did not
+know whether West Point was near them. And yet, by his time-table,
+there was but one station more before he must leave the train.
+
+Now the engine rushed inland for a bit, losing sight of the river, and
+Magnus studied the time-table again, assuring himself for the twentieth
+time of the precise hour and minute when he was expected to reach
+Garrisons. Then as the train drew up at Peekskill, he gazed out at that
+dingy combination which gathers round a railway station. The engine got
+its quantum of water, darted on, and then--ah, what could be fairer!
+Magnus almost shouted with delight as they swept around the curve, with
+the full south view for a moment, past Anthony's Nose, and with the
+Dunderberg across the stream.
+
+"What are these mountains called?" he asked of a Peekskill passenger
+who had taken the seat beside him.
+
+"Highlands--Hudson Highlands," said the man. "You don't belong round
+here, likely?"
+
+"I never was here before."
+
+"You've come to the right place, then. Aint purtier mountings nowhere.
+Such a lot o' happenings, too. Now, right _here_,"--as the train rushed
+through a deep rock cut,--"just about here, was where Benedict Arnold
+sneaked off to find the _Vulture_. And earth nor water didn't nary one
+on 'em open and swaller him up."
+
+"Then this is Teller's Point!" cried Magnus.
+
+"Teller's Point it is. And up yonder, to your right, is where the
+scamp was livin', and gettin' his breakfast that mornin', when the
+Father of his country come, and all but cotched him. Tell you, these
+old hills has seen things! But now look this way a bit. See that crick
+over there, and the mill? Fort Montgomery's one side, to the north,
+and t'other side o' the crick is Fort Clinton; and down there, atween
+'em, is where they fit the battle and killed my great grandfather. They
+do say, the Continentals was that mad they pitched all the Hessians
+into the crick. Tell you what, young man, it's fine to have one o' the
+family die in the service. I aint partic'lar about its bein' me, you
+understand, but some one on 'em."
+
+"But you'd be ready to have it you?" said Magnus, eyeing his new
+acquaintance.
+
+"Likely I would, if the tug came. Life's life, howsoever, when there
+aint no special call to get along without it. They're tryin' to learn
+them boys at West Point how to fight; but la! this here sham work don't
+go for nothin'. Live in peace till the time comes, say I."
+
+"But you want to be ready for the time," said Magnus.
+
+"Ready?" the man repeated. "Take your pitchfork and _go_. That's ready
+enough for me. It did average well, in '76."
+
+"Garri-sons!" sang out the brakeman, flinging back the door.
+"Garrisons! Ferry to West Point."
+
+And in another minute Magnus was out on the platform, and heard the
+little ferryboat ringing her bell. He looked eagerly about him, found
+the right official to take his check, and following that bell, marched
+down to the _Highlander_, and went on board.
+
+A down train was nearly due, so there were a few minutes to wait; and
+Magnus pushed straight on to the little forward deck, and then forgot
+everything in what he saw.
+
+It was unearthly fair, this bit of the world that lay before him. The
+lovely green further shore, decked from river side to sky edge in the
+rich growth and colouring of early summer; the hills but hardly yet in
+their full depth of green, so that the dark cedars and hemlocks stood
+out markedly among the tender hues of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and
+maples. From the midst of the trees on the table-land rose up chimneys,
+pointed roofs, round roofs, and domes, which as yet meant nothing
+to Charlemagne Kindred. The river rolled placidly by, stirred into
+wavelets by the fresh, sweet breeze; close at hand he could hear the
+soft lapping of the water against the sides of the boat. All sweet, all
+strange; and between the two, Magnus very nearly let his head go down.
+
+But now came the thunder of the down train; the inviting ding-dong
+of the ferryboat made itself once more heard, a little throng of
+passengers came hurrying on board, and then they were off. Crossing the
+Rubicon, Magnus felt, if he did not say.
+
+For a few moments still he stood quite alone on the forward deck. How
+fast the little steamer parted the blue waters that lay between him and
+his new life! Hilltops to the north, hilltops to the south, Anthony's
+Nose cutting the river off on the one hand, Martlaer's Rock--the old
+"East Point" of the maps--closing it in on the other. Before him, West
+Point, "Tacs," and orders; behind him, the road by which he had come
+from home.
+
+Then the swing-door slammed, and a bevy of girls came rushing out
+to the front of the boat. Magnus turned to look at them, then
+instinctively took a stand further back, where he could gaze less
+visibly.
+
+Certainly he had seen girls enough to know the genus, but these were
+a new species. Such hats, such heels, such giggles, such bewildering
+dresses. Such knots of riband, such spots of velvet, such piles of
+artificial flowers, such very pretty faces. Not handsome, like Cherry,
+Magnus said indignantly, calling himself to order; and then began to
+wonder how Cherry would look dressed _so_.
+
+And even as the thought came, he heard one whisper to the other, "A
+candidate."
+
+And Magnus felt unreasonably angry. What business had they to pick him
+out? And how was he a marked man, anyway? But their notice of him was
+short.
+
+"Look at Jenny!" giggled one, half under her breath, pointing to a
+girl who leaned on the railing, and never took her eyes from the West
+Point shore. "He isn't on the watch, sweet child: it's one o'clock,
+and they're all in the Mess Hall. Don't send such wistful looks on
+ahead, or they'll mount the hill and spoil his digestion." And she half
+whistled, half sang:
+
+    "Come fill up your glasses, and don't stand back;
+            Vive la compagnie!
+    And drink to the health of our Captain Jack----"
+
+"You don't call him plain 'Jack' yet, do you, dear?"
+
+"If you _could_ talk a little sense!" murmured the girl at the railing.
+"I shall never call him '_plain_' anything."
+
+The girls choked with laughter, which half rippled out, and half was
+smothered. Then the talk went on, in the same undertones; not as if it
+was meant to be heard, and yet which Magnus could not help hearing.
+
+"She's such a Paul Pry! Said to me the other day when we were out
+walking, 'But you are not in love with any one of the class?' I said,
+'No; I'm in love with the whole class.' Oh, dear! it will be too
+dreadful when they all go!"
+
+"There are always candidates," whispered another, with a glance towards
+Magnus, and then the boat touched her landing, and the girls hurried on
+shore.
+
+Magnus did not hurry. He had no quarters to spend on omnibus fare, and
+no mind at all to be wedged in among those lively ladies. He picked up
+his bag and walked after the stage as it slowly climbed the hill. A few
+swift strides would have easily taken him beyond it. But he lingered
+and loitered, sat down on the tall stone curbing of the road, and tried
+to find out why he felt so uncomfortable. What if he was a "candidate"?
+There was Cherry, and the other two girls at home, on tiptoe over that
+very fact. Why should West Point feel so differently? He had come to
+learn to serve and to defend his country; to grace her ranks, wherever
+he might be.
+
+Magnus looked after his stageful of enemies, and seeing that they had
+turned down towards the south, he quickened his steps, and soon reached
+the top of the hill. There paused again, partly for strangeness, and
+partly for wonder. It was all so beautiful, so new.
+
+The grass, close shaven and vividly green, covered the ground on every
+side; up the slopes, and down in the hollows; with only the cavalry
+plain lying brown and bare in the sunshine. Buildings, with hardly two
+alike, were dropped down for the most part in a long, curving line,
+the end of which he could not see. No people, anywhere, for it was
+dinner time or lunch time all over the Post; only as Magnus crossed
+the road to get a nearer view of the buildings, he came upon a very
+distinguished personage with a gun on his shoulder, pacing aimlessly up
+and down the sidewalk. His uniform was blue, his "deportment" fierce.
+"He must be an officer," thought the boy to himself, "and this some
+special important point he must watch."
+
+Magnus found a seat under a friendly tree, and studied him. That slow,
+ceaseless, back-and-forth march, fascinated the quicksilver youngster.
+Orioles whistled over his head, sparrows sang, catbirds cried out
+in fear or shouted for joy. Further off was the whistle and roar of
+trains, and the bell of the ferryboat. In every pause the breeze
+rustled softly by, and the river plashed against the shore. He had
+never seen anything so lovely in all his life. But now, where were all
+those voices?--a mild roar of talk. Plainly, in that small grey stone
+castle just over the way.
+
+He strolled on again, passed the old Academic, and came out upon the
+plain. And then for a while he forgot everything but what his eyes took
+in.
+
+The smooth greensward, irregularly framed in with trees, and having
+here and there a slight undulation which only heightened its beauty,
+lay shimmering in the summer sun. On one side, behind the trees, the
+row of houses went its winding way; on the other, the trees drew
+together rather thinly in a little wood; but Magnus just then gave
+no heed to either. His eyes followed the green right on to a sort of
+jumping-off place, where the ground dropped suddenly all along the
+line. There too was a closer-set clump of trees; and from among them,
+white and slim, rose the tall flagstaff, bearing aloft the beautiful
+banner of the Stars and Stripes.
+
+There was not much wind, and the great flag hung in those half-way
+curves which are more picturesque than the full expansion. Softly
+twisting, turning, its mighty folds; the red, white, and blue seeming
+ever in playful strife for the upper hand, which should show most and
+which give way.
+
+Magnus looked at it, and then instantly bared his head. He had never
+seen so large a flag, nor ever one that floated with such clear
+assumption of its rights; such careless, easy grace in claiming and
+keeping them. "Make a friend of the flag," Mr. Wayne had said, and from
+this moment the boy took it to his very heart. Fight for it? Aye, that
+he would!
+
+He walked slowly across the plain, still watching the flag, until
+he stood close beneath it, and could hear the soft flapping of the
+halyards as they beat against the pole. But now it was fairyland
+everywhere.
+
+All about him, spotting the green grass, were guns: big guns
+and little guns; shining black and mouldy green; with piles of
+wicked-looking black shot. The guns themselves, like many other
+senders-forth of mischief, looked sleepy and innocent enough. Tall
+trees rose up, bordering the little platform, from which the ground
+fell off steeply towards the river; some younger and softer tree heads
+showing there and hindering the further view. But Magnus wanted no more
+views just then.
+
+He stood leaning back against the white flagstaff, and for the moment
+felt content. Over his head the lovely folds of the flag curled and
+drooped and stretched away upon the wind; and again, as Magnus looked
+up at it, he doffed his hat. Then he found himself wondering what they
+did to the grass in this part of the world, to make it so smooth and
+soft and even. Then two or three uniforms went by, and he wondered over
+them: it was in truth fairyland. Oh, if the folks at home could only
+see it! And then, suddenly, fairyland shifted its place, and fled away
+far out West, to the lonely regions of Barren Heights. Oh, if--not that
+they were here, but that he was there!--just back once more at home!
+The boy's hat came down low over his eyes. What did that old flag care
+for him? And what did he care for grass, or views, or uniforms, or
+anything else, but only just to see mother, and the girls, and Cherry?
+
+"Bracing up" is often so useful a process that one must not be too hard
+upon the agents that oblige us thereto; and this time the agents were
+very comely. A cluster of young girls, clad in all the pretty frippery
+of the day, came giggling along the walk towards the flagstaff. It
+was not, Say something and laugh at it--or, Say something to make the
+others laugh; but there was a chronic state of giggle, as if life
+were such a very droll thing that no occasional outburst could do it
+justice. The walk passed the flagstaff with some little green space
+between; and they came flickering along (I am really at a loss for
+a word); changing places, pulling each other, pushing each other,
+whispering, sometimes half-dancing, down the walk.
+
+It is needless to say that Magnus "braced up" immediately; and still
+leaning against the flagstaff, watched them from under his hat.
+
+These were not his fair foes of the ferryboat, whom he had supposed
+were rare specimens: now he was to learn that the species is widespread
+and common, in June. Again he heard the obnoxious word, "candidate."
+
+"Holding up the flagstaff, as usual," said the leading girl. "I do
+verily believe they think that's what they come for."
+
+"Hush!" said another. "Don't talk so loud. He might hear."
+
+"He'll hear worse than that, before he's been here many days," said the
+first. "I'll just break it to him by degrees. Say, girls, let's go and
+give him his 'technical,' and get the start of Devlin Fritz."
+
+"_Do_ be quiet!" said a third. "No wonder they all call you 'Miss
+Saucy.'"
+
+"It's something to have them _all_ call you anything," returned the
+young lady with much content.
+
+"Oh, that's true!" said another. "I declare, girls, I think it's too
+bad. Here I've spent ten pounds of candy since I came, and I haven't
+got one special cadet yet."
+
+"Huyler's?" demanded Miss Saucy.
+
+"Huyler's."
+
+"Get Dulce to hand you over Mr. Day. She bores the poor boy to death. I
+know he'd be glad of almost any change," said Miss Flirt.
+
+"Or she might try a 'candied date,'" suggested Miss Saucy with a
+sideway gesture.
+
+In the small babel of words and laughter that followed this, the girls
+drifted away out of hearing, and the sweet summer air was silent
+again. The leaves clapped hands softly, the folds of the beautiful flag
+curled and played as before over the head of the young candidate. But
+in the heart of Magnus himself, just now, the summer grace and peace
+found no foothold. Rather, his thoughts were like a November gale, with
+the air full of dust and rubbish.
+
+What if he _was_ a candidate? Men had to be, when they first came, he
+supposed. And what if he _did_ mean to hold up the flagstaff? who had a
+better right? Magnus looked up defiantly, and made a profound reverence
+to the Stars and Stripes. All the same, he edged away as he saw another
+party of girls approaching, and went and sat down on a long iron
+seat among the tree shadows. One thing was certain: his sisters--and
+Cherry--should never set foot here, if he could help it. He had been
+thinking--if only they could get money enough--how fine it would be to
+have them all come and see this beautiful place. Such walks as they
+could take! But West Point just _swarmed_ with girls already. And at
+this point of his meditations Magnus was quite sure that he heard
+"candidate" again, from another jocund voice.
+
+"Say, let's find out."
+
+"What for?" said a pink vision.
+
+"Fun," said the white one: "Oh, I know the regulation questions." And
+but half under her breath, the pretty tones sang out:
+
+    "See where he hails from--
+      What is his name;
+    Who was his 'pred.,'
+      And why he came."
+
+"Who cares?" said the other girl, hurrying her along. "Come, we are
+late."
+
+That party passed, followed, it must be owned, by some rather fierce
+looks from Magnus. Then, slowly strolling down the pathway, came two
+more: a girl, in the height of every fashion, and a tall fellow in
+close-fitting grey coat and the whitest of unwrinkled trousers. Over
+his head he carried the girl's scarlet and lace parasol, shielding
+himself as carefully as if she had brought it for that express purpose.
+As perhaps she had: who knows? At all events, the little lady gazed up
+at the dark sunburnt face, with its vivid background, as if nothing
+could be too good to screen such a complexion. And he looked down at
+her--well, women never get just what they give, but he did look very
+admiringly; as if the delicate face needed nothing, not even a parasol.
+
+Whatever was the reason, this couple made Magnus more irate than any
+that had gone before. There was an instant antagonism to the tall
+cadet. His uniform was so becoming, and fitted so well; the glancing
+buttons were so attractive; the gold bars on the upper arm had such
+a distinguished look; the young stranger set him down at once for a
+coxcomb. But there was a little envy in it all. How cleverly he cut
+down the military stride to keep step with the girl's mincing feet; a
+difficult thing, as Magnus knew.
+
+"Taking care of his own precious face, and letting hers burn!" quoth
+the young civilian; but all the same, he would have given more money
+than he was likely to have soon to be in just such guise himself, with
+Cherry by his side. He'd show that fellow a thing or two.
+
+He was getting homesick again. All these people, with their friends
+and their fun, made him feel so desolately far away from everybody. He
+slouched his hat down further, and wandered off again, not looking much
+where he went; just following the path beneath his feet. Slowly round
+the guns, then on along the bank, and there found more seats. There
+was no sound of voice or step here, and Magnus sat down wearily, and
+leaned his head on his arm, and tried to fight the homesickness. For
+the moment he despised the whole race of girls, Cherry, of course,
+excepted. "Simpering up into that fellow's face, as if there had never
+been a man before, nor would be again."
+
+Yes, there was certainly a twinge of envy in Charlemagne's heart. The
+tall cadet had carried himself with such careless, graceful erectness
+that there was no relief to be had out of calling him a "ramrod." And
+his white trousers were _so_ white, and so without a wrinkle.
+
+"I'd like to know how he manages that," thought Magnus, the envy
+passing into wonder. With him, white trousers had been always uncertain
+and short-lived things. And now his thoughts flew far away again,
+over hills and prairie land; and once more he was going through wild
+exploits at home; getting himself wet and muddy, and having the girls
+laugh at him from the midst of their intact fresh draperies. Magnus
+drew a long, heavy sigh.
+
+Then he roused himself and sat up; for again those measured steps, the
+peculiar tread of which he was just learning to know, sounded near by;
+and another cadet, from the opposite direction, came down the walk. He
+glanced at Magnus, then crossed the grass, and took his seat on the
+other end of the same bench; but said not a word, only gazed placidly
+up the river. And now, as one always looks whither another is looking,
+so also did Magnus.
+
+There were no trees in the way here, and the view was open. Close
+at his feet the ground fell sharply down to the level of the siege
+battery, where a dozen guns and mortars kept grim watch, their ugly
+black mouths pointed up-stream. Beyond the green parapet nothing made
+much show till you reached the river itself, which for ten miles here
+came flowing gently down, with no sharp turns; the whole of "Martlaer's
+Reach" lay full in sight. In the far, far distance, an irregularly
+broken line of blue peaks brushed softly against the sky. At their
+feet lay the green wooded slopes of the Newburgh hills, with Newburgh
+itself sparkling in the sun. The line stretched across so straight from
+side to side, as if there the river began.
+
+Nearer, and on either hand, rising in abrupt masses from the water's
+edge, lay Butter Hill and Breakneck, Bull Hill and Crow Nest; pillars
+of the north Highland gateway. All green, from brow to base, except
+where every now and then the granite framework of the mountains pushed
+itself through in crags and ridges. The green was exquisite, with all
+the lush hues of June.
+
+Between the hills the flood of the great river poured along unchecked,
+until where in the very foreground the grey-green bluff of Martlaer's
+Rock thrust itself out athwart the stream; bringing it with one sharp
+turn to its very narrowest and deepest part. For a little distance
+then, in front of Magnus, the river ran east and west--along the
+Rock; then took another short turn, and went racing south; the lovely
+"Shaw-na-taw-ty," that "flows toward the midday." Between the river and
+the homesick boy lay only the broken hillside and the silent guns.
+
+There were no human voices, either, but a chance medley of sweet sounds
+from other throats. Song sparrows in their rollicking glee, with the
+homespun twitter of a chipping sparrow, giving her brood their first
+outing. Robins kept up their changing chorus; crows cawed; among
+the distant trees you could hear the thrush bells now and then. The
+indescribable sighs and murmurs and trills of the summer wind, the soft
+touches of the mighty river along its banks, filled every moment of
+unappropriated time.
+
+Magnus forgot everything, as he looked and listened. June threw her
+warm spell over him, and for the minute again he was content.
+
+"Yes, that can't be beat," remarked his neighbour in grey, who had been
+watching him closely. "Look at it all you want to; now is a good time."
+
+"I think every time is good, for such a view," Magnus said, facing
+round.
+
+"When do you report?" asked the other abruptly.
+
+"To-morrow." Magnus answered the question, perceiving the next instant
+that again he was noted as a candidate.
+
+"Well, next week, if you are here, you'll find some other hills lying
+round promiscuous, and you won't think quite so much about these."
+
+"How did you know I was to report at all?"
+
+The cadet laughed.
+
+"No mistaking a candidate," he said. "You have the real all-overish
+look about you. And no need to huff up at it, either. I've been there
+myself, so I know."
+
+"Do you like it here?" said Magnus, the flush cooling down.
+
+"Fair to middling. When I'm up in math., keep out of Con., and don't
+get skinned too often."
+
+This was high Dutch to Magnus. But he was at the age when pertinent
+questions are far harder to ask than the impertinent; and nothing would
+have made him show his ignorance. He went back to the last subject.
+
+"You say you know, because you've been a candidate yourself; but who
+tells all these girls?"
+
+"Oh, the girls!" said the cadet. "Yes, there's a good many girls
+here; and what some of 'em don't know, and don't do, wouldn't fill a
+collar-box. Even Crinkem's head could hold it."
+
+"Who is Crinkem?"
+
+"My respected classmate. Absolutely worried along so far, and gone on
+furlough. Nobody can guess how he did it, either. Who are you?"
+
+"Charlemagne Kindred."
+
+The cadet gave a long, "Whew!"
+
+"Is that all you have for week days?" he asked.
+
+"Not quite," said Magnus, smiling in spite of himself. "They call me
+Magnus, at home."
+
+"Won't do you any good here," said the other, shaking his head. "Name's
+got to go down in full, if it was Beelzebub Nebuchadnezzar. You'll be
+rechristened for common use."
+
+"Do they always do that?" said Magnus, looking grave.
+
+"Mostly."
+
+Magnus reddened.
+
+"I cannot see what the Faculty have to do with my name," he said. "It's
+not their business."
+
+"Not the Faculty, as you call them, at all," said the cadet, "but your
+beloved fellow-students. They will take almost as anxious care of you
+as will the Com."
+
+"Oh, the other cadets!" said Magnus loftily. "I'll take care of them."
+
+"I would," said the man in grey with dry emphasis. "Not too many at
+once. There's quite a few of them."
+
+Magnus sat studying the north view without seeing it.
+
+"But how is this?" he said suddenly. "You say your classmate has gone
+on furlough--why aren't you gone too?"
+
+The cadet shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Some men leave their country for their country's good," he said, "and
+some stay in it, same at same. I lost my furlough. But anyhow Crinkem
+went ahead of time; folks sick at home. He's always in luck."
+
+"_Lost_ it," Magnus repeated. "How could you?"
+
+"Easy enough, if you run against the Tacs in a tight place. Lose
+anything here, except your heart and your appetite."
+
+But to these last words Magnus gave no heed; his whole soul was astir
+with this new idea. _Lose his furlough!_ Not go home even at the end
+of the two long years!
+
+"Can you do that?" he said. "Is it often done?"
+
+"Not so very. Oh, you can do it, fast enough, if you have a run of bad
+luck, as I did."
+
+"I don't believe in luck," Magnus answered him.
+
+"Don't you? Well, you will, when you've been here a month."
+
+And now a party of strollers came by the seat; another much-dressed
+young damsel, set in a framework of grey uniforms. As they passed, the
+lady bowed; Magnus's friend stood up and doffed his cap, the other
+cadets also touching theirs; and again (against his will) Magnus
+admired and envied the easy precision of every movement. He wondered
+if he could take off his hat with that peculiar swing?--and said no,
+to himself, at once. But he would have it before furlough--and how
+astonished Cherry would be!
+
+"Been round Flirtation?" demanded his new acquaintance abruptly,
+watching the three who went slowly on towards where the path left the
+brow of the hill, and ran down among the cedars.
+
+"Round flirtation!"
+
+The cadet laughed.
+
+"You needn't look so scared," he said--"it's only one of our walks. At
+least it isn't generally anything else. Come on, and I'll show it to
+you. I don't see what Fitch is after with that girl; cutting out poor
+little Day. And he can talk a dozen to Day's one. Come along."
+
+So they rose up, and stepped on at a good pace, till they had the
+others in full sight again; dropping then into the like easy saunter.
+At least it was easy to one, but for Magnus like being in bonds; and he
+was constantly getting ahead, checking himself, and falling back.
+
+"I'll teach them how to walk, when I'm once in," he thought. Then aloud:
+
+"We should call this slow doings out West," he said.
+
+"Yes," said his companion. "Generally want to get there, out West, I
+suppose?"
+
+"We certainly do."
+
+"All right. Well, those folks don't."
+
+It was such a self-evident fact about the three in front, that Magnus
+looked from them to the man at his side, and his eyes flashed with fun.
+They both laughed.
+
+"Do none of them ever want to get _anywhere_?" said Magnus.
+
+"Not often--on Flirtation. Spoil the fun, you know."
+
+"Well, you say that is Mr. Fitch, and the other is Mr. Day, then who
+are you?" said Magnus.
+
+"To be sure!" said the cadet with a lazy drawl. "I've been wondering
+how long a Westerner could get along without asking."
+
+If Magnus grew hot at this implied charge, he had no chance to show it
+then. A sudden drum-call, clear and loud, sent its racket through the
+still air. The cadet stopped short.
+
+"There!" he said; "that beastly review is to come off, after all."
+
+And without another word, he turned and darted up the hill. In another
+minute, Fitch and Day went speeding by, at the same keen, measured
+pace, which struck Magnus as unlike anything he had ever seen. A few
+bounds brought him up to the green level of the plain, where he could
+watch the three, as they hurried along to the grey barracks. Nor those
+three alone. From every side, from all directions, the grey and white
+came hurrying in. Hurrying--yet always with the same even, regular,
+swift step; the foot lifted just so high, the right arm swinging just
+so far; and with no seeming effort. Magnus saw one and another of them
+take off his cap to some lady as he flew by, but without the least
+pause or break. Only two or three very much belated men dropped into a
+walk as they neared the barracks. As Rosamund said, "It was too late to
+get up early."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A LONELY CANDIDATE
+
+    Nothing useless is, or low;
+      Each thing in its place is best:
+    And what seems but idle show,
+      Strengthens and supports the rest.
+
+--LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+Magnus strolled leisurely along, thinking first that he could show
+these cadets how to run, and then beginning to have grave doubts on
+the subject; and finally finding himself a seat under the trees, where
+he could look and listen in shady comfort. Eyes and ears had full
+occupation.
+
+There was a busy note of preparation everywhere, and especially among
+the drums. Beating there, and then beating here; the sound caught
+up and echoed back from the grey rocks on the green hillside. Then
+came out uniforms of various sorts (Magnus personified the dress, not
+knowing the men) and proceeded to mark off a certain space on the green
+in front of him, setting a gay little banner at the four corners of a
+large, large square.
+
+Then, at first slowly, but soon hurrying up from every point of the
+compass, a many-coloured crowd swarmed in and filled the seats--filled
+them presently so full that Magnus gave up his place to the next gauzy
+creature that came along. She fluttered down into the seat with much
+gratulation and no thanks, and Magnus gravely took his stand in the
+rear.
+
+He had no lack of company, even there. Officers in various uniforms,
+civilians in all sorts of coats, and girls in all sorts of finery,
+stood beside and around him.
+
+And now, also, there came straying in another small posse, whom Magnus
+instinctively knew as of his own kind. Yes, they must be candidates;
+partly, perhaps, because they could not possibly be anything else;
+no other class owned them. Yet how did _he_ know that?--to whom all
+classes here were strange. What possible connection between that dapper
+little fellow in straw hat and black alpaca coat, and this young giant
+who wore a cloth cap and a fluttering linen duster? Or how was his next
+neighbour in a Derby and long frock coat like the fourth man, who wore
+brown trousers, a cutaway coat, and a wide-awake? Yet even Magnus could
+see that "candidate" was written on them all. So plainly, indeed, that
+he stepped further back and put himself behind the tree. Anybody who
+looked at him standing there--and some did look--saw a tall, well-made
+young fellow in a neat and perfectly unobtrusive suit of brown-grey
+cloth. Very dark hair and with a wilful curl that tossed it about every
+way. Excellent features, ignorant as yet of life's moulding touch; and
+a sweet, mobile mouth, set just now in very grave lines indeed, and
+so hiding one of the great charms of his face. For nobody could watch
+Magnus Kindred when he smiled or laughed, and not notice the _clean_
+look: the utterly pure and true lines into which those grave ones
+changed. For the rest, hands and feet were well shaped and in excellent
+order; and the whole bearing was both self-reliant and unconscious.
+
+But it seemed as if the gayer grew the scene, the soberer grew that
+young face gazing out from behind the tree. For of all the lonely
+places, commend me to an unknown throng of pleasure-seekers, where
+everyone belongs to someone, is waiting for someone, or is waited for,
+and you belong to none. No eyes are watching for you, no heart stirs
+when you come in sight; and no one will miss you if you do not come at
+all.
+
+So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded
+almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between
+himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls,
+thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them
+was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and
+flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own
+dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the
+boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers
+he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He looks
+pretty homesick."
+
+"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German, Floy."
+
+"Oh, _he_ can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached
+the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a
+candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't
+wear chevrons."
+
+And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next
+neighbour.
+
+If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve
+to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him.
+These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken
+cords are strong.
+
+How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood where
+they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees, and made
+a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians, matrons,
+girls--and candidates. Little children dropped down on the green edge
+of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and hard-pushed people
+sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant came along, waving
+them off with his black wand. And the people jumped up, growling and
+frowning, and, as soon as they saw his back, dropped down again.
+
+As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening
+cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he
+would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations.
+Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit
+or change. Not to see home again for two long years.
+
+Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set
+himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all
+his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to
+someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the
+whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper.
+"Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"
+
+Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they could
+not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was so fine
+that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the great
+square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one elastic
+thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed. So they
+marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the double-timing.
+
+How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet officers
+leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally unerring
+footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away since
+he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed into the
+grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never lagged.
+The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry it was
+pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration; down
+to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it off.
+
+He was noticing every step; eyeing the black shoe-soles that came up
+as one, the bent-knee line of white trousers, the glitter of the guns;
+forgetting everything else, when again the hated word came full upon
+his ear.
+
+"Just look at that candidate, will you! It's as good as a play. I
+wonder he didn't join in."
+
+"Ya-as," was answered in a drawling tone by her escort. "There he
+stands. Study his perfections now, while you can, Miss Jenny. Next week
+he will have ceased to shine upon the polite world. Exit the candidate,
+enter the beast. That is, if he gets in, which is doubtful."
+
+A small thing may do the work where a large one fails; trains got no
+hearing, after that. That he would enter became instantly a fixed fact
+to that particular candidate.
+
+The girl was certainly pretty. How would Cherry look, sitting there,
+and with himself in a grey coat bending over her, and twirling her
+parasol? Cherry was handsomer--miles away--than this girl. Deeper eyes,
+tenderer mouth, more glowing cheeks, too, for that matter. Yet she
+would not look _so_, the boy honestly owned to himself, though fuming
+a little over the admission; the whole make-up would be different. The
+very idea of such shoes as this damsel thrust out into the sunlight had
+never entered Cherry's wholesome head. "Shoe pegs," Magnus called the
+heels, with great scorn, and set right in the middle of her foot. And
+scarlet stockings. And her dress--what was it made of? No, Cherry would
+not look so; and however he might frown, Magnus felt the glamour, as
+most men do, of city dressmaking and "the correct thing."
+
+"Country-made gowns look so different," said someone behind him.
+
+Then that girl further on, in fluffs of white lace and muslin, white
+shoes, white gloves, and her dainty head crowned with "an acre" of
+Leghorn, and "a half bushel" of roses. No, neither would Cherry look
+like her. And now the boy's fancy brought the little country maiden,
+in her country garb--even her Sunday best--and set her down beside
+these two. A plain white gown, with no setting off but the simple
+ruffles which Cherry had embroidered, and the exquisite laundry work
+which she had also done herself. Black shoes, which were made for
+walking ("but either one of those white ones could hold 'em both,"
+thought Magnus, in his hot fancy). Then a broad straw hat, round which
+Violet's deft fingers had twined a dark green riband; while the hands,
+which were small, indeed, and comely, but unwhitened with either
+idleness or lemon, wore only a pair of spotless Lisle thread gloves.
+
+Magnus looked at the pink, the white, the tan kids all about him, and
+drew a deep breath.
+
+"But she _shall_ sit there!" he said, with one of his fierce mental
+bursts. "She shall sit there, and look just so. No, not just so, for,
+if they try their prettiest, they can never any of them look like her."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IN FOR IT
+
+    With this hand work, and with the other pray,
+    And God will bless them both from day to day.
+
+    --_Old Vierlander Motto._
+
+
+Some little time after the foregoing events, the following letter was
+sent from the West Point Post Office:
+
+  "CAMP HARD, June --, 18--.
+
+  "MY DEAR FOLKS AT HOME:
+
+ "Well, I am in for it. Uncle Sam has me, body and soul. At least
+ the body is self-evident, and as I don't get time to say my soul's
+ my own, I suppose he claims that, too,--Mr. Wayne to the contrary.
+ Bought and paid for and sworn in; and earmarks enough for a drove
+ of pigs. Do you want to know what I look like, you girls? Just at
+ present I am a compound of grey and green in about equal mixture.
+ No, I guess the green has it. Hair cut short, army shoes, and a
+ brand new prison dress which might fit anybody else as well as it
+ does me, and better. I get up by a gun, and go to bed by a drum,
+ and have a bugle to tell me when to go to sleep, and as we are
+ young and tender in the ways of the world, at every meal the first
+ captain informs us when to stop eating. (He's nothing special to
+ look at, Cherry. Don't open your eyes too wide. But he's such an
+ old spoon that he's always in a hurry to get out and walk with
+ some girl or other)."
+
+ "We study straight lines in the morning, and play leap-frog
+ in the afternoon; and have girls come and make fun of us while
+ we're at it. Yesterday they enjoyed it more than was good for
+ themselves, and one of the officers ordered them off."
+
+ "There are two special prigs in chevrons, who have charge of our
+ thumbs and shoulderblades; and when you girls come to see me,
+ _one_ of 'em won't get an introduction, that's all. What do you
+ think he did yesterday? It was hot enough to melt down your ideas,
+ if you had any--hot as the middle line of the equator; and he had
+ been drilling us as if he had never been drilled himself, and
+ didn't know how it felt. So, when drill was over, he stood a lot
+ of us round his tent door in the sun, and then made iced lemonade,
+ and sat there drinking it with us looking on. Give us some? Not
+ quite. Go to the store and buy our own lemons, Rose? Why, we can't
+ get a shoestring without a special order. Corporal Mean smuggled
+ in his sugar from the Mess Hall; and I guess Miss Flyaway brought
+ him the lemons. If you want to know about Miss Flyaway, she's
+ one of the girls; a summer girl, as they say here, and we plebs
+ could spare her till winter just as well as not. She's as bad as
+ a third-class corporal--only we can laugh at her and we can't at
+ him. If we did, we'd be skinned in a minute. This is what I should
+ hear read out after parade:
+
+ "'Kindred--disrespect to superior officer, at about 4.30 P.
+ M.'--demerits according. Oh, well! we'll wear through somehow; it
+ takes a good deal to kill a man. And they're not all like that.
+ Cadet Captain Steady called me into his tent to-day and gave me a
+ whole lot of good advice that would have gone to mother's heart.
+ There's another Captain, too, Mr. Upright, who's as nice as he
+ can be; and some of the Tacs aren't very bad to take. But we've
+ got one in our company! I just wish you could see him. We call
+ him Towser--because he's always nosing round, and sniffing about
+ everywhere, to see what sort of a dry bone he can find to pick. He
+ hasn't hived any of mine yet, but he spied a whole square inch of
+ paper in front of Randolph's tent and reported him for disorder.
+ You have to polish your shoestrings to go down A Company street,
+ when he's in charge. So whoever sees him coming fires off a
+ volley, and then we all know. Bow--wow--wow--wow--wow--wow!"
+
+ "You'll like my tentmate, Rig. That's not his name, of course, but
+ we call him so because he's so B. J. about his dress. They don't
+ leave him much hair to brush, but what he has takes up half his
+ spare time."
+
+ "Now I know mother is aching to put in her questions--just waiting
+ till I get through writing stuff. Well, ma'am, you see, we just
+ _have_ to praise ourselves a little bit here, because if we don't
+ do it, it don't get done; and so I call myself a pretty good boy.
+ Whether I'd suit you exactly, I'll not say. I go to prayer-meeting
+ twice a week and once to Chapel (_have_ to go there, so you
+ needn't give me a credit), and I've not missed reading my chapter
+ one day yet. Mr. Upright came by the other day when I was at it,
+ and he stopped and walked in."
+
+ "'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he
+ said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as
+ much as you like; the more, the better. Remember:
+
+    "'He always wins, who sides with God.'"
+
+ "So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long
+ as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours
+ flying--a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here
+ sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he
+ declares: says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned
+ back, and so he has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says
+ there's no place in the course for religion; just as well give it
+ up first as last."
+
+ "So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her dictionary and
+ never taught me how to spell the words."
+
+ "Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years ago; though how
+ she can enjoy herself up there, with him going on as he does down
+ here, I can't see. Maybe she doesn't know."
+
+ "There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other all round
+ for me, beginning anywhere."
+
+  "MAGNUS KINDRED,
+  U. S. Corps of Cadets."
+
+ "You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow. But you
+ see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his feelings to look
+ like an acorn."
+
+This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped; went on the
+orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in due course, across
+the continent to the far-off simple home at Barren Heights. There it
+alighted with the force and precision of a bombshell. That is, if force
+may be measured by commotion.
+
+The strange phrases, the new ideas, the dim, vague vision of most
+unwonted doings--there is no telling what a stir-up it all was. The
+three girls had gone to the post office together in the course of their
+afternoon walk, and had taken turns at bringing the precious missive
+home. Now they sat about on the front steps, while Mrs. Kindred, in the
+porch rocking chair, opened and read the letter aloud.
+
+I think she never even thought of a hidden meaning in "Camp Hard,"
+passing it by as a mere name; but as she read on, even where the words
+themselves were perplexing, their intent was unmistakable. At the end
+of almost the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred took off her glasses,
+laid them down on the letter, and looked about her.
+
+"No time to say his soul is his own," she said. "Why, what does this
+mean?"
+
+Everybody else had felt the shock, but as usual they all crowded in to
+the rescue.
+
+"It must be just his way of talking," said Violet. "Don't you know,
+mother, that when Magnus gets excited he always goes on stilts?"
+
+"And of course, he is very busy," said Rose, "with so many new things
+to do."
+
+"And you can see he is talking in the air, Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry's
+sweet voice, "because he instances something for which he does _not_
+want time. Magnus has never called his soul his own, since he gave it
+to Christ to save and keep."
+
+"Dear boy!" said the mother. "Thank you, Cherry, for reminding me. Yes,
+I will not doubt,"--and she read on.
+
+"I cannot see why he says 'skinned,'" said Violet. "It's a very queer
+way to talk."
+
+"But just like him," said Rose. "Magnus always did talk wild--just a
+little bit," the sisterly censure softening down. "And you see they
+play games for exercise--so that is very good."
+
+"I suppose studying straight lines must mean drawing," said Cherry,
+looking down at the open letter. "Magnus will not care what they do, if
+they will only let him draw."
+
+"I am not so anxious about all _that_," said the mother thoughtfully.
+"Boys at school must have some hardships and do many things they do not
+like. And you see he does go to prayer-meeting and read the Bible."
+
+"But he says such strange things," said Violet, studying the letter
+from her side. "Do all people in the East have names like that? 'Rig,'
+and 'Mean,' and 'Upright'--it sounds like the Pilgrim's Progress."
+
+"And so it is," said the mother, smiling faintly, through two big
+teardrops, "and Magnus is going over a part of the road where we have
+never been. That must be, girls. But the Lord is as strong there
+as here in Barren Heights; and Magnus is no weaker than he was at
+home--bless his dear heart! He never could bear that word 'weak.' I
+wish he had told us what he means by 'a storm flag.'"
+
+"Why, it must be a flag that flies in all weathers!" cried Cherry. "So
+strong that the wind cannot tear it, and so deep-coloured that the rain
+cannot wash it out."
+
+Well for them all that she did not know enough to add, "And so small
+that it can hardly be seen."
+
+But no such thought cast its dark shadow. Mrs. Kindred looked at the
+sweet eyes, all aglow with the spirit of the martyrs; the lips in a
+quiver, the cheeks in a flush; then took Cherry in her arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"You are never anything but a blessing," she said, and went away
+to pour out tears and petitions in her own private room; with a
+heart-aching sense all the while that she wished some other boy had the
+glory and the brass buttons, and that her own Magnus was safe at home.
+
+Meanwhile the girls in the porch talked on.
+
+"I dare say you are right about the flag, Cherry," said Rose, "but
+there are other things I cannot understand."
+
+"It is dreadful about his clothes," put in Violet.
+
+"I do not mind _that_ so much," said Rose. "Mother always said Magnus
+was a fidget to fit. But what _can_ he mean by B. J.? Oh, girls, do you
+think it could possibly be some dreadful expression he has learned, and
+didn't like to write out to us?" And Rose put her head down, in great
+distress.
+
+"It _could_ not be!" said Violet, with a scared look. "Why, you are
+talking about Magnus! Rose, I believe you are crazy."
+
+"I think I must be," said Rose, lifting her head and brushing off the
+tears. "Of course, it is all my nonsense. Cherry, where are you going?"
+
+"Home," said the girl, pulling on her deep sun-bonnet. "I have
+something to do. I'll be down again soon."
+
+No one noticed how white the young face had grown while the other girls
+wept; no one guessed the cause of this sudden home-going; but as she
+went, Cherry clenched her hands for very anguish of heart. _Magnus_
+change like that? _Magnus_ learn words so bad that he would not write
+them home? No indeed!--it could not be; she knew it could not. All the
+same, that vision of possibility had come into her heart, and come to
+stay; and nothing stilled the aching until she had carried her burden
+to the feet of Him, "Who is able to keep you from falling, and to
+present you faultless before the presence of his glory."
+
+Cherry did not cry: she was not given to tears: but from that day on,
+two Bible verses answered to each other in her heart like a sweet chime:
+
+"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, that have not defiled their
+garments," and "He is able to save to the uttermost."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+RUBS THE WRONG WAY
+
+    Now don't go off half cock; folks never gains
+    By usin' pepper sarce instead o' brains.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+If Cadet Magnus Kindred knew in a general sort of way that all the
+simple, loving women folk at home were praying for him morning,
+noon, and night, "and watching thereunto with all perseverance," it
+was with a very easy remembrance of the fact, and not the faintest
+idea that anything but pleasure touched the case. And he would have
+simply shouted at Rose's panic over the unexplained "B. J." In fact,
+if anybody knows the origin of those two cabalistic letters, Magnus
+certainly did not.
+
+Indeed, he had scant time for running down questions. Drills began
+as soon as examination was over, and were pushed on "fiercely" (as
+Randolph declared), hot sun or no sun, rested or tired. Though Magnus
+had been used to such an active open-air life that all this came easier
+to him than to some others. As to the rest, he got along pretty well
+for a "pleb," having a certain sensible nature which made light of
+hardships, and was not quick to take offence. So when he was jeered and
+pointed at, chin poked in and toes pushed out, he rarely said anything
+stronger, even to himself, than, "Just you wait!" Good common sense
+everywhere befriended him, even when the drill masters abused their
+power, or first classmen showed their prowess by "jumping" plebs.
+
+So he brought in water and cleaned guns; stood attention, and stood his
+ground; and when the time came for that amusement, "advanced ghosts"
+in the most correct terms, but kept his musket against all attempts of
+Cadet Devlin and his compeers. Nay, on one such occasion, he gave the
+marauder the most accurate measure of himself upon the ground that the
+young man had ever had. Of course Magnus was reported, but he gave too
+straight answers for the charge to stand, and the upshot was that Mr.
+Devlin lost his chevrons "for hazing plebs." The whole account caused
+great consternation at home, only lulled by the assurance Magnus gave
+that if he had let anyone take his gun, he himself might have been put
+in "light prison" or sent home in disgrace. For to the bewildered mind
+of a pleb in those early days, anything might happen.
+
+Devlin swore vengeance, and in a small way carried it out. But young
+Kindred laughed off some things, ignored others, and now and then gave
+Mr. Devlin a blaze out of his honest eyes before which that gentleman
+rather shrivelled up. Nobody liked to exactly try to handle Charlemagne
+Kindred: there was about him "a look of unknown quantities"--as Mr.
+Upright remarked one day. Cadet Upright was a staunch friend; and it
+was a blessing to all the plebs in Camp Hard that year that he was head
+man over them.
+
+"Come and clean my gun, Mr. Kindred," he would say, adding, when Magnus
+was in the tent, "The gun is not very dirty, and there is no hurry
+about it, but you must be doing something, and in here is better than
+out there."
+
+A fact which Magnus realised when from the cool recesses of the tent he
+saw other plebs fetching water in the sun, or standing attention for a
+lecture from Mr. Devlin: teased and worried and laughed at by Mr. Prank.
+
+It was during the fervid days of that July that Rig ("poor Rig," as
+Magnus generally termed him in the letters home) went through a small
+bit of experience which, by his own account, made him "a sadder, if
+not a wiser, man."
+
+The morning was intensely hot. The plebs had been out at their early
+drill and now in the canvas shade were enjoying a few minutes' rest.
+Guard-mounting was just over, and for a brief space no one had anything
+special to do. The visitors' seats were nearly deserted, with only
+a few sentimentals from either side the colour-line still lounging
+there. The sentries paced up and down in full fatigue dress: the row of
+stacked arms shimmered in the heat.
+
+In his tent Magnus was devouring over again the last night's letter
+from home, and so did not notice what was going on, until the shadow of
+Cadet Prank in the tent door made him look up in time to see Rig (alias
+McLean) start to his feet and stand very stiff indeed.
+
+"Good-day, Mr. McLean," said the man with chevrons. "Don't disturb
+yourself, I'll not come in. I know you've been hard at it this
+morning, and I really hate to ask you to go out again,--but in such
+a case,"--and Mr. Prank gazed into the glowing sunshine in deep
+perplexity.
+
+Magnus, watching from the depths of the tent, saw the gleam which no
+effort of Prank's could keep out of his eyes, with the dangerously
+solemn lines about the mouth. But poor Rig at such honeyed words from
+an upper classman, lost what little everyday perception belonged to
+him. "He's just got to learn for himself, though," thought Magnus,
+looking on with intense amusement.
+
+Mr. Prank suddenly turned and glanced suspiciously down towards the
+listener; but Magnus was all quiet, behind his letter.
+
+"You see, Mr. McLean," Prank went on, dropping his voice a little, "I
+want a man I can trust, to do me a small service. If you are not too
+much fatigued--it would not take long."
+
+Visions of Mr. Prank for his bosom friend, and Camp Hard suddenly
+transformed into Elysium, floated before Rig's eyes.
+
+"Yes, sir,--no, sir," he answered, gathering up the points.
+
+"It is really but a minute's work," said Prank with another glance over
+Rig's head towards Magnus; "but a particular friend of mine has gone on
+guard without his gloves. Most absent-minded man alive! And if the Com.
+comes along, he's ruined. So I thought if you would just take them to
+him--you see _I_ should have to report him. He's on post No. 6."
+
+Mr. Prank held out a pair of immaculate white gloves. But now Rig drew
+back. To waylay a sentinel on his beat, was something so clearly beyond
+pleb limits that he took fright.
+
+"Yes, sir," he began; "certainly, sir. But you know, sir, it's against
+orders, I believe----"
+
+Mr. Prank drew himself up to all his inches.
+
+"That will do," he said. "Of course, I don't know much about
+regulations and never heard the orders. Very kind of you to instruct
+me, I am sure; I shall not forget it! Sorry to have disturbed your
+toilette, Mr. McLean, but I thought such a trifle could not seriously
+put you out. Someone else, probably, will be kind enough--whose hair
+curls easier than yours."
+
+And tucking the white gloves into the cadet pocket (his sleeve), Mr.
+Prank strode haughtily away.
+
+Rig felt miserable. He did not see that Magnus in his dark corner was
+shaking from head to foot. But to lose his character for obligingness!
+With a bound he was after the retreating chevrons.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Prank!" he said. "Of course I didn't mean that you didn't
+know, sir; and I have just thought of a way, if you think it will do. I
+can hang the gloves on one of the bayonets where the arms are stacked,
+you know, sir, and then he can get them for himself."
+
+"The very thing!" said Prank, with a well-kept face. "I see you are
+bright, Mr. McLean, as well as obliging. Take the gloves, my dear
+fellow, and be quick. And count upon me hereafter."
+
+With a swelling heart Rig stepped briskly up to the shining row of
+guns, where not an inch nor a line was out of the most spick-and-span
+state of military precision, and hung the white pendant on a glittering
+point of steel. And as he turned--alas! he was tapped on the shoulder
+and marched off to the guard tent "for tampering with the arms."
+
+"I shouldn't have minded that so much," he said afterwards to Magnus,
+"if I hadn't been such a double-distilled fool. And I'm not a fool
+really, you know,--but I'm not 'a gem of purest ray serene,' either.
+And I just lost my head with being told I was."
+
+Plenty of that sort of sport (to give it its common name) went on in
+Camp Hard, and even the most patient men grew tired of it, and the
+most good-natured got cross. It is monotonous when all the fun goes to
+somebody else. Even the straight shoulders sometimes rebelled against
+the perpetual bracing up; and many a poor fourth classman wished that
+his grey trousers had no side seam which could serve as a landmark to
+his weary thumbs: for in those days "finning out" was in full force.
+
+But indeed it was sometimes hard to take even what the law allowed.
+
+A strict order had been published that no cadet should ask a pleb to
+perform any menial service, but when Corporal Main remarked, "Mr.
+Stone, there are some very dusty shoes in my tent,"--no more was
+needed. Stone was just come in from drill, and ached in every inch; but
+he went at the shoes, and cleaned and rubbed and polished for dear
+life, while Corporal Main strolled off with Miss Flyaway, and told her
+the story.
+
+Again, another humane order was read out one day in the Mess Hall, to
+the effect that in that place of supposed relaxation plebs need not
+"brace," but might sit and stand "at will." But the minute the reader's
+back was turned Cadet Prank drawled out:
+
+"Boys, hadn't you all a great deal _rather_ brace up?"
+
+And so many hurriedly answered, "Yes, sir!" that the contrary noes were
+never counted.
+
+That was the way of it; and by dint of being laughed at and pointed
+at; drilled, straightened, pulled into shape, and called "beasts," the
+fourth classmen began to feel as if in truth the name fitted. They
+huddled together in corners, talked in whispers, and told endless
+stories of home.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+CAMP HARD
+
+ _Marcus Antonius._ Cæsar dear, is there no way this troubling my
+ dear little plebeian sentinels can be stopped?
+
+ _Cæsar._ There probably is, but we have not found it yet.
+
+  --_Colour Line Tragedy of 1890._
+
+
+Nor yet. And so, year by year, for a time, the new fourth classmen
+worked out pretty fairly Lowell's lines:
+
+    "Mis'ble as roosters in a rain,
+    Heads down, and tails half-mast."
+
+Magnus Kindred was speeding along through camp one morning, thinking of
+home, when he was hailed by an upper classman.
+
+"See here, beast, what's your name?"
+
+Magnus made answer, with what composure of face and voice he could call
+up at such short notice.
+
+"Where did you come from?" And again the reply came with fair coolness.
+
+"Got so few men out there, they give 'em long names to stretch out and
+cover the country. Who was your pred.?"
+
+"Mr. Dunn, sir. He resigned, sir."
+
+"Good example for you to follow in November," said Mr. Seaton, "but
+you've got to be taken care of in the mean time. Wipe that smile off,
+sir! What's your technical name?"
+
+"Haven't got any, sir."
+
+"Well, if anyone asks you that again, tell 'em it's Lorenzo Monkey,"
+said Seaton, and walked away.
+
+Magnus shook his fist at him (mentally), but what can a pleb do? And
+so to the next inquirer he answered (pretty ungraciously, it must be
+owned):
+
+"Somebody said it was Lorenzo Monkey, sir."
+
+"Can't have a monkey without a tail," said Mr. Danby. "Now remember,
+beast, you are technically called: 'Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not
+fame.' Take your eyes off me, sir!"
+
+Well, the tail grew--naturally; and every time the name was called for,
+to amuse one man or a dozen, somebody would add on a word, and then
+Magnus was bid to rattle the whole thing off, amid shouts of laughter.
+He was required also to write out his technical name in full, and hand
+the paper in under the guise of an official document: a half sheet of
+paper duly folded, and inscribed as follows:
+
+  Camp Hard,
+  West Point, N. Y.,
+  July --, 18--.
+
+  Kindred, C,
+
+  Cadet Private. Co. "A." 4th Class.
+
+  Subscribed Copy of
+  "Technical Name."
+
+Within, it ran thus:
+
+  Camp Hard,
+  West Point, N. Y.,
+  July --, 18--.
+
+  To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple. (Through the proper channels.)
+
+ _Sir_: I have the honour to submit the following,--my technical
+ name for the summer encampment, U. S. M. A. To wit:
+
+ I am Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not fame. It is tame: it
+ is lame: it is shame: it is blame: it is game. Yet I claim, a
+ Colonial dame was my flame, when I came. Same at same.
+
+  Very respectfully,
+  Your obedient servant,
+  Charlemagne Kindred,
+  Cadet Private, Co. "A." Fourth Class.
+
+  To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple,
+  Commanding Battalion of Crabs.
+
+Magnus chafed at all this stuff; growled over it, almost resisted; and
+yet it was wise to pass things by as quietly as he could. All the same,
+his feeling towards some of the upper classmen was getting to be a very
+fixed fact, indeed.
+
+Mr. Prank, for instance, was much given to hops,--also to prinking
+for the same: and it was in his heart to combine all the good things
+he could, and "crawling" plebs came in among the rest. So on hop
+nights, after supper, when Mr. Prank was shaving, dressing, and vainly
+endeavouring to curl his short hair, Magnus Kindred was frequently
+detailed as valet. The work being to follow Mr. Prank about the tent
+and fan him during these fatigues, and also to soothe and attune his
+feelings by singing "Annie Laurie" or some other lovelorn ditty. How
+Magnus did hate it!--and how he did secretly vow vengeance, if ever he
+himself should have half a chance with Mr. Prank's best girl! But then!
+Mr. Prank had a relay of "best girls," and could spare one or two just
+as well as not.
+
+On the other hand, the two men who "tented" with Magnus thought he had
+an easy time.
+
+"If you had to black Mr. Mean's shoes!" said Randolph.
+
+"Or clear up after old Seaton," said Rig.
+
+Rig's technical name taxed all his powers of memory and patience. It
+began:
+
+"I am the distilled quintessence of stuff, the double-dyed result of
+being dipped in the Styx,"--and so on, _ad infinitum_, and to Rig,
+certainly, _ad nauseam_.
+
+Homesickness had broken loose in the fourth class, of late, and become
+epidemic. These boys were but boys, and the manliest of them all
+would--many a day--have given up his hopes of being a brigadier just
+to lay his head down on his mother's apron, and have her pet him and
+comfort him, and make him feel that he was not a "beast."
+
+"But she'd not find any hair to stroke, now," said Magnus Kindred, in
+one of these spasms. And then he caught hold of himself again, set his
+teeth in his favourite fashion, and announced to himself that he meant
+to be adjutant.
+
+"And I'll not look like you, either," he went on, apostrophising Mr.
+Larkin, who just then came strolling by between two admiring girls,
+turning from one to the other with much the air of the exquisite who
+said:
+
+"Really, now, you know--won't somebody come and share me?"
+
+The young adjutant's buttons were very bright, and his waist was very
+small; and the red and white (brown) of his complexion left nothing
+to be desired. If he had been a girl, you might have called his walk
+"willowy," but I know not the masculine of that. And the barber had
+plainly been open to persuasion in his case, and had left almost a
+lovelock or two on the tall head.
+
+Magnus Kindred watched the party go by, but they did not see him. In
+one of the rocky, shady nooks on Flirtation, where the green leaves
+rustle and the river whispers softly to the shore, there he had hidden
+himself away with his sweet and bitter fancies. Hard, literal facts
+they were just then, for Magnus.
+
+The footsteps died away, and more came, quicker and brisker than the
+first; and two cadets went by his hiding place. Then another with his
+best girl (for the time being); and Magnus watched them all. As the
+silence fell again a wood thrush in the shadows behind him rang its
+liquid chime.
+
+Then a tall cadet with chevrons, and the dainty air and manner which
+had earned him the soubriquet of "Gentleman Joe," passed slowly by with
+his mother on his arm; he bending down to her, and she looking up to
+him, while a little white fidget of ten years old flitted about the two.
+
+But when these were out of sight, then Magnus Kindred threw himself
+face down among the moss and ferns, and gave no further heed to outside
+things.
+
+"Oh, mother!--and Cherry, and Violet, and Rose--and home!" It was very
+bitter for a while. And when at last, in answer to a distant drum-call,
+Magnus roused himself, and got on his feet, he knew that he hated that
+drum, and all it betokened, just as hard as he could.
+
+Gentler thoughts came, as he mounted the hill. The clear notes of
+the thrushes were all around him, but in their grave sweetness there
+were no faltering tones; and while it pierced the boy's heart it
+strengthened it, too. Yes, one day _he_ would be the tall man with
+chevrons, leading his mother along Flirtation; and she should be as
+proud of him as Mrs. Gresham was of her son. And, instead of that child
+in white, there would be--but here the drum became imperative, and
+Magnus stowed away all the rest of his thoughts, and double-timed every
+remaining step up to Camp Hard.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+BAND CONCERT
+
+   I cannot bear it any longer, said the pewter soldier as he sat on the
+   drawers; it is so lonely and melancholy here.
+
+   --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+It was the evening for band concert at the camp: a warm first of
+August. A red glow lingered over Crownest, the stars came out slowly,
+hazy with the heat; the katydids were publishing their arrival in the
+usual contradictory way. As the twilight deepened, the camp began to
+light up, and in front of the colour-line one especial burner shone
+full upon the concert programme, which was posted on a stick. Beyond
+this a small circle of lights marked the standing place of the band.
+
+Cadets were everywhere--half in a tent, or half out; walking,
+sauntering, standing, in twos and threes and half-dozens; some down on
+the grass where the lights shone full, and some hid away in the shadows
+towards Fort Clinton.
+
+Other figures were coming up, too, and dresses of every hue flitted
+across the plain. The dew lay sweet and fresh upon every grass-blade,
+but then the grass was short, and nobody minded dew when going to band
+concert.
+
+Often some grey uniform was escorting some dainty lady: these
+coming straight from the houses, and those others pausing, after a
+delightful tryst at Trophy Point, or a saunter along the upper bends of
+Flirtation. For, in those days, the concert night limits were--so far
+as you could hear and distinguish the music.
+
+The plebs kept together, and away from the gay throng; unless where
+some especially happy boy had a cousin on hand. But a great event
+had marked that day in Camp Hard; for the obnoxious "grey bags" had
+disappeared, giving place to the full uniform, bell buttons and all
+complete; and at last the plebs looked like cadets.
+
+Magnus Kindred had been as jubilant as anyone over the change, and
+nobody had given a heartier parting kick to the grey bag. But "a
+competency is what a man has, and a little more"--and so, then, the
+young man wanted someone to look at him. How his mother and sisters
+would have stroked the sleeve of that wonderful dress coat, and admired
+the buttons: how they would have studied out every turn of braid and
+quirl of adornment. And Cherry--no, they were not her little hands
+he seemed to feel on his arm: her hands were just folded in their
+pretty way, and she stood a few steps off, laughing at the others,
+and secretly admiring him. She never said so, but what innocent,
+true-hearted girl can quite keep it out of her eyes, when her hero
+stands before her? Or, if the eyes sometimes grew shy and turned away,
+the lips laughed, and told it still.
+
+"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus said, almost aloud, his own lips parting
+in a smile at the sweet vision. But then they closed again firmer than
+ever. Two thousand miles away (it seemed five thousand to Magnus), and
+two whole years before he could go there. And a weary sigh measured off
+both time and space, and found them endless.
+
+"Joseph," whispered Mrs. Gresham to her son (they were just opposite
+Magnus), "who is that boy?"
+
+"Kindred--fourth class."
+
+"He looks like a first-class fellow," said Mrs. Gresham, watching him,
+as he suddenly moved off and joined the grey circle around the band.
+"What a fine face he has! I noticed him yesterday before parade."
+
+"Good fellow enough," assented Mr. Gresham, who was just then
+"noticing" the arrival of Miss Saucy. "But he's so awfully homesick.
+Blue as Cat's eyes."
+
+"Well, you're not obliged to call me 'Cat,' sir, if you _are_ a
+captain," said the little girl, trying hard to make a pinch tell
+through the thick cadet cloth. "He's the one that was up among the
+rocks, Aunt Effie. I told you, and you wouldn't look."
+
+"Certainly not," said Mrs. Gresham. "Never try to see anybody who does
+not wish to be seen, Catty."
+
+Miss Catty pouted.
+
+"I knew he was a cadet," she said, "for I saw the bell buttons. And I
+thought cadets _always_ want to be looked at. They act so."
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the group that had gathered round
+Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"Oh, what a pity she's not a little older!" cried Miss Flyaway. "Your
+mainstay ought not to graduate for six years to come, Mrs. Gresham,
+that Catty might be up to the situation. But then, we poor damsels
+would have lost him. So it's best as it is. Things are generally best
+as they are."
+
+"Some few things might be improved," said Mrs. Gresham quietly.
+"Joseph, I wish you would bring up Mr. Kindred, and introduce him."
+
+"Now, ma'am?"
+
+"Yes, now. We can spare you so long as that."
+
+"Oh, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Miss Flirt, making a profound
+courtesy; while Miss Flyaway called after him: "Don't hurry yourself,
+we'll wait."
+
+"Tell him you wouldn't go away for _anything_," said the irrepressible
+Catty.
+
+"You saucy monkey!" said Miss Flirt. "You ought to be in bed and
+asleep."
+
+"I don't believe you were, at my age," said Catty, with better logic
+than she knew.
+
+"Hush, Catty!" said her aunt. "Mr. Carr, who is that officer talking
+with Mrs. Seaton?"
+
+"The arch-fiend, _we_ call him," said Carr, with a laugh. "He's the
+professor of confusion worse confounded, Mrs. Gresham. Do you want him
+brought up, too?"
+
+"Thank you, no: here comes Joseph. How do you do, Mr. Kindred?" And
+Mrs. Gresham gave Magnus a warm clasp of the hand that went to his
+heart.
+
+"Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for Magnus. "I suppose
+you enjoy these concerts very much?"
+
+"Sometimes," Magnus answered her. "They make a change."
+
+"Why don't you go to the hops, if you want a change?" said Catty,
+leaning her elbows on her aunt's lap, and gazing up at the new
+acquaintance. Magnus laughed in spite of himself.
+
+"How do you know but I do?" he said.
+
+"I never see you there when I go," said Catty.
+
+"I'll tell you, child," said Miss Flirt, coming to the rescue. "Mr.
+Kindred never goes to the hops in the hop room, because at this time of
+year he has no end of hops outdoors."
+
+Catty looked mystified.
+
+"I'm not talking to you," she said, turning her back. "But I never met
+you out walking either, Mr. Kindred. Don't you ever walk with anybody
+but your best girl? I never do, when my special cadet's on guard."
+
+Amid the little hubbub which this called forth, Mrs. Gresham rose up.
+
+"If you will give me your arm, Mr. Kindred," she said, "I should like
+to walk round the camp. The lights and shades show so differently from
+different points; it is pleasant to watch them. I have been in Europe
+for three years, and West Point is new to me. What is the band playing
+now?"
+
+"I'm not sure, ma'am. One of Moore's melodies comes next."
+
+"How lovely the shadows are! I used to be quite a painter in my young
+days," said Mrs. Gresham as they strolled along. "Is that one of your
+studies?"
+
+"Not this year, ma'am. Indeed we have no real studies 'in camp.'"
+
+"But still many things that deserve the name: I understand. What do you
+call the hardest thing you have to do?"
+
+"Sometimes, 'study to be quiet,'" said Magnus, with a look and tone at
+once so playful and so full of feeling that Mrs. Gresham opened her
+heart, and took him right in.
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can well believe it. And I am glad you have
+Bible words at hand for your hard places."
+
+"Do you care about them?" said Magnus quickly. "I thought nobody did,
+here."
+
+"About Bible words? Oh, yes they do!" said Mrs. Gresham, with her
+gentle smile. "You do not know many people here yet, Mr. Kindred."
+
+"And I am not likely to, very soon," said Magnus. "But I spoke too
+quick. Yes, I know there are some right here in the Corps who care.
+There's Mr. Upright of the first class. I do not believe he ever misses
+a chance of doing the out-and-out thing for a Christian to do. And Mr.
+True of the third, he's another. Oh, there are a lot among us that know
+enough--if we only hold out," he added soberly.
+
+Mrs. Gresham had listened for her son's name, but it did not come. He,
+too, "knew enough," but alas! only that very morning when he came in
+from drill, Magnus had heard him curse his horse, and the instructor,
+and the whole concern, in terms that would have wrung the gentle
+mother's heart. The girls did not know, as they hung upon his arm; the
+officers did not guess, seeing only the straight military figure and
+good face: only God knew, and the fellow-students to whom Gresham was
+setting his example. The mother felt the omission, sighed, waited, and
+sighed again; then silently locked up her fears and her disappointment.
+
+"But you _must_ hold out, Mr. Kindred," she said. "If you are a
+professing Christian, you have sworn it."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Magnus answered soberly, "and I mean it, too. But there
+are harder times here than you can guess."
+
+"It is the pinch that shows what a man is," said Mrs. Gresham. "If you
+must run, run before the firing begins."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"I'll remember," he said.
+
+"But remember, too," said Mrs. Gresham, "that here as everywhere else:
+on the Hill Difficulty of West Point, no less than among the Delectable
+Mountains at home, you are to be a witness for Christ."
+
+"Yes, ma'am--you would think so," said Magnus excitedly, "and so mother
+thinks. But how are you going to do anything _here_? Religion don't
+count, in this old camp."
+
+"Religion may come in and stay, even where she is not fêted and
+caressed," said Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"That is true enough," said the boy, colouring. "All the same, you
+can't guess, as I said, what a hard time she has. And now guard duty
+begins; and it'll be drill and walk post, walk post and drill, night
+and day. Your shoulders poked in, and your feet kicked out. Skinned if
+you don't skin somebody else, and nearly skinned actually if you do.
+Told forty things a day that you don't understand, and then given extra
+tours _because_ you don't. That's what they say. Why, there are six
+hundred and sixty-eight separate regulations that we are supposed to
+keep!"
+
+"Six hundred and sixty-eight!" said Mrs. Gresham. "Well, it must take a
+very lively imagination to 'suppose' that three hundred boys will keep
+six hundred and sixty-eight regulations."
+
+"They know we can't do it," said Magnus hotly. "But we're bid to, all
+the same. And they punish us if we don't."
+
+"Good-evening, Mrs. Gresham," said another voice, and Cadet Main (alias
+Mean) came up and shook hands. "What work of charity have you in tow
+now?"
+
+"Mr. Kindred has been telling me about the many regulations," said Mrs.
+Gresham.
+
+"Oh, regulations!" said Main. "Yes, there's quite a little many of 'em.
+Keeps a fellow busy to break 'em all; but some of us max it, every
+time."
+
+"Break them? You mean 'keep them,'" said Mrs. Gresham.
+
+"No I don't--not I!" said Main, laughing. "You'd better believe I
+don't. Why, the only fun I have in life is breaking regulations."
+
+"Breaking them?" repeated Mrs. Gresham, looking bewildered. "But you
+will get yourself into trouble, so, Mr. Main."
+
+"Will, shall, have, and expect to," said Main. "I'm bound to get some
+fun out of this old prison."
+
+"Suppose the walls open, rather suddenly, and let you out."
+
+"Make my best bow, and go. It'll be a great loss to the service. But
+you should talk to Lorenzo here, Mrs. Gresham; he's played good boy
+ever since he came. Regular pet of the Com.'s, he is. Why, he won't
+even help carry off Sammy from the Mess Hall."
+
+"And pray how comes 'Sammy,' as you call him, to need carrying off?"
+demanded Mrs. Gresham severely. But that brought such a chorus of
+laughter from the whole group of cadets (several more had gathered
+round), that Mrs. Gresham let her question drop.
+
+"We'll run it up to the hotel some day, and present him, Mrs. Gresham,"
+said Main.
+
+"If you 'run it'--to anywhere I am, I'll not see you," said the lady.
+
+"Why, you _can't_ keep all the regulations," said Devlin. "Not if you
+did your level best. You just _have_ to break them."
+
+"Then what is it all for--this Blue Book you tell of?"
+
+"Light reading for the Academic Board," suggested Mr. Sharpless.
+
+"Skinning made easy," said Main. "Every new Tac makes a new rule and
+tacks it on. They'll bring it up to a thousand presently."
+
+They had made the circuit of the camp, and now came round once more to
+the open space before the lights, with its shadowy border where the
+motley groups paused, moved on, went in and out. The camp points of
+flame flickered, and peered into the dusk; contesting now with a nobler
+light their right of search. For in the east the moon was rising;
+lifting her fair face above the hilltops, and pouring a flood of summer
+glory over river and plain.
+
+"Just so she will be rising at home," Magnus thought. "With the girls
+all sitting on the steps, and mother in her rocking chair in the porch."
+
+It is well for the homesick cadet that his surroundings are so fine,
+beguiling him with their beauty; but it is also a good thing that he
+never can do much "mooning" at once. Before Magnus had got to the
+middle of his third sigh came the sharp voice of the drum, calling him
+to order. And yet "sharp" is hardly the word; only neglected duty takes
+on that tone, but the drum-call was brisk, imperative, unmistakable.
+Yet fine, as well, and stirring; as duty attended to always is.
+
+It was pretty to see the grey and white figures coming out from the
+dusky shadows among the trees, and crossing to the tents. Some at a
+quick run, others slowly, as under protest: here and there one very
+lingeringly, with many a backward look and farewell word, to some
+white-robed vision that shewed angelic in the uncertain light.
+
+Meanwhile, the racket of drum and fife filled all the air, rattling up
+and down the company streets. The crowd scattered, the band tramped
+off; and still here and there a tardy cadet came hurrying in, but only
+in time to get a cold "late" or "absence."
+
+"Oh, it _is_ such fun to make them run!" said one fair creature
+delightedly. "I just kept Mr. Dunkirk fooling along after the first
+drum; and there he goes, for all he is worth."
+
+"Too late?" queried a quiet lady in a dark dress.
+
+"Not too late to get to bed," said Miss Saucy. "They won't make him
+walk post to-night, poor boy. But he'll be on the black list to-morrow."
+
+"Then you won't have him to walk with on Saturday," said another girl.
+
+"Have somebody else, _ma chère_. One gets tired of the same man too
+often. If I didn't trip him up now and then I should die of a surfeit
+of honey, and never have a chance at treacle and lumps of sugar."
+
+"But do you mean to say," said the lady in black, "do you really mean
+to say that you get these young men into difficulty _wilfully_? That
+_you_ are responsible for their being late?"
+
+"Well, I do everything wilfully," said the girl--"and I am never
+responsible for anything. So I don't know how you'll fix it."
+
+"I shall tell the Commandant to-morrow!" said the lady excitedly.
+
+"No good." said the girl. "He can't skin me--and he _will_ skin him.
+It don't hurt much: _he_ don't care. Says he don't."
+
+"He ought to care!"
+
+"Very likely he ought," said Miss Saucy. "Oh, he's not absolute
+perfection--won't be canonised till he's dead, I dare say."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ON GUARD
+
+    Twelve small strokes on the tinkling bell;
+    Midnight comes, and all is well!
+
+    --_Culprit Fay._
+
+
+Yes, with the new uniform came also new work, as Magnus had been
+warned. Guard duty put in its claim, and the plebs were promoted to
+walk post, and to learn what upper classmen could do to make that duty
+unpleasant. "Jumping plebs" went on with variations. "Crawling" seems
+to be the favourite word now, but probably the thing itself is not much
+slower than it was of yore.
+
+The first night on guard was a never-to-be-forgotten thing to Magnus
+Kindred.
+
+It was a quiet night enough, so far as disturbances went, for this
+time the tide of mischief seemed to set in some other direction. But
+that only left the power of the night itself unchecked. So still, so
+solemn, so sweet, and yet with such a bitter flavour. Strange beyond
+description, and beautiful past all telling.
+
+Charlemagne had gone on with the second relief, tattoo had beat, and
+taps had said its closing word; and now all private lights were out.
+The day had been hot, but the night came down dewy and cool; and the
+full summer moon was slowly flooding the world with glory, and lining
+out everything in clear black and white.
+
+Every tent wall was raised to let in the air. The prostrate men on the
+floors were as still as the white canvas above their heads. Sleeping
+off drills and difficulties here, and there plotting and planning; or
+perhaps gazing out into the night with wide-open, homesick eyes.
+
+A faint breath stirred the trees around Camp Hard; from across the
+plain one could just catch the sound of slow footsteps, where the
+enlisted sentry paced up and down the Officers' Row. Far below, on the
+river, boats went and came: a sloop, dreaming noiselessly along on the
+incoming tide; or two steamers, signalling before they met. You could
+hear the dash of the swell upon the shore, and the panting breath of
+the fierce little tugs, with the more stately beat of the paddles of a
+side-wheeler. Over all, the moon rode high and clear.
+
+And, for this night, the Western pleb was unmolested. Not a stray ghost
+crossed his beat. Up and down, up and down, in company with his shadow,
+the slow, measured step leaving his thoughts free: and they had all
+gone home. And so it was, that by degrees Magnus Kindred fell into one
+of his desperate fits of lonely homesickness, ready to fire off his
+musket, or do any lawless thing, if only so he might be arrested and
+dismissed to freedom, mother, and the girls. And on post you cannot
+throw your arms into the air and yourself down on the ground; not get
+even the smallest bit of any such slight relief.
+
+As Magnus turned on his beat, pacing now towards the western hills, the
+exceeding beauty of the bit of star-spangled sky to the north was full
+in view. The Great Bear and his associates held on their shining way,
+despite the moon, calm, high, lifted above all of earth's tears and
+turmoils. What was that his mother used to sing?
+
+    "Ye stars are but the shining dust
+      Of my divine abode;
+    The pavement of those heavenly courts
+      Where I shall see my God."
+
+Magnus remembered with another of his sharp twinges.
+
+"All right for her!" he thought, pacing back again to meet the moon,
+"all right for them all! But the folks that tread those pavements have
+gotten the victory."
+
+"I do not think, myself," Cadet Kindred went on candidly, eyeing the
+stars once more, "that I am fighting for it hard enough to hurt, just
+at present. 'Gotten the victory,'" he repeated to himself, "won it, and
+kept it."
+
+The dear folks at home might not even be thinking of him, just then;
+they were doubtless all peacefully asleep, each having laid down her
+heart's desire at the feet of Him "that keepeth Israel," so leaving the
+far-off young sentinel in His tender care. But Magnus knew, almost as
+if he had heard them, the prayers sent up for him that night.
+
+A sharp, resonant cry brought him suddenly back to Camp Hard and duty.
+From the post in front of the camp the sentinel gave the hour.
+
+"Number One! Half-past ten o'clock and all's--well!"
+
+Then it came to Magnus.
+
+Now the guard had been admonished, that very day, not to mumble the
+words, but to give each its full value, clear and strong. But this
+first man was sleepy, or lazy, and gave small heed to the order. His
+"All's well!" was loud enough, but seemed rather a matter of hope than
+of certainty.
+
+I am not sure that Magnus even supposed that he himself was working out
+the spirit of the order, but he was homesick and disheartened, as well
+as ignorant of military affairs; and with that a little bit reckless,
+and ready to do anything for a change. What did it matter, anyhow? And
+so, as it came to his turn, he shouted forth the call at the top of his
+voice, and to the closing notes of the retreat bugle call at parade.
+
+[Music: Num-ber two: Half-past ten o'-clock, and all is ... well!]
+
+And half the camp heard it.
+
+Of course there was a stir, and Magnus was reported for "calling the
+hour in an improper manner." But he went scot-free, after all, by
+reason, doubtless, of his short acquaintance with guard duty.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+_OFF_ GUARD
+
+    Are you shining for Jesus loyally,
+      Shining just anywhere;
+    Not only in easy places,
+      Not only just here and there?
+
+    --F. R. HAVERGAL.
+
+In such fashion days and weeks rolled by; as time-wheels will, over
+the roughest ground, and through the most uninteresting country. For
+without doubt, drills can become monotonous; and if the body yielded
+itself more and more easily to regulations, as the time went on, so did
+not always the mind.
+
+At first, in the strangeness of everything, details went for less, but
+now that he no longer wore the grey bag, to have his toes still kicked
+out set his blood tingling. He was so well made by nature, that "this
+extra regulation ramrod style," as he spitefully termed it, seemed like
+persecution. For some of the drill masters by no means slackened their
+demands as the need of them grew less.
+
+"Get your shoulders back, Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"_Get_ them back, sir!"
+
+"_Get_ them _back_!"
+
+"He had better take a sledge hammer and pound them in," Magnus declared
+one day.
+
+"You'll be pounded for disrespect," Rig warned him.
+
+"All right; it's a true bill. I don't respect that man, and I never
+shall."
+
+"But officers, you know," suggested Rig.
+
+"Oh, officers!" said Magnus loftily. "What business has he to be an
+officer, with the manners of a boot-black?"
+
+However, as I said, time did wear on; with parades, drills, gymnastics,
+and the rest of it. And in the intervals, when upper classmen walked
+with the pretty girls, and went to teas and picnics, the plebs drew
+together and eyed them from a distance, making many comments, uttering
+many groans; but, most of all, knitting up firm and strong the class
+bond which no after-years could break.
+
+This class bond is a most natural thing among boys who have faced
+hardships side by side; and in a way, it is very fine; but it has its
+danger, too.
+
+The stand taken by each one in the class for and with each other one,
+in those first hard weeks when they feel as if every man's hand was
+against them all, sometimes passes into a "Stand by the class!" which
+cramps the influence, and hinders the action of many an individual man.
+"The class, right or wrong!" is never a safe motto.
+
+One other little event in camp life that summer may be told over here,
+for its after-effect upon Magnus Kindred.
+
+There were two or three men in the pleb class who, by reason of a
+certain offhand brightness of thought and tongue, had more influence
+with the rest than they deserved, for either their principles or their
+brains. Men able to put the wrong thing into such brilliant words,
+that the real meaning was lost sight of in the fun and the glitter.
+And so, in the scarcity of amusements, Magnus fell into the habit of
+lingering where they stood; listening to their sayings, laughing at
+their sallies, and, to a certain degree, following their lead. And, as
+often happens, the light words, the smart speeches which were not true,
+won their way. He began to hearken more readily, and more easily lent
+himself to plans and projects he might better have let alone; getting
+into the swirl of a current not likely to land him on any good and
+fruitful shore.
+
+And then, as birds of a feather are apt to find each other out, some
+men of like tendencies in the first class made common cause, in a way;
+finding an admiring look of any sort quite pleasant, and a pleb a
+convenient catspaw, now and then. They made the musical ones come in
+for a chorus; and under such innocent cover matured their plans, and
+told their stories, to nobody's good.
+
+If one of these wits set forth the fact that "Muffti" was sure to
+lead the prayer-meeting that night, Magnus would perhaps stay in his
+tent, or wander off beyond sound of the hymns, which always pricked
+his conscience and his heart as well. Or if some smart man made fun of
+the preacher who was to fill the chaplain's place during the summer
+vacation, Magnus was careful the next Sunday to practise himself in the
+fine art of sitting bolt upright when fast asleep. He grew to be an
+expert at smuggling in "boodle": he took the loan of books he had much
+better have let alone.
+
+"Come round to my tent after dinner, Mr. Kindred," said Cadet Upright
+one day; and of course Magnus went; then stood attention in the
+straightest sort of way; very much wondering for what unknown breach of
+rules he was to be called to account by the first Captain.
+
+So he stood up to all his inches, just within the tent door, while
+Cadet Captain Upright sat on a camp stool facing him; a stray sunbeam
+working its way in to touch the chevrons, and lighting up the honest,
+sunburnt face. Mr. Upright was no beauty, but not a man in the Corps
+was more thoroughly respected than he. "Not much to look at," said Sam
+Weller of his hat, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear!"
+
+"Mr. Kindred," began Upright, "I asked you to come, because I wanted to
+talk to you."
+
+He paused, and Magnus responded, "Yes, sir."
+
+"You are in danger," Upright went on. "You are taking risks no wise man
+will shoulder."
+
+"What have I done, sir?" Magnus demanded, stiffening slightly.
+
+"Nothing special, to my knowledge," said the first captain, "But I see
+you in slippery places, where sooner or later a man must go down. And
+the mud often sticks for a good while to come, even after--and even
+if--he picks himself up and gets away."
+
+"I don't see, sir," Magnus began--"what risks are you talking of, Mr.
+Upright?"
+
+"The risk of being false to yourself, and to your Christian pledge
+and name; the risk of (practically) forgetting your mother and your
+mother's words."
+
+But now Magnus burst forth.
+
+"Forgetting my mother!" he said. Then checking himself:
+
+"Oh, well, sir, that proves you never saw her, Mr. Upright."
+
+Upright laughed, and his eyes shone.
+
+"Good for you!" he said heartily. "But, Mr. Kindred, you are training
+with the wrong crowd."
+
+And now Magnus coloured, and his eyes went down. Upright watched him
+for a moment in silence; then he took up a slip of paper, and held it
+out.
+
+"Here is a reminding text I wrote off for you," he said. "Take it with
+you up and down the post. 'He setteth a print on the heels of my feet.'
+That will do, sir," and Magnus saluted, and whirled away.
+
+"Might be the Com. himself, for the style he talks!" he grumbled, under
+his breath. But all the same, the words sank in. They were too true to
+miss a hearing, on the one side, and had been too kindly spoken to
+lose it, on the other. Yes, he was training with the wrong crowd, there
+was no doubt of that.
+
+Magnus winced under the confession. There was no one he so little liked
+to find fault with as himself, and to court-martial Cadet Kindred, on
+his own knowledge and belief, was extremely unpleasant.
+
+But the finding of the Court is rarely severe in such cases; and Magnus
+presently let himself off with a few admonitions to be more careful. He
+went to prayer-meeting regularly, boned discipline a little, and kept
+away from that crowd (what he called) "all he could."
+
+Then they broke camp, and marched into barracks, and that was a help,
+for work began at a rate that left scant time for lawless play. Magnus
+Kindred had studied before, studied hard, but never with the exactness
+of drill and discipline and pressure that now filled every day.
+Breakfast, recitation, study, dinner, study, recitation, drill; then
+dress parade, supper, and study. Some of the plebs resigned and went
+home, others talked gloomily of being "found" in January; before which
+wintry fear homesickness itself gave way. And again others drew the
+buckles of their armour tight, looked well to their stirrups, and went
+at the difficulties, lance in rest.
+
+[Illustration: THE BARRACKS IN WINTER]
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A BLUE CHRISTMAS
+
+    No age, no race, no single soul,
+    By lofty tumbling wins the goal.
+    The steady pace it keeps between;
+    The little points it makes unseen;
+    By these, achieved in gathering might,
+    It moveth on, and out of sight:
+    And wins, through all that's overpast,
+    The city of its hopes at last.
+
+    --MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+Of these true knights Charlemagne Kindred was one. Lessons, problems,
+questions, went down before his fierce assault. He had never enjoyed
+being headed off in what he chose to do; and had pledged it to himself
+that if ever anything did that kind office for him, it should not be
+West Point.
+
+"_You_ stop me?" he would say to some particularly obnoxious book.
+"_You_ get in my way?" and probably the hard-headed volume would then
+and there find itself pitched to the furthest corner of the room. But
+after that little expression of opinion, Magnus would pick the book up,
+and bone with all his might. Smith's "Conic Sections" got quite used to
+such short excursions, and Ketel's "French Grammar" grew old before its
+time.
+
+Rig's method was different.
+
+"Kin, I'm growing grey," he said plaintively one morning.
+
+"Grey as a goose."
+
+"No, but really," said Rig, laying down the book. "This thing's too
+hard, you know. Breaks a man all up."
+
+"You'd best stick yourself together again before two o'clock," said
+Magnus.
+
+"No good," said Rig, taking up another study volume from the heap.
+"I'll try this a while. Nobody ought to be expected to learn such
+stuff."
+
+"Put that book down!" Magnus thundered at him, from his own corner.
+
+"Oh, I can put it down easy enough," Rig said rather sulkily. "But I
+can't see what business it is of yours."
+
+"Now fold your hands, and spell zero ten times backwards," said Magnus,
+"and then take your Davies, and go to work. Unless you want to fess
+solid for the rest of your life."
+
+"Well--Say, Kin,--what a good fellow Mr. Upright is."
+
+"Mr. Upright's a cold max. Mind your business."
+
+Pushing and pulling did a good deal for Rig that winter. There was a
+little stir about the holidays, when the happy upper classmen who had
+won their Christmas leave went off for unlimited bliss in a limited
+time, and those who had lost it abused "luck." And there was also the
+mild interest of a better dinner than usual. But to the plebs, for whom
+no getting away was possible, and to whom no Point festivities were
+open, that first Christmas was a thing to live through as best they
+might. I think some of them despised even the dinner, with the flavour
+of their mother's cookery yet lingering and fresh.
+
+How hard it was! "The most miserable day they ever spent," as many a
+one has said since. And the letters and home trifles that arrived in
+the mail-bag were not much help in the line of bracing up. Magnus put
+Cherry's bookmark in his Bible, and his mother's picture up his sleeve;
+while the toilet cushion and cover on which the two girls had bestowed
+so many loving looks, as they wrought out the pretty devices, were hid
+away in his clothes bag; no such decorations being allowed in barracks.
+
+Then he wrote letters to them all, then he tried to study, but who can
+study on a legal holiday?
+
+So at last Cadet Kindred donned his grey fearnaught, wandered
+down among the rocks and snow-drifts on Flirtation, and listened
+to the grinding of the ice cakes in the dark river. The sky, blue
+with an unearthly far-away depth of colour, was pushed back by the
+whitened hills: all nature seemed locked up and unapproachable and
+unsympathising.
+
+    "Those fair blue heavens so distant are,
+    Their very clearness seems to say
+          How far, how far!
+    They lie above man's stormy way."
+
+And Magnus Kindred felt as desperately lonesome as he thought it was in
+the power of man to be.
+
+There were no loiterers now under the "Kissing Rock"; no echoing steps
+within "First-class Cave"; all the old seats and trysting places were
+snow capped and silent. Even the broad folds of the Post flag would
+have been some company, a little cheer to his sad eyes as he once more
+came out upon the plain. But the Post flag was safely folded away;
+and only a wee, wintry looking storm flag, whipped out in many a past
+gale, was abroad to brave the keen-edged airs that stirred round Trophy
+Point. Could anything exceed the dreariness and length of that wretched
+Christmas Day?
+
+Then such cake for tea--though I doubt if Purcell's best would have
+suited Magnus that night. He was glad when the drummers began their
+noisy tattoo, that he might unroll his mattress, go to bed, and forget
+his misery.
+
+New Year's Day was not quite so bad, perhaps because the coming
+examination lent at least a dash of red pepper to the monotony, and the
+first evening of the new year was full of study and talk, questions,
+fears, and surmisings. Blue letters home went off in troops, and many
+a man arranged definitely just what he would do after he was "found,"
+of which last fact he felt sure. With the great hop that graced this
+week, or the gay damsels who graced the hop, the fourth class had
+nothing to do.
+
+It was natural enough that the strain and fatigue of the examination
+should be followed by a certain dislike for work at all. The men who
+were "found" had vanished; the men who had gone up a section were
+quietly in place, while others had as quietly joined "the Immortals,"
+a better name than its popular substitute. And from now on until June,
+things would remain pretty much as they were.
+
+No wonder, then, if the reaction set in strong. Snow blocked the
+favourite cadet walks; permits for skating were cut. No parades, no
+stirring drills, except in the riding-hall, and the plebs had no good
+of them.
+
+Then there were stormy days when even the officers' row was gloomy, and
+things grew very tame indeed. The bent bows ached to spring back, and
+the pent-up steam was ready to blow off in any direction; for mischief
+at least makes a change, and to break regulations and not be found out,
+gave life a certain flavour. It was a pity, but not at all strange.
+
+And so, in some parts of the barracks, license, not liberty, was the
+popular word. The great point of interest by day and by night being how
+to defy the blue book, and not get caught.
+
+The leaders were bright men, some of them; personable, pleasant to talk
+to, fair mathematicians, and capital cooks over the gas-light. Several
+had friends who sent them money, sweets, mince pies, and tobacco: all
+smuggled in by unscrupulous outside hands. And these dainties were
+freely dispensed by the happy owners.
+
+As to the rest, they were light fingered enough for pick-pockets, and
+could abstract and convey to barracks anything--except "Sammy"--from
+the mess-hall table; and I have even been told that this one exception
+lost its place that year.
+
+But so far, you could charge things pretty fairly upon fun, and the
+delightful exercise of skill. If, as was alleged, they carried off two
+pounds of sugar for every lemon they got hold of, still, one must do
+something; and as they said, "the sugar was all paid for out of their
+own allowance."
+
+A much graver thing--perhaps the worst in the whole business--was the
+bribing enlisted men. Some free lances, indeed, were much too fond of
+"chancing" it, to do their frisky deeds by proxy. They fetched for
+themselves what they wanted, with a daring of which I may not tell.
+But others would get the sentry at the gate to pass things in; or a
+bandsman to bring all sorts of contraband goods from the Falls. Other
+people helped, but a mess-hall waiter could only lose his place and run
+away, while the sentinels were in trust.
+
+Now Magnus Kindred had not been so brought up, and the sight and
+hearing of certain things at first made him indignant. But they looked
+lighter coloured the fifteenth time than the first. The memory of Mr.
+Upright's words also faded out, and when springtime came, and days grew
+long and nights were bright, he had fallen back into much the old way,
+and was training with (or training) the wrong crowd. And he was so
+agile and wary that he never got caught, which was perhaps his loss.
+
+"I don't see how you work it, Kin," Rig complained one day. "You do
+everything you have a mind to, and yet even Towser will swear you in
+for sweet cream every time. But as for me, if both my shoe toes aren't
+blacked exactly alike, I'm skinned to a certainty."
+
+I am not sure that Magnus relished the compliment,--one has a choice
+about praise,--but he made no answer, and did not change his too
+successful ways.
+
+And thus that pleb winter did much work for him in more lines than one.
+For you cannot keep hard at hard studies, as he did, without a swift
+and increasing rate of progress; the Hill Difficulty of West Point, as
+Mrs. Gresham had called it, yielded better and better footing, week by
+week. But alas, it is also true that you cannot constantly fling even
+small stones at the law, without that fine pillar of strength's being
+chipped and frayed, and in a sort defaced. Magnus Kindred did not call
+his doings by any such dignified name, but all the same, freedom and
+lawlessness were getting very much mixed in his mind. While the right
+of the authorities to command, and his own right to disobey, were in a
+worse tangle still. The wise, dignified, and wholesome rule of "Honour
+to whom honour, fear to whom fear," was much dethroned in those days.
+
+So the course of the days and the drift of the ways went on. Winter
+slid early into spring. Company drills began, and the full tide of
+everything set in, especially walks. Bright parasols appeared on the
+sidewalk, and the old seat at Gee's Point once more received its guests.
+
+A general stir of preparation was in the air; grass was dressed,
+branches trimmed, and rubbish burned. Cleaning house was on hand, and
+dressmakers; and always drills, drills, drills. To the Post in general,
+these signs meant the coming of the Board of Visitors, and all the
+whirl of examination week: but to the cadets, chiefly June.
+
+All that spring, in spite of much work, Magnus Kindred wrote home very
+regularly; long, amusing letters. Telling less of his inner life than
+the hearts at home would have liked; but the strangeness of what he
+said of the outer partly covered this up. And I doubt whether Magnus
+knew how little he told.
+
+Of one thing, however, he was dimly conscious. At first, his mother's
+expressions of trust and hope, given in Bible words or her own, had
+been a comfort and help to him; they seemed to bring her nearer and to
+make him stronger. But of late he had been often inclined to slur over
+those parts of her letters, and to hurry on "to get the news first"--as
+he put it to himself. He never stopped to ask why; and it was again Mr.
+Upright who opened his eyes, and showed him how quietly they had been
+closing and falling asleep.
+
+There are tears as well as smiles, on that fateful day in June. Here is
+a mother, who, having had her son within easy reach for the last four
+years, knows that now, after the short graduation leave, he will be
+whirled away beyond her ken. To Barrancas, it may be, or Huachuca, or
+Indian Territory. So the mother breaks down and cries visibly.
+
+And here are roommates, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in all
+sorts of hardships, now henceforth, until, they are grey-haired men,
+to live as far apart as this broad country can put them; and it is a
+sobering thought.
+
+Then, this pretty, timid girl, who has ventured her heart on the
+insecure ground of cadet soft speeches; or thought out her wedding
+dress after one particular walk around Flirtation; or tried the class
+ring on one of her own slender fingers, without being asked to keep it
+there.
+
+"Oh, it is too dreadful!" she cries, stamping her little foot, and with
+the tears all ready, when that heartless band fall off into "The Girl I
+Left Behind Me." "I can _not_ see what they find in that old tune."
+
+It goes hard with her, sometimes, poor child, in matter of health.
+
+And sometimes a like hope is laid down with the grey, and the
+blue must seek another charmer; and earth is--henceforth and
+comparatively--a desert. All sorts of things happen at graduation; and
+when you hear an eager, "You will be sure to come back in August," it
+does not follow that he will, or that she will wait for him if he does.
+
+But there was no shallow sentiment about Mr. Upright. On the day of his
+graduation, the young first captain, having put off his cadet honours
+and come out in plain "cits," went down to the mess-hall dinner to look
+round the old place once more, and to speak farewell words to his own
+company and the Corps. Magnus Kindred caught his eye and smile, and
+started a yell for Mr. Upright, which quite cut short that young man's
+power to say much; but every word had the resonance of true metal.
+
+"'Quit you like men! be strong.' 'Strong in the Lord, and in the power
+of his might,'" he said; vainly trying to shake all the hands held out
+to him. But if the tones faltered, the meaning was full strung, and
+Magnus once more opened his eyes, and looked at himself and his doings.
+And the more he looked, the less he liked it.
+
+It was a good day for feeling blue. The sudden quiet, the cut-down
+numbers; envy of the furlough men, and to a degree, of the graduates,
+made men restless and dull. No drill, no parade, and not even "a plank"
+left of the Board of Visitors. Not even many girls to look at; for half
+the Post, and three-tenths of the visitors, had sailed away with the
+gay throng on the down boat, and candidates swarmed everywhere.
+
+Magnus Kindred strolled off by himself to the river edge, sat down and
+looked himself over.
+
+"Absolutely getting used to things!" he confided to his favourite oaks
+and cedars. And then he began to see what was the character of those
+things. Of course, a boy could not grow up anywhere, alas! in this
+poor world, and not now and then hear men swear; but oaths from his
+_comrades_ had at first shocked him exceedingly. There was one man, for
+instance, who for a low mark in the section room, a bad ride, a rainy
+Saturday, would have his mouth so full of cursing that it seemed hard
+to get it all out. He lived near Magnus; and many a time had the boy
+secretly stopped his ears to shut out the terrible words. Rig said the
+air was "blue" with them.
+
+But quick and keen it came to Magnus now, that he had long ceased to
+take any such precautions. Ah! only last night, after the reading of
+the black list, he had wondered idly to himself, whether Carr would
+find something new to say.
+
+Some hot, unwonted tears sprang up at that, with some very pricking
+thoughts of the four pure hearts at home keeping watch for him. And the
+thoughts grew and piled up, and sharpened their edges.
+
+I should have said that when the new cadet officers were read out on
+Graduation Day, Magnus found himself promoted to the rank of corporal.
+Soon after this the Corps went into camp.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+CAMP GOLIGHTLY
+
+    As 'twixt the silences, now far, now nigh,
+    Rings the sharp challenge, hums the low reply.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+Yearling Camp was wonderfully unlike the dreary pleb camp of a year
+ago. The special hazers, drill masters, and tormentors of last year
+were gone away on furlough, or gone for good, and there was a new first
+class to take the lead. And if everyone was sorry to lose Mr. Upright,
+"many a dry eye followed" Mr. Devlin and Mr. Prank.
+
+Now the yearlings threw off their reserve, came out of hiding, and were
+introduced to the ladies. Some wore chevrons, some were drill masters,
+some frequented the hops, and almost all of them learned to play the
+cavalier and to win fair companions for walks before breakfast and
+after drill; for band practice, for band concert, and the delightful
+wanderings on O. G. P. The long winter months of work were in the dim
+distance, the next big milestone was marked furlough, and at hand were
+summer and the summer girl. Sisters came, and cousins; introductions
+were many, flirtations not a few.
+
+"It's the most delicious place!" cried Nina Dangleum one day. "You are
+always falling in love, and it never comes to anything."
+
+It was not to be supposed that amid such breezes Magnus Kindred could
+keep himself unfanned. To give him his due, he had no particular taste
+for flirting, and did not often mean it; he was too earnest a fellow to
+like half-way measures, or to go into anything only skin-deep. And I
+think his own blessed cluster of womankind at home had set the standard
+too high for him to enjoy drawing a girl on to be silly, even if it
+was amusing to see. He had also not much taste for talking unmitigated
+stuff, or much knack at doing it, and at this time of his existence
+would have nearly endorsed Mr. Weller's words:
+
+"Wot's the use o' calling a young 'ooman a Wenus? Just as well call her
+a griffin, or a king's arms."
+
+But the gales that stirred about West Point just then were very
+perfume-laden; and almost any woman might seem like an angel, when you
+first come out of the double shadow of pleb year and barracks, where
+tactical officers were your chief glimpses of the outside world.
+
+The soft, "Mr. Kindred, I saw you coming clear across the plain,"
+smoothed down very pleasantly the plumage which had been so roughly
+stroked the wrong way. The "Tac" might have reported those very bell
+buttons that very day as in need of rubbing up; but if Miss Flyaway
+could see them as soon as the man left camp, you perceive it took off
+the effect.
+
+In matters of discipline, however, and of military precision Magnus
+was, on the whole, a careful fellow (Rig spelled it "lucky"), and so
+when other men had their freedom tied up, he was often detailed to walk
+with the friend or the cousin and give her "a good time." Thus he came
+in for rather more than his share of sweets.
+
+It was charming to wander almost anywhere in those fair days, and well
+nigh as good to lie in the shadow of the trees about Fort Clinton, with
+a book or without. The "without" was Rig's style.
+
+"Kin--I'm no end comfortable!" he declared one day, lying back on the
+green with his arms above his head.
+
+"Same at same," responded Magnus, from behind his home newspaper. Rig
+suddenly sat up.
+
+"Say, Kin, I want to go to artillery drill to-morrow night as chief of
+caissons."
+
+"All right. If you're detailed for guard, shall I take the girl?"
+
+"Steady!"
+
+But after all, so it fell out; and when the Band concert began, Magnus
+escorted Miss Dangleum through the shadows to where the light battery
+guns stood ready, helped her to mount a caisson, and was in close
+attendance till the drum beat. One of these old caissons was quite a
+favourite "box" with the girls.
+
+"Beastly!" Rig declared it all, when he came off guard next day.
+
+"I saw him having the spooniest sort of a time," said Randolph
+maliciously. "Chappy and the Kitten were on the next gun. I say, I'm
+tired walking post. I'm going to bone colours."
+
+"Go in and win," Magnus admonished him.
+
+"Well, you'll see," said Randolph. And to be sure, such a polishing of
+buttons, and rubbing up of arms, as followed were unknown before in
+Randolph's tent. Magnus declared that the buttons made him wink clear
+across A Company Street.
+
+Just at the last possible moment before the critical guard-mounting,
+Randolph rushed in upon his two friends.
+
+"Say, boys, lend me a pair of white trousers. I can't find any of mine
+that are fit to go with my buttons."
+
+"Well, I've only one pair fit to go with mine," said Magnus. "Sorry!
+but they'd be too long for you."
+
+"Rig's will do," said Randolph, making a dash at the pile of trousers.
+"Thanks awfully. My, how they shine!"
+
+[Illustration: THE COLOR GUARD]
+
+Well, they certainly did. Spotless, unwrinkled, as if they, too, had
+been "boning" colours. Randolph marched out on higher heels than
+those prescribed in the regulations, and later on presented himself
+fearlessly as a candidate for honours. And the inspecting officer's
+face seemed to say he had reason; Randolph could see approval in every
+look and gesture. Gloves, buttons, gun were scrutinised; the trousers
+were dazzling and smooth. Then the officer passed round for a back
+view. Hair right length, collar right height above the grey, belt and
+buttons adjusted to a nicety.
+
+"Mr. Randolph," said the cadet adjutant, as he came round in front, "I
+would have given you colours but for those trousers."
+
+And when Randolph got in and scrutinised himself he found that the
+borrowed trousers were deeply frayed at the ankle! After which the
+young man professed himself blue and bored.
+
+"Just my luck," he said. "But I'll get even with him, see if I don't.
+They were only fringed behind."
+
+Two or three days after this, Randolph accosted Magnus.
+
+"Say, Kin, want some fun? Like to see Coxy scared within an inch of his
+life?"
+
+"No sort of objection on my part; rather B. J. in you to propose it."
+
+"It's more than propose," said Randolph. "Just you hang round my tent
+about nine o'clock."
+
+Then after supper Randolph took his stand at the foot of A Company
+Street, where the plebs were busily going back and forth between the
+hydrant and the tents.
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" he said, hailing a D Company pleb, but keeping his voice
+well down.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The pleb slackened his pace a little, but did not look round, and
+Randolph stood glancing carelessly about, as if thinking of nothing in
+particular.
+
+"When you have carried in that pail come at once to the darkened tent
+at the head of the street."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What is your name, sir?" to another.
+
+"Mr. Ummerstot, sir."
+
+"Mr. Upstart! I would like to know, Mr. Upstart, if you have no
+superior whose pail needs tilling as well as your own? Go home at once,
+and then report at my tent. The one with no light in it."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+When six more were under orders, Randolph strolled back to the front
+of his tent, and as fast as the plebs came up, he passed them in. They
+might stand at ease, but must not talk above a whisper. When they were
+all in hiding, Randolph spoke through the closed door of the tent.
+
+"Mr. Johnson!" in a low undertone.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Your special technical name for this evening is _Hippotherium_. Do you
+hive it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Mr. Upstart! Your special name till tattoo is _Semnopithereus_."
+
+"Mr. Parboil!"
+
+"Mr. Carboil, sir," said the poor pleb, with a mild preference for his
+own name.
+
+"I said _Parboil_. Your name will be _Cereopithereus_. Mr.
+Cereopithereus, you are first cousin to Mr. Semnopithereus, and
+according to Darwin, you each bear the same relation to a man that a
+pleb does to his superiors."
+
+So the eight names were given, and then Randolph began again:
+
+"Mr. Ichthyosaurus, you and your fellow animals will answer to your
+special technical names at roll-call, by a growl. You, sir, are an
+extinct reptile. Did you ever hear an extinct reptile growl?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You other animals, stop that unseemly snicker. Where have you lived,
+sir, all your life to know so little?"
+
+"In Massachusetts, sir."
+
+"The very headquarters of fossil life. Well, sir, if you have any
+imagination at all, growl as nearly as you can in the hypothetical
+voice of that extinct reptile called an Ichthyosaurus."
+
+A low growl, ending in a suppressed chuckle.
+
+"Order there, in the zoölogical museum! Mr. Hippotherium!" and another
+growl followed in a different key.
+
+"How," said Randolph, when the roll had been gone through, "the
+countersign is: 'Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!' Do you
+understand?"
+
+The painful general growl that answered him was cut short by a
+smothered laugh.
+
+"Attention! When you hear the countersign and see the tent flap lifted
+you are to growl all together, with your deepest and heaviest roar."
+
+A few minutes passed silently by. Randolph loitered about near the
+tent, as one might do who found the evening air refreshing. Then
+suddenly Adjutant Cox passed down the colour line.
+
+"Say, Cox," Randolph hailed him, "come and see what I've got in my
+tent."
+
+Thinking only of boodle, for which he had a soft spot, Mr. Cox came up,
+and pushed back the tent flap.
+
+"Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!" cried Randolph, and from the
+darkness poured forth such a horrible and very prehistoric roar that
+the tall cadet made one spring across the company street, demanding in
+no gentle tones of Randolph "What on earth he had got there?" Then,
+"hiving" the joke, he walked rapidly away. Only one such roar could
+be risked, and after a little more hectoring the plebs were let out
+quietly one by one, and Randolph sought out Magnus and Rig to receive
+their compliments on his success.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+SIGNALING FOR HELP
+
+    All common things, each day's events,
+      That with the hour begin and end,
+    Our pleasures, and our discontents,
+      Are rounds by which we may ascend.
+
+    --LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+It was a new experience to be on guard as corporal; and instead of the
+tedious pacing up and down, to go round the camp at set intervals,
+posting the reliefs, and then to sleep or lounge in the guard tent. No
+more sounding out the "All's well!" in proper, or improper, style; but
+it seemed to Magnus that he never missed hearing it.
+
+But whereas in the old days he used to wish every time he called the
+hour that the beautiful, serious, and weird cry could reach across the
+continent, even to his mother's ears, now, on the whole, he was content
+that it did not.
+
+"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's
+well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now,
+somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all well with the camp, all
+well with the Post; was it all well with him? Would the words bear a
+true report as _she_ would understand them?
+
+Cadet Kindred studied the point a good deal as he lay there in the
+guard tent looking himself over, or stole a solitary walk now and then.
+And I say "stole" advisedly. Short of stealing away, a solitary walk
+was hard to get.
+
+If, at the risk of his neck, he slid down some sheer cliff to the
+river's edge, few indeed would follow him, but a cadet boat might come
+along shore with a barge-load of girls in tow. And sometimes he was
+quick enough to dodge behind the bushes, and sometimes he sat still and
+let the shower of exclamations come.
+
+"Oh, there's Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"Just _see_ Mr. Kindred!"
+
+"Mr. Kindred, _please_ get right into the boat."
+
+"Haven't a permit."
+
+"There's nobody round," said the Kitten. "Jump in quick. You _never_
+can get back up there without being dashed to pieces."
+
+"Hardly _with_. Then there'll be one less 'additional' in the way."
+
+"How dreadful! I thought you were better brought up than to talk so."
+
+"I was."
+
+"Were you really so very well brought up?" said the Kitten, with her
+head on one side. "Do you know, I should never have thought it."
+
+Magnus rose to his feet, and doffed his cap profoundly.
+
+"Now you've done it, Puss," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Why, I don't see how," said the Kitten. "I hate well-brought-up
+people; that's why I spoke."
+
+"Better hate Kin as fast as you can, then," said Chappy from the boat,
+"so's there'll be a chance for some of the rest of us. Why, he don't
+sleep in chapel more than every other Sunday."
+
+"How can he help going to sleep, poor boy?" said Miss Saucy. "Such
+sermons!"
+
+"Well, come now," said another cadet, "that last sermon wasn't half
+bad. And not more than twice as long as was necessary."
+
+"Yes, but for these times!" quoth Miss Saucy. "Why, it was just like
+saying 'Be good,' don't you know?"
+
+"Hard upon the times, wasn't it?" said Magnus.
+
+"Well, row on," said the Kitten with a deep sigh. "I see by his face
+nothing _I_ can say will do any good. But it is such a pity! I never
+guessed he was that sort. A new fad, isn't it?" she said in a loud
+aside, as the oars dipped and rose. "Good-bye, Mr. Kindred! I hope your
+meditations will be very profitable."
+
+"Thank you," Magnus answered, standing up again, "I think they will."
+
+He watched the boat as it went on over the dimpling water, then changed
+his place a little, and began on a new end of his thoughts. This girl
+had "never guessed he was that sort."
+
+Maybe she was only telling society fibs, but Magnus would not let
+himself off so. For what reason had he ever given her to think him a
+Christian? Where had his colours been, in all these walks and talks and
+meetings? Up his sleeve, in hiding?
+
+"But I cannot flaunt them in people's faces," Magnus pleaded for
+himself.
+
+No, and no more did the flag its stars and stripes; only waved them
+joyously overhead.
+
+He had been ready to say that the constant frolic with the gay crowd
+was not good for him, but how about his side of the influence? Had
+he ever tried talking sense to girls whom he condemned for talking
+only nonsense? "Ye are the salt of the earth," but salt refreshes,
+stimulates, purifies; how far had he been like that? Without being
+priggish, without setting up for a preacher, could he not show in
+every way that the service of Christ was better than all else, and the
+knowledge of Him the most joyful thing in all this world? "Ye are my
+witnesses," said the Lord Jesus; and what sort of testimony did Cadet
+Magnus Kindred give from day to day? No matter how other men did, what
+had he done?
+
+The final outcome of all these cogitations was a letter.
+
+  "CAMP GOLIGHTLY,
+
+  "July --, 18--.
+
+  "MY DEAR MOTHER:
+
+ "I don't see why you don't come East and look after your boy. How
+ do you know what he is about here? Better come and see whether
+ you want him home on furlough; that is, if that time ever comes,
+ which I don't believe it will. Three, six, well nigh eight months
+ yet before it will even be 'One hundred days to June.' Besides,
+ they may find me in January, and then, instead of going home, I
+ should go as straight to the Antipodes as if they'd shot me out of
+ a catapult."
+
+ "Don't be uneasy; I'm not skinned more than twice a day on an
+ average; skins grow fast here, and skinning is nothing when you
+ get used to it. So the eels say. And I'm sure to take daddy's
+ scalp when we get back to barracks. Not much of a possession,
+ either, I must own."
+
+ "Do you realise, ma'am, that your son is that much detested and
+ overworked and maligned being a yearling Corporal?--wearing
+ chevrons, and sporting dignity enough for three Major-Generals?
+ Come and see me drill the plebs; best fun you ever saw in your
+ life--when you aren't one of 'em."
+
+ "But now, mother, this is serious. Do bring up our three girls
+ respectably, so that when they come here for first-class camp,
+ they'll know how to behave. But first of all, you've got to come
+ yourself and brush me up. Buy your ticket for West Point, stop at
+ Garrisons, cross in the ferryboat, and take the omnibus up the
+ hill. Look out both sides all the way up; and the minute you see a
+ grey uniform throw up his cap, get out. I suppose I might run it
+ down the hill, but then if I get in con. and couldn't see you all
+ the time you were here, it wouldn't pay. And Towser'd be sure to
+ be round with his patent magnifiers."
+
+ "So I'll go to the edge of limits, and as you don't know where
+ that is, look out. If you get lost, I'll put Towser on the track
+ and he'll know where you are before you know it yourself. I wonder
+ the Phil. Department don't set him to work on the lost Pleiad."
+
+ "Heigh-ho! I wish you were here this minute--with your bag full
+ of gingercakes. I was on guard last night, and had nothing to eat
+ but those old cast-iron sandwiches. So we put 'em in the reveille
+ gun and they went off that way. Love to the girls. Don't bring 'em
+ this time, but come yourself."
+
+  "Your (very) third class Corporal,
+  CHARLEMAGNE KINDRED."
+
+ "I enclose a picture of myself which you may like to see."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY
+
+ Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes
+ choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours
+ assez de moyens.
+
+  --ROCHEFOUCAULD.
+
+
+"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say that
+never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits of
+boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so
+received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at
+things cannot wear them out.
+
+At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke down
+and cried. Partly for joy--for how handsome he was! and how those bell
+buttons did set him off!--partly for the wild longing it stirred to
+have him in their arms again. But with this came in another feeling:
+that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was their own wayward,
+careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away behind that perfectly
+buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point makes a wonderful change,
+which even accustomed eyes find marvellous; what wonder that these
+unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He had graduated from the
+mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.
+
+If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it may
+be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that really
+belonged to it. _This_ exact, stately young man, _her_ Magnus, who used
+to catch her in his arms and whirl her off her feet. _This_ soldierly
+fellow _their_ brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the
+apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the
+window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the
+smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.
+
+"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said
+Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will
+say?"
+
+"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak
+calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added,
+feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point
+and a soldier and look like my little boy still."
+
+"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.
+
+"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of
+my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow
+seen, anywhere?"
+
+"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed
+one bit. Just see how they laugh at you----" But that look stopped the
+words.
+
+"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window. "What
+are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came through
+the hall and into the room.
+
+"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager
+whisper.
+
+"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for you."
+
+"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing
+themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place
+behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's
+cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.
+
+But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at
+first sight of that wonderful presentation of her hero, but then she
+stood quite still; her fingers interlacing each other, the red and
+white playing hide and seek on her young face. That undefined change
+which they all felt came to her with a difference. For Magnus had
+never been hers to have and to hold, but only to gaze at from a safe
+distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become more wonderful than ever.
+Whether this put him further away or not gave Cherry no trouble just
+then; she had forgotten herself and the whole world at first sight of
+this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said plaintively;
+and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in the most
+matter-of-fact way:
+
+"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."
+
+"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you
+always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her
+face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor
+Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she
+had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it
+that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look
+inside; _could_ Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by
+the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was
+just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest
+Miss Fashion.
+
+Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.
+
+"You are strange people not to like it," she said.
+
+"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad
+because it looks different."
+
+"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the
+hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying
+open, in the Army."
+
+"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young
+soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat
+and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."
+
+There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot
+cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the
+picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very
+first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her
+with bewildered eyes.
+
+"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I
+thought he had the whole Government to do that."
+
+"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I
+am sure," said Rose.
+
+"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick,
+Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."
+
+"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.
+
+"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back
+again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his
+mother." Her voice choked a little.
+
+"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing
+to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look
+so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought
+to be."
+
+"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then you
+can tell us all about him and the place and everything."
+
+"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities with
+their young feet, were too much for her.
+
+"Why, girls, I haven't the money."
+
+"You shall have my new winter bonnet--which was to be," said Rose.
+
+"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were not to be," said
+Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong box."
+
+"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her hand.
+
+"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She sat
+looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of her.
+
+"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is as
+still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."
+
+Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to
+read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such
+a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading
+began again.
+
+"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he says,"
+pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard. Every
+sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the two faces
+that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's shining
+eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always in sight.
+Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which the others
+missed; and so now and then retired into her own private meditations.
+"Bring up _our_ three girls" and "when _they_ come." Clearly, then, she
+also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever that might be.
+
+"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean about
+their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the
+Antipodes?"
+
+"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the girl,
+too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he says
+all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't really
+changed him one bit."
+
+"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at the picture.
+"I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to the dress a
+little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you really think
+I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"
+
+With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that
+nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the
+railway companies would do the rest.
+
+"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for your
+getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody could
+keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just fly
+out."
+
+"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes the
+two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.
+
+"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you. Read
+on, mamma, please."
+
+So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the
+real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"--third-class corporals and
+the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not clear
+up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully twice
+through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly announced
+that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get ready.
+And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they could go
+too.
+
+And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn not only
+bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the conductor. The
+girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the gingercakes
+there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief embroidered
+with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small pincushion "to go
+in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent him her last little
+drawing of the old apple tree which had been his own special private
+gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they
+all went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours
+joining in.
+
+"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good
+woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth
+and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went,
+we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless
+feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in
+any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for
+West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest,
+and then he'd he provided for."
+
+Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went home
+and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly away,
+very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she was
+going to see her boy.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER
+
+    'Twas morn, a most auspicious one:
+    From the golden East the golden sun
+    Came forth his glorious race to run,
+      Through clouds of most splendid tinges.
+    Clouds that lately slept in shade,
+    But now seemed made
+    Of gold brocade;
+      With magnificent golden fringes.
+
+    --HOOD.
+
+
+Yes, it was a royal August day. The last summer month has a very
+different character in different places. In town, where, instead of
+
+    "Three months of sunshine bound in sheaves"
+
+you have the same stored up in pavements and glowing from brown stone
+fronts, it is a time which men naturally enough choose for their
+vacation, and leave the city home behind them as fast and as far as
+they can. September rains may clear the air, but till then, away.
+
+But in the Highlands, with here and there a rare exception, August
+is one of the very loveliest months of all the year. We say of a
+human face that it is finer after life has given its touches and done
+somewhat of its fine chiselling, and a little so does the last summer
+month surpass the two that went before. More sedate than jocund June;
+far calmer than July with its tempests and fervid heats, the shadows
+fall differently, the changed lights give you a new insight into
+things. The days are so exquisite partly because they are shortening;
+the flowers hurry out in troops. And nowhere in all the year do we
+have such a succession of wonderful sunset skies as in August. Then
+the temperature is for the most part perfect; the cool mornings and
+evenings only the fairer for the midday heat. It is a time when you can
+sit out, dine out, and well nigh take leave of the house altogether.
+
+One wise thing inexperienced Mrs. Kindred remembered to do. From point
+to point as the miles rolled by, she sent postals to the girls at home,
+and one at the outset to Magnus. He knew just when to look for her. And
+so, when the day came, and dinner was over, Cadet Charlemagne reported
+his absence at the guard tent, and strolled away to Trophy Point, and
+seated himself to wait and watch. Too early yet by an hour; but he was
+restless and could do nothing else.
+
+The day was cloudless now; the noon heats still in the air; the hazy,
+lazy hum of the locusts thrilled out on every side. Perhaps lazy is not
+just the word--but there are no inflections; they fight it out on one
+line, as few tired workers ever can.
+
+A suspicion of real haze hung over Newburgh; the more distant hills
+looked faint and dreamy. Far up the river a long tow wound silently
+down, leaving its trail upon the quiet water; nearby a sloop or two
+went softly on, spreading their white wings to the breeze. There was
+just enough air stirring to lift and drop, lift and drop, the bunting
+on the flagstaff.
+
+Magnus sat looking and listening, drawing a deep breath now and
+then. How long it seemed since he first saw Trophy Point and that
+flagstaff!--and it was really but fourteen months. He glanced up at the
+flag, just then shaking out its lovely folds. That had not changed. And
+he knew his mother had not; she would be just the same blessed person
+she had always been. But how about himself? and what would she think
+of him? And now, studying that question, Magnus took out mentally
+his own private stand of colours and looked at them, matching them
+with the flag overhead. It hung very still just then; and yet he could
+see a star here, a touch of the stripes there. Storms might beat it to
+ribands, but they could not change the colours nor make the flag come
+down.
+
+"That weak strip of bunting!" thought Magnus, with a certain
+interlining of words not complimentary to himself. And other words
+written above his father's grave came quick and clear: "The world
+passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
+abideth forever."
+
+Magnus stood up and walked slowly along the little path to another
+point, whence he could see the "Central" road.
+
+"I'm no end glad she's coming!"--so ran his thoughts. "But I just
+wonder how she'll like her boy? And there she comes!"
+
+For now a puff of white smoke rose up at the mouth of the Breakneck
+tunnel and then fell into a long, curling line, and began to wind its
+way rapidly along the curves of the river road.
+
+Magnus watched it, jumped on the seat to see it better still, and then
+tossed his cap into the air like any boy let out of school.
+
+"Hurrah, old flag!" he cried; "there she comes! Now you'll see somebody
+worth looking at."
+
+The white line rushed on, paused at Cold Spring, whirled along over the
+north bay and hid itself in the green Island woods, while Magnus, again
+waving his cap and this time so recklessly that it was near going down
+the hill, hurried away to Battery Knox, ran up on the green parapet,
+and stood to watch. The engine came puffing over the south bay as if
+the fate of the nation hung on its speed, dived into the Garrisons
+tunnel and slowed up.
+
+How long it stayed!
+
+"Just to put off mother and her little trunk!" thought Magnus, laughing
+to himself, and then getting such dim eyes that he could not see a
+thing. But he felt as if he could hug even the trunk.
+
+And now, puff, puff, the train slowly moved away from the station, and
+the little ferryboat rang her bell. Of course, his mother was there, in
+the small, dark throng that came down to the river, and of course he
+must therefore really see her, but--Oh! it was too tantalising! I think
+at that minute Magnus would have given anything (except furlough) for a
+good glass.
+
+The boat was off, steering across the river in a pretty curve to suit
+the tide; the smooth water turning back in two long lines of wrinkles
+in her wake.
+
+Magnus leaped down from the parapet and was speeding away up the path
+at a great rate when there came a hail:
+
+"Mr. Kin--dred!"
+
+Magnus paused to see.
+
+Clustered about the pathetic white column that looking calmly down on
+the silent river, tells in such vivid fashion its terrible tale of
+struggle and death, were three or four very summery looking girls: Miss
+Fashion, Miss Dangleum, and another whom Magnus did not know.
+
+"_Do_ come here, Mr. Kindred," pleaded Miss Dangleum.
+
+Well, a cadet is nothing if he is not a squire of distressed damsels.
+Magnus turned and jumped down to where they stood.
+
+"What's the matter?" he said; "has a fan gone down the hill? or is a
+parasol in trouble?"
+
+"There, isn't that just like you!" said Miss Fashion. "No, nothing so
+serious as that."
+
+"Miss Beguile has come," said Miss Dangleum, "and she asked you down to
+a private view of her eyes."
+
+"Oh, _Nina_!" said Miss Beguile, in soft expostulation.
+
+"We also wanted her to see yours," said Miss Nina daringly. "She
+doesn't believe cadets have any under those caps."
+
+Magnus doffed his own particular cap, as in duty bound, but the view
+Miss Beguile got of his eyes was very short and unsatisfactory.
+
+"Now find us a nice seat," said Miss Dangleum. "We've got lots of
+boodle."
+
+"Certainly--at any other time," began Magnus, "but now----"
+
+"You don't mean to say you've got a previous?" cried the girls.
+
+"Very previous, indeed. I am just going to meet my mother."
+
+"Your mother?" said Miss Beguile with the sweetest air of interest.
+"How charming!"
+
+"Dear me, where does _she_ come from?" drawled Miss Fashion.
+
+But now Mr. Kindred's eyes came to the front and declared themselves.
+
+"She comes from _home_," he said. "Excuse me, I am late"; and with
+another touch of his cap Magnus sprang away up the path about as fast
+as a man could go and not run.
+
+"He has magnificent eyes," said Miss Beguile.
+
+"Yes, but no use," said Miss Dangleum. "I cannot bring that man to
+terms, do what I will."
+
+"Flinty, is he?" said Miss Beguile. "Well, I mean to get hold of him,
+girls, I give you notice. He's the sort of man I like."
+
+"Is there any sort you don't like, Bessie?" said Miss Fashion.
+
+"Oh, it's always great fun to have men round, no matter what sort they
+are," confessed her friend. "But the unapproachable is my dearest
+choice, every time."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+HIGH SUMMER
+
+    Far through the memory shines a happy day.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+Magnus meanwhile went speeding on; leaping over space, and chafing at
+the lost minutes in terms not very flattering to his fair disturbers.
+But he was in good time, after all. The stage had waited for a West
+Shore train, and when Magnus reached the furthest and nearest point
+to which he might go, the horses with their light load were but just
+nearing the riding hall.
+
+Slowly, slowly--how that stage did creep along. Magnus crossed the
+road, went back again, darted from one point to another; if only he
+could get a good glimpse inside! Now the lumbering thing turned a
+little; ah, it was just empty. No; surely that was a bonnet on the
+further seat; and now at this window looking out for him! And surely if
+ever a forage cap went high in air, one went then. But the moment it
+was within reach again Magnus pulled it far down over his own eyes. He
+had been at West Point more than a year, looking at tactical officers,
+professors, dignitaries of all sorts; with wild cadets and all kinds
+of girls; and now this was his mother's face, and like nothing else in
+all the world. The boy's heart gave a bound fit to burst something less
+elastic than a young heart always is.
+
+As for poor Mrs. Kindred, when she saw that cap go up in the air, of
+course you know what happened to her. But she would not look away,
+even to cry, and sat gazing at that tall figure in grey and drawing
+the long sobbing breaths that bear such a very mixed freight. She even
+forgot to pull the check string, and would have been driven straight
+on if Magnus, in a voice stern enough for the first captain, had not
+bidden the driver stop. And it seemed so natural and fitting that her
+boy should pay her fare that when he pulled out a hidden quarter and
+passed it up to the driver no qualms of fear that he might be "skinned"
+for so doing disturbed her mind. Of course cadets have no more business
+with pocket money than they have with pockets, but she did not know
+that.
+
+Magnus got one hand on his arm, gripping it with the other hand as if
+he thought she might run away; and drew her rapidly along through the
+nearest byways to a nook among rocks and trees that he deemed his own
+private discovery. Once there, hidden away in the sweet, cool shadow,
+with the river plashing softly far below, and a wood thrush ringing his
+chimes near by, Cadet Corporal Kindred threw his cap down on the grass,
+put his arms round his mother, and hid his face in her neck as if he
+had been six years old.
+
+It was just what the mother needed. For at first sight, this tall,
+splendid fellow with braid and buttons and chevrons, straight as a
+line, and with all the saucy curls cut away, laid her under a spell.
+Except the first meeting kiss she had had hardly a sign from him unless
+that grip of her hand. But now, with her boy in her arms, he was her
+boy still, and she quite too happy for this lower world.
+
+"Child," she said at last, "what have they done with your hair? Have
+you been sick?"
+
+Then Magnus looked up and laughed; the old shine in his eyes making her
+heart leap.
+
+"Regulations," he said. "I am nothing any more but a bundle of
+regulations, mother. Might about as well be a convict labeled 379."
+
+"Regulations!" Mrs. Kindred repeated. "I wish I had the making of them."
+
+"I wish you had, mother. And there are some three hundred and odd more
+boys here, who would confidingly hand the job over to you. Then we'd
+have pie every day for dinner and cake for supper, Saturday in the
+middle of the week, and no Monday morning recitations."
+
+"But Magnus," said Mrs. Kindred, bewildered over this very mixed lot of
+grievances, "don't you have cake for supper?"
+
+"Now and then a mysterious compound which goes by that name," said
+Magnus. "We are having it scientifically analysed to see whether it is
+all new-process granite, or whether one part mud comes in."
+
+But here the innocent, perplexed face was too much for him. He almost
+shouted with fun, tossing his cap up higher than it had ever been.
+
+"You blessed mother!" he said. "You haven't changed one bit--not a
+pin's point. There was one on your shoulder just now to scratch me,
+exactly as there always used to be."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" cried poor Mrs. Kindred. "I did not mean to leave that
+pin there. I just stuck it in last night in the sleeping car."
+
+"But you always did 'just stick it in,' you know," said Magnus
+disrespectfully; "and I never remember the time when it didn't just
+stick out. It wouldn't be you without a pin on your shoulder."
+
+"It wouldn't be you if you were not a saucy boy," said the mother, and
+then they looked in each other's eyes and laughed; how happy they were!
+
+"All right, mammy," said Magnus. "That pin gave me a welcome nothing
+else could. How are the girls?"
+
+"The girls are lovely," said Mrs. Kindred. "Cherry has tried to fill
+your place, Magnus, ever since you came away."
+
+"H'm, I don't know about that," said Magnus. "Tell her she can't have
+but half of it, fair and square."
+
+"Oh, well, you know how I talk," said Mrs. Kindred. "She could not
+really, dear, nor anybody else. But she is the dearest girl, Magnus,
+and so wise. We have to get her to explain all the queer things in your
+letters."
+
+"Do I write queer things?"
+
+"Very; or they sound so to us. And I get quite worried sometimes.
+And then Cherry will say in that pretty way of hers, 'You know it is
+Magnus, Mrs. Kindred, so he could not mean _that_.'"
+
+If two sparks flew from Cadet Kindred's eyes at these words, only the
+green moss at his feet was witness thereto. But, then, a very grave
+look came over his face. His mother watched him anxiously.
+
+"You do not think I really _meant_ that, dear?" she said. "No one on
+earth could fill my boy's place with me, Magnus."
+
+"No, no; I understand," he said, without looking up. "But she deserves
+it so. Cherry is a great deal better than I am, mother."
+
+The mother smiled contentedly. Very small improvement did her boy need
+for her. But she would not say that; just as well for him not to know
+how high he stood on the general merit roll. And it was a fine new
+West Point development, if Magnus was inclined to underrate his own
+perfections. Which, by the way, was not at all what that young man was
+doing. But Cherry's simple, unquestioning faith in him suddenly touched
+up his memory of certain things which (in spite of being "Magnus") he
+had done, and the recollection was not pleasant. Not very bad things,
+Oh, no! but by no means up to Cherry's standard.
+
+"It's not worth while for her to come on before furlough," he said,
+thinking aloud.
+
+"Her?" Mrs. Kindred repeated questioningly.
+
+"Yes, any one of the girls," said Magnus. "You see, the winter journey
+is one thing; and then in the winter there's such a beastly lot of
+studying to do. And in the spring I shall be boning every minute. But
+wait till first-class camp. Or you might all come back with me from
+furlough--just for a first sight of the place."
+
+"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred. "Why Magnus, you talk as if we had
+the Bank of England at our back."
+
+"No, only me in front," said Magnus with a gleam of his bright eyes.
+"You don't suppose I am going to worry through the last two years here
+without a sight of you all? Wouldn't pay to bone rank if nobody came to
+see my chevrons. Just as well go on and get rattled like some of the
+rest of them."
+
+"But my dear!" said poor Mrs. Kindred. "'Rattled' and 'bone' you've
+said twice. And you called your studies 'beastly.' I thought they
+taught English at West Point."
+
+How Magnus laughed!
+
+"There are Tacs over yonder," he said, "with a party of summer girls;
+and one of the girls offered me a lot of boodle. And the Com.'s out
+riding, and the Supe's gone to town, and the Arch-fiend is at the
+seaside."
+
+"Now Charlemagne, stop!" said Mrs. Kindred. Magnus gave her another
+delighted hug.
+
+"Oh mammy!" he said; "this is you, and no mistake. I didn't quite
+believe it was at first." And kissing first one hand and then the
+other, Magnus put them both back in her lap, and laid his cheek down
+upon them. The mother got one hand away and softly stroked the fine
+head.
+
+"I do not understand about your hair, yet," she said.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"And why do you wear such a thick coat this warm day, Magnus?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Why my dear! Well, you might unbutton it at least," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+Mrs. Kindred was silent a minute.
+
+"I took my dinner in Poughkeepsie," she said, "because I was not sure
+of getting here in time for yours; and I know it is not good for you to
+wait."
+
+"No ma'am, it isn't--here," said Magnus.
+
+"But we can have supper at any time you like."
+
+Magnus, without raising his head, gave a groan and wished they could.
+
+"Well, we can," said Mrs. Kindred. "I can wait till late, or have it
+early, Magnus, just as suits you. What do you mean by sighing like
+that? What is in the way?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Oh well!" said the mother, trying to smother her disappointment; "you
+have some other thing on hand? Never mind, dear, then we'll be together
+at breakfast."
+
+"No, we sha'n't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Regulations. We cannot have one single meal together while you are
+here, mammy."
+
+And now, indeed, Mrs. Kindred had no more to say; the bands of red
+tape seemed to be winding all about her heart, and drawing very tight
+indeed. She had so pictured to herself the joy of once more handing her
+boy his cup of coffee. But it must be best for him, she said bravely to
+herself; or else they would not make such rules. And, whatever was best
+for him--
+
+"What _can_ you do, dear?" she said aloud, but with a plaintiveness
+that went to the boy's heart. He sat up and took her in his arms.
+
+"I can do lots, mammy!" he said. "Never you worry one bit. I can't
+do it for breakfast, and I can't do it to-night, but some other day
+I'll cut supper, and we'll have it down here together. And we'll have
+picnics instead of dinner. And I'll walk with you every minute of
+release from quarters."
+
+"Release!" The word jarred on the mother's ear; to what had she sent
+her boy? But then, whatever it was, it agreed with him splendidly;
+never had she seen Magnus in more jocund health and strength; life at
+its best was in every look and motion. And the eyes that flashed and
+sparkled at her were not the least in the world careworn or overworked.
+So Mrs. Kindred locked up all her dismayed pangs and questionings, and
+once more stroking her boy's cropped head, remarked that it was said to
+make the hair grow to cut it.
+
+"I'll have a mop when I come out, then," said Magnus. "How does Cherry
+wear her hair now? same old way?"
+
+"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Kindred; "only it's never twice just the same. You
+know her curls arrange themselves--as yours used to, Magnus."
+
+"Disarrange was the word for me. If anybody cuts hers off, I'll shoot
+him."
+
+"I think somebody did cut one off once, without being shot," said Mrs.
+Kindred. Magnus coloured.
+
+"That was only one," he said. "Why didn't you bring them all along? The
+girls, I mean."
+
+"Why, you unreasonable boy," said his mother; "you expressly bade me
+not."
+
+"I had been here so long, I forgot that you always minded," said
+Magnus, with a saucy look.
+
+"Well, I did _not_ always," said Mrs. Kindred; "but the girls could not
+have come off in such a moment, Magnus; they were not ready."
+
+"Girls never are. They'd learn, if they had a week or two in camp.
+Bang goes the reveille gun--and in just two minutes you have to be
+dressed and out in line, swearing that 'Kindred, C.' is present and
+accounted for."
+
+"Swearing, Magnus?"
+
+"Well, some of the men make the statement pretty loud. I am one of the
+mild kind, and 'roar gently.'"
+
+"Yes, I know what your gentle roars amount to," said his mother
+derisively. "But Magnus, do they really make you dress in two minutes?"
+
+"By my watch."
+
+"But you haven't got a watch," said the perplexed mother.
+
+"And therefore am subject now and then to miscalculations."
+
+"Well, West Point has not changed you yet, to hurt," said the mother,
+smiling at him. Magnus took her tender hands and put one on each side
+of his face.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "it is the jolliest thing to see you sitting there,
+puzzling your dear head over my grinds. I could cry, if I wanted to.
+But I say, when you do bring the girls, don't give 'em time to get
+ready. They shan't come here looking as if they'd never had anything
+before, but had got it now, sure."
+
+"But our girls have always had enough, you know, Magnus, and they are
+not likely to have any more," said Mrs. Kindred, cutting both knots.
+
+"They are worth all the girls I have seen here, multiplied by twelve
+dozen," said Magnus. "Oh, mother, why didn't they come! But I tell you,
+you'll have your hands full when they do. Violet will make a sensation.
+And Rose--I think True will be fathom deep at first sight of Rose; he
+likes quiet, sweet, strong girls."
+
+"I should think most people would," said Mrs. Kindred. "And how about
+Cherry?"
+
+"I said nothing about Cherry."
+
+"Am I not to bring her?"
+
+"Oh yes! she had better come too," said Magnus. "Mammy, it is as good
+as a month of Saturdays just to look at you. You are the handsomest
+woman on the Post."
+
+And now pink tinges came upon the sweet pale face; and Mrs. Kindred was
+certainly the happiest woman anywhere about.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE VISITORS' SEATS
+
+    With whom doth Time gallop withal?
+
+    --SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Alas. Time did not slacken his pace for those two people. After that
+very first day, when Mrs. Kindred really took in the astounding fact
+that she was _there_, she began to count almost the seconds as they
+ticked away, and grudged even those spent in sleep.
+
+She would sit far on into the night, looking over from her window to
+where her boy's tent rose up sharp and white in the moonshine; and with
+the first drum-beat in the morning was at her post, sending off her
+heart and her blessing to that grey line where Magnus stood. If he was
+on guard she watched for glimpses of his tall figure as he went up and
+down, posting reliefs, and in a sort loved the whole white battalion
+that marched away to dinner because one particular white helmet rested
+on his head. And never was there a more devoted frequenter of the camp,
+as she waited there on the visitors' seats for his moments of leisure,
+happy between whiles that he was at least nearby.
+
+Then she steadied her nerves to bear the sharp reports in the Light
+Battery drill, and watched manœuvres and evolutions as eagerly as
+if she understood them all. How stately Magnus looked in his various
+trappings; how nimbly he tumbled in and out of the caissons. And when
+the sergeant shouted out at parade:
+
+"Company A, one corporal absent!"--how thankful that particular mother
+was that it could not possibly be _her_ son.
+
+It was astonishing to see such honours and cares resting upon his young
+head; drilling plebs, posting sentinels; no wonder he had changed.
+Was the change in him all for the better? The mother could not quite
+tell. When Magnus was with her that joy swept everything else away; but
+sometimes, as she sat alone, her thoughts worked hard, and many things
+came in to tangle and perplex them.
+
+Loitering about the camp in this way, and never missing a formation,
+Mrs. Kindred also could not miss a good deal else. The Point was
+not crowded; but the summer girl--and the summer girl's supposed
+chaperon--were in sufficient force; and as young people nowadays think
+their words worth hearing, Mrs. Kindred did not need to strain her ears
+nor give undue attention to know much that was said and done.
+
+It was a glimpse into a life unguessed before. Her own had been simple,
+earnest, and useful, from her youth up. The three girls at home were as
+merry as crickets, and overflowing with fun and frolic; but the cricket
+fun--if fun it be--was not more guileless and true-hearted than theirs.
+
+But now, sitting under the trees and watching her boy from a distance,
+Mrs. Kindred would sometimes hear, close at hand, some word or
+sentiment that made her start and look round, with a great wish that
+the girl's mother were there; and behold, quite often she _was_. Then
+this mother would get up and change her seat.
+
+Small use. Near the new place sat a tall young lady in tennis rig set
+free, while her waist was drawn in until playing must have been hard
+work. A game had been on, for Miss Viny's cheeks were flushed, and she
+still brandished her racket. She was talking over her shoulder to a
+semi-young officer.
+
+"I think you have a great deal too much to do with Captain Chose, Miss
+Viny," said this gentleman. "You know he is in a very peculiar position
+with regard to his wife."
+
+And the handsome girl, flashing round at him her daring eyes, made
+answer:
+
+"That only makes him the more interesting!"
+
+Mrs. Kindred shivered slightly, and once more changed her seat.
+
+And _now_ she got among a bevy of girls who were talking of Magnus;
+they fluttered in and settled down all around her, too eager over their
+subject to know or care who heard their talk.
+
+"I'll get hold of him somehow. I'm bound to do it," said a dark girl in
+very extreme costume. "I told you I would, and I will."
+
+"Not worth the bother," said a plump little damsel in pink. "There are
+plenty more."
+
+"Not plenty with eyes like his; there's not such another pair in the
+Corps. They're just heavenly."
+
+"Yes, aren't they?" said the plump girl. "When he looks at you it makes
+you feel queer all over."
+
+"I was afraid you were going to say, all through," said Miss Beguile;
+"and you know there isn't any 'all through' to you, Kitten."
+
+"Now I call that _too_ bad," said the Kitten. "When I am universally
+known to be all heart."
+
+"Good you are," said Miss Saucy, "for you give everyone a piece and
+the supply might fail. But there's a good deal of you, such as it is,
+Kitten. You'll turn the three F's, if you live long enough."
+
+"_Some_ people don't think there's too much of me," said the Kitten,
+pouting.
+
+"About half the Corps, I should judge. Now I believe in one grand
+master passion, don't you know. I think it's dear."
+
+"It's a passion for a master--if you're in love with Mr. Kindred," said
+a fourth girl. "He'll manage you, Bessie. Make you behave."
+
+If anybody had had time to notice the quiet little mother sitting
+there, he would have seen a very perceptible start, and a pair of eyes
+as indignant as such tender eyes could be. _Those_ girls after her
+young magnate? Mrs. Kindred was fit to go that moment to headquarters
+and demand a cordon of red tape to surround her boy. But she could do
+nothing; could not speak to the girls, could not (alas) even shake
+them. Then she seemed to remember seeing him bow to these very ones;
+and with a certain dress-coat air, which now Mrs. Kindred marked as one
+of the new things about Magnus that disturbed her.
+
+What if Cherry had seen and heard it all? And suddenly Mrs. Kindred
+knew why it was Cherry she thought of, and not Rose or Violet.
+
+Here was a new and difficult complication. Yes, of course, it was all
+natural, the mother felt, and plain enough now she thought of it.
+Whether Cherry herself yet knew, or not, she _would_, just as soon as
+Magnus took a fancy to somebody else. Could he do that, after having
+once known her? Mrs. Kindred waited till the next relief went on, and
+Magnus within the guard tent was quite out of sight, and then went to
+her room to think and to pray.
+
+Should she talk to Magnus?--no; skating is generally safer than
+navigation in broken ice. And the next day but one she was to go home.
+
+No further sight of her boy could be hoped for that night, and Mrs.
+Kindred shut herself in and watched the silent camp long after the
+sweet "curfew" bugle had cried to every light:
+
+"Put it out! Put it out! Put it out!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JUST THEE AND ME
+
+    Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,
+      And minuting the long day's loss,
+    The cedar's shadow, slow and still,
+      Creeps o'er the dial of grey moss.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+The next day rose fairer than ever. Magnus came off at eight o'clock
+with "old guard privileges," and having also kind permission from the
+authorities to dine with his mother in the woods.
+
+Now the ordering and preparing of this dinner had been a great joy to
+Mrs. Kindred; what though the correct dainties could not be had. Green
+corn to boil was an impossibility, even if a kettle could be found; and
+home-made rolls were far out of reach, and not all the canned things
+that were ever turned out could replace her own home-fed chickens and
+home-cured ham. The supplies from the baker were fresh and clean and
+well looking--yet Mrs. Kindred sighed, thinking of Violet's loaves of
+cake, and Cherry's pies.
+
+Magnus, however, was not so critical, he did not see even such as these
+every day, and so enjoyed everything to his mother's heart's content.
+And as she feasted on her boy there was really no lack anywhere. The
+fair August lights and shades chased each other among cedars and oaks,
+the locusts hummed; the birds that had nestlings sped swiftly to and
+fro, bringing food. Fall after fall of rocky woods and winding road lay
+at their feet; below all, the white camp in its green setting, then the
+river--never twice the same. Far up in the north the Catskills lifted
+their blue, changeless heads.
+
+It was all so wondrous and so new to Mrs. Kindred that she was watching
+it, taking it in, even when she thought she had no eyes but for Magnus.
+The hills bewitched her; the distant blue, the nearer green; on all
+sides she seemed to hear the silent chanting of her favourite psalm:
+
+"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
+
+Surely this was a place wherein to grow "strong in the Lord"; a place
+where to remember:
+
+"Thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures."
+
+"Mammy, you don't eat," said Magnus, beginning on another small pie.
+"You might venture--just a little. I think there'd be enough left for
+me."
+
+"My dear, I have too much," said the mother. "Magnus, don't eat any
+more of that pie; it is not Cherry's make, remember."
+
+"Don't I know it! But her pies are across the continent, worse luck.
+It is good the know-nothing girls here don't try their hand. Shade
+of Scipio Africanus, what a poisoning of cadets there would be! Dr.
+Senna says that if it wasn't for Pretty Newcomb and her candy--with a
+sprained ankle now and then--he shouldn't have a man on the sick list."
+
+"Well, that is good," said Mrs. Kindred heartily; "the place must agree
+with you all. Magnus, do you know many people here?"
+
+"Three hundred cadets, more or less, and too many officers quite
+intimately," said Magnus, trying the cake. "Besides the bugler and the
+orderly."
+
+"Any ladies?"
+
+"Quite some."
+
+"I really do wish they taught English here," said poor Mrs. Kindred.
+"You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."
+
+"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the
+mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.
+
+"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"
+
+"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."
+
+"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."
+
+"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"
+
+"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."
+
+"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously
+quoting Portia.
+
+"You do know her then?"
+
+"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she talks,"
+said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the Kitten?"
+
+"I am interested in anyone you know."
+
+Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast into
+the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that did
+their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first one
+hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips. And
+Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap,
+softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out here,
+nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."
+
+"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."
+
+"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller already."
+
+"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:
+
+    "It is not growing like a tree
+    That makes man better be."
+
+"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a whole
+half-inch. Call it three-quarters."
+
+"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory, and
+tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute
+they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."
+
+"You are a _very_ saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look grave.
+
+"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last June.
+Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"
+
+"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I think
+she could not be sweeter--and then the next day I think she is," said
+Mrs. Kindred warmly.
+
+"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.
+
+"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really
+believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every
+chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class,
+and for two hours every day they study together."
+
+"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are extremely
+developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have grown
+enough."
+
+"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred,
+taking her turn at the irony.
+
+"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books are
+on hand, but the pocket is wanting."
+
+"No pocket?"
+
+"No'm. _Now_ you have an idea of desolate destitution." And Magnus
+raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white handkerchief from
+his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air, tucked it back
+again.
+
+"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder
+I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I
+couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what
+preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no
+Tacs up overhead,"--and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene blue.
+
+"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no pockets--why,
+I never heard of such doings!--then where do you put anything?"
+
+"Up my sleeve."
+
+"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."
+
+"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally _not_ spoken of.
+In winter we have a resource--a small one; but in summer we should be
+hard up if it wasn't for the girls."
+
+"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred rather
+severely.
+
+"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and
+empty them at our feet."
+
+"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk in
+that way at home, and I do not like it now."
+
+"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after me
+yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted the
+men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a man
+do? You must speak of people as you find them."
+
+Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.
+
+"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens aren't lions,
+mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail of an angel
+stayed by him,--and mine comes--and will go!" And Magnus brought the
+beloved hands up to his face again.
+
+Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing and
+delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That
+touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to
+be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas
+came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of
+order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too
+much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out,
+and the standing sure.
+
+"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering in
+spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after you."
+
+"He _has_," put in Magnus.
+
+"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for loyalty
+to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew that was
+true of you."
+
+How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of
+the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird
+notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows,
+the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came
+to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing
+words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they
+sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless
+prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else.
+Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed
+eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and
+lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down
+into her lap.
+
+"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"
+
+"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing off
+at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me. But
+mother, you don't know how hard it is."
+
+"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places, nor
+is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had
+always at least a storm flag out?"
+
+"Did you guess what I meant?"
+
+"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your flag
+down, even on the stormiest days."
+
+"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine
+anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean--and what it
+_does_ mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The toughest wind
+that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from reveille to retreat.
+And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a touch of blue and a
+gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of the old pole."
+
+"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to fly
+my storm flag in fair weather."
+
+There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to speak,
+and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her again,
+found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face was
+grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond him.
+
+"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company Christians?"
+
+"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."
+
+"Or all your special associates?"
+
+"Why, no! Not by several and many."
+
+"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled with aliens,
+and not an American left but the one in charge of the colours. What
+should he do?"
+
+"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.
+
+Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+ME ONLY
+
+ "Everything goes away," said the Dryad: "goes away as the clouds
+ go, never to return."
+
+  --HANS ANDERSEN.
+
+
+That was the last long talk they had together. A brief walk next
+morning before eight o'clock; another--ah, how short--to the brow of
+the hill where they had met that first day; and then Magnus pulled his
+cap over his eyes and strode away to his hidden nook, and the mother
+went quietly sobbing down the hill. Alas! how fast the minutes flew now
+that had seemed so loitering when she came.
+
+As for Magnus, he watched the ferryboat every foot of the way over;
+waved his cap frantically to the cluster of dark spots that went up the
+sloping path to the station; then listened for the roar of the coming
+train with an intensity that made him start when he heard it. With
+a great pang he saw the pliant black line wind out from between the
+cloven rocks and swing along to the station, almost holding his breath
+in the minute's hush that came next. Hardly a minute; then puffs of
+black smoke curled up into the air, the engine gave its usual snort at
+such trifles as love and life and parting, and the train glided on into
+the tunnel, flew out across the bay, and past the Island; the trail of
+smoke fainted and faded away on the sweet summer air, and Cadet Kindred
+shook his fist at the whole thing.
+
+What right had that black engine to carry his mother off before his
+very eyes? And what business had he to be lingering there behind her?
+If it could have been done suddenly and quietly, I believe Magnus
+would have resigned on the spot, and taken the next train home.
+
+But red tape has its use. What letters and papers and statements such
+a step would involve; what answering of official questions; and Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred did not feel prepared to state publicly that
+he, who had survived to be a yearling corporal, must now resign for
+homesickness. A drum-call in the distance also lent its persuasions.
+The usual is generally, after all, the easiest thing to do, so Magnus
+put his cap in position, and set his face towards camp and duty. But
+taking off the cap again, he first bowed very low towards the steadfast
+old hills through whose cuts and chasms his mother had just vanished,
+kissing his hand to her in mute farewell; then resolutely walked away.
+
+There was a pleb drill that afternoon, and with the way one has of
+being good by proxy, Mr. Kindred kept his little set of men to their
+work most unflinchingly, with small allowance for mistakes, and none at
+all for inattention. Such zeal bestowed upon himself would have wrought
+wonders. To hear him, you would have thought a mathematical line the
+only easy position, and any sort of twist or bend that might be ordered
+merely a pleasing variety of the same. "Brace up"--the poor, distracted
+fourth classmen felt sure he must have done it in his cradle.
+
+Miss Dangleum came by and paused to look--and Magnus was sublimely
+unconscious of her presence; the Kitten held out a box of bonbons--and
+he went by at the double-quick. Then Miss Saucy joined the group, with
+Miss Bessie Beguile, and finally, that young lady's mother came slowly
+on the scene.
+
+"What's the matter here?" said the panting chaperon. "How you girls
+do run! What are you looking at? Who's fainted? These drills are
+positively barbarous!"
+
+"Oh, don't you just wish he _would_ faint?" cried the Kitten. "Such
+fun! Then we'd all rush in with our smelling-bottles, while Mrs.
+Beguile ran for water!"
+
+"While I--ran--for water!" quoth Mrs. Beguile, with a thought of her
+rather stout proportions.
+
+"But you'd be the only one, you know, mamma," said Miss Bessie sweetly.
+"Because _we_ couldn't invade the guard tents alone."
+
+"Nor in company, either," said Miss Saucy. "Nobody's going to faint,
+Mrs. Beguile, unless it's me, because we can't get Mr. Kindred to look
+at us."
+
+"My dear!" said Mrs. Beguile. "I am surprised! _Never_ show such
+special interest. Why, you will turn the young man's head."
+
+"Just what we're after," said the Kitten. "And what we'll do, too. I'll
+_make_ him look at me--I vow I will!"
+
+The words were spoken half aloud, but the young lady got not a glimpse
+of the eyes in question. Corporal Kindred's words of command rang out
+minus let or hinderance; and if the girls put themselves in the way, he
+led his men straight on, and they had to get out of it.
+
+"I don't mind," said Miss Saucy, after one of these raids. "It's fun.
+And he can't _help_ seeing us!"
+
+"It's ravishing to hear anything in such a voice," said Miss Beguile.
+"If I were going to be shot, I should like to have him give the order."
+
+"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow
+music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from
+the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a
+prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus
+walked slowly down the road.
+
+"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness, in these
+his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum. "They are so
+pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and experimentally).
+Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill
+it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"
+
+And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the corporal
+turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no sign.
+
+"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a box
+of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently deep
+abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.
+
+"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could
+knock his cap off, I should die radiant."
+
+And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in the
+fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position; the
+peach fell harmlessly at his feet.
+
+"Attention!"
+
+The plebs started, and so did the girls.
+
+"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left to
+make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it
+up." But he did not.
+
+Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in the
+cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What
+pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This
+time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's
+witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from
+some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the
+group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.
+
+"Say, Kin, Miss Dangleum wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."
+
+"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in the
+mood."
+
+"What shall I tell her?"
+
+"What you like!"
+
+"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and have
+left a bear to keep house."
+
+Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went up.
+
+"Oh, do bring him!" cried a pretty voice. "I do so dote upon bears. Oh,
+I think they're dear! Which one is Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"You'll know by his eyes, when he turns round," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"But that's the only way I can ever tell cadets apart--by their eyes,"
+said Miss Midget. "Is that the reason they order 'Eyes front' so
+much?--so that the officers can know which one to report?"
+
+Another laugh followed.
+
+"You'd better believe old Towser would know, if they hadn't any eyes at
+all," said Randolph, "or if he hadn't!"
+
+"Well, he hasn't, much," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Stands to reason," said Rig, "because he's got 'em all over--diffused.
+In the back of his head, and on his shoulder-straps, and the white
+stripe down his trousers, and the point of his nose."
+
+"That's awfully funny!" said Miss Beguile. "Must make it awfully lively
+for all of you."
+
+"Just does. The only enjoyment he has in life is skinning cadets. So
+it's 'Skin 'em! Skin 'em!' all the day long. Too much shirt-collar at
+breakfast, and too little coat above belt at drill."
+
+"And too much hair," said Mr. Carr. "I declare, when Towser comes
+rubbing up and down the back of my head, I feel as if I was a baby
+getting washed and dressed."
+
+The girls clapped their hands in applause.
+
+"Such pretty hair, too," said the Kitten, "or would be, I'm sure, if
+one could see it." Mr. Carr made a profound reverence.
+
+"Thank you so much," he said. "Awfully good of you. Wish you'd give
+Towser a hint."
+
+"Wherever did the poor man get such a name?" said Miss Beguile.
+
+"Simple and descriptive," said Mr. Carr.
+
+"Look here, D. T.," said Rig, "I wouldn't be as funny as I could, not
+every time, don't you know. You might get the blues for disrespect.
+He's sure to be round."
+
+"And why do you call _him_ 'D. T.'?" demanded another girl.
+
+"Doubletimes it every day," said Rig. "Gets a late in the morning, and
+a cold absence at night."
+
+"But what _can_ we do to rouse Mr. Kindred from this awful
+abstraction?" said Miss Dangleum.
+
+"Let's give him homeopathic treatment," said the Kitten. "D. T.,
+double-time it over to the band and bid them play 'Love Not.'"
+
+"I'll go," said Rig. "He won't get there till the drum beats. 'Love
+Not'--I never heard of such a tune in my life."
+
+"You will--first time you make love to the wrong girl," said Miss
+Saucy. "Now go!"
+
+"They won't do it for him," said Carr; "they _can't_--unless the Com.
+or the officer in charge says so. You'll have to go yourself. Towser's
+in charge."
+
+"Send the Kitten," said Miss Dangleum. "That will just fit. Here, Puss,
+draw in your claws and stretch out your paws, and go get an order for
+the band to play 'Love Not.'"
+
+So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep
+interest.
+
+"He won't do it," said Randolph.
+
+"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole
+canine contingent."
+
+And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand, took
+their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.
+
+And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it so
+long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.
+
+Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but
+slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been
+a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows
+came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet
+rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the
+old words kept sounding in his ears:
+
+      "Love not! Love not!
+    The thing you love may change."
+
+"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved people
+at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers did
+write!
+
+He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then began
+the simple air again; and the words would come:
+
+      "Love not! Love not!
+    The thing you love may die."
+
+A great pang shot through the boy's heart. _Could_ such things happen
+to him? How had his mother looked? Magnus turned away from the band and
+hid himself in the dark recesses of his tent.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+GIRLS
+
+ Rien de trop est un point Dont on parle sans cesse, et qu'on
+ observe point.
+
+  --LA FONTAINE.
+
+
+So Miss Dangleum failed for that time. But "To-morrow is also a day,"
+says the proverb. And it is not in human nature to be always insensible
+to blandishments. Mr. Kindred found himself scanning his wonderful eyes
+in the small glass quite oftener than was needed. He could also pick
+out Miss Dangleum's red parasol clear across the plain from all its
+compeers; and knew at least half of Miss Beguile's fans by experience.
+She declared that he had broken a quarter of them, but this statement
+is plainly incorrect.
+
+The Point filled up to crowding as the encampment neared its close, and
+introductions, walks, picnics, were multiplied, and every cadet who
+liked the fun could have enough of it.
+
+Magnus Kindred, for one, had about all he could manage, Rig's favourite
+cousin was always on his hands when Rig himself was on guard or in
+confinement. This happened pretty often, and as Rig was his "wife"
+Magnus could not object. Chapman's sister was often turned over to him
+because Chapman's best girl was also at the Point.
+
+Then there was every now and then some plain, unnoticed girl whom
+Magnus in his chivalry would look after and take out, giving her a
+royal good time. There were guests at some of the houses where the
+young cadet had been made welcome, and he must help amuse them. And
+finally (for my hero was every inch a man), there were wits and
+beauties with whom he liked to stand at least as well as the best. It
+was all very enticing, and he was so lonely when his mother had gone
+that petting of any sort felt good.
+
+So that last part of August was one grand whirl, in which common sense
+and right ways got drawn in and danced a breakdown. At least that
+was what Cadet Kindred said of it himself in his calmer moments. For
+"Kindred--late at roll-call," "Kindred--absent at supper," had been
+read out too often from the blue list after parade.
+
+Magnus was on guard the last night but one of Camp Golightly, and
+between reliefs took time to foot up his accounts. What had he to
+show for those weeks since his mother went away? Or (excepting only
+her visit) for the whole of "Yearling Camp"? Not much, he thought to
+himself with a curl of his lip. The little pleasure he had given was
+easy and cheap; the pleasure he had had--well, it did not look very
+bright to him now. Not very satisfactory.
+
+It seemed rather small business to take all the sweets he could get:
+compliments, flattery, and boodle, from girls to whom he neither would,
+could, nor should, give more in return than a walk or two; perhaps only
+the convenient phrase:
+
+"Thanks, awfully."
+
+And that very phrase was his mother's aversion.
+
+And it was no end mean, to laugh at a thing and then afterwards score
+it sharply. Was he still "training with the wrong crowd"--only of girls
+this time?
+
+Then he changed his ground and came up on the other side. How far had
+he been a power for good in all those weeks? How much stronger or purer
+had any company been for his presence? Who had learned to think sweeter
+things of religion for his glad life? Whose doubts had weakened in the
+light of his faith? Was anyone more ready to swear fealty to Christ
+for _his_ constant witnessing to the blessedness of the service? Nay,
+Cadet Kindred knew, now that he took time to think, what had ailed some
+of the merrymaking. It jarred his conscience. And sometimes he had felt
+it at the time.
+
+That Sunday afternoon, when he had walked about with Miss Dangleum, and
+smiled at her vapid infidelities, the twinge had been so sharp, as he
+thought of his mother in the old porch at home, drawing strength and
+knowledge from her open Bible, that he never did _that_ thing again.
+But he had laughed at Miss Beguile's jests about church and church
+service, and the very next day, in chapel, had taken the sugar plums
+she offered under cover of her fan.
+
+He had been indignant when some girl, displeased with the sermon, shook
+her fist at the preacher then and there. But perhaps she had never been
+taught any better--and what had been his own criticisms of that very
+sermon? Just as open as he dared make them.
+
+Cadet Kindred felt rather sick of himself, on the whole.
+
+"That's a large place in which to keep your colours!" he said, looking
+down into his grey sleeve.
+
+In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold of
+at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the
+great excitement of a nest of young squirrels. And the first bonbon
+drugged with rum followed: first, and last.
+
+"But, easy and cheap!" he repeated to himself. "I was not going to be
+tricked into taking that stuff. I had said I wouldn't."
+
+What else had he "said"?
+
+Coming off next morning with O. G. P., Magnus got leave to go to the
+trunkroom, and hunted out a little copy of the Church covenant which he
+knew his mother had packed in with his other things. Then, under one of
+the shadowing trees of Fort Clinton, he lay on the grass and read it
+over.
+
+"Unto Him, the Lord, you do now give yourself away, in a covenant never
+to be revoked, to be His willing servant forever."
+
+Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his
+Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was
+lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long
+would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always
+wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?
+
+"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself. "And
+these are but catspaws that come to me."
+
+Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff,
+where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and
+looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.
+
+"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a
+reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last
+letter?
+
+"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus
+Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position, Magnus
+found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of which
+Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing
+pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either
+entreaty or dismay.
+
+"Oh, there's nothing the matter, is there?" she said. "I was _so_
+afraid you'd had a sunstroke, or something. And you know you promised
+me a walk this morning."
+
+"Did I?"
+
+"Yes, and it's very rude of you to forget it."
+
+"Well, it is not too late for the walk," said Magnus, slipping the
+little book up his sleeve, and putting himself by the young lady's
+side. "Which way?"
+
+"Round the plain. I mustn't get out of sight, because I have to walk
+with Mr. Chapman at twelve."
+
+"'Have to' expresses it."
+
+"You shan't make fun of him," said Miss Saucy. "Of course, he's not
+some people,--but then he never forgets his walks, which some people
+do. What was that book you were studying?"
+
+"Regulations."
+
+"Blue book?"
+
+"No, white."
+
+"Then it was the black one. Boning discipline! I don't believe it. Not
+you."
+
+Magnus bowed.
+
+"Let me see, then," she said. "I know it's just some old thing with a
+love letter inside. Give it to me!"
+
+Magnus drew out the little book and handed it over, but Miss Saucy was
+a very bewildered girl indeed, as she turned the pages.
+
+"_What?_" she said. "I can't make head or tail of this thing. What sort
+of stuff is it, anyhow?"
+
+"Stuff that will wear."
+
+"It'll wear you--wear you out," said Miss Saucy. "You are at least two
+years older than you were last night. Oh, I don't know anything about
+religion, except the outside of course, don't you know; but that's
+enough. So the Chaplain has given you the points, and you're going to
+pose; Cadet Kindred, the serious man. Well, it'll be a variety. Come,
+let's go; I'll be the first to have a walk with him, anyhow. Will
+this do-o-o?" said the girl, drawling out her words, and bringing the
+corners of her little mouth as far down as they would go. "Mr. Kindred,
+what will be a profitable subject for us to discuss, as we take our
+solemn way under the brooding trees that shadow the path once called
+Flirtation? The low state of grace in the Corps, and what to do about
+it? Then when we've settled that we might turn our brilliant light upon
+the girls and go for them."
+
+"You said you wanted to walk on the plain," Magnus answered her.
+
+"Plain's too gay. Do you think, Mr. Kindred, you could lend me your
+lovely book just till to-morrow? It might do me no end of good. And you
+know how much I need it."
+
+"The book would do you no good at all," said Magnus, trying to keep
+cool. "If that is what you want, you had better read your own Bible."
+
+"Haven't one to my name,--so there!" said Miss Saucy. "Oh, I never dare
+read the Bible, for fear of what I might find. I suppose you see me
+there quite often, all done up in black, and labelled like old letters.
+'To be----'"
+
+"Stop!" Magnus said, so sharply and suddenly that Miss Saucy did stop
+for sheer amazement.
+
+"Well, I vow!" she said. "I wonder what right you have to speak to me
+so, Mr. Cadet Kindred."
+
+"No right at all," said Magnus. "Only, if you play with Bible words,
+you will cut your own fingers; and I'm not going to stand by and see
+you do it. That is all. So if I should leave you and go back to camp,
+you'll know why." And Magnus strode on at a pace quite beyond the usual
+Flirtation saunter.
+
+"I never--was--so talked to--in all my--many years of existence," said
+Miss Saucy, pretending to whimper. "I know I'm an awfully bad girl--and
+it's awfully sweet of you to tell me so. Such a nice time, too, when
+there's nobody round to take my part. Really looks as if you _cared_,"
+added she, with soft intonation. "Don't go so fast, Mr. Kindred,
+please! I won't say another word--not half a word. Not if we meet a
+procession of snakes. Or my best man with another girl. Or your best
+girl with another man."
+
+"You will not meet her," said Magnus. "She is too far away."
+
+"Well, that is abominable," said Miss Saucy, as a turn of the walk
+brought them face to face with another couple. "That is awfully,
+savagely cruel. Oh, Nina Dangleum! Here is Mr. Kindred telling me he is
+engaged to be married! How are we all to live on and smile?"
+
+"Excuse me; I said nothing of the sort," said Magnus.
+
+"Awfully of the sort, I should say," retorted Miss Saucy. "Ought to be,
+if you're not. With a faraway girl that hides all the rest of creation."
+
+"Then we are not to congratulate _both_ parties?" said the second man
+in grey, Mr. Short.
+
+"Yes, me, by all means--that I'm not the other girl," said Miss
+Saucy. "We've been having the awfullest quarrel! I never guessed
+Mr. Kindred had such a temper: he always struck me as one of the
+sweet-milk division. Like the Zulu's dog, you know, that eat up all the
+missionary's Bible and could never fight any--more."
+
+"Naturally," said Magnus.
+
+"Well, the dog didn't die--if that's what you mean," said Miss Saucy.
+"Only his popularity."
+
+"What do you know about missionaries?" said Short, with a laugh.
+"That's a story made to order."
+
+"It isn't! I guess I can hear things; I've got ears."
+
+"Two pink shells," Mr. Short suggested. Miss Saucy made him a sweeping
+courtesy.
+
+"Positively, the first decent word I've had said to me this morning.
+Mr. Kindred has been simply savage. But, do you know, Nina," she went
+on, half aside, "I think he believes it suits his style. Very fetching,
+don't you know. Why his eyes just glowed! If I wasn't so awfully afraid
+of him, I vow I'd make him angry every day."
+
+"Nothing left for you two, that I see, but coffee and pistols," said
+Short. "I suppose you can shoot, Miss Saucy?"
+
+"I suppose I can't."
+
+"Shall I take the job off your hands?"
+
+"Oh, no use!" said the girl. "Mr. Kindred can't fight. He's the Zulu's
+dog."
+
+Magnus coloured; but with a quiet steadiness of face and voice that
+held the essence of bravery, he said:
+
+"True, Oh, Miss Saucy! So, as it is to be peace and not war, shall we
+walk on?"
+
+And Miss Saucy actually behaved herself, for the rest of the way;
+and declared afterwards that she never _had_ known Mr. Kindred so
+fascinating.
+
+Late in the afternoon, Rig coming into the tent was much astonished to
+find Magnus with his arms on the locker, and his head on his arms.
+
+"Whatever's to pay now?" he said. "Just seen Pretty Newcomb go by with
+Carr? I wouldn't mind, Kin! There's several girls left."
+
+"Rig," said Magnus, looking up at him, "if you bring all your brilliant
+intellect to bear in September, I'm afraid the Institution will blow
+up."
+
+"Couldn't get the old thing started. Well, what is it, then? What
+are you at, all by yourself here? We've been having lots of fun in D
+Company."
+
+"Good place for it," said Magnus; "your sort."
+
+"What are you about, anyway?"
+
+"Adding up two and two, and trying to make them six."
+
+"Talk of blowing things up!" said Rig; "if _that_ isn't inflation!
+You'll find it a quicker job, Kin, to fetch in two more, if time is any
+object to you."
+
+"When you want sense," said Magnus, "go straight to the man who hasn't
+got any, and he'll give you his whole stock. I'll pit you against the
+world. Clear out and curl your hair; I've got something to do."
+
+And Magnus took from his Bible the slip of paper Mr. Upright had given
+him a year ago, then turned over to the fourth chapter of the first
+epistle of Peter, and put it in there for a mark. But he looked long
+and steadily at the staunch words:
+
+"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."
+
+After a little Rig came and peered over his shoulder again.
+
+"Hard at it yet?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Magnus, "and like to be. Just look at this! 'If ye be
+reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.' And I don't feel
+happy, worth a cent. I feel just as cross as two sticks."
+
+"But you can't take that as a _command_," said Rig, looking puzzled.
+"Folks don't feel happy to order."
+
+"Not a command, no; it merely states the case. How I should feel if the
+cause were as dear to me as it ought to be."
+
+"Well, I'd like to know what you're cross about," said Rig gloomily.
+"All the girls at your feet, and never twitted with anything by the
+Com. If it was me, now! You know how I shone in the blue list the other
+night."
+
+Magnus nodded.
+
+"Well, I hadn't really done anything," said Rig; "not worth mentioning,
+you know; and so I put in an explanation. And it was disallowed."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"What do you mean by 'naturally'?"
+
+"The way of the world, or the tactical part of it."
+
+"But I wasn't going to stand it, if it was, you know; and I polished up
+my buttons, brushed the top of my head, swept my face, and went to see
+the Supe."
+
+"Submitted your explanation to him?"
+
+"Another, Kin, another, with variations. Told him I didn't really know
+the act was against rules. Which I didn't, except by hearsay; and
+that's not evidence in law."
+
+"Haven't you a copy of the blue book?" demanded Magnus.
+
+"Always sleep with it clasped to my heart, so as to know when to wake
+up," said Rig. "But now, Kin, what do you think the Supe did? Passed
+right over my innocent face and guileless bearing, my spotless gloves
+and inky shoes, and went for me like a Bengal tiger."
+
+"'Mr. McLean,' he said, 'ignorance in your case is no excuse, sir.
+You have been reported for breaking almost every rule known to this
+Institution. That will do, sir.'"
+
+"And you came away, as usual, sadder and wiser?"
+
+Rig heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"Yes," he said, "'sadder and wiser' will be my motto, Kin, as long as I
+stay here."
+
+Magnus laughed and held out his hand.
+
+"I mean to make you better that, this year," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE GRIM GRAY WALLS
+
+    I'm older'n you,--and I've seen things a many;
+    And my experience,--tell ye what it's ben;--
+    Folks that worked thorough was the ones that thriv;
+    But bad work follers ye's long's ye live.
+
+    --_Biglow Papers._
+
+
+Next day the tents were struck; and the manifold delights of Camp
+Golightly drifted away beyond recall. But how pretty--and how gay--the
+scene was, that last morning.
+
+A perfect day to begin with; the air crisp enough to herald the coming
+fall; everything at its best, and the crowd at its largest. Mothers,
+brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and strangers, the whole Post,
+and half the neighbourhood. The groups are always very varied, often
+picturesque.
+
+Here stands a tall first classman, perfectly hemmed in by the dear
+people from home. His cap is off, and his face aglow; and lifted
+high up in his arms is the pet of the family; the little girl's hand
+straying round his neck, her soft childish dress and his gleaming
+chevrons setting each other off in a very perfect way.
+
+Beyond them is a many-coloured group of girls and dresses, but the
+girls look sleepy, and the muslins a trifle tired. The small hours of
+the hop last night have been too much for both. They are languidly
+talking over supposed conquests, rousing up now and then to say
+good-bye to special cadet friends, with many promises to come back
+next June for graduation. Under another tree is another party in the
+freshest of dresses, but themselves in the dumps.
+
+"Why, Amy!" says one of the calmest of the group, "you are almost
+crying!"
+
+"Oh, it is too awful to have it all go!" said Miss Amy, never taking
+her tearful gaze from the white tents. "I asked Ella this morning
+how she could possibly sit there and eat all that chicken and egg. I
+couldn't touch a thing!"
+
+And beyond these again stands a camera and its attendant genii, where
+a half-dozen mothers and their cadet sons are getting photographed
+together.
+
+Great army wagons pass back and forth between camp and barracks,
+bearing away bedding, lockers, brooms, and looking-glasses; and over
+the same short road go men in grey, with private effects too precious
+for the wagon, or perhaps only a belated broom.
+
+Out in the company streets there gathered and grew the while, this day,
+an array of rubbish; old shoes and gloves, old boxes that had once
+held boodle, white jars that _must_ have known tobacco, and yet had
+baffled (somehow) all tactical noses. White handkerchiefs--this one,
+indeed, duly marked "Smith, J." but this other, alas! filmy and fine
+with embroidery and lace. Once coveted and begged for and hid away,
+now tossed out among mess-hall spoons, stray towels, and broken glass.
+Had it even, perhaps, belonged to the fair damsel now weeping over the
+coming wreck of Camp Golightly? Take warning, young ladies, and do not
+waste your pocket handkerchiefs.
+
+As time went on, the grey element gradually faded out from about the
+seats, and the white canvas began to shrink and fall from its smooth
+shapeliness, with cadets clustering in and about every tent.
+
+The drummers came, and the first drum sounded. The tents shivered and
+swayed, the cadets took new positions, the breeze played over their
+heads and threatened to strike the tents at its own pleasure. Another
+drum, and now every eye and hand are needed to maintain even the
+semblance of a camp. Another--and the pretty little white town falls
+prostrate, and the grey men have the field.
+
+Then fold and bundle up, with some cheers for the quickest; the full
+band marches in, the Commandant leads off on horseback--and away goes
+the grey-and-white host, plumes waving, arms glancing, all down the old
+road to the officers' row, and so on to barracks. And over the plain
+in all sorts of groups and combinations, goes a motley crowd of the
+sovereign people, vainly striving to get there first.
+
+Poor little Miss Amy! Your cambric handkerchief lies limp and low in D
+Company street; and the man who was to keep it "always" marches past in
+the battalion, his head high in air.
+
+A day or two of freedom follow, for getting settled; a few last
+bewitching walks are taken by some, while others peep into their study
+books and try to brush off a little of the summer's dust which dims
+that respected pile. And so comes the 1st of September.
+
+I think Magnus Kindred was glad to get back to barracks, if only to
+tackle the year which should bring in furlough, and the yearling course
+certainly gave him enough to do. But who could not work with furlough
+before him? and of late another thought had taken new hold of his
+heart. He was but one, yet the honour of the name he bore was just so
+far in his keeping. If he stood high, it would be one answer to the
+taunt that religion made muffs of men. That would surely be said, if he
+were low in discipline, careless in dress, idle in studies.
+
+So for one cause and another, Magnus worked with all his might; stood
+one in discipline, and in other things went steadily up. And his
+example told; there was a strong, sound atmosphere about him that other
+men could feel.
+
+His dose of bitter-sweet thoughts about himself had done him good; and
+though he could not help hearing and seeing many things he did not
+like, join in them he would not, even if people laughed at him. More
+stringent orders than any blue book shows had taken new hold of the
+boy's heart, drawing him back from evil, speeding him on to good. "I
+have sworn unto the Lord, and I will perform it." Magnus and the flag
+had a good deal to say to each other in those days.
+
+What busy days they were! New studies, new drills, riding among the
+rest; but that was a delight. The days shortened, the girls drifted
+away to less studious regions, the leaves fell--then the snowflakes;
+and the winter settled down into the long, steady stride which brought
+furlough nearer with every step.
+
+January's first week sifted out several men from the yearling class;
+Mr. Carr among the rest. But as for some reason Mr. Carr took up his
+abode in the neighbourhood, he was still at least as useful an ally in
+helping them break regulations as he had been while in the Corps.
+
+"If you want some fun," Rig said to Magnus one day, "just hang round
+the west wall of the Academic after supper."
+
+"What about? I'm not going to put my fingers into a dark pocket."
+
+"Nobody wants 'em in. There'll be enough without yours," said Rig. "But
+Carr is going to bring up a grocery store, and I thought you might like
+to see it."
+
+"Bring up a grocery! Look out it doesn't turn into light prison for
+some of you."
+
+[Illustration: MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON]
+
+However, groceries being rare in that particular locality, when Magnus
+went out for his evening walk he did stroll towards the old Academic.
+The night was moonless, and not overbright with even stars; but the
+white spread of snow made things quite plain enough. And presently, as
+Magnus stepped down the walk, he saw a dark huddle of figures near the
+appointed west wall. A small sled and a very big box, with a half-dozen
+cadets playing stevedore.
+
+Then an officer came along the walk, meeting Magnus, who saluted and
+passed on. The officer glanced rather curiously down towards the dark
+group, but, with his mind full of something else, he merely took a
+short cut across the area, and so through the sallyport from the inside.
+
+It was at a critical moment. Box after box of chickens, mince pies,
+cakes, ham, sweets, celery, and so forth, had been pounced upon, stowed
+in bags, and carried off. Rig's turn came last.
+
+"I believe it's a mistake, you all going the same way," he said, as he
+seized the last bag of chickens. "I'll slip round the corner, and come
+in from the plain."
+
+So round he went in the dusky light and met Lieutenant Benton in the
+very mouth of the sallyport. Rig saluted, and slipped in. But dark
+as it was under the grey arch, the officer's practised eyes found
+something unusual about the cadet outlines, and the next moment he
+turned and gave chase.
+
+Rig had the start, and would have got off out of sight in another
+second if Mr. Benton had not suddenly shouted:
+
+"Cadet, halt!"
+
+Then it was all up.
+
+"What have you there, sir?"
+
+"Chickens, sir."
+
+"Go to the guard-house and turn them in."
+
+Crestfallen and sour, Rig crossed the area, set his bag down at the
+door of the guardhouse, and went in with his report. Being promptly
+ordered to produce his plunder, Rig stepped to the door--and behold!
+one chicken only was left. The light-fingered, light-footed boys in
+grey had in that two minutes rifled the bag and vanished. And Rig felt
+smaller than his own chicken when he turned it in, with the big bag, to
+the officer of the day.
+
+"Just my luck!" he said gloomily. But he never knew who ate the
+chickens.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE
+
+                        The bargain must be,
+    That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.
+    For this is a sort of engagement, you see,
+    That is binding on you, but not binding on me.
+
+    --_Nothing to Wear._
+
+
+It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a
+two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home
+group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time
+the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of
+excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count
+the hours.
+
+A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and
+freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all
+alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective
+laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure.
+They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do
+not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are
+good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just
+perfect--except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers, scented
+air, and in the distance--June.
+
+For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class,
+graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges;
+for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings,
+and call themselves the happiest of all.
+
+As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men with
+samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords,
+hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs,
+canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most
+perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four
+years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether
+you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a
+plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep
+debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against
+another's.
+
+With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but over
+one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit" clothes
+in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that very
+account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them home.
+So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just what he
+would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness, he thought
+he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it to himself
+gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the sallyport in
+open day.
+
+It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised
+West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed
+until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.
+
+Magnus tossed the coat up to the ceiling, regardless of what might
+happen to the plaster, and joined the shopping band that very day.
+
+It was delightful now, in the soft spring weather, to go out at every
+release from quarters, for a stroll round the plain, or down by the
+river. How lovely Flirtation was! An army of "Dutchman's breeches" held
+all the best posts among the rocks by the wayside, scaling the cliffs
+even down by the landing. And in the deeper shade north of Battery
+Knox, whole beds of dog-tooth violets filled the spots of damper
+ground, lifting their elegant heads like the highbred beauties that
+they are.
+
+Among the tougher growths, iron wood and black birch were charming
+with their tresses, and the young tufts of maple and oak and hickory
+leaves were a joy to see. Shad blossoms and dogwood "picked out" the
+green; from some far-down hidden corner the spice bush spiced the air.
+Saxifrage spread whole sheets of bloom; and Lowell's "dear common
+flower" gleamed everywhere.
+
+And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh from
+Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows. The
+company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not
+always games of solitaire.
+
+Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs. Granton,
+with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other people--Miss Bee
+and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just average damsels, but, of
+course, having a gay brother in the first class, they went everywhere,
+and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an heiress and played ditto, ditto
+upon yet stronger ground.
+
+In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just
+funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either
+wealth or beauty.
+
+She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant eyes
+and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of herself
+in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination. No poppy
+leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead, no foreign
+coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of home
+growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world than
+she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were large
+enough to button all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a
+trick of saying nothing she did not mean.
+
+No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point; cadets
+are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of all I have
+told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in the public
+interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one missed her,
+or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never scowled at
+each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what she had on.
+Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted every crumb of
+pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had had so little of it
+in her life, poor child! This was her first real outing. No wonder West
+Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born prince in disguise.
+
+At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious, perhaps,
+of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that changed a
+little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily as ever,
+when some grey uniform came up with:
+
+"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this
+morning?"
+
+But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay
+whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton,
+this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many
+a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade,
+and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody
+guessed it, and she never told.
+
+It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus
+suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all
+romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell
+buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy
+individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred, with no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In
+truth, it was some time before the child picked up a dictionary of
+herself, with definitions.
+
+But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with keen
+eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile, and
+a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may
+happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl
+rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see
+and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk,
+when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion,
+right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it)
+enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he
+came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far
+too much of a gentleman--too much of a man--to try to draw her on for
+his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though he did pick
+up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and then he
+took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a "previous"
+against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all the while he
+was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his own mind so
+befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and surely one poor
+little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.
+
+Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel the
+bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even
+though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does
+not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the
+distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus
+a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl
+_must_ have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding
+at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too
+often played pilot, to that he never gave a thought. All _that_ was in
+the realm of impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.
+
+It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own
+counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask
+Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some
+others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time
+came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all
+parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.
+
+There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now than
+ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his life but
+home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about three lines,
+telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day, and in all
+the other between-times he was either freshening up his knowledge of
+some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks with June, and
+June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or caught a glimpse
+of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off, scaling the rocks
+or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck spot, quite beyond
+reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he would lie on the
+moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of the thrush; listen
+without hearing, as he planned his journey home. He would take such
+a train, and make such a connection, and jump off at the old station
+at just such a time. He would not tell them quite when to expect him,
+because they would be sure to come to meet him, and some of them would
+cry--right there before everybody. And it was a bother to attend to
+your luggage with three girls round your neck. But then Magnus laughed
+and coloured too. There could hardly be _three_--yet somehow two seemed
+even more objectionable. And still if he sent no word, and they did
+not meet him, there was a good half hour lost from that end of his
+furlough.
+
+So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss
+Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight.
+She _must_ have displeased him somehow.
+
+"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one
+night.
+
+"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said Clive.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+FURLOUGH
+
+    Den away, away, for I can't wait any longer.
+        Hooray! Hooray! I's goin' home!
+
+    --_Old Shady._
+
+
+It is strange how some event towards which you have been working, and
+which seemed to fill earth and sky till you reached it, at once then
+sinks down and becomes hardly distinguishable from the plain. So passed
+by the examination to Magnus Kindred.
+
+In fact everybody is so fagged out by the 12th of June, tired with
+work, with gaiety and excitement, that feeling seems swallowed up of
+high pressure. This may be one reason why the bad success of other men
+affects so little those who have won through. Exceptionally strong as
+class feeling is at West Point, the dropped names seem to make very
+slight impression. And in some cases, of course, there is no surprise.
+When a man bones nothing but mischief, and tries to crowd into the
+three weeks before examination the study which should have filled six
+months, June is not always kind to him. Unless, indeed, he be one of
+those men who are pure mathematics--and even then the discipline column
+may cut him down. So it was with small surprise that Magnus heard
+Chapman's name among the "found deficient." Chapman did not whimper,
+but he took it hard.
+
+"It's that beastly calculus!" he confided to Magnus, in the hurried
+moments of parting. "Oh, yes! I know what you mean by raising your
+eyebrows, but a man couldn't live here if he didn't run it now and
+then."
+
+"But you see a man can't always live here if he does," said Magnus.
+
+"Bosh! Yes, he can. Only they don't all run against old Towser every
+time, as I did. No, it wasn't that at all, it was the calculus."
+
+And doubtless, in great measure, it was. Another boy, from far away,
+fairly came to tears.
+
+"I don't see how I am to go home!" he said. "I don't know what my
+mother will say!"
+
+While another, who had got a turn-back, liked so little what his mother
+_did_ say that he gave her a sharp little lecture on the Graduation
+ground.
+
+"I can't tell what makes you go on so!" he burst forth. "I'm only
+turned back. Lots of men are sent away altogether. Why do you talk like
+that? What's the matter?"
+
+Poor mothers! It is often pathetic to hear them explain the case to
+other people.
+
+"He's a good boy, Miss Smith; but you know he has always been delicate.
+Hard study never agreed with him." (True, this last.)
+
+"You see, Mrs. Brown, he has had such trouble with his eyes that I
+wonder he has kept up at all. I really must speak to the Superintendent
+about the study lights. Then these early recitations. Why, at home we
+never thought of waking him up till eight o'clock, and then gently, you
+know, and by degrees. And now he says that gun just goes through his
+head without a word of preparation. I suppose, really, that is what
+ails his eyes."
+
+"Everything here is so wretchedly mismanaged!" commented a wise and
+sympathetic damsel. "The cadets are abused at every turn. I don't see
+how they stand it. It is the meanest place!"
+
+"Well, I've done what I could to straighten things," said a beaming
+matron. "Look at this bag,--absolutely worn out in the service. It has
+brought Tom _everything_--from cigars up. And when he wants money, he
+has only to say so."
+
+Strange, that with such care Tom should ever grumble at
+anything--especially regulations.
+
+But graduation has come and gone, the graduates have scattered; some
+for home, some for Europe, some to be married "on graduation leave."
+For three months they have "the world before them, where to choose."
+
+The furlough men, too, are scattered, yet more widely and individually,
+speeding away on the spider's web of railways that covers the country.
+Class supper was over, changed from a gay revel to a less brilliant
+memory, and Magnus Kindred went whirling along towards home. And the
+great question of taking them all by surprise was still unsettled.
+
+The home folks, however, had their own ideas on the subject, and for at
+least two days before Magnus could possibly come, they had met every
+train from the East; Mrs. Kindred, Rose, and Violet. Cherry went the
+first time, but after that absented herself on one plea or another. And
+so on that sweet June afternoon, when the train slowed up to let off
+the one passenger and the one trunk, the three were in hiding behind
+the station.
+
+No one could ever describe what that first home-coming was to Magnus.
+For miles and hours the excitement in the boy's heart had been working
+itself up to white heat, as point after point rose up to give him
+welcome. Here a cliff and there a hill; the schoolhouse near by, the
+church further off; if he had only had a dozen straw hats, I think
+eleven of them would have gone out of the window, for pure joy.
+
+But the little platform was empty, save of officials; not a creature
+got out of the train but Magnus, and not one was waiting to get in.
+Not a figure broke the broad June sunlight that filled the old road
+towards home. But when he had hurriedly tramped down the steps, he
+found himself in his mother's arms, with the two girls sobbing for joy
+on either side.
+
+Of the next few minutes, I think no one of them could afterwards give
+much account. Then Magnus, with one arm round his mother, gave that
+hand to Violet, and the other to Rose, and so they walked along. How
+they talked!--with tongues once set free; but most of all, how they
+looked at each other. Mother and son had met within the year, but the
+two girls gazed at their handsome brother with a surprised delight that
+could never have enough.
+
+"But I had forgotten that you were so brown, Magnus," said Rose.
+
+"Drills."
+
+"You always were straight," said Violet, "but now----"
+
+"Bracing up."
+
+"And your hair is _so_ short," said Rose.
+
+"Regulations."
+
+Then how they all laughed and hugged each other over again, for there
+were only the wild birds to see.
+
+"Well, certainly, if brevity be the soul of wit, you have improved in
+one line," said Rose.
+
+"They teach it out there," said Magnus. "'Mr. Kindred, your head is on
+one side, sir!'--'Yes, sir. Which side, sir?'"
+
+"And what did you get for being so saucy?" asked the mother, as the
+laugh died away.
+
+"Nothing that time. Even Towser can't skin a man unless he gets hold of
+him. But wherever is Cherry? When you all came out of the first bush, I
+thought she would jump out of the second."
+
+"She's at home," said Rose. "We wanted her to come, and she wouldn't."
+
+"But she did the first time," said Violet eagerly; "the first day we
+thought you might come."
+
+"Oh, ho!--and as I didn't show up then she put on her high-heeled
+shoes," said Magnus. "Girls are all just alike the world over."
+
+"No, they are not!" cried both the charming specimens then present.
+"And you shall not say that of Cherry. She is like nobody else--and
+nobody else is like her."
+
+And privately, Magnus thought his own two sisters very unlike most
+other girls. With their fresh, unjaded faces, undoctored complexions,
+untrammelled feet and waists, and unspoiled minds, they made a
+wonderful sweet contrast to Miss Dashaway and Miss Flirt. Magnus had
+not known how his estimate of women had run down among the crowd till
+he found it mounting up again, ten degrees at a time.
+
+Even Cherry's absenting herself--it provoked him heartily, and he felt
+himself much injured, but it was after all a refreshing change after
+Miss Dangleum's ways. Yes, demonstrations were the man's business, and
+in his present mood Magnus felt quite equal to them, could he but get
+hold of the right person.
+
+No half-grown girl in half-long dresses appeared, however, as they
+reached the house, but for a few minutes Magnus had all he could
+manage. The old dog (prudently left at home) was nearly as wild over
+the meeting as his young master; jumped upon him, clung to him, danced
+round him, whimpered, whined, and barked for joy. It was not five
+minutes before the two were rolling down the grass slope together,
+then running a sharp race, and then flying all over the old house from
+room to room. Magnus shouldered his trunk and rushed upstairs with it,
+and Plato dashed after him, wakening all the echoes that were anywhere
+about. The two girls, putting rolls in the oven and setting on cream
+and butter, almost danced in their tiptoe joy; the mother in the small
+sitting-room hid her face in her hands, and cried and gave thanks. Just
+to hear that boy's step overhead, what was it like? And then to have
+the pair come racing down the old stairs when supper was ready, Plato
+barking in a perfect scream of delight;--do you wonder that the prayer
+for a blessing was spoken low and falteringly? or that a hush filled
+all the room for some moments thereafter?
+
+Then the three busied themselves earnestly about their boy's supper,
+and the boy also lent his assistance; Plato lying on the floor and
+winking at him. The old dog was afraid to really go to sleep lest he
+should lose sight of his young master.
+
+"I suppose her High Mightiness expects me to put on my war paint
+to-morrow, and to go and ca--ll," said Magnus, drawling out the last
+word with ridiculous intonation.
+
+"Who? Cherry? Now, Magnus, you shall not call her that," said Rose.
+
+"Shall not, hey? I will call her anything I like," said Magnus.
+
+"Well, go on, then, and do it," cried Violet, with a laugh, "for here
+she is."
+
+And in more confusion than he expected from himself, after this
+bravado, Cadet Kindred started up from the table and found himself face
+to face with his old playmate.
+
+Cherry had the advantage of him; she had seen the photograph, and was
+partly prepared for what she saw now--not quite. But to Magnus, with
+eyes full of the gleesome, outspoken girl of sixteen, this vision of a
+tall, slender maiden of eighteen summers, with something of a woman's
+shy reserve floating round her like the daintiest filmy veil, was
+altogether new. He had seen nothing like it. She was so lovely, so
+dainty, so sweet--if any epithets presented themselves, they died on
+his tongue.
+
+And the girl, too, had caught her breath; the living presence is always
+so far beyond the picture. All her nicely prepared words of welcome
+took to their heels, and Cherry held out her hand and said simply:
+
+"How do you do?"
+
+Magnus got hold of the hand, and kept it; held it fast while he pushed
+and pulled chairs about to give her a place by himself. The hand was
+something tangible--especially as it was not quite ready to be held.
+
+"How do I do?" he repeated, as she took her seat: "you don't care. Why
+didn't you come to meet me?"
+
+"I think you had enough at the station."
+
+"And you had enough at home, I suppose."
+
+"Enough to do--yes."
+
+"Well, how can you spare the time to be here now?" said Mr. Kindred,
+pursuing his inquiries. A girl who did not wear even the semblance of a
+heart upon her sleeve was something new of late, and exasperating. "It
+is very frivolous work to sit by and see me eat supper."
+
+"It will be less so, when I get something to eat myself," Cherry
+answered demurely. "But I can wait still longer, if it is not certain
+the supply will hold out."
+
+"There! now you have got it," cried Rose, clapping her hands; "and
+good for you, too. Hectoring her in that style! Give her some berries,
+Magnus, before you eat another one. Cherry picked two thirds of them
+with her own fingers."
+
+"She did!" said Magnus, reddening in spite of himself under Cherry's
+fire; second classman on furlough and presumptive first sergeant though
+he was. "That explains why I've had to empty the sugar bowl. I'm sorry
+I have made such a raid, Cherry, but you shall have what is left."
+
+And swiftly he drew everything as near the girl's plate as the dishes
+could find room. Bread plate and butter plate, cake basket, cheese,
+cream pitcher, water pitcher, and the wreck of the broiled chicken.
+Then seizing the berry bowl Magnus began to pile the sweet wild
+strawberries upon her plate, adding slowly and skilfully till they ran
+down to the very edge and rose up in the middle a red fragrant cone.
+
+"How will that do to begin?" he said. "Will you have some sugar?--but I
+suppose not, as you picked them yourself and put all the tartness into
+mine."
+
+The other three looked on, laughing and interested; but now Cherry
+was out of her depth. She looked down at the strawberry hill, at the
+dishes, then glanced round at Magnus. What did he mean? Was he really
+vexed? Could he really think? It was the fairest kind of a look, so
+earnest and questioning. What do you mean? it said.
+
+I think Cadet Kindred knew very promptly what he meant, and saw some
+things clearly which had been hanging about in a sort of uncertain
+haze. And thus in answer to her shy questioning, Cherry met a look so
+keen and merry and full of mischief, full of she hardly knew what, that
+her eyes fell and the pink flushes came hurrying over her face.
+
+Then Magnus laughed. He had the vantage now which belonged to him, and
+he felt better.
+
+"Cherry," he said, "you are a transparent humbug! Mother, will you give
+me a cup of tea?"
+
+"I think you are an extremely rude boy," said Mrs. Kindred, putting
+in an extra lump of sugar the while. "If these are your West Point
+manners, you will need a few terms at some other school."
+
+"West Point manners are all packed away with my dress coat. This is the
+original Magnus variety."
+
+"It is good to know," said Rose. "Here we have all been rubbing _our_
+manners up, to receive you properly."
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Magnus, turning to gaze at Cherry. "Good
+to know, as you say. I did suspicion it was something got up for my
+express benefit."
+
+"Let her alone, and finish your supper," said Mrs. Kindred. "That is,
+if you ever intend to finish."
+
+"Emphatically I do!" said Magnus. "If I didn't, I could never begin
+again, and that would be a loss out here. Cherry, give me just a few
+berries off your plate. I am bashful about taking any more out of the
+dish. The sugar has given out, too," he added, dropping his voice; "and
+these will not want any."
+
+Poor Cherry!--she literally found not a word to say, but sat looking
+down at her plate in helpless silence, as the hands she remembered
+so well conveyed away part of its contents. Then Rose came with a
+replenished sugar-bowl and set it down by him. But Magnus waved it away.
+
+"Thank you, no," he said. "These are too sweet for sugar. How do you
+suppose Cherry worked it, to get them all on her plate?"
+
+"Crazy boy!" said Rose, "you put them there yourself. Magnus, is your
+dress coat here?"
+
+"Truly. Had to bring it along, lest a war should break out before I get
+back. May need it yet----" with an indescribable inflection which only
+Cherry caught.
+
+"Then if you _have_ done, as mother says," said Violet, "go straight
+upstairs and put it on, and come down and show yourself."
+
+"Put on my dress coat, after such a supper," quoth Magnus. "I think I
+will!"
+
+"Don't be foolish," said Rose. "Go at once, if you want pancakes for
+breakfast."
+
+"Make it waffles----"
+
+"Very well, then, waffles," cried both the girls, laughing at him. "Now
+Magnus, go! While your hair is short."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+CHERRY
+
+    'Tis the middle watch of a summer night.
+    The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
+    Naught is seen in the vault on high,
+    But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky,
+    And the flood that rolls its milky hue,
+    A river of light, in the welkin blue.
+
+    --_Culprit Fay._
+
+
+And thus it was, that in ten minutes or so there entered upon the scene
+a fine presentation of a West Point cadet: short hair, white collar,
+bell buttons, and all the rest.
+
+Just inside the door Magnus paused, drew himself up, and gave a
+comprehensive military salute; then came on with quick, regulation
+step, halted in front of Cherry, and took off his cap with the true
+cadet swing.
+
+"Thought you'd be out, Miss Reserve. I saw you clear across the plain.
+Now Cherry, you must ask how I could possibly see so far."
+
+"What would you answer if I did?" Cherry said diplomatically. This
+photograph in person was not easy to talk to.
+
+"I should remark that I can always see some people, across the world.
+Then you must put your head on one side and say: 'But you know you have
+_such_ eyes, Mr. Kindred!'"
+
+"Well, I certainly shall not say _that_," Cherry declared, venturing a
+look.
+
+"Magnus, you are a young peacock," said his mother.
+
+"Fine feathers, mammy. How do you like West Point, Miss Reserve? Is
+this your first visit? Very warm, isn't it? What do think of our view?"
+
+Oh, how they laughed at him, Cherry and all! Magnus kept a grave face.
+
+"Will you walk with me after supper?" he went on. And Cherry's sweet
+eyes opened full on him, to see what he meant.
+
+"That is not the way at all," said Magnus (approving it highly, all the
+same). "You must put your head on the other side now and say: 'Really,
+Mr. Kindred--he! he!--I'm awfully sorry--but I've given all my walks
+away.' Then I shall answer fiercely: 'Tell me one of the men, and I'll
+go fight him and get it back.' Now, Cherry, clasp your hands and say
+pleadingly: 'Oh, no! Please don't, Mr. Kindred! I remember now--there
+is one walk just before breakfast. Would that be too early for you?'
+And I answer practically: 'Nothing is too early for me, Miss Reserve,
+after you have opened your eyes.' And then you must give me an admiring
+glance and say: 'Oh, don't talk of _my_ eyes, Mr. Kindred!' Then the
+drum-beats, and I double-time it into camp."
+
+"You need not say 'you'--I should never say such things," Cherry
+declared; this vision of other girls acting as a tonic, though she
+laughed with the rest.
+
+"Of course not! You do not say anything to me," retorted Magnus.
+
+"She is too polite to interrupt you," said Rose. "Do you mean to say
+that West Point girls talk like that?"
+
+"Some of the girls. Cherry will when I have walked with her a few
+times."
+
+Cherry glanced up in quick denial, meeting then the aforesaid eyes
+looking so handsome and competent and full of frolic and power that her
+own beat a hasty retreat.
+
+"And you walk with such girls?" demanded Violet.
+
+"Oh, yes--" Magnus said easily. "One cannot be uncivil just because
+they are complimentary."
+
+"But before breakfast!" said Rose. "Is there no other half hour in the
+day that would do?"
+
+"My dear girl, it's not _that_ half hour in particular; it is every
+half hour they can get. You wouldn't have them pink and white their
+cheeks for nothing."
+
+"Pink their cheeks?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Magnus. "Pink them--frost them. I'm sure I don't know
+how it's done."
+
+"You are telling traveller's tales," said Mrs. Kindred gravely.
+
+"Well, I like that!" said Magnus. "Why, mammy, they _all_ do it.
+Clinker says so. At least not all, I suppose. Of course, there are
+exceptions."
+
+"Charlemagne"--began Mrs. Kindred. But at this word Magnus turned
+to her and "stood attention," bracing up to the fullest extent, and
+saluting with such profound gravity and respect that the rest all
+shouted, and the mother's face gave way.
+
+"There is no doing anything with you," she said. "You must give them no
+end of trouble at West Point. Go upstairs and take off that toggery,
+and see if you can be a reasonable boy."
+
+"I've got to give Cherry her walk first," said Magnus. "She has never
+walked with a real live cadet; and she may as well practise on me
+before she undertakes the rest of the Corps next summer."
+
+"I look like that," said Cherry, with some scorn.
+
+"Very much like it, I should say," responded Magnus. "I know how it
+will be. 'Say, Kindred, who's that awfully nice girl you've got on
+hand? Introduce me, won't you? Your sister, aint she? Well, don't let
+her promise all her walks to those spoony fellows. You want her to have
+a good time, you know.'"
+
+Magnus hit it off with excellent mimicry, and the room was in a buzz of
+amusement.
+
+"Then I shall say," he went on, "that my sisters are in quite another
+package, and that to ensure her having a good time, she has promised
+all her walks to me."
+
+"She hasn't at all," said Violet.
+
+"She will--by that time," said Magnus confidently; enjoying the
+pulsating colour in Cherry's face, and comparing it with the unmoved
+tinting of poppy leaves. "Why, even to-night she'll not walk home with
+anybody but Cadet Kindred, in full canonicals."
+
+"Magnus!" said his mother, "I think you are absolutely beside yourself."
+
+"Do cadets all talk in that style?" demanded Rose.
+
+"Not all so brilliantly as I do, by any means, but in the same general
+way."
+
+"Then I think they need a professor of common sense at West Point."
+
+"And I think you had better go to bed and to sleep," said Violet.
+"We'll walk home with Cherry. Your brain is getting overexcited."
+
+"Silence and solitude will calm it down," said Magnus. "If you all go,
+there will be a chatter, but Cherry and I know each other so well that
+there is no need to speak. She will not try to keep me, mammy; I'll be
+right back."
+
+There is no doubt but Cherry was laughing when they set out, partly
+for nervousness, but also in part for the mere infectious atmosphere
+of frolic. She gave no sign, however, being much under the spell of
+the tall, erect figure at her side. Whenever she looked up and tried
+to throw off the glamour, one glint of the bell buttons brought it on
+worse than before.
+
+"Aren't we walking very fast?" said Magnus mildly.
+
+"But you told your mother you would be right back," said Cherry.
+
+"From your front door--not from ours." The laugh rippled out at that,
+as Cherry moderated her pace.
+
+"No use, you see," said Magnus, falling into an easy saunter. "I can
+do the double faster than you can. I knew you meant to scoot away by
+yourself, the minute I went to change myself into a cit."
+
+"Who told you?" said Cherry.
+
+"You."
+
+Silence fell upon this; then Magnus began again:
+
+"You see, I really wanted to have you alone awhile--I wanted to ask
+tidings of an old friend of mine. I thought perhaps you could tell me
+where to find her; girls always seem to know about girls."
+
+"Oh, I do not!" said Cherry hastily, running over in her mind all the
+girls she had ever heard of. "You should ask Rose."
+
+"Rose doesn't know everything. I dare say you can tell me if she has
+moved off. I thought so much of her!" said Magnus pensively, gazing
+up at the stars. "We used to be very intimate. I left my heart in her
+keeping--whatever she did with it. Why--you will hardly believe me--but
+she used to live here, in your house. And when I was going away to West
+Point she kissed me right at this very gate."
+
+"She didn't!" cried Cherry hotly, and then hung her head.
+
+"Oh, you do know her then?" said Magnus. "Why didn't you say so before?
+And where do you suppose she probably is now?"
+
+Cherry resolutely stopped and faced him; what though the full moonlight
+effect well nigh swept off her self-possession.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "you are talking great nonsense. It may be the West
+Point fashionable way of talking sense, but we are plain folks out here
+and have not had your advantages."
+
+And here Magnus made a bow so profound that it sent Cherry's words to
+the right-about.
+
+"What next?" said Magnus. "That is all more or less true, so far, but
+well begun is only half done."
+
+"Oh, it is no use to talk to you!" said Cherry. "And it never was, for
+that matter."
+
+"_My_ talking is of some use, however," said Magnus. "I have quite
+succeeded in bringing myself back to your recollection. What more did
+you want to say, pretty girl?"
+
+"That you are extremely silly," said Cherry, with the laugh getting
+into her voice.
+
+"There is no contenting these women of sense!" said Magnus. "If I fib,
+she scolds: if I tell truth, she flouts me. If Derby drill will only
+handle this line of approaches, I shall learn how, in time. Don't walk
+so fast, wise damsel."
+
+"Will you come in and see papa to-night?" said Cherry, not slackening
+her pace in the least.
+
+"Well, hardly," said Magnus. "I like to make it all safe with the
+daughter before I rush into the paternal presence."
+
+If Cherry had been that sort of a girl, I think she would have lent
+him a very earnest and hearty little cuff. As it was, she gave him
+one hopeless glance and slipped through the little gate, as her next
+neighbour would have said, "spryer'n an eel."
+
+But quick steps were play to Magnus, and before Cherry's foot had
+touched the doorstone he was beside her. His hands met round but not
+touching her, putting the girl in a charmed circle of space; and the
+strong, clear voice chanted out an old playtime couplet:
+
+    "Open the ring and let her in,
+      And kiss her when you get her in."
+
+"Oh, Magnus! do hush!" Cherry said desperately. "You are altogether
+wild to-night. And everybody will find it out!" she added, as if that
+doubled the case. She made a quick motion to dive under "the ring" and
+get away, which was quite fruitless.
+
+"Stand still," Magnus admonished her. "Unless you want the prison walls
+to converge, as in that old tale of the Inquisition. I am going to put
+you straight through the catechism. First of all, will you confess that
+you are a humbug and a fraud?"
+
+"I am only myself," Cherry faltered, but standing so still now that she
+hardly dared breathe.
+
+"Only yourself--a very good answer. Well, I never want you to be
+anything else, more or less. Do you understand?"
+
+"The words are tolerably plain," said Cherry.
+
+"Then if you are 'only yourself,' why didn't you welcome me home?"
+
+"What did you want me to say?" said Cherry, with again a little break
+in her voice.
+
+"Say?" repeated Magnus. "You should have thrown up your hands and eyes,
+and then taken down the dictionary and used every word there was in it."
+
+But now Cherry laughed.
+
+"You would have had a pretty mixed dose, if I had," she said.
+
+"Well, that is past," said Magnus; "you can't do it now. So you must
+have the catechism. Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"You are delighted?"
+
+"Yes"--a little slower.
+
+"Out of your wits with joy?"
+
+"No," said Cherry; "you are the only person out of his wits."
+
+"Ready to do anything I ask you?"
+
+"In reason"--again slowly.
+
+"Out of reason?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You will dream of me to-night?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"You will go wherever I want you to while I am here?"
+
+"I--think so."
+
+"And you will walk with me three times a day at West Point and with
+nobody else?"
+
+"I shall not be at West Point. Magnus, do stop fooling and let me go."
+
+"Bid me good-night, then."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+"I mean the way we said good-bye."
+
+"That is the way I said good-bye," Cherry answered.
+
+"It wasn't the way _I_ said good-bye," said Magnus. "_This_ was
+the way. And this is the way I say good-night. Cherry, you are a
+transparent fraud."
+
+"But you must go," Cherry urged, very grave and quiet now. "If you do
+not go, you never can come again!" she added, as a last argument.
+
+"What a wise girl! I believe she could tackle warped surfaces."
+
+"Are they any harder to manage than you are?" said Cherry. "You
+know"--but she checked herself. It would not do to mention her father
+again, even to save his being waked up by all this talking under his
+window.
+
+"Know what?"
+
+"Less than you think," said Cherry coolly.
+
+"The professors have been trying to din that into me for the last two
+years," said Magnus, "but I never thought to have you take it up. What
+were you going to say?"
+
+"I shall not tell you."
+
+"Sugar and spice," quoted Magnus. "Shows what I have to expect at my
+first wild frontier post."
+
+"I can tell you what to expect before that," said Cherry. "If you stay
+here moonshining any longer, you 'will be pale to-morrow,' like your
+namesake in Dickens."
+
+"Then you can hand over some of your pinks," said Magnus. "Besides,
+my dear, I must inform you of a well-known West Point fact: truth
+misapplied ceases to be useful. Mr. Peter Magnus was storing his good
+looks to propound a certain question next day. Whereas I, having
+settled it to-night----"
+
+But just there Cherry made a quick movement of her pretty head, stooped
+under the enclosing arms, and was out of sight in a second.
+
+Magnus ran down the hill, whistling at the top of his power. I am not
+sure that Cherry knew what he whistled; and I doubt if he knew himself;
+but I think it was "The Girl I Left behind Me."
+
+"My dear boy," said Mrs. Kindred, as her cadet came in, "you forget
+that it is night in these Western regions. Have you been round the
+neighbourhood whistling people up?"
+
+Magnus threw himself down on the floor at her feet.
+
+"Mammy, if you'd not been allowed to whistle for two years, you would
+know how good it feels."
+
+"Not allowed to whistle? What could comfort you?" said the mother,
+laying her hand caressingly on his head. "Well, I suppose if three
+hundred boys got to whistling, the effect might be rather powerful."
+
+"What kept you so long, boy?" said Rose.
+
+"Cherry. She is a rather slow girl, sometimes."
+
+"She isn't!" cried Violet. "_Never!_ She is just the quickest girl
+going."
+
+"Cherry--as I have found her," said Magnus gravely.
+
+"Do all cadets tell fibs?" inquired Rose.
+
+"Unless I am a shining exception, they do."
+
+"Well, do they all look like you?" said Violet.
+
+"Making allowance for the difference of men," said Magnus, with easy
+assurance.
+
+"What are those things on your arm for?"
+
+"Rank, power, and responsibility. They are not 'things,' they are
+chevrons."
+
+"What's the sense of cutting your hair so short?"
+
+"So as to see better how to skin us for 'too much shirt collar,'"
+replied Mr. Kindred.
+
+"Girls," said the mother, "you must really let him go to bed. I do not
+think he half knows what he is about."
+
+"Don't I, though!" cried Magnus, springing up. "Just one hour and a
+half ago tattoo beat, and I wasn't there to hear it."
+
+And once more the cap did duty in the air, as Magnus gave a tolerably
+quiet version of the class yell.
+
+"Go, child," his mother repeated, smiling at him.
+
+"Yes, I must," said Magnus. "Cherry said I should be pale to-morrow. It
+is worth while going to sleep, with no reveille gun ahead."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+OFF LIMITS
+
+    Forgotten the sounds of drum and fife,
+    Forgotten the winter days so drear;
+    But all was keen with the glad new life
+    That throbs in the veins in the furlough year.
+
+    --_Howitzer of 1891._
+
+
+It was just like the cross grain of human nature that without a sound
+but the singing of birds to rouse him, our young soldier should wake up
+at precisely reveille gun time. In fact he did it for three days, to
+his great disgust; and then, as he said of himself, learned to know how
+happy he was.
+
+Of course, this first morning at home, with everything before him
+except drills and regulations, going to sleep again was impossible.
+
+So with the sublime unconsciousness of other people's slumbers which
+marks young men of his age, Magnus lay still and began to whistle. And
+with that other line of forgetfulness which shows the inferiority of
+the feminine mind, there was not a woman in the house but would have
+given her best sleep to hear him.
+
+They were not asleep, however, but up and stirring; and it was perhaps
+some closing door or opening window, or the long unheard voice of the
+coffee mill, which reminded Cadet Kindred that in these regions there
+was no preparatory drum; and that such a noise as he had been making
+would quite rule out the thought of any private suggestions at his
+door. Wherefore, he had better get up. But what fun--to dress as he
+liked, in what he liked, and be as long as he liked about it.
+
+With these thoughts came another to hasten his motions: would Cherry
+come to breakfast? And if she did, then just when would she come? And
+here Magnus paused before a piquant illustration of the young lady
+herself, drawn from memory--or, as the _real_ novelists put it, "which
+had been photographed on his heart in one brief moment." And thus it
+seemed:
+
+A tall, delicately formed girl, with dark hair, which did not crinkle
+and curl like his own, but parted in shining waves and rings; a
+complexion colourless in general, but where the rosy tints came and
+went like a pink cloud, in swift pulsations. The eyes--no, Mr. Kindred
+thought he had not a fair look at her eyes last night, and that was one
+thing to do to-day. Also her hand was a soft and fresh thing to touch.
+And at this point Magnus opened his door and passed out.
+
+On the way downstairs he peeped into his mother's room, but no one
+was there, and he went straight on to a small room on the first floor
+which was a sort of offshoot from the house, and hardly bigger than a
+good-sized bay window.
+
+But the picture he found there Magnus never forgot.
+
+The room had been his father's summer study. Too cold for winter use,
+but in June perfection, with every window open to the air. Roses and
+honeysuckles climbed up and ran across and strayed in; amid the tangle
+birds sang and twittered and builded. Further off were cattle and
+chickens, with an old drum major of a turkey cock strutting before the
+barnyard throng. The scent of hayfields was mingled with the yet rarer
+fragrance of new-mown grass.
+
+If the room had been larger, the minister's old library would have made
+small show; but as it was, the strips of wall between the windows were
+quite well covered. It was a very old affair in every way; leather
+covers much worn with handling, shutting in truths that were but the
+brighter for much believing. Very old-fashioned books. You could not
+find a copy of "Why I am a Doubter"; nor a single treatise on "The
+Eternal Equilibrium of Things." The glad toiler in Christ's vineyard
+had had no use for "The Trammels of Faith, and how I Got beyond Them";
+and as little for "The Proper Sphere and Limit of the Bible, Set Forth
+and Defined."
+
+But there was Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," which the minister
+himself had also preached; with Bunyan's "Holy War between Diabolus
+and the Town of Mansoul," the which he himself had also waged; there
+was "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," upon which he now had entered.
+There was also old Matthew Henry's "Commentary" in its six volumes,
+which gave people so much to do on the plane of the lower criticism,
+that they had small chance to wish for the higher; with Fox's "Book of
+Martyrs," and "Lives of the Port Royalists," and Doddridge's "Rise and
+Progress of Religion in the Soul."
+
+Only two chairs were in the room: one, where inquirers had so often sat
+and troubled hearts found peace, was pushed back now, its service done;
+but the minister's chair still stood by the minister's table where lay
+the minister's Book of books; and in the chair sat the minister's widow.
+
+She was not reading at the moment: I think she had been listening to
+the gay sounds upstairs; and a tender, happy smile was on her lips,
+in perfect keeping with the words on which her eyes had been. But
+everything in that room was in keeping, to Magnus: his mother's cap
+looked to him not a whit purer than her face; nor was the shine outside
+the windows more gladsome than the look she turned to him. The young
+cadet was at her side in an instant, down on his knees with his head on
+her shoulder.
+
+"What waked you up so early, child?"
+
+"The echo of that reveille gun came clear across the Continent for the
+express purpose."
+
+"Hardly. I heard you whistling some time ago."
+
+"Did I disturb you?"
+
+"You could not do that," said the mother.
+
+"But you were reading."
+
+"Thoughts of you are never far away from the Bible, nor the Bible from
+thoughts of you. Where have you been reading this morning, Magnus?"
+
+"I've not been reading anywhere. Mother, do you think I had better run
+up for Cherry? or will she be here all right on time?"
+
+"Time for what?" said Mrs. Kindred, rather opening her eyes at this
+very rapid transit.
+
+"Breakfast."
+
+"Did she say she would come?"
+
+"Why--no," said Magnus. "I took it for granted."
+
+"Never take anything for granted about Cherry, except that she will
+do just what is right. She never goes anywhere, Magnus, until she has
+given her father his breakfast and seen to his morning comfort in every
+way."
+
+"I should think she might come," Magnus said discontentedly. "It's my
+first morning home. He could get along for once."
+
+The mother smiled a little at the wide space demanded by the young
+people in these days, and the side corner deemed enough for the elder;
+but the usurpers are too lovely and beloved to be resisted. And
+besides, there is a sort of "while they can"--that checks many a word;
+the tender, pathetic force of Dr. Bonar's thought:
+
+    "Take thou my place, and be thy feast
+      Sweeter than mine has been!"
+
+"Cherry will not come, Magnus," she said. "She never gets free before
+ten or eleven o'clock. So tell me why you have done no reading to-day."
+
+"Out of the habit," said Magnus. "I never do it in the morning."
+
+"What is your Bible time?"
+
+"Well, if I can be said to have one, it is more apt to be at night,"
+said Magnus. "I don't always read then, but most generally I do."
+
+"At night?" said the mother, carefully hiding all signs of the
+underground shock that made her heart tremble. "I like to read at
+night, too. But then, dear, if you do not read in the morning as well,
+you have no fresh heartful of the blessed words to live by through the
+day." And she looked round at Magnus with such eager, anxious, pleading
+eyes as went straight to his heart. Which truly was not far to seek,
+that morning. He jumped up and put himself in the other chair, drawing
+it up to her.
+
+"Mammy," he said, "let me tell you about it. It's this way. The gun
+wakes me up. And I tumble downstairs half dressed, and declare at the
+top of my voice that I am myself, and nobody else. That is, the first
+sergeant calls 'Kindred!' and I yell back 'Here!' Then I rush in again,
+and tumble into bed, clothes and all, and get the very best nap you
+ever dreamed of."
+
+"Another nap? For how long?"
+
+"Two minutes and a quarter, drum time. Then I finish dressing and go
+to breakfast. And after breakfast, we don't have very much time before
+recitation."
+
+"Cannot you read then?"
+
+"Once in a while I do," said Magnus. "Not always. Maybe I do a little
+boning in math. Maybe I take a walk with the nicest girl there is
+round."
+
+His mother could not help smiling.
+
+"Can you always get the nicest?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes!" Magnus answered easily; "unless she happens to be somebody
+else's best. Sometimes then. You see, so long as she doesn't look me in
+the face, she can fancy I am her 'best' man."
+
+"Why, Magnus!" his mother said, half laughing now, but really anxious;
+"how do you behave, to make that possible?"
+
+Magnus laughed too, with great delight.
+
+"Sure enough," he said, "how do I? Maybe I go through the motions."
+
+And now it was Mrs. Kindred who, after a moment's pause, changed the
+subject.
+
+"Look, dear," she said, laying her hand on the open Bible, "I was
+reading just here: the parable of the sower. And my thoughts had been
+going back and forth from the seed which the fowls of the air were let
+pick up, to that other which fell in an honest and good heart, and
+'with patience,' brought forth an hundred-fold."
+
+Magnus ran his eyes over the passage.
+
+"There are lots of fowls of the air at the Academy," he said.
+
+"Maybe no more than elsewhere. But they have no business in _your_
+life, Magnus."
+
+"No, mammy, they haven't," he said, hesitating a little with the
+difficulty of making his case plain. "All the same, they come in. I'll
+go to a right down good prayer-meeting Sunday night, and come back
+meaning to be the joy of your heart from that time on. Think I'll go
+straight to bed, so as to be sure and keep good till morning. Well,
+the moon is coming up as I get back to camp, and there is Randolph
+with pink and white gowns in tow; and I stop to speak, and they all
+say: 'Oh, come for a little walk!' I don't want to, and I half turn
+away--and then I go. The prayer-meeting isn't all gone by the time I
+get back, but there has been more of it picked up than you'd like."
+
+"Yes," the mother answered, thinking in her heart that she had not
+prayed half enough for her boy in his hard places.
+
+"Why, I've seen a man stay to Communion," Magnus went on, "and when
+we came out, there was Pretty Newcomb waiting for him in the rain, at
+the foot of the Chapel steps. Just walked him off alongside of her
+umbrella--or under it. And what are you going to do?"
+
+"I see. But, Magnus, you said 'Sunday' night. What sort of girls are at
+the Camp Sunday night?"
+
+"Summer girls," said Magnus briefly.
+
+"Well, dear," said the mother, the cheerful tone coming back to her
+voice, "the Lord is 'able to keep you from falling,' even in the most
+difficult places; and to make you 'fruitful to every good work,'
+in spite of all the fowls of the air that ever fluttered down. But
+remember, that on your part the word is: 'Hold fast that which thou
+hast, that no man take thy crown.'"
+
+"I know." But then Magnus remembered something else, and was suddenly
+silent.
+
+And now came a soft, imperative call to breakfast.
+
+"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as the
+mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up at
+him with her true eyes.
+
+"Magnus, _never_ 'go through the motions,' as you call it, with the
+wrong woman. _Never_, as a sham. It dishonours the woman and degrades
+the man, and robs the other woman--the right one--of somewhat that
+belongs to her alone."
+
+"Well, I never really have, mammy," said Magnus gravely; "so make your
+mind easy. And I never shall--unless the right one throws me over. I
+don't know what I'll do then."
+
+And in spite of all previous warning Magnus looked round the breakfast
+room for Cherry, and not finding her, felt very much aggrieved.
+
+There was no lack of talk and laughter, however; the joy of those four
+people in being together was extreme, and of course, the others did not
+miss Cherry, not having expected her, but Magnus did. The reserved,
+dainty girl had taken him by storm. They had always been inseparable
+as children, and as true boy and girl, though never with any freedom
+on her part, even then, that passed the prettiest bounds. Now she had
+stepped off a little, regarding him from a safer grown-up distance,
+and Magnus was wild to annihilate both time and space, and whatever
+else came in his way. She had bloomed out into something much rarer
+than he knew could be in the world, and Cadet Kindred surrendered at
+discretion, and without a summons. I believe he found that last fact
+the crowning charm. If Cherry had held forth her little finger to draw
+him on, or had in any way shortened that new indefinable distance
+between him and her, I think Magnus would have struck off a percentage
+from her perfections. It vexed and bewitched him equally.
+
+So the young man sat opposite the open window, where the smoke from the
+other house curled softly into view, and thought himself ill-used and
+happy in about half and half mixture. He watched the winding path, but
+it remained empty. Then he looked at his sisters; how handsome they
+were, too! Splendid girls, both of them; and wouldn't they make a stir
+in first-class camp? Of course his mother had always been perfection.
+And here his eyes came round to her, with a smile of such joyful love
+and content that poor Mrs. Kindred was very near making a goose of
+herself, as she would have phrased it. What it was to have her boy home
+again!
+
+"But I cannot see why they don't move down here!" Magnus broke forth
+irrelevantly. "Living on there all by themselves in that stupid old
+house."
+
+"Stupid?" cried Violet. "Why, it's the very prettiest house in all the
+State."
+
+"You had best not let Cherry hear you say such things," remarked Rose.
+"She loves that house with all her heart."
+
+"Stuff!" said Magnus. "She'll have to leave it some time."
+
+"She will not while her father lives," said Mrs. Kindred.
+
+"Why, mother, girls do it every day."
+
+"Girls--but not Cherry," the mother answered; and Magnus was so charmed
+with the saying, and the fair little pedestal on which it placed his
+heart's delight, that he adopted it for a private phrase of his own;
+used many times afterwards, it may be said, when "girls--but not
+Cherry," were around.
+
+"Then, when she will not come, you go to her?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, she always comes," said Violet; "some time in the day."
+
+"Some time in the day!"
+
+"According to what she has to do. Only letter days she always came
+early, and left the work till she got back."
+
+"Some of it," corrected Rose. "But there's no letter due from Magnus
+to-day, you know, so we cannot tell when she will be here."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" said Mr. Kindred, pushing back his chair.
+"Coming to hear my letters, and not coming to see me!"
+
+"Well, the letters were very interesting, you know----" Violet began,
+and then thought it prudent to vanish.
+
+"But, my dear," said Mrs. Kindred, "as you must of course go up there
+this morning yourself before you pay any other visits, I do not see how
+it really matters."
+
+"No, of course," said Magnus briskly. "Oh, mammy, I wish you'd pick out
+a lot of such easy duties for me."
+
+"We cannot go with you," said Rose, "because we also have something to
+do; but we will come after you. You must wear your cadet clothes for
+Mr. Erskine."
+
+So Magnus put himself in trim, and charging his sisters not to hurry on
+his account, and promising faithfully to wait till they came, began to
+mount the hill. Good for him the girls were busy--and yet, suppose that
+other girl were hid away in some part of the house to which Rose and
+Violet could go, while he could not?
+
+Magnus whistled his thoughts down the wind, as he went on, and then,
+with a sudden fancy to approach unnoticed, hushed his tones and even
+his steps, and went in, seeing nobody. Through the hall to the back
+door--and there got another picture to think of in barracks.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+ON EXHIBITION
+
+    Wise men always
+    Affirm and say,
+    That best is for a man
+    Diligently
+    For to apply,
+    All business that he can.
+
+    --SIR T. MORE.
+
+
+The Red House had been set very near the branch road by which he came
+up, and in front there was only a short path and a bit of greensward,
+but at the back lay a big old-fashioned garden, sloping gaily down
+towards a bit of woodland and a talkative brook.
+
+Overlooking all this was a very wide porch with sashes on all sides
+which could be shut, but which on this warm still morning were all slid
+back. The porch within was full of flowers, with various rustic holders
+to hang and to stand and to rest on the sills, a wonderful basket of
+lilies of the valley being the centre piece on the breakfast table.
+
+There were traces in the house of other days and more Eastern regions,
+and the little spider-legged table was dark with long years of service,
+the spoons were slim-stemmed and delicate, the dishes of exquisite blue
+and white.
+
+But the dishes held very simple viands: bread, milk, wheat, with fruit
+and flowers, were about the whole, for some hurts or injuries dating
+back to the war time had slowly brought Mr. Erskine to a semi-invalid
+state, and Cherry wanted nothing but what her father had.
+
+I have told you nothing about Mr. Erskine--and yet he was a very
+noticeable man. Hair whitened more with sorrow than years (it had
+changed suddenly upon the death of his wife), cheeks where the native
+red still lingered, setting off the look of extremely delicate health,
+with features refined and above-board in every line. The eyes were both
+soft and flashing, the smile--once the merriest in the world--now never
+lost its shade of pathos. Everything about the man was refined, the
+daintily cared-for hand, the plain, scrupulously neat dress. Across one
+edge of the placid brow a red scar swept down and hid itself among the
+thick locks of frosted hair, and now, as you looked further, you could
+see that the right hand had lost its mate, and the left sleeve hung
+empty.
+
+With one hand resting lightly on that shoulder and kneeling at her
+father's side, Cherry read to him from a book laid open on the table,
+while Mr. Erskine was slowly finishing his plate of strawberries,
+dipping them, one by one, in the white sugar. Now and then a word of
+question, of comment, of explanation, passed between the two, with
+heads lifted and eyes meeting each other, then the reading went on
+again.
+
+This was what Magnus saw; and though he made out no words, the mere
+tones of Cherry's voice seemed to him as sweet as any bird or brook
+or leaf-stir in the whole morning concert; and I know not how long he
+might have stood there in the shadows of the hall, if little Snip, the
+terrier, being officer in charge and scenting mischief, had not rushed
+in from the garden on a tour of keen inspection coupled with much
+comment. Cherry rose quickly to her feet, Magnus stepped out upon the
+porch, and catching hold of her hand, as he went by, dropped down upon
+one knee by Mr. Erskine, in laughing glee at his astonishment.
+
+"Magnus!" he cried. "My dear boy, is this you? Can it be possible!" The
+one arm came round the boy and drew him close.
+
+"So this is what made you stumble over your report of last night," Mr.
+Erskine went on, turning to Cherry; "you were hiding a secret." Cherry
+blushed scarlet.
+
+"Did I stumble, papa?" she said, carrying off the dishes.
+
+"Very much, for you. Well, my boy, there is no need to ask you how you
+are. Stand off there, and let me have a good look."
+
+"I didn't mean to come in war paint, sir," said Magnus, as he obeyed;
+"but they said at home you would want to see it."
+
+"Of course I do. Well, they certainly turn out--showy fellows over
+there." Mr. Erskine hesitated over his adjective, as if to choose a
+safe one. Cherry bit her lips, Magnus laughed and coloured too.
+
+"They try for it," he said; "but we hope to be useful also, some day,
+Mr. Erskine."
+
+"Of all the 'some days' for being useful, I have ever found to-day the
+very best. Sit down and give an account of yourself. Let the cloth
+wait, Cherry. I suppose you want to hear it all, too. Unless you heard
+it last night."
+
+"No, indeed, sir," said Magnus. "I did not have a chance to tell her
+half." This with a glance at Cherry, which she did not mean to see.
+
+"Papa," she said, "it will take but a minute to finish the table, and
+then we can listen so much better."
+
+"Have your own way, love," her father answered, smiling. "My dear
+love!" he said under his breath, watching her. Then he turned to Magnus.
+
+"Of course we know a good deal about you," he said, "for we have read
+and reread your letters, but I think I can understand them better now.
+And so these are the famous bell buttons?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the regulation sort."
+
+"Truly, they are pretty bright," said Mr. Erskine, with an amused
+smile. "Are the coats still pocketless?"
+
+Cadet Kindred disclosed the hiding place of his handkerchief.
+
+"I should call that hard lines," said Mr. Erskine. "Your mother gave us
+a description when she came home, and I rather think Cherry cried over
+it. 'What _will_ Magnus do without pockets?' she said. 'Because, you
+know, papa, if there was ever anything he did _not_ have in his pocket,
+it was only what he could not find.' Do you remember, love?"
+
+"Papa," said Cherry, much abashed at both the story and the laugh it
+brought, "I think it is enough to have said silly things without having
+them repeated."
+
+She fetched her work basket, and placing herself at the other side of
+her father, took out some bit of white stuff, and began to fold and
+hem with great speed and dexterity. Magnus watched her, wishing it
+were something for him. He had now and then seen a girl with a crochet
+needle in these two years, or straining her eyes over a piece of mussed
+unhappy looking drawnwork, but everything about Cherry and her basket
+was as fresh as the morning. Her strip of muslin might have just come
+from the shop, and have gone straight back there again, for all the
+disturbance it had from her neat handling.
+
+"Yes, she's a busy child," said Mr. Erskine fondly, noting where the
+eyes were bent; "busy and sweet as the day is long. But come, Magnus,
+draw up your chair, and let us have the story. Of course, as I said,
+we have heard a great deal, but we want the whole thing now, don't we,
+love? Do you wear all that finery every day?"
+
+"Yes sir, except when nobody is supposed to see us. We have an ugly,
+comfortable blouse for study, and meals, and recitations. With fatigue
+suits, of course, for drills."
+
+"Look your worst at recitations, hey? I should think it good policy to
+look your best."
+
+"Wouldn't make any difference with those old buffers," said Magnus.
+"They don't care if you fess perfectly frigid. They'd just as soon give
+you zero as anything else."
+
+Mr. Erskine's mouth took on a quizzical look.
+
+"Sounds like cold weather, doesn't it, love?" he said. "But let us go
+on regularly. Suppose it was term-time, how would your day begin?"
+
+"With the gun, always, sir. Unless I am boning math. and have waked
+myself up for early study. I'm too much of a sleepyhead to do it often."
+
+"Best not; you need the sleep."
+
+"Yes, but when you want to max it, and have been getting two-nine for
+three days running, you see that will not do," said Magnus. "And I will
+not bugle; and I can't fudge worth a cent."
+
+The comical look passed into a laugh this time, low and very pleasant,
+Cherry joining in, after a vain attempt to keep herself quiet.
+
+"Next in prominence to the gun comes breakfast, I suppose," said Mr.
+Erskine.
+
+"Yes, breakfast--slumgudgeon stew, and the rest of it," said Magnus.
+"But the bread and butter and milk are always good. They've taken
+to calling the roll after breakfast, as well as before, in case
+slumgudgeon should have laid some slain man under the table. Then comes
+a bit of release from quarters. If I've been fizzling lately, maybe I
+put in the time on French; but I am more apt to take a walk."
+
+"That is well," said Mr. Erskine. "A brisk walk puts the brain in good
+order."
+
+"It's not always a brisk walk, though," said Magnus. "Most often I go
+dawdling along with some girl."
+
+And now Cherry was so still that only the swift-flying needle seemed to
+move. Mr. Erskine looked amused.
+
+"I should think that a poor preparing for the section room," he
+said. "Can't be helped if it is," said Magnus. "There's such a lot
+of girls--and summer girls--about, it takes every minute you can get.
+Chappy comes up and says: 'Kin, just give my sister a walk, will you?
+Awfully nice girl, but if I don't bone a little I'll be found in
+French, sure guns. And besides, my best girl is here.' So I go. Then
+Miss Beguile says: 'Oh, Mr. Kindred! I've _never_ seen Fort Putnam.
+Please take me!'"
+
+How they both laugh at him--Cherry holding back a little, then letting
+her merry notes ring in.
+
+"That sounds stringent," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you notice, love, his
+fine distinction between 'girls' and 'summer girls'? That is something
+we simple people know nothing of. By the way, I suppose _you_ must be a
+summer girl--as he never sees you in the winter."
+
+"If anyone ever dares call her a summer girl," said Mr. Kindred
+promptly, "I'll knock him down quicker than he ever had it done before."
+
+"Hands off! I'll not call her so," said Mr. Erskine, laughing. "She is
+an everyday girl, and better each time. But Magnus, suppose _your_ best
+girl happens to be also on hand?"
+
+"She never is, sir. She has not been at the Point since I went there."
+
+"Hard on you, if she went there before; you speak as if she were a
+fixed fact. Do you know, Magnus, I am rather sorry to hear that."
+
+"Why, sir?" demanded Magnus, noting the pulsating colour in the fair
+face bent over the needlework.
+
+"Well, when I thought of it, I hoped you would keep clear of all such
+entanglements till you knew what you wanted."
+
+"I did, sir."
+
+"Oh, of course! I beg pardon; I should have said till you had seen a
+little more of the world."
+
+"Do you think the world is the place to choose, sir?"
+
+Mr. Erskine smiled, half sorrowfully.
+
+"I have only an old matchlock," he said, "and cannot cope with you
+young sharpshooters. But my boy, what I meant was this. When the boy
+goes off to college and grows into new mental strength and riches,
+and the girl stays at home and gets not half a chance, poor child, to
+do anything but wash dishes or (now do not glower at me) perhaps does
+not wish for higher things, then the man comes home raised to a plane
+where she is not fitted to stand by his side, and she can never be the
+helpmeet for him that she should."
+
+Magnus listened respectfully; watching that lovely, flitting colour, it
+was not hard to sit still.
+
+"You think," he said, "that some girls wouldn't amount to much at a
+one-company post. When a man was hard up for comrades?"
+
+"Not unless they were 'best girls' in truth."
+
+"Oh, well, mine is," said Magnus confidently, "the very bestest sort.
+I don't know how much she knows--but if I stay at the Academy two
+years longer I shall have a stuffed head, full enough to lend on every
+occasion. Besides, it's not needful for a man's peace of mind that his
+wife should understand wave motion, is it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Erskine laughed at him, and Cherry laughed too, though now
+colouring furiously.
+
+"I suppose it is not needful," her father said, not noticing her,
+"unless in practice. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you.
+I had a friend, Magnus, who got entangled, as I call it, very early,
+went away to college, and when he came back with all his honours, his
+mother forbade the bans on that distinct plea; she said the girl was
+too ignorant. I think my friend would have gone straight on through it
+all, but the girl was not of that sort. She refused to enter any family
+by the side door. So they waited, the engagement was virtually broken,
+and years went by. Then the mother died, the man sought his old love
+and married her. But Magnus, the girl had spent those years not in
+lamenting, not in flirting, but in solid, hard study. So that when at
+last they went forth in life together she had passed him, and was the
+better educated of the two."
+
+What was Cherry laughing at? For while the cheeks had not all cooled
+down, the lips had parted in but half-controlled curls of fun.
+
+"Well, if she was proficient in warped surfaces, I hope they enjoyed
+talking it over in their play-spells," said Magnus. "I've no use for
+some of those things, they sift out too many good men. We all felt bad
+to have Chuck go."
+
+"Finished his course?" said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"At West Point, sir; graduated at the wrong end, dropped. He did
+everything to stay; ran a light after taps, cut society, and sat night
+after night with his feet in cold water and his hands in his hair
+(what there was of it)," Magnus added in parenthesis. "But nothing did
+any good; he'd go next day and fess on a clean board. 'Mr. Simpkins,'
+the instructor asked him one day, 'are you as stupid at drill as you
+are in the section room?' And Chuck turned with the blandest face and
+answered: 'Nigh on to it, Lieutenant!' And he was."
+
+How the listeners laughed again.
+
+"But that was Simpkins," Cherry remarked. "You said 'Chuck.'"
+
+"'Chuck' was his cadet name."
+
+"Do they name everyone?" asked Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Very generally. But some names go with the office. The fattest man in
+the class is 'Tubs,' and the oldest 'Daddy'; while the cleanest-face
+man in all the Corps may be 'mud,' because his pred. or his resemblance
+owned the name. 'Deacon' and 'Squire', 'Mile-High' and 'Shorty',
+'Pretty Jones' and 'Lady Crane.'"
+
+"What is yours?" said Cherry.
+
+"Only 'Kin'; sometimes with the 'Kith' added. Do you see?"
+
+"I see that you are a very wide-awake set of boys," said Mr. Erskine.
+Cherry slowly pulled off her thimble.
+
+"Papa," she said, "I sent word that they must all come here to dinner,
+and it is time for me to go and see to things."
+
+"I will come and help," said Magnus.
+
+"Thank you, no," Cherry answered him gaily. "Housekeeping is one of the
+few things you have _not_ studied. Stay and talk to your mother, she is
+just here."
+
+So while the two girls followed Cherry, the other three people sat
+talking over many things, the two elders closely scanning the young
+cadet; and he, all unconscious of their scrutiny, showing himself
+just as he was in truth. Certainly the stories and pranks he rattled
+off were full of mischief, and as surely they gave small token of a
+reverent respect for regulations. But there was no taint of anything
+mean or low, no word that savoured of "conduct unbecoming an officer
+and a gentleman." The mother breathed freer with every new light thrown
+upon his West Point life, and felt that her boy had come back to her
+pure as he had gone away. The eyes of the two old friends met in
+joyful sympathy time and again, as Magnus talked and told, and their
+laughter had no reserve of anxious questioning. And when at last Magnus
+detailed himself to go and look after the girls and dinner, Mr. Erskine
+stretched out his hand to the happy mother.
+
+"He is a splendid fellow," he said; "a grand boy! I congratulate you
+with all my heart."
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+SKIRMISHING
+
+    O wha can prudence think upon,
+      And sic a lassie by him?
+    O wha can prudence think upon,
+      And sae in love as I am?
+
+    --_Old Song._
+
+
+Magnus, meanwhile, with quite as much of the "boy" as the "grand"
+about him, despite his inches, tiptoed off along passages and through
+doorways that he knew by heart, following the hum of voices. So
+presently came out into the small summer kitchen, where a pleasant
+smell of good cookery steamed and puffed and whiffed from various
+vessels within and upon the stove. Dishes stood ready on the table,
+with white-covered pans of rolls just waiting to be baked, but save the
+old cat, winking and blinking by the oven door, there was nobody in
+charge.
+
+Magnus gave her a toss up in the air for old times' sake, peeped
+cautiously out at the broad back steps, then let himself easily down
+through the open window and came round the other way upon the scene of
+the sweet chatter that was going on.
+
+The three girls were on the steps, Rose and Violet hulling
+strawberries, while Cherry in a wide check apron, sat on the lowest
+step of all with a basket of lettuce at her side, picking over the
+fresh green leaves, and dropping them into a pan of cold water. A thick
+clump of lilac bushes served as a screen.
+
+"Do you know," Rose was saying, "I cannot believe it, yet. I think I
+cried for joy a little bit, when I waked up in the night and remembered
+that Magnus was really here."
+
+"And doesn't he look well?" said Violet; "and isn't he a beauty?"
+
+"Do not tell him that," Cherry answered with discretion. She would have
+given a ready enough answer a week ago, but somehow, with the continent
+no more between them, the young damsel had grown wary.
+
+"I'm afraid everybody else will tell him," said Rose. "But he is not
+spoiled a bit _yet_. Don't you think so?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+It was a very mild way of giving her estimate, and Cherry scolded
+herself that she could not answer freely, as she had always done;
+called herself to account for the shyness which had sprung into life
+with, indeed, the very first coming of that photograph.
+
+"I am such a goose!" poor Cherry thought, bending down low over the
+lettuce basket. "What shall I do to myself? If only he had not acted so
+last night!"
+
+And just here, by way of composing matters, two hands came softly round
+her head, and were laid lightly and respectfully upon her eyes. It was
+one of his old teasing ways with her.
+
+Cherry's start passed almost into a tremor. She put up her hands to
+remove the obstruction, and they were taken and held fast; and what
+more Magnus might have dared had there been no witnesses, will never be
+known.
+
+Cherry lifted her face, trying to speak sternly.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "you have not improved one bit. I thought West
+Point was to make a man of you--or a better man--or something."
+
+"It has made 'something' of me," he retorted, gazing down at her. "Give
+you three guesses."
+
+"Too much else to do. Set that pan of lettuce on the table, please.
+Don't you see how busy I am?" And Cherry drew towards her a basket of
+green peas and began to shell with all her might.
+
+"I see it--to the depths of my heart," Magnus answered as he did her
+bidding. "Here, Viola, give us your apron. If I don't sit down and help
+this girl, I shall have her fainting away on my hands."
+
+"No, you will not," Cherry said very decidedly.
+
+But Magnus spied a spare apron on a nail, and, tying it carefully round
+his neck, he put himself down on the doorstep, and dived in among the
+pea pods. Always taking, if he could, the very one of which Cherry had
+laid hold, and then dropping that and seizing her fingers, and then
+mysteriously scattering the peas from his own hands or shaking them
+out of hers, so that the rolling things had to be sought on all sides.
+Which last process Cadet Kindred pursued so zealously that more than
+once his face and Cherry's shining locks came very near together.
+
+The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two
+had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough
+to play, and to see it all go on again in the old fashion was too good
+for anything. Of the subtile difference that had crept in, their young
+eyes took no note. And Cherry herself tried hard to ignore it, laughing
+with the rest, and very well holding her own, but dimly conscious all
+the while that things she would have ventured once, she did not venture
+now.
+
+"Boy, why do you tie that string round your neck?" said Rose. "Have you
+forgotten how aprons are worn?"
+
+"A lost art. But this is the improved style, which I mean to introduce
+at West Point. I cannot see how the Tactical Department has overlooked
+aprons so long. We're too young to know when to wear overcoats, so
+aprons to keep our trousers clean would be just the thing. I'll
+introduce them."
+
+"When you go back, I suppose," said Rose sarcastically. "I'll lend you
+mine for a pattern."
+
+"When I go back as Com.," Magnus answered with dignity. "When I am Com.
+and Cherry is Supe. _then_ you'll see."
+
+"You could see now, if you would look," said Cherry, as a podful of
+peas rolled down the step.
+
+"I am looking with all my eyes.--And they dare to call you a summer
+girl!" Magnus broke forth, watching the lovely pink cloud of colour
+that came and went with such swift changes.
+
+"Will you _please_ tell us what a summer girl is like?" said Violet.
+"She has danced about a good deal in your letters, but we everyday
+people don't know what she is. Come, boy, describe her."
+
+"Her!" Magnus repeated. "She is to the full as plural as she is
+singular."
+
+"Many of them at West Point, are there?" said Rose.
+
+"Car loads; stunning, too, as they can be, some of them. Take your
+breath away. Say, girls, where's the old banjo? In existence yet?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes," said Rose. "Only no one has played it since you went
+away."
+
+"And it is here, too," said Violet. "Mother made us bring it this
+morning, because she was sure Mr. Erskine would like to hear you sing."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew _she_
+couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss
+Erskine first. About her namesake--and some other things."
+
+He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the
+doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the
+peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was
+softly beating to a stiff froth. The other girls had finished their
+berries, and sat near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed
+over clover and mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen.
+Behind him, Magnus could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went
+on within the house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long,
+plaintive moo, and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the
+wealth that came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head
+against the doorpost and listened.
+
+"That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold of
+him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls
+watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose
+bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and
+scents from hayfields and hills--it came upon Magnus Kindred like a
+spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the
+graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then
+sang out from the depths of his heart:
+
+    "Home, home! Sweet, sweet home,
+    O there's no place like home!
+    There is no place like home."
+
+Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had indeed
+never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices which can
+never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two years he
+had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and sweetened
+it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls.
+
+The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before;
+Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat
+in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there
+came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music,
+and--and--everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her breast
+as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at the
+singer, and then could not take her eyes away.
+
+As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his wont,
+being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things. From
+"Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"--back and forth as the band had done--so
+went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up some special
+association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful eyes that were
+fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their handkerchiefs.
+
+    "We twa hae paidlet in the burn,
+      Frae morning sun till dine;
+    But we've wandered mony a weary fit,
+      Sen auld lang syne."
+
+"That is just what we did, Cerise--do you remember? And just what I
+have done, since."
+
+"But oh, Magnus!" she cried, "were you so homesick as that?"
+
+"Homesick? Your blue apron is rose-colour to it."
+
+"I am glad we did not know," Cherry said with a long breath, beginning
+slowly to beat her cream. "You were very good not to tell."
+
+"And did nobody help you or speak to you?" questioned the two young
+sisters, coming up nearer to sit at his feet.
+
+"I had help enough," said Magnus, softly twanging the strings of his
+banjo. "Everybody from the Com. to the third-class corporals bade me
+brace up. And if I wanted a lonely walk in the open air on Saturday, I
+had only to wear my hair long and dishevelled as a sign of grief, and
+they'd give to me without asking. And if I dead-beat and went to the
+Hospital to get a chance to mope a little, Dr. Pestle would give me
+some compound to _make_ me sick, lest I should lose my time and be down
+there for nothing. The Tacs were so afraid I should 'wet my couch with
+briny tears' that they made me keep the old thing tight rolled up till
+bed time. I was too tired to cry, then."
+
+"Queer help," said Rose.
+
+"The best that could be, Rosy. They made me mad, and then I was all
+right."
+
+"I should call that poor comfort," said Violet.
+
+"Nothing like it, however," said Magnus. "Dries up your feelings
+quicker than fourteen pocket-handkerchiefs. You owe the world one, and
+you mean to live till you pay it. So suicide can wait."
+
+"Magnus, I wish you would not talk so," Cherry said appealingly.
+
+"Now there is Cerise," Magnus went on. "If I could once make her
+thoroughly angry with me, she wouldn't mind anything else that
+happened. The thing is how. I haven't found out yet."
+
+"And you never will," said Rose. "You cannot do it."
+
+"I cannot, hey? That is good to know. Gives me great freedom of action.
+I'll store up the information for future use."
+
+"What makes you call her Cerise?" said Rose.
+
+"Practising my French. Of course I never thought of her in common
+English when I was away."
+
+"Cherry, he cannot be with you five minutes without beginning to
+tease," said the girls, laughing. "He is the very same boy he always
+was."
+
+"I think he has made good progress in the art of telling fibs," said
+Cherry in turn.
+
+"Fibs!" Magnus repeated, with much unworded scorn. "You'll see about
+that. I mean to tell the truth while I am home now, if I never do
+again." And with the most funny, rollicking tone Mr. Kindred caught up
+his banjo and dashed off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me"; rattling it
+out, throwing in recitative here and there, and putting such spirit
+and vim into the performance that now the girls all laughed till they
+nearly cried again; but this time Cherry kept her eyes on her cream.
+
+Then quick and easily as the band had done, Magnus dropped once more
+into the plaintive burden of:
+
+    "Home, home; sweet, sweet home;
+    There is no place like home,--
+    There is no place like home."
+
+But now, when he stopped playing, his two sisters came round him
+caressing him, hanging upon him, and even Mrs. Kindred looked in from
+the other room and said:
+
+"Magnus, don't play that any more. You break my heart. I shall never be
+able to let you go back again."
+
+Magnus laid the banjo aside.
+
+"Don't fret now, mammy," he said. "It has been pretty tough, but the
+worst is over."
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+A MORNING TALK
+
+    Hope rules a land forever green:
+    All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
+      Are confident and gay.
+    Clouds at her bidding disappear;
+    Points she to aught? The bliss draws near,
+      And fancy rules the way.
+
+    --WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+That was a wonderful day. But it may be remarked, that Mr. Kindred went
+home more than ever discontented with the length of the hill.
+
+"Living up there," he said, "when we are all down here. It is too bad.
+How many times a month does Cherry walk down here in the sun?"
+
+"She need not walk in the sun," said the girls, laughing at him. "There
+is shade all the way if she wants it. Why, she comes every day, you
+foolish boy."
+
+"At what hour, generally, you foolish girl?"
+
+"Oh, all sorts of times," said Violet; "after breakfast, and before
+dinner, and after tea. But they are both coming down to-day to dine
+with us."
+
+"I think I will just go up and make sure they understand that," said
+Magnus. "Cherry does not always take up an idea as quick as she might."
+
+And away he dashed out of the house and began to double-time it up the
+hill, the three women at home watching from the window in admiring joy.
+
+"He is the best looking fellow that ever was," said Rose. And the
+mother answered as Cherry had done:
+
+"Yes, but do not tell him so."
+
+Then the girls laughed.
+
+"Oh, mother," they cried, "you do it, every time you look at him."
+
+Magnus meanwhile sped lightly up the hill. He had his reasons for
+liking to go at this particular time; the picture yesterday was too
+lovely for him not to long to see it again, and it might be that
+Cherry read to her father every morning. Then what was the book?
+Cherry had closed it so suddenly upon his coming, that he caught no
+glimpse of the inside; but the outside stirred his curiosity. It was
+an old book, bound in the dainty old-time vellum, once marked and
+embossed with gold; but that was much faded and worn away. It did not
+look like a Bible, and yet that, Magnus felt, was the correct thing
+for Cherry--such a girl as she was--to be reading to her father at
+breakfast time. Other people's duties are marked out in such very
+distinct lines that even colour blindness is rarely doubtful over them.
+
+But no murmur of voices met him, as he paused at the front door; and
+something warned him to go quietly round the house to the steps that
+ran down into the garden. And sure enough, he had his picture, but a
+different one this time.
+
+A little white-covered tray on the upper step held bread and milk and
+berries, and on the step below sat Cherry, with a book in her lap. She
+jumped up at the sound of his footfall, and put the book away, coming
+back instantly to her place.
+
+"Mr. Erskine out?" Magnus asked, as he took position at her feet.
+
+"Oh, no, not out. It is one of the days when that old bullet wound
+gives so much trouble that the best thing is to keep quite still."
+
+"You don't read to him, such days?"
+
+"He has had the reading--and he had his breakfast," said Cherry; "but
+he made me come down and take mine in the fresh air."
+
+"And instead of doing it, you fall to reading again," said Magnus,
+reaching up his hand to the milk pitcher and filling her glass. "Please
+to begin at once."
+
+"Please to have some too, then. There are more strawberries on the
+table inside."
+
+"Two breakfasts to-day, against some other morning when I shall have
+none," said Magnus. "What are you waiting for? Something else I should
+get?" For Cherry sat lingering, and had not touched her spoon.
+
+"Well?" Magnus repeated, watching her. He had a spoonful of berries on
+the way to his mouth, and still her hands had not stirred.
+
+"But Magnus--you haven't--will you ask the blessing?" Cherry said.
+
+The berries came down with a rush.
+
+"Go on," he said, with an odd change in his voice. And Cherry bent her
+head and spoke the few sweet words as simply and gladly as if they were
+but a breath of native air. Magnus was stirred more than he cared to
+own.
+
+"Heaven and earth come pretty close together where you are," he broke
+out, eating his berries and forgetting the sugar.
+
+"Where anybody is," said Cherry. "Heaven must be near when the Lord is
+close by, 'with you,' and 'at your right hand.'"
+
+She was all changed this morning; so quiet, so self-possessed.
+
+"Well, you see," Magnus went on impulsively, "one gets out of practice.
+I've not heard a blessing asked for two years, till I came home. Except
+when mother and I had our picnic."
+
+"Not in your Mess Hall?"
+
+"Well, I should say not!"
+
+"But, Magnus----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You can always ask one silently for yourself."
+
+Magnus gave a long groan.
+
+"I believe your flag is sixty feet long," he said. "What do you suppose
+the other three hundred men would say to me?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Not care, I dare say. Well, to begin, they'd give me a silence, just
+as like as not."
+
+"A _what_?"
+
+"A silence. That's what we give a Tac who oversteps bounds, or a
+party of women who are brought in to see the animals feed. There's a
+universal din up to that moment, and then every man drops his knife and
+fork, stops his tongue, and looks. You don't know what silence means
+till you've heard that."
+
+"What a very queer custom! And that is what they might do to you? But
+it could not last long, I suppose, because they would have to eat their
+breakfast."
+
+"No, it would not last long!" said Magnus ironically. "First Rig
+begins: 'Hello, Kin! Most through? Lose your breakfast?' And Crane:
+'Say, Kin! Come and bless what's left on our table.' And Crinkem would
+yell: 'Shut up, and let him alone! He's praying for strength to eat the
+steak.'"
+
+The girl's colour flitted back and forth as he spoke; then her eyes
+lighted up.
+
+"It does not sound pleasant," she said; "but Magnus, if I were you, I
+think I would try it."
+
+"I don't doubt you would," said Magnus, thinking his own thoughts.
+"Sixty feet long in all weathers. But Cerise, besides all that, there
+isn't time. We have but just so many minutes for breakfast, anyhow; and
+while I had my eyes shut, somebody else might get my roll. No great
+gain, but still a loss."
+
+"That would be very sad," said Cherry, with a comical smile. "But
+then, you would enjoy the rest so much better. Magnus," she went on
+seriously, "did you ever think how many faint-hearted Christians there
+may be in the crowd who would take courage from you to do right?"
+
+"And so help me face the silence?"
+
+"It is grand to face wrong things for right reasons!" said Cherry, her
+eyes like two opals, showing their hidden fire. "'And they departed
+from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
+shame for his name.'"
+
+Magnus looked at her.
+
+"Yes, talk to me," he said. "I want all the talking to I can get. But
+I can tell you, Cerise--do you mind my calling you so?"--he broke off
+abruptly.
+
+"Why, no," the girl answered. "It does not sound quite natural."
+
+"Not like old times--no, of course not. Well, would you like Chérie
+better? I think I should," said Mr. Kindred, watching the pink tinges
+with a delightful sense of having the reins in his own hands again. "It
+is more closely descriptive, and just as good for my French."
+
+"You are without question the most absurd boy this side of West Point!"
+said Cherry. "Have you emptied your strawberry basket? I must put these
+things away."
+
+"We must, indeed," said Magnus, handling dishes and bearing them off
+into the house. "You know I have come to take you back with me?"
+
+"Have you! It might have been wise--not to say civil--to state that
+before."
+
+"But I don't want to go," said Magnus. "I'd rather have you all to
+myself here."
+
+"Well, will you please stop practising your favourite wave motion,
+and keep out of my way?" said Cherry, much hindered in her progress by
+finding Magnus before her at every turn.
+
+"Haven't studied it yet,--so there. Now, Cherry, you surely did not
+mind what I said about wave motion?"
+
+"Why should I mind?"
+
+"I mean what I said about women's not needing to learn it."
+
+"If all the men understand it through and through, that might leave
+the women free for other work," said Cherry critically, as if she were
+weighing the case.
+
+"Ah!" said Magnus; "now you are beginning to talk like yourself. I
+haven't half known you since I came home. Tease away, ma Chérie."
+
+"Magnus, don't you want to run upstairs and get papa's tray? He must be
+done with it by this time."
+
+"Why, of course," said Cadet Kindred. "Only--this is the second time
+you have sent me to him,--and as I remarked the other night----"
+
+"I declare!" Cherry exclaimed, giving him a good sight of the fire
+sparks. But then she turned and darted away up some back staircase so
+fleetly and softly that he could not even tell by which way she had
+gone. And when the pursuer by ordinary routes had reached the room,
+Cherry was in calm conversation with her father.
+
+Mr. Erskine was sitting by the window, and certainly looked rather
+surprised at the headlong style in which Magnus rushed in; but smiled
+and shook hands very cordially.
+
+"Cherry sent me to get your tray, sir," the young man explained; "and
+she was so high-strung over my seeming hesitation that, after that, I
+stumbled upstairs as fast as I could."
+
+"I see--chaffing each other as usual," said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Papa," Cherry put in, safely ensconced now behind her father and her
+work basket, "you must not believe one word these cadets say."
+
+"These cadets!" Magnus retorted. "Please to be more personal in your
+remarks. I stand up for the veracity of the Corps."
+
+"And represent it, no doubt."
+
+"I wonder who is wandering into fib-land now," said Magnus. "Mr.
+Erskine, if you take her at her word, and never believe anything I say,
+I shall live to see the day when, with tears in her eyes, she will
+assure you of my perfect truth and reliability."
+
+"Indeed you will not," said Cherry. "Unless you live to be a hundred
+and ten."
+
+Mr. Erskine laughed heartily. Just so had those two been sparring ever
+since they were in leading strings; perfect inseparables, but never
+together ten minutes without getting up a skirmish of some kind.
+
+"I am sorry this is one of your bad days, sir," Magnus went on; "but
+the sun is very bright, as you can see, sir, and the air is soft--you
+can _feel_ that. I like to back up my words when I can. And perhaps you
+will kindly take hold of my arm, sir, and judge if it is likely to give
+way under the weight of your hand down the hill."
+
+"All which means," said Mr. Erskine, "that I am expected by the dear
+people down there?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And I think mother will be disappointed if you don't
+come--but I'll scoot down and get a note from her to say so. And Rose
+will cry out, 'Oh, dear!' and Violet will exclaim, 'Dear me!' At
+least," said Magnus, correcting himself, "it will be something like
+that. Even warped surfaces cannot always help a man to know just what a
+woman will say."
+
+And Cadet Kindred stood back with the air of one who, having just sent
+a shell from the siege battery, and seen it hit the mark, feels that he
+deserves well of his country.
+
+"Why 'warped surfaces'?" said Mr. Erskine, laughing up at the handsome
+young fellow, whom he loved next to his own daughter.
+
+"Uncertain, sir. And incomprehensible. Greatest puzzle I know," said
+Magnus.
+
+"Well," said his friend slowly, "you are a good persuader, Magnus.
+Cherry, you are going, of course."
+
+"If you do, papa."
+
+"Not else? Then I must try. I know you want to see all you can of your
+old playmate. It is better than letters, isn't it, love? I can tell
+you, Magnus, there was no keeping her at home letter day, no matter
+what the weather was."
+
+If Cherry sighed inwardly, "Oh, papa!" she gave no sign.
+
+"I am very happy to hear it, sir," said Magnus, in his stateliest
+tones. "It was beautiful filial devotion in Cherry. Of course she knew
+how anxious you were to know that, as yet, I was out of light prison. I
+hope she never took cold, or injured her health in any way, going out
+in all weathers to relieve your anxiety."
+
+"Truly, it was not all for me," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you remember,
+love, the week when the track was snowed up? and the overdue letter
+that never came at all? Magnus, those were dark days. I believe Cherry
+went down to the other house six times between sunrise and sunset; and
+then when at last the mail-bag came, our letter did not."
+
+"It was very beautiful of her to take so much trouble to quiet your
+mind, sir," said Magnus, watching the swift, pulsating colour in
+Cherry's fair cheek.
+
+"Nay, I took very little of it to myself," said Mr. Erskine, going
+calmly on, as men will, through they know not what. "My heart ached
+for her that day when she came back with her pale face, and said so
+patiently, 'We must wait till to-morrow, papa.' Then at night they all
+came up here; and I had to say over everything I had ever known or
+heard about trains, letters, and--boys. You ought to be a good fellow,
+Magnus, with four such women-hearts watching over you."
+
+"Yes, sir. Don't you think it might further the cause if they told me a
+little more about it?" said Magnus, with an innocent face.
+
+"Papa--he knows quite enough for his good," Cherry remonstrated.
+
+"Yes, and he might not like to hear it all," Mr. Erskine went on, in
+the same unconscious fashion. "Poor little girl! How her voice shook
+when she began to read to me that morning!"
+
+"What did she read, sir?" Magnus questioned, with an odd change in his
+own.
+
+"I think we were in the Revelation just then. Were we not, love?"
+
+"Yes, papa,"--very low.
+
+"Yes, I remember. 'The sea of glass,' and 'them that had gotten the
+victory.' Cherry read it as if she was ready to have the time come."
+
+"Papa!"--it was almost a cry. "Why will you go back and bring that all
+up again? Cannot you find pleasanter things to tell him?"
+
+"No, he cannot, and you know it very well," said Magnus decidedly.
+"Leave fib-land to me. I wish you would show me the very chapter,
+please, Mr. Erskine."
+
+"Hand me the book--there it is, love, on my table."
+
+"I'll bring you another, papa,--" and Cherry went swiftly to the next
+room.
+
+Magnus, however, had his own private reasons for thwarting her whenever
+he could, if it was only in the choice of a book; and before she could
+get back he had brought the other volume to Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Papa, this is better," Cherry said, coming in; but Magnus shook his
+head at her, and she silently came down to her seat again. Then came a
+surprise.
+
+Magnus had been so busy watching her that neither book had had much
+notice. Now, as Mr. Erskine turned the leaves, saying: "Here, this is
+the place," Magnus bent down over his friend's shoulder to look, and
+behold! he could not read one word. It might be the Revelation--but it
+was also Greek. At least, so he supposed.
+
+"Well, which was the book she was reading from that day?" he said,
+looking at Cherry, who now sat perfectly still, with the other
+Testament in her lap and her hands folded upon it. And if it had not
+been impossible, he would have thought she was biting her lips hard to
+keep back a laugh.
+
+"This is the very one," said Mr. Erskine, all unconscious. "She always
+reads in this--we both like it better. It is worn on the outside,"
+he went on, turning the book over and giving the vellum affectionate
+touches, "but I like these old bindings, don't you? The time-stained
+cover for the things which time can neither stain nor wear out. This
+was the book and the place where she read that morning."
+
+"I should like to hear her read it now," said Cadet Kindred, feeling
+considerably dazed.
+
+"Read it to him, love," said Mr. Erskine, giving the old book to her;
+and without raising her eyes Cherry obeyed, but in tones so low, that
+but for their clearness, the eager listener could hardly have caught
+one word. Understand one word he did not.
+
+"Magnificent, are they not?" said Mr. Erskine. "But the English version
+holds its own," he added musingly.
+
+"'And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them
+that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and
+over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of
+glass, having the harps of God.'"
+
+"Yes, that was it. You see, my boy, if you had indeed gotten the
+victory, and passed on into the exceeding glory and the joy, it did not
+so much matter if, for a little space, we broke our hearts down here."
+
+It was a strange, wholesome ten minutes for Cadet Kindred; and I think
+as he stood there looking down at Cherry, he took the measure of his
+smallest storm flag more accurately than he had ever done before. In
+fact he could hardly find it to measure, but seemed to hear the empty
+halyards whipping against the staff. And that girl had been staying her
+heart with the thought of his victory and crown!
+
+"That was the first hard day," said Mr. Erskine; "and the letters did
+not come for a week. What was our next reading, love? Magnus would like
+to hear them all."
+
+But now Cherry's answer burst forth:
+
+"Papa--I cannot!"
+
+The father's hand came tenderly on her head.
+
+"That is too much to ask," he said. "Those days are better out of
+sight. Go and get your hat, love, and we will try to reach our dear
+friends down the hill. Poor little girl!" he said, as Cherry sprang
+away; "it was a very hard time for her. And everybody looked to her for
+comfort. Violet would come up and cry on her shoulder, and Rose would
+beg her to go down and talk to your mother; and Cherry went and came,
+and reasoned and hunted up possible causes, and cheered everybody but
+herself. With a smile always ready, but pale as the winter sunshine.
+You see the lines were down, so that we could not telegraph, and when
+the first train broke through, even then there was no letter. She is a
+brave heart."
+
+"She is the very dearest girl in all the world!" Magnus said eagerly.
+
+"About that," her father answered--"well, love, here you are. Now we
+shall see what this brave young shoulder that is so ready to be useful,
+can do."
+
+"Then, as you will not need me, papa, I will run on ahead," and Cherry
+slipped in among the trees, and was out of sight directly.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE SUMMER GIRL
+
+ No man has complained that you have discoursed too long on any
+ subject, for you leave us in an eagerness of hearing more.
+
+  --DRYDEN.
+
+
+The other two walked slowly on. They had always been cronies, as a man
+and even a small boy can be; and now Magnus found his old friend full
+of the keenest interest in all the new life and varying work of which
+the young cadet had so much to tell. Slowly down the pretty hill they
+went; Mr. Erskine taking from Magnus what help he could for his lame
+side, and the cadet trying to make the regulation step know its place.
+And it was so pleasant to see, so like the dear old times, that the
+four at the cottage dropped everything to watch them as they came. Then
+Mrs. Kindred hurried out to welcome her guest, the two sisters got hold
+of Magnus, and Cherry went quietly back to finish setting the table.
+
+I doubt she was not minding her business too closely, smiling to
+herself over the words and laughter that came past the half-open door
+of the closet where she was sorting out spoons; for she never heard
+what stealthy steps drew near, and her first warning of danger was the
+sudden darkening of the closet by the shutting of the door. Cherry
+sprang towards it just in time to hear the bolt shot and the key
+withdrawn. Then came a struggle outside.
+
+"Oh, Magnus, stop! Cherry is in there!"
+
+"Safe as possible."
+
+"Give me the key! She wants to be out here."
+
+"Then why did she go in?"
+
+"She went for the spoons, you intolerable boy," said Violet.
+
+"Do to talk of," said Magnus coolly. "No, my dear; she went because
+this intolerable boy was around. So you perceive it is very kind of me
+to keep her where she cannot see him. Come, chicks; let's get the old
+banjo, and I'll sing you the 'Song of the Summer Girl.'"
+
+"If you sing one single note when Cherry is not by to hear, we will
+stop our ears," said Rose.
+
+"Then you will not be able to tell her about it afterwards," said
+Magnus. "Come along."
+
+"Well, you cannot have your dinner till we get the spoons," said Violet.
+
+"At West Point we eat with forks--when we have them," said Magnus.
+"When we do not, we take our fingers. Where is that banjo?"
+
+The girls followed him, talking and scolding and threatening to tell
+Mr. Erskine, but Cherry had no idea of waiting for outside help. She
+was a girl of resources, and the case in hand was not very hard. For
+this was an outside lock, simply screwed on; an old knife made a fair
+screwdriver; and, when Magnus had just reached the next room, a soft
+chink made him look round, and there was Cherry, calmly putting the
+spoons in place.
+
+"Where did you come from?" he said, turning back.
+
+"The spoon drawer. Do I understand that West Point cadets scorn both
+spoons and forks?"
+
+"I'll teach you something about West Point cadets, before I go," Magnus
+asserted, stepping towards her.
+
+"How good of you!" said Cherry mockingly, as she slipped round the
+table. "We're such an ignorant set out here. Magnus, if you would
+announce a lecture on warped surfaces, I really think it would draw."
+
+What Magnus would have said or done, and how Cherry might have
+suffered for her temerity, does not appear. Rose came in, bearing
+a dish of such chicken pot-pie as Magnus declared never grew on a
+reservation; Violet followed with potatoes and peas and beets--the
+pretty red, white, and green of the summer garden; and they all sat
+down to dinner. Then Magnus found that he had neither spoon nor fork.
+
+"Why, Violet, how careless," the mother said, as he made known the fact.
+
+"No, mamma, not I."
+
+"Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry, "Magnus said that West Point cadets could
+eat with their fingers, so I thought if he enjoyed it, we should like
+to see how it was done. And it would be one less to wash. And the
+chickens are cut up," she added gravely. Mrs. Kindred laughed.
+
+"If you two are having a fight, I'll keep out," she said. "Go and help
+yourself, Magnus." And this he would have done from Cherry's plate, if
+that young damsel had not laid fast hold of her property; so he took
+Violet's instead.
+
+But it was a delightful dinner: what though the courses were few and
+simple, and the trained waiters only the three girls. Then the two
+elders carried Magnus off to the porch for another talk while the girls
+cleared the table, and then they also came out, bringing the banjo.
+
+"Now for the summer girl!" they cried, and Magnus left his place for
+one on the steps at Cherry's feet.
+
+"_She_ has been called 'a summer girl,'" he said, "and I want to see
+how she likes her portrait. This lay is named: 'The Idle of the Summer
+Girl.'"
+
+"Your writing?" said Rose.
+
+"If you admire it, yes."
+
+"Dear me, child," said Mrs. Kindred, "do they waste your time out there
+writing poetry?"
+
+"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better
+believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what time means if I didn't
+filch a little for my own use, now and then. This is: 'The Idle of the
+Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,' Cadet Rig being the other
+party. All the weak lines are his. There's another touching ditty on
+the same theme, much sung in camp at the time of full moon, but it
+takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from a specimen verse."
+
+Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing
+voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in
+his own:
+
+ _1st Cadet_: "O the Summer Girl has come to town."
+
+ _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
+
+ _1st Cadet_: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail--ing gown."
+
+ _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!"
+
+ _3d Cadet_: "Steady on that, you haven't got any."
+
+At least four voices cried:
+
+"Go on! Go on!"
+
+"Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony."
+
+"Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet.
+
+"Very much the way."
+
+"And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?"
+inquired Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her
+justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork
+quilt:
+
+    "I sing the song of the Summer Girl;
+      She feels for the lonely cadet.
+    Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams
+      I seem to taste them yet."
+
+("N. B.--The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station probably.")
+
+    "The peaches she threw at my head at drill,
+      The apples she dropped at my feet;
+    The little pound cake that she made me take,
+      First biting, to make it sweet."
+
+"Magnus--she didn't!"
+
+"Rose--she did!"
+
+"And you eat it?"
+
+"Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on Chappy. Robins
+aren't fetched up particular, as I was. Why, that's nothing!"
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of sugar between her teeth
+and comes round offering everybody a bite, that is rather steep."
+
+    "And yet, long life to the Summer Girl!
+      Far be it from me to flout her.
+    She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top,
+      But what could we do without her?
+
+    There were two spoons and a single dish,
+      Two hearts that beat as one;
+    When we sat by the wall before recall,
+      Eating ice cream in the sun."
+
+A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who had
+grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles."
+
+"Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose.
+
+"Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his
+mother.
+
+"Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row?
+Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted
+for one of the blackbirds?"
+
+"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.
+
+"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out of
+anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally
+careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the
+partition wall grows thin."
+
+"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got
+ice cream."
+
+"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets
+gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a
+summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature
+smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country
+store up in business."
+
+"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.
+
+"Contraband sweets of life, sir."
+
+"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.
+
+"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would
+confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em.
+Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the
+hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I do
+not like to have you breaking rules."
+
+"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not make
+'em so fragile."
+
+"If they are fragile, keep off."
+
+"Just can't, mammy. Here we've had breakfast at half past six. Then
+we go head over heels into math. and heels over head into tan bark;
+and not another regulation mouthful to be had till one o'clock. Flesh
+and blood can't stand it, you know. We just _have_ to have a barrel of
+apples handy, and a box of crackers; and any other trifles we can pick
+up."
+
+"A barrel of apples!" said Rose. "And 'smuggled' in! Wherever in the
+world do you keep them?"
+
+"You are going to be such a favourite with the Tacs next summer, I
+think I will not tell," said Magnus.
+
+"Poor starved boy!" said Rose. "And he has been home two whole days,
+and not even half a dish of ice cream, yet."
+
+"I have had all the ice I want, thank you," said Cadet Kindred, looking
+up at Cherry, who as I said, had been very silent while all these other
+girls filled the air. "_Cream_ has been scarce. Perhaps if you two
+would stir up some sort of stuff to-morrow, Cherry would come down and
+freeze it."
+
+"You shall freeze it yourself," said Violet.
+
+"Agreed--with her to help me." And laughing up at her with mischievous
+eyes, Magnus finished his song:
+
+    "But never you trust the Summer Girl,--
+      Or you will find to your sorrow,
+    That just as she smiled on Tubs to-day,
+      She'll smile on Daddy to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+LAYING FOUNDATIONS
+
+ There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to
+ pronounce in any language, but which no man or nation that cannot
+ utter, can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I
+ was wrong.
+
+ --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+The early tea was over, and long shadows were falling as the little
+party broke up. The three girls were still debating what sort of ice
+cream they should make, when just beyond the gate a neighbour, driving
+by, offered Mr. Erskine a seat in his buggy. Then Magnus turned to his
+sisters.
+
+"Stay here, you girls," he said. "I have to speak to Cherry very
+seriously; and I doubt if she likes to be lectured before people. Run
+in."
+
+The girls laughed and obeyed; but perhaps Cherry did not choose to wait
+for lectures, nor mean to have them, for she spoke first. They were
+going slowly up the hill, Magnus falling into the West Point saunter,
+to which Cherry rather unwillingly conformed.
+
+"We are walking very slow," she ventured. "And you used to walk so
+fast."
+
+"West Point style. The very first day they impressed it upon my mind
+that fast walkers want to get somewhere. And, Cerise, just now I do
+not."
+
+"Magnus," she said suddenly, "what did you really mean by a 'storm
+flag'?"
+
+"Ah!" said Cadet Kindred, in a tone of deep satisfaction, "now I have
+got it. I thought it could not be long before Cherry would take me in
+hand."
+
+"But whatever did you mean?"
+
+"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path
+to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what
+was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"
+
+"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get
+it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag
+flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."
+
+Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.
+
+"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never came into
+your true heart. You know what it means to strike your colours?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!"
+
+"And what it is to keep them flying,--for you do it every day."
+
+"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You did not
+like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely flying."
+
+"I meant more than that--or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a storm flag
+is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you think, and so
+you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run up another
+that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that hardly shows it
+is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a good light, you can
+see the colours; but that is about all. It does not encourage the world
+much, and tells of hard weather more than of victory and joy. Do you
+understand now, dear girl?"
+
+Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations of
+colour came and went.
+
+"But, Magnus," she began.
+
+"Yes, Chérie. Say whatever comes into your heart to say."
+
+"Then there is a little short time every now and then when the colours
+are really down?"
+
+"Yes. And the harder the gale, the longer it takes to get them
+up again. It is often slow work, anyhow," said Magnus, with some
+bitterness at himself.
+
+Cherry sat silent, looking down.
+
+"What would happen to the other flag--the big one--if you left it
+flying?" she said.
+
+"In a gale? Go to ribands, probably--the real one."
+
+"Yes, the real one. But that is just what the bullets do to it!" said
+Cherry, her eyes glowing and deepening. "And everybody only loves such
+a flag the better."
+
+"And you love me the less."
+
+The girl started slightly, with the sudden transfer of the subject to
+herself, but she made no answer.
+
+"Speak!" Magnus said, getting hold of her hand and giving it a little
+shake. "Cherry, you've _got_ to speak. Do you?"
+
+"No," she answered slowly; "you know that could not be. We have been
+friends too long. I was a little disappointed, that is all."
+
+I suppose there are few wholesomer views a man can get of himself than
+through the eyes of the right sort of woman; but the wholesome is not
+always the sweet. Cadet Kindred said to himself just then that it was
+extremely bitter. He had been disappointed in himself, of course, more
+than once, but that was another matter. One gives little softening
+touches to one's own private lectures; excusing and explaining. Now,
+this true heart, which he well believed would never flinch in the
+direst extremity, had counted the minutes when the colours were down,
+measured the storm flag, and been "disappointed."
+
+If she had said sharper things, he could have borne it better. Was this
+weak girl going to sail away from him on every tack? This morning she
+had read pages where he knew not a word; this afternoon she was ready
+for the forefront of that life battle where he had at least _thought_
+of dodging behind a tree.
+
+He sat looking down, slowly swinging her hand back and forth, thinking
+of the days and times when he had trained with the wrong crowd, giving
+countenance to what at heart he disapproved. Nothing so dreadfully bad,
+perhaps, but very small work for him, a servant of the Great King; not
+loyal, not dauntless.
+
+True, he had afterwards called himself to order; had "braced up"
+spiritually, and even for a time won the title of "saint"; but
+"steadfast, immovable," he had not been. And in that swift way in which
+thoughts work, there flashed upon him the story of one of the battles
+of the Wilderness, when, as the young colour-bearer was shot down,
+another caught the banner from his hand--and another from his, until
+for a few minutes the colours just fell and rose, fell and rose--but
+never allowed to touch the ground; not once.
+
+"Magnus----"
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+"Will you please to look up and speak?" The tone was deprecating, the
+dark eyes wistful and grave.
+
+"There does not anything please me just now, except holding your hand.
+No, you cannot get it away. You see, Cherry, this is how it is: there's
+a strong tide there, setting the way you shouldn't go."
+
+"Everywhere," put in Cherry.
+
+"So mother says; but I speak of what I know. When you first get to
+the Academy, you are so homesick that you'd like to pray and read the
+Bible all the time; it seems more like home than anything else. Then
+you are plagued, and get provoked. Then upper classmen drive you to
+prayer-meeting, and of course you don't want to go. Then you get so
+tangled up in the work and the hazing that you'd give your own dog two
+cents to tell you who you are. You can't keep Sunday,--at least, you
+think you can't,--with guard-mounting in the morning and dress parade
+at night, and in barracks a lesson a mile long for eight o'clock Monday
+morning."
+
+"But Magnus, you do not study on Sunday?" Cherry said anxiously.
+
+"I did once--and maxed it straight through, had a splendid week, and
+saw visions of Willet's Point. So I thought I'd try it again. And that
+week I just went down; got the worst marks I ever had, and, instead
+of the doughty Engineer Corps, had the Immortals in full view. So I
+concluded to get back into the good old ways and stay there."
+
+Cherry laughed, but her eyes glistened. "That was one of the Lord's
+gentle rebukes," she said.
+
+"Well, it lasted," said Magnus. "I haven't done that thing again."
+
+"And they make no allowance for the day before's being Sunday?"
+
+"Not a bit. Why, one of the instructors advised us to have our
+prayer-meeting early Sunday night, that there might be more hours for
+study."
+
+"But if you told them, Magnus?"
+
+"They would just think I was shirking. You see we could not ask in
+numbers enough to be a power, for many of the men do not care. That's
+another thing in one's way; see a first classman as meek as Moses at
+prayer-meeting, and then in camp have him just as hateful as Pharaoh
+and all the Egyptians."
+
+"To you yourself, Magnus?"
+
+"I was a pleb once, you know. And nothing was too bad to do to a pleb,
+for the best of men. No, I take that back; we had--and we have--some
+splendid upper classmen; men who dose you with good counsel. It is not
+always pleasant to take, Chérie, but it did me lots of good, for they
+lived up to it themselves. They help, too, in other ways. Get a pleb
+in out of the sun, and give him some play work in a tent, and so keep
+him away from the hazing parties and give him time to breathe. Mr.
+Upright was always doing such things."
+
+"I should think everyone would love him very much."
+
+"Yes, but you mustn't," said Magnus, giving her hand a little swing.
+"You are not to love anybody but me. However, Upright isn't there now;
+graduated, and gone to make enlisted men good and happy, wherever he's
+stationed. Trueman is such another; and Starr, in our class. Ugliest
+little man you ever saw, and the best."
+
+"Then I do not believe he is the ugliest," said Cherry decidedly. "But
+it was not like that last year, Magnus?"
+
+"Oh, no! Yearlings have leave to step out and show themselves. Get
+invited to picnics, some of them, and go to the hops, most of them, and
+are wild for fun, all of them."
+
+"Well, Magnus?"
+
+"Well, Chérie, you see how it was. I have not been as bad as I might,
+nor anything like as good. They think me a pretty reliable fellow over
+there, but I'm not by any means what you would call a shining light.
+Six in studies, and one in discipline, and a double-first at all sorts
+of mischief."
+
+Cherry could not help smiling.
+
+"The very same boy you always were," she said.
+
+"Pretty much. Only this is mischief that tells. Chocolate parties in
+rooms after lights are out."
+
+"After lights are out?"
+
+"Supposed to be. Explosions on the area coming from nowhere and
+nothing; and post dogs, painted to admiration."
+
+"But, Magnus!"
+
+"What, my lady?"
+
+"_You_ do not do such things?"
+
+"I drank the chocolate--should have got skinned for it, too, only I
+stood behind something when Towser came in. And I looked at the dog.
+And I did not go out of my wits with astonishment at the explosions.
+Queer, too; for when you get together a bell button, a match, a white
+feather, a little powder, and a second classman, they make more noise
+than you would suppose possible."
+
+"I thought they kept such watch of you," Cherry said. "We have wasted a
+great deal of sympathy."
+
+"No you haven't, and yes, they do; that's the fun. Some of the men will
+tell you that breaking regulations is all the fun they have."
+
+"Not you, Magnus?"
+
+"No, not I exactly. I never can quite get rid of a certain respect for
+law and order. But you would laugh yourself; you couldn't help it, to
+see a solemn-looking Tac inspecting for apples, and know that they were
+within an inch of his nose, where he couldn't find them."
+
+"And you all kept grave?"
+
+"Stood attention, like the sweet boys we were, till he was gone,--and
+stood on our heads afterwards."
+
+Cherry did laugh, but rather doubtfully. "I suppose it must be fun,"
+she said, "but I wish you would let the other boys have it."
+
+"That is not the only sort, by any means," said Magnus. "One day Miss
+Flirt had brought Crinkem a basket of pears. Well, he stored them
+skilfully in parts unknown, till friendly darkness should come to help;
+had to go to drill, and told Carr (who hadn't) to keep an eye on the
+basket. Which Carr did. Wasn't a pear there when Crinkem got back."
+
+"Who is Crinkem?"
+
+"First classman, then."
+
+"And who is Miss Flirt?"
+
+"A summer girl who stays all the time, and flirts with everybody."
+
+"With you?"
+
+"No, because she can't. She jeered me when I was a poor candidate, and
+I vowed revenge."
+
+"I should say revenge lay in the other direction," remarked Cherry.
+
+"Not for her. She's been on tiptoe to rope me in, ever since I wore
+chevrons. I did half think I would teach her a lesson when I got to be
+first captain."
+
+"Oh, Magnus, don't!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help even
+the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately of the
+dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you know how
+salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and ready to
+spoil?"
+
+Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he held.
+
+"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if I
+can. But Cerise, I only said _thought_. And I have not thought it any
+more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for me."
+
+"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the
+subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."
+
+"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some of
+the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that; I'd
+like to forget it."
+
+She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest look
+which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched her
+for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been
+holding, and turned half away.
+
+"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you
+should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any
+shape, while they are at the Post?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote
+taken by each class,--'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall they
+have wine--or shall they not? I have heard of one class who fought it
+through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority protest;
+but so really a minority that the other was counted as the class vote;
+and their names should be gold-starred in every register. Our class had
+no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the usual results
+followed."
+
+"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to
+look at her.
+
+"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."
+
+"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so
+highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant----"
+
+"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely.
+"They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get
+upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible
+persuasions to keep some of them down."
+
+"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have gone
+to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus, what did
+the minority do?"
+
+Magnus glanced up at her.
+
+"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some did not. And
+of those last, Cherry, I was one."
+
+"_You_, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that the young man felt
+as if he had been struck. Not another word followed, but he could see
+that she was trembling from head to foot.
+
+"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in any
+open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first, and
+for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."
+
+And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's
+self-control. She exclaimed once more:
+
+"Oh, Magnus!"
+
+But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly
+as only those women who rarely cry at all can do--silently,
+uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which
+had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look
+up nor speak.
+
+And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after a
+minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in its
+distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort
+of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of
+himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another
+man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But
+he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the
+scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!
+
+Would Cherry ever speak to him again?
+
+And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress had
+slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus looked
+at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.
+
+There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be hindered,
+Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was taken
+possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.
+
+"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the
+summer girl's eyebrows?"
+
+"They are not always her own. What are _you_ about, chicks? wandering
+round at this time of night."
+
+"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you were
+coming."
+
+"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast will
+be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said Rose.
+
+"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said Magnus
+absently.
+
+"But what were you at, sure enough?"
+
+"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."
+
+"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.
+
+"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us go."
+
+And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had,
+Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their
+young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and
+true.
+
+This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should _he_ ever mar the joy of
+these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for
+him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's
+head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to
+the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and
+of course he must take his place.
+
+There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will do;
+and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she
+read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as
+soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked
+the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could
+he even think out anything clearly.
+
+How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days had
+confused everything.
+
+He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go,
+to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have
+nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see
+the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their
+vote. Why had not he?
+
+It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought the
+word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of
+standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very
+much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more
+open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth"
+heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand,
+flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.
+
+As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the servants
+in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters and against
+the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there, and with no
+one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could find, from
+her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.
+
+Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to the
+Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing; had
+not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely ever
+tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and forth
+progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily
+growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the
+wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but
+that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.
+
+Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of her,
+whether or not. If the joy of his life was gone, and sometimes Magnus
+felt that it was, yet honour and truth remained. "What shall it profit
+a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
+
+Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts
+passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and
+when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his
+noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+BUILDING THEREON
+
+    Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
+      Ever made by the Hand above?
+    A woman's heart and a woman's life,
+      And a woman's wonderful love?
+
+    You have written my lesson of duty out;
+      Manlike have you questioned me:
+    Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,
+      While I shall question thee.
+
+    --MRS. BROWNING.
+
+
+But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew
+would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a
+restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst--if worst
+it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill after
+breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus went off
+with the most eager alacrity.
+
+He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr. Erskine
+greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling hand, and
+no look at all.
+
+"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you sit
+down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"
+
+Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if
+Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went
+straight on with her reading.
+
+But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and fell; more
+than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at last, midway
+in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a moment's brave
+struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.
+
+"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head. "She
+is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a
+white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words
+and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."
+
+"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.
+
+"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg pardon.
+This was it,--a grand passage:
+
+"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the
+Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall
+see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"
+
+"But you should not break down there, love. _That_ is all victory."
+
+"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said Magnus.
+
+"Perhaps--dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do you be
+one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field. 'As a
+good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"
+
+"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that girl
+needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with me,
+I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do you
+want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"
+
+"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly displays
+your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus is right."
+
+"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently. "I wish I
+could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then you see
+she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come back."
+
+"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old.
+'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine
+accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."
+
+"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her
+this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I
+came in."
+
+A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment, as
+Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was too
+well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at it.
+
+So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid
+hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of
+the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on
+the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but
+notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of
+the tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor
+did she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted
+the deep quiet of his face--very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear
+steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's
+face now, a boy's no longer.
+
+Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching her,
+for he caught the look.
+
+"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here is
+a good place for you."
+
+But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close at
+her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap down
+on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.
+
+"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in your dear
+heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only do me
+good."
+
+Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for at
+first she could bring nothing out.
+
+"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with
+effort.
+
+"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see what
+sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"
+
+"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I
+suppose."
+
+"I suppose they may--and I have been looking at you. Cherry, have you
+been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might as well go
+and drown myself at once."
+
+Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help
+matters.
+
+"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.
+
+"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry,
+trying to speak lightly.
+
+"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus; "you
+don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it,
+Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation,
+and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry
+over _him_."
+
+Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at him
+with her eyes full.
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my heart."
+
+"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."
+
+"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.
+
+"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came
+in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I deserve it, but that does not
+generally make things much easier."
+
+"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."
+
+"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a thing
+to me."
+
+"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.
+
+"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like
+sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."
+
+"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."
+
+"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling what I
+may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at once,
+and have them off your mind?"
+
+"But, I thought it was to cure my _head_ you brought me here?"
+
+"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out with
+you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave me
+your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."
+
+"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling that
+detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.
+
+"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns don't
+go off."
+
+"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"
+
+"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on by
+myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth
+straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night
+I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any
+woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the
+world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody
+else--and never shall. Never could, for that matter. And I've been
+a fool, and a poltroon, and anything else you like; and so she has
+thrown me off, and has no use for me any more. And it makes me just mad
+to sit here and think that I have lost her. And some day I shall get
+her wedding cards, with the name of some nice man who never tied his
+shoestrings in a hurry."
+
+"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other
+feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"
+
+"That."
+
+"What has come over you?"
+
+"This."
+
+"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching her
+breath a little.
+
+"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus. "We
+always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I knew I
+loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I saw you
+again, that first night, I knew that I never should--never could--love
+anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and ninety-nine, and
+you got in love with forty other men."
+
+Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer
+nervousness.
+
+"I think that would cure you," she said.
+
+"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through all
+night."
+
+"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said very
+low.
+
+"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and
+never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you
+last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there
+was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew I
+didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very
+reason I wanted it so much."
+
+"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that
+'could' is in the past."
+
+"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life and
+a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its work."
+
+"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"
+
+"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."
+
+"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus, I
+did not mean it!"
+
+"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If there
+were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men. Why,
+half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat. Give
+it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't know
+what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty hard
+not to swallow it."
+
+"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse it
+altogether."
+
+"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they look,
+for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever happen
+to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know who it
+is."
+
+Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."
+
+"Looks like it."
+
+"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take
+heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"
+
+"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there
+are men enough there now who never touch anything stronger than water.
+And I never did, till that unlucky night. But I've been in lately,
+somehow, with the other crowd."
+
+"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.
+
+"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do you?"
+
+The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they began
+to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.
+
+"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your
+mind, and bid me go? What do _you_ want of such a Derelict?"
+
+"Magnus, you are very hard to me."
+
+"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My beauty,
+and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all the
+world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything else. I,
+hard to _you_? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in her keeping.
+And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was anything but
+true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I did not care
+a red cent for the whole lot."
+
+"No--" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you were not
+true to yourself."
+
+"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you for a
+missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled specimen
+that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything about me
+except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I have told
+you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing to work
+it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and you
+brushing the mud off with your own little hands--you can say that, too."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."
+
+"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there
+was? We can't have the marriage service made over just for us two,
+I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and better, every day I
+live--but you've got to _take_ me 'for better, for worse.'"
+
+I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have
+her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals,
+unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection.
+To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked
+"human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A
+good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better;
+letting the woman down--or up--to her proper station of helpmeet.
+Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow, her eyes
+dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of dreams and
+imaginations.
+
+Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to the
+hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life
+lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in
+the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome--and the
+old words of the apostle confronted her:
+
+"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."
+
+Could she do that? For suppose--
+
+Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even to
+herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted
+once--what if it happened again, or again?
+
+And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell out
+the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning, eager;
+a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he could
+do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again, and
+dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never
+cried before.
+
+"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling with himself.
+"You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho or the moon,
+as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could you want
+with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame you,
+Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to be
+killed two ways at once. Cherry--stop! Do you hear?"
+
+With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up, pushing
+the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long clearing-wind
+breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A breath at once
+of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain, but telling of
+courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a time been followed
+by a shout of victory.
+
+Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes
+turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still,
+after all: the young head with its short, curling hair, already showing
+that West Point barbers were far away; the smooth cheek giving faint
+tokens of what soon would be. The very hands looked so young. They were
+not clasped nor folded, but lay absolutely still, with that air of
+intense waiting which the whole figure wore. Cherry gazed at them, one
+and another scene of her young life wherein those hands had played a
+part coming up before her. Played it so well and so kindly that she had
+every line of them by heart; sledding, strawberrying, nutting, riding;
+the broken toys they had mended, the strong help they had been in many
+a rough place. Always gentle and patient for her, always ready to do
+her bidding; the tenderest hands when she was hurt, the most untirable
+for her need.
+
+Cherry almost cried out aloud, for the sudden stricture of heart, but
+she kept herself in hand, and now her look went up to the face again,
+and she found that Magnus was watching her, with the intensest, hungry,
+longing eagerness. He did not stir, but sat still in that attitude of
+waiting.
+
+"Magnus--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why do not you speak?"
+
+"I have nothing to say, Cherry."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Nothing. I have said all I can. I might promise never to grieve you
+again; might promise all sorts of beautiful things; but you know--and I
+know--that something stronger than mere love of you, dear, must do the
+work, and that the work must be done, whether you ever love me again or
+not. I believe I did not know I could be tempted--and I have been left
+to find it out. If I tell you that I have sworn unto the Lord and will
+not go back, it is not to plead my cause with you, Cherry; but because
+I know that just for old-time's sake, your dear heart will always care
+that your old playmate should grow into a man and not a beast."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, in that same sudden way.
+
+"Well, that is what it amounts to. That was what I called myself next
+morning. And then with the joy of getting home and among you all
+again--and the wonder of seeing what you had grown into--everything
+else went out of my head. I was so eager to have you that I took it for
+granted you would have me. Then I remembered that for two whole years
+you had seen nothing of me, and the more I loved you the more that
+thought kept coming up. So then I gave you the whole story, and lost
+all I care for in this world. But it had to be done--and I should do it
+again. You needn't look at me so, dear, and try to hide how you feel.
+You could not help being disgusted. I do not blame you in the least,
+Cherry."
+
+"Oh, Magnus!" she cried again. "How can you use such words about me?"
+
+"What words shall I use? You were disgusted, and you know it."
+
+"No, oh, no!"
+
+"What then? Choose your own words, and tell me."
+
+"I thought my heart was breaking," the girl said, pressing both hands
+upon her breast. "That was all."
+
+"Was that all?" Magnus said, with a sort of quiet rage at himself. "Had
+I done nothing but that? Only broken the truest heart that ever beat?
+Nothing more?"
+
+"Please, please!" Cherry pleaded. "Magnus, I cannot talk to you if you
+say such things."
+
+"Go on then, you, and do the talking. Didn't I tell you I had nothing
+more to say?"
+
+Cherry hesitated a moment, and then she put out her hand and laid it
+softly on that other which had grown so brown with handling guns and
+pontoons. Magnus winced, as at the touch of sharp steel, but his own
+hand never stirred.
+
+"What is it?" he said rather shortly.
+
+"Magnus--does your mother know?"
+
+"I am going to tell her."
+
+"No, no, do not! There is no need," Cherry said earnestly.
+
+"Not much use, perhaps," he answered in a gloomy tone. "She's bound to
+be my mother, through thick and thin."
+
+"Promise!" Cherry said.
+
+"What have you got to do with it?" Magnus asked her, looking up. "What
+business is it of yours, anyhow? You have washed your hands of me and
+my concerns."
+
+"Magnus, you _know_ that is not true."
+
+"I hope it will not take more tears to do the work," he went on in the
+same tone. "There have been enough shed now, to clear away fifteen
+years of memories."
+
+"You do not think so, or you would not say it," poor Cherry protested.
+"You are just trying to make me contradict you."
+
+"Am I?" said Magnus, with a half laugh. "Well, go ahead and do it,
+then. Say nothing could ever make you forget me."
+
+"Nothing ever could."
+
+"Say you did love me with all your heart when I went away."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And all the time I was gone."
+
+"All the time."
+
+"And when I came home."
+
+"Yes," the girl answered in her grave, sweet tones.
+
+"So little while ago!" Magnus said, with a deep breath. "Cherry, you
+were very distant to me at first--have been, all along."
+
+"You were a little bit of a stranger."
+
+"And now you know me too well. So it goes. If I had not told you--but
+it is better so."
+
+"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are terrible
+things between people who--care for each other."
+
+"How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same hard
+way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares."
+
+"Magnus, that is not true."
+
+"Didn't you stop to think what to say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then."
+
+"People stop to think for different reasons."
+
+"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."
+
+"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me why."
+
+"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus; "and as
+tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could, and hurt
+me the least."
+
+"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry,
+her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at
+all."
+
+"Why, then?"
+
+"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.
+
+"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is
+just what I said."
+
+"Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little
+impatiently.
+
+"No need to play it."
+
+"Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am going
+home till you come back to your common sense."
+
+"No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down
+and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while
+longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the
+world throw you off."
+
+She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face telling
+all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well read in
+girls.
+
+"Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl
+in the world'--but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not do
+that. Unless----"
+
+"Unless what?" he said eagerly.
+
+"Unless I knew you had _chosen_ such ways," the girl said, growing very
+white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+AMBUSHES
+
+    Soft silken hours,
+    Open suns, shady bowers;
+    'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
+
+    --CRASHAW.
+
+
+Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though Cherry
+was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away the
+effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare say;
+but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused, till she
+appeared again.
+
+But he gave not a hint of the morning's work; about that, both parties
+most interested held their peace. I think they both craved silence
+for a while, and so kept in hiding; not ready yet to hear common
+tongues discuss the new-found wonder of the world. Cherry had been too
+shaken and bruised--there were too many sharp details still vividly
+in sight--for her to go straight to her father, as perhaps at another
+time she might have done; she needed to steady her own thoughts first.
+And for Magnus, too, the morning had been a hard one, even with its
+culmination of joy. Besides, counting Cherry his own from that time
+forward, the small ceremony of asking for her could well wait. Probably
+Mr. Erskine needed no telling how things stood. And if it were indeed
+a secret, what fun to keep it such! He wanted no words on the subject,
+just now, save from Cherry herself. Not yet.
+
+All the family from the other house came up the hill to tea next day,
+but saw nothing new. If Cherry was more quiet than usual, that was
+not strange, after such a headache; and if Cadet Kindred, on the other
+hand, was as full of pranks as the veriest boy could be, it was not
+such an unheard-of thing as to draw any special attention. One thing
+they might have seen, that his mischief and frolic never came near
+Cherry; towards her his manner was a silent devotion of the most tender
+and serious sort, but he kept everyone else in such a breeze that no
+one gave heed.
+
+Speeding back from the post-office with a handful of letters, Magnus
+announced that Messrs. Twinkle and Rig--alias Cadets Starr and
+McLean--were coming to make him a visit in the course of their furlough
+wanderings, and everybody at once went into committee on the proper and
+possible means of delighting them.
+
+Magnus, indeed, turned off the matter very easily.
+
+"It is done to your hand," he affirmed. "Mother's cake and pies and
+bread and butter--with two girls--would make the average cadet almost
+too happy to support life."
+
+"Two girls!" Rose commented. "You seem to leave Cherry out."
+
+"I did--that's a fact," Magnus said, with a queer gesture. "But then
+you also leave me out, and I am a third cadet; so it's all right.
+She'll not stand in the cold."
+
+"I do not think she will, if the others have any sense," said Rose.
+
+"The average cadet has not much, when there are girls around," said
+Magnus. "He has such hard rubs all day from the Profs and Tacs that
+their soft ways get the better of him."
+
+"We have no soft ways, here," said Rose decidedly.
+
+"Not for me, I know; but wait till Twinkle comes along."
+
+"Twinkle--what a name!" said Violet.
+
+"He couldn't miss it, being a small man called Starr," said Magnus.
+"And he's not a blazer, by any means; keeps down well near the horizon,
+and never even poses as a first-magnitude man. Sometimes when he fesses
+more than usually frigid, we sing him to sleep with:
+
+    "Twinkle! Twinkle! little Starr!
+    How I wonder what you are."
+
+"I think that is perfectly mean!" said Rose indignantly. "Making sport
+of each other's misfortunes."
+
+"We should die if we didn't make sport of something," said Magnus. "And
+you laugh easier when you take another man's scalp, than when he takes
+yours."
+
+"Well, of all the lingo that ever was heard, I think your cadet slang
+is the queerest," said Violet.
+
+"Glad it meets your approval," Magnus said, with a bow. "Say, Cherry,
+just promise you'll walk with nobody but me, while those fellows are
+here. Have a previous every time. These girls are so keen-set for
+brotherly kindness that they'll be sacrificing themselves on me to let
+you have the strangers. You're too tall for Twinkle, and Rig will turn
+your head."
+
+"Or she will turn his," said Violet.
+
+"I suppose that is it. But it wouldn't do for Rig to get rattled. The
+poor boy has got to go back and bone for dear life. Rose will keep him
+up to his duty; talk geometry to him, and make his life a burden."
+
+"Rose will?" said that young person, lifting her eyebrows. "Well, I
+wish Cherry would talk some sense into you."
+
+"Nobody can do it half so well," said Magnus, with a change of tone.
+"And she is going to try; she is to give me a special private lecture
+every day I am here. So that it is really quite providential to have
+Twinkle and Rig on hand, for they'll keep you two girls amused and out
+of the way."
+
+"Indeed! And who is to amuse mother?"
+
+"Cherry and I."
+
+And Magnus stooped down by his mother, with arms about her neck, and
+laid his face close to hers.
+
+"Cherry and I, mammy," he said softly. "Do you understand? Cherry and
+I?"
+
+Only Cherry saw the little start, the eager look at him, and the slight
+nod with which Magnus answered. But Mrs. Kindred was a wise woman,
+and said no word. Perhaps she prayed a little more for the two after
+that; though really I do not know whether she could. There sprang up an
+instant wish in Cherry's mind, however, that no word should be said to
+anybody else until the two strange cadets should have made their visit
+and gone. Magnus was quite wild enough, even with this slight check
+upon his proceedings. And an unconsciously deprecating look went over
+to him, which the young man caught, read, and answered with a profound
+bow.
+
+"Yes, lady," he said; "your commands shall be obeyed. Even to the half
+of my fortune. Or, as I haven't any at all, perhaps the whole will not
+be too much."
+
+"By the way," said Mr. Erskine, noting (and somehow resenting) the pink
+tints that came up in Cherry's cheeks; "what has become of that 'very
+best sort of a girl' you talked so fast about last week?"
+
+"What has become of her?" Magnus repeated, standing involuntary
+"attention."
+
+"Yes. Where is she?"
+
+"At home, sir."
+
+"I will not ask where that is, as I have not permission," said Mr.
+Erskine, smiling now; "but what does she say to your coming here first
+and staying so long?"
+
+"She has made no objection as yet, sir. So I do not think she will."
+
+"Well, she ought, if she cares enough for you," said Mr. Erskine.
+"Boy, I'm afraid you have got yourself tangled up in a foolish thing."
+
+"What should you call 'enough,' sir?"
+
+"Well--all she can," said Mr. Erskine.
+
+"How much _could_ any first-best girl care for me, sir?" said Magnus,
+moving a step or two for a better view of Cherry.
+
+"Oh, you need not try the modest game here," said Mr. Erskine, laughing
+at him. "It is too late in the day for that. If she only cares a
+little, let her go; and find one who will love all there is in you,
+and a good deal more that she thinks is there. I wouldn't give a
+counterfeit five cents for a tepid girl."
+
+Mr. Erskine spoke with such disgustful energy that everybody laughed
+out.
+
+"But what girl is this?" Rose demanded. "Someone you never told us of?"
+
+"There are fifty girls I never told you of."
+
+"And besides, Rose, he is only attitudinising," said Mr. Erskine. "I
+do not believe the girl is in existence that could get him away. He is
+just young man enough to like the part of an easy-minded lover."
+
+Magnus remarked with some energy that it was better than the part of
+an _un_easy-minded lover, every time. But now the fun of the thing got
+hold of him, and sealed his lips in earnest. No, if really people could
+not see, they could wait.
+
+Several other things came in to further and abet the silence.
+
+First of all, the neighbourhood waked up to the fact that a prospective
+brigadier was among them, and the inroads to see Magnus, and to hear
+him tell his experience, were many--and "a nuisance." So he himself
+declared, making wry faces over his popularity.
+
+Then, Mr. Erskine had one of his suffering weeks, when troubling him
+with questions was not to be thought of. Magnus detailed himself as
+head nurse, taking all the night work, sending Cherry off to bed, and
+gathering up the reins generally in his own hands, proving himself
+most tender and efficient as well as strong. Of course, things must
+be talked over before he went back; but even Cherry herself could not
+think this a good time.
+
+On the back of all these hinderances, and just as Mr. Erskine began to
+be about again, came the other two cadets.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+OF COURSE
+
+    Admire my daughter! Sir, you're very good.
+
+    --_Tales of the Hall._
+
+
+There followed such a round of teas on the hill and dinners at the
+cottage; of picnics, walks, drives, and berry-scouts, that the days
+gave up their ordinary rate of progress, and flew. June had long been
+out of sight; and now July was ending, and August close at hand. Magnus
+indeed closed his ears to the soft flutter, as the days winged by; but
+not so Mrs. Kindred, and not so Cherry. The girl began to look forward
+with absolute dismay to the drawing out from her daily life of this
+gold-twisted silken thread. What should she do, when Magnus was away
+again?
+
+If I say that she was getting bound to him in deeper and finer trust
+and love, with every new day's experience, it is no more than the
+truth; and no more, I think, than he deserved. Love for the right sort
+of woman puts a man at his best, and brings him out wonderfully. Count
+the minutes? Ah, yes! two hearts at least did that. In just so many
+days more Magnus must leave them all.
+
+Then suppose Mr. Erskine--no, it could not be; and yet, after every
+such decision, one always goes back to say the "suppose" over again.
+
+"Magnus, I do wish you would have your talk with papa," Cherry ventured
+one day.
+
+"You recommended that at first--twice, if I recollect right," remarked
+Cadet Kindred.
+
+"I did nothing of the sort. But I should think you might have commended
+it to yourself by this time."
+
+"It is such fun to puzzle him."
+
+"But it will not be fun to grieve him," Cherry said.
+
+"Is he going to be grieved? Then it will all come upon your hands. You
+know you can wheedle any bird off any bush at any time."
+
+"'Wheedle' papa!" Cherry said with some energy. "Not I, I promise you."
+
+"Well, I know you mean to keep all your promises to me," said Magnus.
+"But come along, and see me throw myself at his feet. Then he can save
+time, and give us his blessing together."
+
+"No, I am not going," Cherry said, pulling her hand away and trying not
+to laugh.
+
+"You are worse than Lord Ullin's daughter," said Magnus. "She plunged
+into all the danger there was around. Chérie, will you send me a letter
+every single day?"
+
+"Oh, do not talk about letters yet!" Cherry said, in such a pitiful
+tone that Magnus forgot all about Mr. Erskine, and gave himself up to
+the task of comforting her. And it was the father himself who at last,
+unawares, brought on the talk.
+
+"Only twenty days left," he said one morning, when Magnus came into his
+study and sat down, with an absent-minded air.
+
+"Nineteen, sir."
+
+"Then you settle down to hard work again."
+
+"For two years, sir."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I take my diploma and a three-months' leave, and come back here."
+
+"Three months--till October."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That is better than nothing," said Mr. Erskine; "but we shall all
+think it very short."
+
+"I cannot stay until quite October," said Magnus, "but towards that."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I take Cherry and go to my post."
+
+But now Mr. Erskine sat straight up, grasping the arm of his chair.
+
+"Take Cherry!" he repeated. "My baby! It is _Cherry_ you want to take
+to San Carlos?"
+
+"It may not be San Carlos, sir. Of course, I must take her wherever I
+go."
+
+"Well, you need not get up before gunfire to bone assurance," said
+Mr. Erskine. "My Cherry! And what do you suppose she will say to this
+brilliant plan for her happiness?"
+
+"I do not think she much cares where we go, sir," Magnus answered, with
+easy confidence.
+
+It was an indescribable pang that shot through the father's heart. His
+one treasure, his pearl of all the world, already did not "much care"
+where she went, so long as she could be with this youngster--put her
+hand in his, and go!
+
+"It may happen that I shall care," he said huskily. "What makes you
+think I will give her up to go anywhere?"
+
+"But you can go, too, you know, sir," Cadet Kindred answered, with that
+same calm tone which ignores the hard and cuts through the impossible.
+"We have talked about it a great deal."
+
+"It strikes me that a little of the talking should have come to me."
+
+"Yes, sir; but then you are so seldom alone--always reading or
+something on hand--it was hard to find a chance. And then you were
+sick. And I thought you must see for yourself. And then, if you
+didn't, it was such fun to puzzle you," Magnus said honestly.
+
+"So seldom alone," Mr. Erskine repeated rather bitterly. "I suppose it
+will be often enough in the future. No, do not say another word to me
+now. Take yourself off, young man, and get out of my sight, and give me
+a chance to draw my breath. My Cherry!"
+
+It was perhaps just as well for everybody that the two guests were
+still there, and the fun and frolic at high-water mark; the best
+intentions thereto, or even the justest cause, could not make anybody
+look grave or stiff or anxious. Therefore Mr. Erskine had time to study
+up his hard question unnoticed.
+
+"Question," indeed, it hardly was. Mr. Erskine knew, without thinking,
+that he loved Magnus Kindred like his own son; and it took very little
+awakened observation to show him that, on Cherry's part, the old
+childish affection had passed into the deepest and strongest that a
+woman can know. Reserved and self-contained as she always was, her
+father could see a hundred little tokens which he marvelled he had
+never noticed before. He watched Magnus, too, with very keen-set eyes,
+studied him, weighed him in all sorts of scales, and, on the whole,
+was well content. Just about as much of a boy as ever, only more of
+a man; gay, saucy, absurd, and sensible; but through it all now, in
+whatever touched Cherry, there was an indescribable tone of reverence
+which became him well, as it does any man who has won for himself the
+priceless trust of a true woman's love. His own love and devotion were
+patent enough. Magnus had certainly "taken it hard," as people say. The
+father noted it well, and judged it all of a quality that would wear.
+
+Once making up his mind to the situation, it was amusing enough; and
+the two elders of the party had many a quiet laugh at the skill with
+which Messrs. Twinkle and Rig were headed off, and never allowed to
+improve their acquaintance with Cherry. It was always somebody else
+with whom they were fated to walk, and to whom they might make pretty
+speeches; and with all a man's recklessness about possible damage to
+other hearts, and lest his tactics should be found out, Magnus hunted
+up other girls--old acquaintances of the neighbourhood--to share the
+burden which at first Violet and Rose had borne alone.
+
+"But, Magnus!" Mrs. Kindred protested one day, "you go on like crazy
+boys, you three. Girls about here aren't used to young fellows who say
+everything they do not mean. My dear, I fear you are sowing mischief.
+Jenny Mott went home last night with her head more than half turned."
+
+"Easy job for Rig to finish, then," said Magnus. "Never mind, mammy;
+keep up your spirits. We're not so unlike other boys as you seem to
+think. It _is_ getting to be rather serious with Twinkle and Viola."
+
+"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Kindred said, with her hand on his arm; "now,
+Magnus! you must not put any nonsense into that child's head!"
+
+"Couldn't if I would," said Magnus; "not an inch of room. You couldn't
+get a grain in sideways after Twinkle's been talking to her. He's a
+right good fellow, mammy; don't drink, don't smoke, don't flirt--much;
+and if his light isn't of the very biggest, it's always there, which is
+better. She might do worse."
+
+"But, Magnus, Violet is hardly grown up."
+
+"Why don't you tell Twinkle so, and ask him to wait?" said Magnus, with
+a very grave face. But then he laughed.
+
+"Oh, mammy!" he said, "when cadets are about, it's 'all luggage at the
+risk of the owners.' I _had_ picked out somebody else for Vio, if only
+he's not gone before she gets there. What a thing it is to have me well
+settled in life before your anxieties over the girls come on!" And
+then Magnus kissed her, and set his face towards the other house.
+
+"But Magnus!" said Mrs. Kindred, calling him back, "you have not told
+me what Mr. Erskine says. Do you know yourself? He knits his brows so
+sometimes, when he is looking at you, that I never dare ask him. Is he
+willing, do you think?"
+
+"He will be, before I get through with him," said Magnus confidently,
+and he went whistling up the hill, as though that small task were done
+to his hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+SAN CARLOS
+
+ Mix up a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions
+ and rattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat
+ the stones red hot; and set the United States army loose over the
+ place chasin' Apaches; and you've got San Carlos.
+
+  --U. S. SOLDIER, _in Harper's Magazine_.
+
+
+And I suppose so it was; the task was really ended when the idea came
+in. A strong protector for his darling when his own care should fail,
+had been the longing in Mr. Erskine's heart for many a day, and Magnus
+Kindred had always been second only to Cherry in his heart. Yet to give
+her up before the time, and, instead of leaving her, to have her leave
+him, it was sharp enough. No wonder he knit his brows now and then in
+the midst of all the gaiety, and almost put out a hand between his
+child and this youngster who claimed such rights and took them with
+such assurance. No wonder if he frowned a little now, to-day, as Magnus
+came whistling up, and throwing himself down on a lower step of the
+porch, waited for the older man to speak.
+
+But for a while the silence was unbroken, as Mr. Erskine made a sort
+of final examination; obliged to come back to the judgment he had
+given weeks ago, that Charlemagne Kindred was "a splendid fellow." The
+critical eyes could find no fault.
+
+Very serious the face was now, as he sat there looking off, schooling
+himself to patient waiting, once in a while almost starting up at
+some sound of Cherry's voice or step within the house. I am afraid
+Mr. Erskine took a malign pleasure in keeping him where he was. The
+malignity was not deep, however, for once, when some scrap of a song
+floated down from an open upstairs window, there came a look over the
+face of Cadet Charlemagne Kindred--a sudden light and love and joy--to
+which the father's eyes gave such sympathetic answer that he was fain
+to screen them with his hand.
+
+"Well, young sir," he began at last, "I suppose you want to know what I
+have to say to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Furlough ends next week," Magnus answered, without looking
+round.
+
+"Then back for two years more?"
+
+"Back for two years, sir."
+
+"Magnus, what sort of an inner life have you lived at West Point? They
+have made a soldier of you outwardly; we can all see so much; but it is
+possible for a man to be that, and yet have no soldier's heart within."
+
+Magnus coloured deeply.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said. "I know it. And that has been true of me a few
+times, Mr. Erskine. Never but once in any great thing."
+
+"There are no little things in right and wrong, boy."
+
+"No, sir. I should have said, in what people call great."
+
+Mr. Erskine was silent with sudden pain; he had not looked for such an
+answer. Then Magnus turned round, and sat facing him, looking full up.
+
+"I have told Cherry the whole thing, straight through," he said; "and
+now I will tell you, sir, if you wish."
+
+Mr. Erskine drew a breath of relief. If he had told Cherry, it could be
+nothing very bad; and that he _had_ told her half cleared it away.
+
+"No, do not tell me," he said. "If Cherry knows, that is enough. But,
+Magnus, I never expected _you_ to lack the soldier heart!"
+
+The boy's eyes flushed, and his lips were unsteady as he said:
+
+"Nor I, sir. You cannot possibly be half so disappointed in me as I was
+in myself."
+
+There was a long pause. What that bit of schooling was to Magnus it
+would be hard to describe; but he said not a word to shorten it. With
+head well up, and eyes looking gravely off at the fair landscape, of
+which they saw not a thing, so he sat; and Mr. Erskine watched him. His
+whole heart went out to the boy in tenderness and up for him in prayer.
+Not a hero in his own right, perhaps, but a better, stronger thing is
+the man whom God keeps, and who trusts the Lord for all power to keep
+himself.
+
+"The people that know their God, shall be strong and do exploits."
+
+"You told Cherry," the elder man began at length. "And what did Cherry
+say?"
+
+"Broke my heart into little pieces," said Magnus briefly.
+
+It was Mr. Erskine's turn to have wet eyes, though he smiled too.
+
+"So!" he said. "My boy, did you ever realise that you might break _her_
+heart?"
+
+"Don't ask me to realise it any more than I do, sir," Magnus answered,
+with a troubled voice. "You see she minds things that some people call
+trifles."
+
+"Like a true woman," said Mr. Erskine. "I am glad she does."
+
+"So am I!" said Magnus, with hearty emphasis. "There is not a thing
+about her that I am not glad of. But I have told her everything, Mr.
+Erskine," he added, "and she forgives me."
+
+"Like a woman again," thought the father. "And she is ready to go with
+you to San Carlos?"
+
+"I don't know why you will persist in sending me there, sir," Magnus
+said, with just a touch of impatience. "That seems to be your
+favourite post. We have not spoken of San Carlos."
+
+"No, I suppose all your talk has been of Fortress Monroe, Governor's
+Island, and West Point," said Mr. Erskine, in a mocking tone. "Those
+are the usual first posts for young second lieutenants."
+
+"West Point!" Magnus repeated scornfully. "If you had the faintest
+idea, Mr. Erskine, what West Point is _without_ Cherry, you would know
+that San Carlos will be the ranking post in the country when she gets
+there!"
+
+And the young man sprang to his feet, as if tenter hooks were restless
+things.
+
+Mr. Erskine held out his hand. "Forgive me, my boy," he said. "I will
+not tease you any more. Go and find my treasure--and take her for
+_your_ treasure, and guard her with your life. I do not mean in the
+common sense of dying for her, but in the nobler, costlier way of
+living for her. Shield her from any touch of shame, from any sense of
+loss, from any shadow of pain or sorrow that is not Heaven-sent. Live
+so that she will be prouder of you every day. Magnus, my darling is a
+_trust_."
+
+There was something very sweet and solemn too in the way Magnus took
+the extended hand, and dropping on his knee kissed it earnestly.
+
+"As such I take her, sir. My most dear trust, for every hour I live."
+
+But then he sprang up again, threw his arms round Mr. Erskine with a
+hug like a young bear, and with a joyous shout of "Ho for San Carlos!"
+darted away into the house to find Cherry.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+RUSHED INTO CAMP
+
+    Whither I must, I must.
+
+    --_King Henry IV._
+
+
+If love does sometimes contrive to do for itself what the poet wished,
+and "annihilate time," over the "space," alas! it has generally no
+power. Those last days at home were to Magnus only quarter-days; but
+once in the cars, and the miles drew out a lengthening chain that
+fairly seemed to clank in his hearing. Two years now, almost, away from
+those dear faces; two years more without Cherry.
+
+To be sure, she was coming to first-class camp; that was something. She
+had not said she would, but she must; or he should simply die, and the
+authorities would have to send him home.
+
+As the train flew on, tossing everything behind its back, classmates
+began to straggle in, catching the express from one point or another;
+each State giving up its contingent of much-disgusted men, all equally
+gloomy and rebellious. What was the use of the old concern, anyhow? So
+they grumbled, keeping down each other's low spirits, and ever and anon
+launching forth upon the departed joys of the last eight weeks; opening
+their hearts less or more, according to the man. For in some coat
+pockets lay hid a little glove, carefully wrapped in rosy thoughts, and
+(I was going to say) here and there also a mitten, in different-hued
+tissue paper. But no, I take that back; nobody ever gets a mitten on
+furlough, which is perhaps the reason why so many engagements date back
+to just that point.
+
+They felt very small just now, with love and home behind them; speeding
+away towards drums, Tacs and the reveille gun. I think some of them
+would have liked to slide off on a railroad "Y," and so ride backwards
+all the rest of the way, as under protest.
+
+Through all the grumbling Charlemagne Kindred was profoundly silent,
+only jerking his words out when they must come, in a way that made the
+others pronounce him "a gingersnap." But snaps are sweet, and he was
+not.
+
+"Just think," Rig said lugubriously, as he dropped into the seat by
+Magnus, "this time to-morrow I shall not have even the show of a
+pocket."
+
+"That's square; you'll have nothing to put in it."
+
+"And I've got three confinements to serve out the first thing," said
+Crane, in front.
+
+"All right--you went in for them," said Magnus, with a comfortable
+consciousness of his own clear score.
+
+"Didn't; I went out."
+
+So the talk went on, and Magnus sat vaguely listening, seldom joining
+in, his whole self reaching back towards that beloved region whither
+he could not go. He longed to have the talk stop, the train stop, the
+world stop--almost: anything, to change the pitiless rush and roar with
+which he was speeded away from all he loved best.--Mile after mile,
+hour after hour; till he felt ready to start up and cuff somebody, if
+only so he could make a change. They talk of homesick plebs, and those
+fellows have it hard enough; but I doubt if it compares with the _mal
+de pays_ of the furlough men when they come back.
+
+Cadet Kindred fought it, wrestled with it; then suddenly turned and
+began to fight himself. For was not this West Point life the very
+thing singled out just now for him? The surest, best, and quickest
+way in which he could win education, position, and the means to live?
+The shortest road to that fair home for Cherry which tinted even his
+dreams? Had it not been the Lord's appointment, far more than that
+which dated back to Congressman Ironwood? I do not think the ache died
+out, a bit; but the antagonism did. Ready for duty, ready for all that
+might come with duty; yes, that should be true of him. As clearly as
+to-morrow he would answer to his name at roll-call, so now in his heart
+Charlemagne Kindred said: "Yes, Lord, here!" What were they all praying
+for him at home? Not only, not chiefly, that he might win the honours;
+but that his daily life might _be_ an honour to the cause of Christ.
+
+The miles did not shorten after that; home still shone oh, how vividly!
+and shoulder-straps looked dim and hazy in the distance, and graduation
+but a myth; but the brave heart addressed itself to wait, and to work,
+and to endure.
+
+The great city was reached, and trunks and men conveyed across to where
+the swift steamer lay taking in her living freight. The whole class,
+gathered now from all sides of the great country, mustered in "cits"
+for the last time.
+
+As I think, it was a happy thing for these young schoolmen, that in
+the year of which I write, the "rush" was still in its glory; not yet
+found out to be unmilitary and dangerous. But now the first classman is
+supposed to forget that he ever was a boy.
+
+For my part, I am glad to know this for a clear fallacy. No power on
+earth, not even time, can ever drive the mischief out of some men, or
+kill the frolic that lies hid behind those sober suits of grey. The
+most sedate bearing may belong to the plotter of the most consummate
+exploits; and the gravest men take your breath away telling what they
+have done. Ah, it is not the boy in them that needs watching, but the
+undisciplined man.
+
+But as I said, in those days the hopeless task was not begun. So when
+the boat reached the landing, and her signal went sounding up the
+hill, a rousing reception was ready.
+
+The furlough men had been watching with sober eyes, as one grey wall
+after another peered through the trees; and now they stepped wearily
+along the steep, winding road, bags in hand; a dusty, rebellious lot.
+Then paused at the top of the hill and clustered together in front of
+the Library.
+
+Before them lay the cavalry plain, brown and powdery with sun and
+riding; the black guns of the Light Battery; then the camp. Rank after
+rank, in their exact order, the white tents gleamed in the sunshine. A
+moment the travellers saw it all.
+
+Then on the nearer side there gathered a grey and white swarm of
+figures; the furlough men spread themselves in a long single line,
+and, joining hands, began to double-time it across the plain. The grey
+figures dashed out across what was afterwards the famous "Post No. 6,"
+swooped down upon the furlough men, and "rushed them into camp."
+
+There followed ten minutes of utter Babel-like confusion; hats, caps,
+handbags, and men were on the ground or in the air, as the case might
+be. I think Mr. Starr lost his foothold on firm earth several times,
+while Magnus Kindred made things just as lively for one or two small
+first classmen. Men hugged each other or shook hands, according to the
+various degrees of size and friendship. The ladies on the seats clapped
+hands; the yearlings, on their way to dancing, turned and gave a cheer.
+Then the hubbub was over. The furlough men dived into their tents,
+and came forth to dinner roll-call full blown cadets, with very sober
+faces. The rush helped them for the minute, but it could not last; they
+were a sorry-looking lot.
+
+Charlemagne Kindred came out too, after a while (anything but his own
+thoughts!), and was most effusively greeted by Miss Beguile and Miss
+Saucy. But being promptly bid to stand and deliver a full, true, and
+unvarnished account of the summer's work and play, he got off as soon
+as he could and took his sergeant's chevrons and his loneliness down
+Flirtation for a walk.
+
+How unbearable these average girls were to him after Cherry! Cherry,
+with her quaint, womanly ways, and low-toned voice, and earnest eyes; a
+hundred times fairer in her fresh print dress than they with all their
+silks and streamers! "A trust"--ah, she was one worth having. And it
+was with a very moved and joyful heart that Cadet Kindred realised how
+surely upon his keeping of that trust, hung all the joy and brightness
+of her sweet life. Hers--and theirs; four true women looking up to him.
+
+On the whole, it was a very good bit of thinking the young sergeant did
+there, with the lovely river sweeping by at his feet, and the leaves in
+a glad rustle behind him. Yes, every new bit of honour that he could
+win, in any line, would be gilded anew for them. He must send them a
+correct drawing of even the new chevrons.
+
+Magnus again mounted the hill, but at the edge of the broken ground he
+faced about and took off his cap to the flag.
+
+"Glad to see you, old friend!" he said. "Henceforth, you and I are
+going to run things together. I'm enlisted now, for all the storms that
+blow."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+HIGH GROUND
+
+    But never sit we down and say,
+      "There's nothing left but sorrow."
+    We walk the Wilderness to-day,
+      The promised Land to-morrow.
+
+    --GERALD MASSEY.
+
+
+There was much wedging and crowding in the camp that night, lightened
+somewhat by the big hop which shortened the night for so many. Not for
+Magnus. He went to bed, thinking the night would be two nights long:
+quite sure he should not close his eyes.
+
+But youth, and health, and the long journey, and even sorrow, quite
+upset his calculations. When the hop men turned in, Magnus hardly
+roused up enough to give a short answer to some details; and when the
+sharp voice of the reveille gun spoke in his ear, it was as clear a
+wake-up--and alas! as disgusted a one--as Cadet Kindred had ever known.
+But breaking camp at least would be welcome: hard work suited his mood
+just now much better than play.
+
+Yet before the hour drew on, he strolled out towards the visitors'
+seats; the exquisite morning, the dainty wreaths of mist, and the
+sweet, pure air, making him so homesick that he craved even a chatter
+of tongues that should stop his thoughts.
+
+The seats were a waving line of colour. Hats turned up, and hats
+turned down; bonnets too small to be seen, and hats like umbrellas;
+ribands, laces, streamers of every kind. Plenty of grey coats, too;
+first classmen and yearlings in their glory, with other disconsolate
+furlough men, searching the crowd for a friend, if possibly such a
+thing remained to them east of the Rockies, or north of Mason and
+Dixon's line. Everywhere a busy chatter, with introductions, greetings,
+inquiries, and much swinging of cadet caps. Sugar-plums abounded.
+On the grass a group of children sunned themselves in front of the
+grown-up people, sometimes aping their ways.
+
+Magnus was taken possession of rapturously,--had to touch a half-dozen
+gloves in as many seconds.
+
+"And where have you been all summer, Mr. Kindred?" Miss Fashion
+inquired in gracious tones.
+
+"In a much better place than this old camp, Miss Fashion."
+
+"That goes without saying," chimed in Miss Saucy. "Any place where
+_you_ were, would of course overtop the rest of the world."
+
+"It might," Magnus answered, thinking of the oak shadows where he had
+sat with Cherry. I am not so sure that he heard Miss Fashion's next
+words, looking over her head towards the Western sky. The West! The
+West!
+
+"And of course your desire for study is immense," the young lady went
+on, a little louder.
+
+"Quite insatiable!"
+
+"Oh, you're too good to be true!" said Miss Saucy.
+
+"But don't you feel all out of training?" said another girl. "I should
+think it would come awfully hard at first."
+
+"On the contrary, I feel in better training than ever in my life
+before."
+
+"But that is _awful_!" said the Kitten. "Back from furlough 'in
+training'? Why, Magnus, you'll come out blue."
+
+"I expect it," said Magnus, with a bow. "That is what I am aiming for."
+
+"Now _that_ I call mean," said the young lady; "taking one up so. How
+sharp you have grown all of a sudden!"
+
+"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your
+fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."
+
+"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go to
+your heart to cut off your moustache?"
+
+"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."
+
+"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.
+
+"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred
+touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of
+the colour line.
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West Point
+season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her heart
+as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall, when
+that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go to
+spend the day!"
+
+"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.
+
+"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent,
+"but _they_ can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes
+along and turns them out."
+
+"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said Miss
+Saucy. "Do you know, I just _made_ Clinch look at me the other night as
+he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest thing to
+break camp before cold weather. There it goes!--our camp!"
+
+But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums
+under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that
+nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.
+
+The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold
+fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and
+flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very
+special chums together.
+
+Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred. He waited
+till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his loitering
+comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across the plain and
+took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the flag.
+
+Two whole years--two years and three months almost--since the first
+day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of brave
+allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to scan
+the two years' record.
+
+In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor fealty.
+But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this love as
+for the other he must _live_, as well as be ready to die. The honour
+of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American fought out
+his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields sometimes than
+Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No name on a tall
+column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps, while the fight
+lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall speak the "Well
+done," when he comes to survey the field.
+
+Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that
+devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country;
+winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain;
+keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained.
+
+"Winning victories"--he repeated to himself, looking up again at the
+lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as negative."
+
+Bible words are very positive.
+
+"He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He that
+gathereth not with me, scattereth."
+
+"But they don't leave us time for anything like that," Magnus thought,
+in half excuse. "It takes so long just to _be_; to look after your own
+prayers and reading. There isn't any chance to _do_."
+
+And now he remembered the lovely, constant shining of Cherry's life in
+even the commonest, everyday things; the halo that was always about
+her. Set her at any sort of work, in any sort of company, and you could
+never doubt for a moment whose she was and whom she served. The King's
+seal was there. Such a life is positive, by its very nature.
+
+"But then she is like nobody else," Magnus went on, as his rapturous
+thoughts finished off with a long, heavy sigh. "And she has a little
+space to breathe in, too. But here--just math. and chem., study and
+drill, from dawn to dark." Then other words came up before his eyes.
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily; as to the Lord, and not to men."
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
+Jesus."
+
+"Even those old lessons," commented Cadet Kindred. "I rather suspect
+I've been setting my study books at the wrong angle. I know Cherry says
+that drudgery fades out, if you write the name of Jesus on it. Wonder
+if it would work so with anybody but her?"
+
+And a long, dull procession of days rose up in sight; each one loaded
+down with hard, monotonous work. Not prettily varied, with one day this
+and next day that, but a steady, straight on pull in the same lines,
+for weeks together.
+
+"And we can't turn and twist about as you do, old flag," he said, "but
+have got to stand attention (or sit it) every time. It would feel sort
+o' good, if we could just choose our own positions for firing off
+blunders."
+
+"Whatever in the world are _you_ holding up the flagstaff for?" said
+Rig's astonished voice, as that young man came up from among the guns.
+"Beastly dull here, isn't it? I say, Kin, when's that awfully pretty
+sister of yours coming?"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Well, both, then," corrected Rig.
+
+"After you graduate--if you ever do."
+
+"You may well say if. But you'll be gone yourself, then."
+
+"Maybe I shall not let them come at all. There are too many girls
+here now." And Magnus cast cynical eyes towards several free-and-easy
+damsels who were sauntering across the plain, well attended.
+
+"There they go," he said; "men and girls and parasols. And the parasols
+are the only things in the lot with a grain of sense. Just hear that
+pink girl laugh! She's got Duncy in tow, telling him: 'Oh, Mr. Duncy!
+you are _so_ amusing!'"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if she wasn't. I think he is, sometimes, myself,"
+said Rig.
+
+"He is a consistent goose," said Magnus.
+
+"Come, now, Kin, you're out of humour," Rig said soothingly. "You'll
+feel better after dinner."
+
+"No I shall not," Magnus answered crossly. "Last Thursday I had chicken
+pie and apple fritters."
+
+Rig gave a groan.
+
+"Well," he said, "it can't be helped, so eat all you can. And there
+goes the drum."
+
+The two set off for barracks, but if Magnus had eased his mind, he had
+certainly given his heart an extra load.
+
+"Kindred's as glum as a post," remarked a smart first classman. "Easy
+to see his girl's gone back on him."
+
+Magnus caught the words, but then came a thrill of joy. No, _that_
+could never be true; and his girl was the very best in all the world.
+The sights and sounds about him grew indistinct; and with thoughts two
+thousand miles away, Cadet Kindred finished his dinner and never knew
+what it was. Only "Company A, rise!" awaked him from his dream.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+MORE GIRLS
+
+    Pray to God, but continue to row to the shore.
+
+    --_Russian Proverb._
+
+
+But work did come hard! The reveille gun was such an impertinence after
+the lazy summer mornings at home. Every officer figured as an enemy,
+every drill was an unmitigated bore. And despite what people say about
+changed seasons, it rained Saturday afternoon then, as it always does
+now; while if it rained other days too, yet it was sure to clear up in
+time for drill--or the cadets thought so, which did as well.
+
+Such meals, too, three times a day! Fair enough in ordinary, and easily
+disposed of by the healthy young appetites, whetted with hard work and
+open air; but thrown into utter disgrace just now by the background of
+"mother's" dainties and "home" cream. They were sober enough, these
+furlough men. But it is hard for even quiet steeds to go calmly back
+from pasture into the traces; some other fiery young coursers were
+simply rampant. A good deal of mischief went on in those first weeks in
+barracks.
+
+Magnus Kindred kept out of it, partly because he had Cherry's image
+before his eyes; but also because he liked his freedom better than
+anything else, and had never learned to confound license with liberty.
+No amount of fun on Monday, would pay him for spending the next
+Saturday afternoon on the area.
+
+So while other men "ran it" to the Hotel or to Highland Falls, paying
+that unpleasant penalty, Cadet Kindred kept his playtime free, taking
+long, long walks over the mountain or in other leafy regions where
+the squirrels and woodpeckers had it all to themselves. Studying the
+fanciful piebald of the autumn leaves, gathering the quaint yellow
+witch-hazel blooms, and the white ladies' tresses; and bringing back to
+barracks such a clear head for study that he went up hand over hand.
+Men said he was in love--which was certainly true; and some, that he
+was trying to "bootlick the Supe," which was as certainly false. And
+again others, that he was "boning Willet's Point." But no; he was doing
+better, and simply "boning" the highest stand he could reach.
+
+Meanwhile, to grace the lovely fall weather, several new flowers--or
+birds--might be seen at parade and on the sidewalk. And Magnus had been
+duly presented, and had done his first devoirs to the fair strangers.
+But after that he thought he might please himself again, and muse and
+climb among the beloved old rocks.
+
+"Where _does_ Mr. Kindred go every Saturday?" Miss Berry demanded of
+Rig one day. "You know I'm visiting at the corner house, and can watch
+both ways. But while I'm running from one window to the other, he
+always contrives to vanish; and I never can tell into which house."
+
+"Of course I cannot say, Miss Jo," Rig answered, "because you know I
+never get round the corner. The minute I see you watching for me, I
+stop and come in."
+
+"Watching for you! I think I see myself," said Miss Berry.
+
+"You'll see something very sweet, when you do," said Rig politely.
+
+"It'll be something pretty sour, if you're not careful," retorted Miss
+Berry. "But say--I'm awfully curious to know. Where does he go most,
+Saturdays?"
+
+"Why, nowhere, to visit, they say," said the hostess.
+
+[Illustration: CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS]
+
+"Isn't there someone he cares about out West, Mr. McLean?"
+
+"He has two charming sisters."
+
+"Oh, of course!--all you cadets have charming sisters," said Miss Jo
+impatiently. "Anybody else?"
+
+"Lots of girls there," Rig replied. "They haven't all come East by
+several."
+
+"What do Western girls look like?"
+
+"Angels, some of 'em," said Rig, thinking of Violet's eyes.
+
+"Did you see Mr. Kindred's best girl?"
+
+"I rather suspect I saw three of them," Rig answered slowly.
+
+"Three! Why, the man's a Turk. Wasn't one better than the other?"
+
+"I thought so," said Rig. "It's a matter of opinion, I suspect."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Miss Jo, with beautiful ease of manner. "It's no
+more possible to get the truth out of a cadet, than----"
+
+"Than to get it without him," suggested Rig.
+
+"I'll get at it somehow, you'd better believe," said Miss Jo. "What
+were these three girls called?"
+
+"One of them seemed to have a sort of French title; the other two
+answered to plain English."
+
+"French--that's a likely story. What do you know about French?"
+
+"Not much," Rig confessed. "Don't be hard on me, Miss Jo. I expect to
+be found in January, but you might leave a fellow hopes till then."
+
+"And you will _not_ tell us a thing about Mr. Kindred," joined in
+another girl.
+
+"Well, now"--said Rig,--"that's putting it rather strong. But here
+comes Kin himself; he ought to know. He's of age, ask him, as the Jews
+said in the Bible."
+
+And Mr. McLean stepped to the window and hailed his friend, who had not
+had the faintest intention of calling upon anybody that afternoon.
+
+However, so summoned, there was nothing else to do. So Magnus came in,
+hung up his cap in the hall, shook hands with his hostess and the other
+ladies, and then, after the manner of cadet chaff, asked Rig what he
+was fooling there for? wasting his own time as well as Miss Jo's?
+
+"She said she hadn't any to lose, so I'm safe there," answered Mr.
+McLean.
+
+"Make the most of it,--that won't carry you far," said Miss Jo. "What
+_do_ you suppose he has been doing, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Could not guess--when it is Rig."
+
+"Absolutely quoted the Bible to me. I came so near fainting away that
+he called you in for a tonic."
+
+"Quoted it pertinently?"
+
+"No, impertinently. Oh, Mr. Kindred, will you let me have a walk after
+chapel on Sunday?"
+
+"Certainly--but I cannot take you to get it."
+
+"I suppose that passes for cadet wit," said Miss Jo, pouting. "Why
+cannot you, pray?"
+
+"Something else to do: a previous."
+
+"You can't fool me so," said Miss Jo, shaking her flaxen head. "You
+_know_ your best girl isn't here."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then there is nobody else you need walk with. I think you're very
+unkind, Mr. Kindred. And I've got such a box of candy as _you_ never
+saw."
+
+"Let me see it now," said Magnus, smiling. "Destroy ignorance wherever
+you find it."
+
+"I guess I will! No, I'll give that walk to Mr. Clayton, and nobody
+else shall have a crumb."
+
+"Or a smile."
+
+"Good for Clayton," said Rig. "Then he won't have to dead-beat to
+the hospital Monday morning, but can go there for good and sufficient
+reasons."
+
+"Aren't you ashamed!--as if my candy was poison," said Miss Jo
+indignantly.
+
+"Mr. Kindred," said the hostess, "my curiosity is astir about this
+'best girl' of yours; I should like to know your taste. What is she
+like?"
+
+"Like herself: I know nobody else," said Magnus.
+
+"So then she really does exist somewhere?"
+
+"Why, you asked about her."
+
+"Yes, of course I did; but then I didn't know but Mr. McLean had been
+fooling us."
+
+"Would he dare do that?"
+
+"It's my belief he fools about everything," said Miss Jo. "And you too.
+I don't think you cadets know how to be serious about a single thing."
+
+"Grinds _are_ almost the staff of life here," said Magnus. "But you
+do Rig unjustice: he'll be serious enough when he gets zero in wave
+motion."
+
+"Don't speak of wave motion Saturday afternoon," pleaded Rig. "It's the
+only time in the week when anything stands still and right side up.
+The air waves, and the light waves; and not a thing is steady, from
+Saturday night to Saturday noonday."
+
+"I hope you do not study wave motion on Sunday," said the hostess
+reprovingly.
+
+"Only practises it in chapel, you know," said Magnus. "Rig goes to
+sleep systematically, and keeps up in wave motion by a series of
+graceful nods."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Rig. "Well, I sometimes do, that's a fact. Somebody
+stuck a pin into me last Sunday. Wasn't you, was it, Kin?"
+
+"It was not my pin. Come away, Rig, you've got another visit to pay
+before retreat," and the two bowed themselves out.
+
+"I don't believe I'll call on Miss Saucy to-day," said Rig, as they
+walked along. "I got thinking about your handsome sisters, and that
+takes the taste out of other girls."
+
+"Oh, does it!" said Magnus mockingly. "If you say that again, I'll
+report you to the Com. for a cannibal. There--the Kitten is tapping on
+the window for you, and you can go to Miss Saucy later. Run in; there's
+a lot of girls staying there."
+
+And Rig ran in. But in the hall, while giving himself those finishing
+touches in which even men indulge, Rig found that Cadet Kindred had
+slipped away to parts unknown.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+ON FORT PUT
+
+    Think truly, and thy thoughts
+      Shall the world's famine feed;
+    Speak truly, and each word of thine
+      Shall be a fruitful seed.
+    Live truly, and thy life shall be
+      A great and noble creed.
+
+    --DR. BONAR.
+
+
+No, Cadet Kindred was in no mood for "other girls" that day; had he not
+just been writing his heart out to Cherry? and was not her last letter
+lying _perdu_ up his sleeve? You could not expect him to have any
+relish for common doings.
+
+So with the easy, steady gait which I wish all men might copy, Magnus
+went swiftly on to the west end of the officers' row. Past Miss Saucy,
+who signalled him from her friend's porch; past Miss Bee, who bowed
+from an open window; past the talk and the laughter, the scent of
+chocolate, the certainty of sugar plums. Then at the last house of
+the old "west limits" he turned sharply round the corner, and began
+to mount the hill. Small danger of "other girls" here, or of other
+men, unless a few homesick strollers like himself; and these were
+passed with only a nod. The real denizens of the roadway were wild and
+sweet as the day. Red squirrels and brown chipmunks darted across the
+path, whisked into holes, or chattered in the treetops; "the sound of
+dropping nuts," the rustle of leaves, the voice of a crow or a gull,
+only made the stillness more exquisite. The rocks were cushioned
+with mosses; the ferns and the early fallen leaves of chestnut and
+butternut made a lovely carpet all about; the clear air seemed strung
+and tuned to the last pitch of harmony. Far down, down, the winding
+river, in its varying shades of blue and grey, flowed silently among
+the hills, flecked with the white wings of two or three sloops and
+schooners; but all too distant for the murmur of the little waves, the
+creaking of cordage, to reach him.
+
+Cadet Kindred paused several times at points where the view opened;
+then addressing himself to the hill again, and choosing the old broken,
+steep-pitched track of a hundred years ago. The Revolutionary style
+suited his mood to-day; and he sped up the last steep incline with a
+will; passed through the old sallyport, sprang up the parapet, and sat
+down to gaze.
+
+At his feet the rough hillside went in tumbling, breaking fashion down
+to the little fringe of houses in the officers' row; and beyond them
+the green plain spread out its fair expanse, with Barracks and Academic
+Library and Chapel, walling it in on the south. Elsewhere the river,
+and beyond that again the hills. From above the trees on Trophy Point
+the fair, curling folds of the flag, with an action which would have
+been lazy had there been any call for haste, lifted and drooped at the
+top of the tall white staff. Magnus Kindred stood up again and saluted,
+with a flourish.
+
+"Yes, old friend," he said, "we are sworn comrades now, whatever
+happens. One full summer more for me here, and then away to the ends of
+the earth: but that blessed old rag will fly just as well at San Carlos
+as at West Point, and be just as ready to read me a lesson."
+
+And with that, Magnus stretched himself out on the green slope, pulled
+forth Cherry's letter, and read it through twice.
+
+Then he studied the flag again; musing over things he had heard and
+read. Of the men who ran up the colours when their ship was sinking
+in the deep, dark sea; of standards dyed with the life-blood of their
+defenders. Of the failures that yet were a triumphant success.
+
+    "My half day's work is done,
+      And this is all my part.
+    I give a patient God
+      My patient heart:
+
+    "And grasp his banner still,
+      Though all its blue be dim;
+    These stripes, no less than stars,
+      Lead after him."
+
+"I wonder if that fellow loved anybody," Magnus questioned with
+himself, a stricture coming over his heart at thought of the young
+soldier under whose death-pillow the brave, pitiful lines were found.
+"And I wonder if I could have said it in his place? But that is
+what it means. That is just what I have to do for the old Stars and
+Stripes--and for the Lord's banner."
+
+And secure against the criticisms of chipmunks and chickadees, Magnus
+began at the old ballad of the "Star-Spangled Banner," and sang it
+straight through.
+
+"Well sung, and to the purpose," said a pleasant voice, and Magnus
+started up, to find a gentleman close behind him; and, as he saw at a
+glance, no less a person than his friend of the candidate journey.
+
+It was plain, however, that Mr. Wayne did not know him. How could he
+find in the close-cropped hair the wayward, curly locks of two years
+ago? or see, in this happy compound of uniform and drill, the homesick
+boy whom he had cheered and comforted?
+
+"Do not let me disturb you," said the newcomer, taking a seat near
+Magnus. "I was wandering round among the old walls, thinking how much
+had crumbled and how much grown up since their day, not knowing there
+was anyone up here but myself. And when suddenly the dear old song
+rang out, I could not help coming near to listen. Has it come into
+fashion again, in these latter days?"
+
+"Not especially, that I know of," said Magnus. "But I was brought up on
+it."
+
+"So was I. And where were you brought up?"
+
+Magnus named his State.
+
+"Strange!" said Mr. Wayne. "The first boy I ever spoke to who was
+coming to West Point was from that State; and now so is also the first
+full-fledged cadet I meet with here."
+
+"Yes, we have a good representation from all our districts," said
+Magnus.
+
+"Do you men from the same State always hold together in any special
+way?"
+
+"Against all the rest of the world, yes," said Magnus. "But we often
+choose our chums from the Antipodes."
+
+"For private and personal reasons, rather than public; I see. But then
+of course you know them all, more or less; and so you must know the man
+I am after."
+
+"A relation of yours, sir?" Magnus inquired gravely.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all; only an acquaintance of a day and a night. But I
+should like to see him again very much; in fact that was why I stopped
+over a day here. I wonder if he is in the corps still? Must be, I
+think; he did not look like a fellow to be 'found' in anything,--unless
+caution and self-control."
+
+"That's a bad showing," said Magnus. "I'd rather chance it in math."
+
+"You must know him, of course, if he is here," Mr. Wayne went on;
+"for he was from your State, I know. I had his name down--and I also
+had my pocket-book stolen! Can you tell over the list of your State
+delegation?"
+
+So Magnus began.
+
+"Smith, J., 2d; Jones, L.; Devius, E.; Smith, T. A.; Marston,
+Kindred----"
+
+"That's the man!" broke in Mr. Wayne; "Charlemagne Kindred. And you say
+he is here still?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's here," said Magnus, with a half groan.
+
+"Doing well?"
+
+"Doing all sorts of ways. He is just back from furlough, and as blue as
+a mouldy cheese."
+
+"Back from furlough! Ah, then he has seen his mother again. That ought
+to cure him of doing 'all sorts of ways.' Where does he stand in his
+class?"
+
+"Oh, he keeps out of the Immortals," said Magnus with a shrug. "Might
+max it oftener, if he didn't read so many magazines and write so many
+letters."
+
+"Letters, hey? These 'left behind' girls have a good deal to answer
+for. And yet such a trust as a woman's life and happiness, ought to
+steady any man, and put him at his best."
+
+"He has four just such trusts," said Magnus. "I don't know that they'd
+all die if he went to the bad, but two of them would."
+
+"Four--you seem to know him very well," said Mr. Wayne, turning to look
+more narrowly at his companion.
+
+"I don't know, sir: sometimes I think I do, sometimes not. He takes me
+all by surprise every now and then," said Magnus.
+
+But with that he turned his eyes full upon Mr. Wayne, and the
+recognition was instant.
+
+"And this is you!" said Mr. Wayne. "I see it now. Indeed I think I felt
+it all along. Sit over there, and let me look at you."
+
+So Magnus changed his seat for another, and went through a new sort of
+inspection; differing _in toto_ from that of any member of the tactical
+department. For Mr. Wayne's eyes passed rapidly over grey cloth and
+bell buttons (Magnus feeling quite sure the while that any dulness or
+disorder there would have been noted) and came to the young face, with
+a look so searching and wise that the sunburnt cheeks reddened, and the
+eyes went down. Only for a moment, however: then they met the search
+squarely, and with a laugh.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Cadet Kindred, "that is just about what I am."
+
+Privately, Mr. Wayne had been thinking to himself that just what he saw
+was a remarkably fine-looking fellow, whom anybody might be proud to
+call son or brother. For the eyes were steady and true; and when the
+face broke in a smile or a laugh the mouth had the same utterly clean
+look which had marked it two years ago. Mr. Wayne noted it all, and
+drew a deep breath of rejoicing.
+
+"I give most humble and hearty thanks," he said, reverently lifting his
+hat. Magnus sprang up and came back to his old seat.
+
+"Were you so doubtful of me, sir?" he said. "And what made you
+doubtful?"
+
+"Not doubtful of you, my boy, but certain of the world. And the
+world--even this little world here--is a hard place."
+
+"This is an awful place!" said Magnus.
+
+"You think so now, because you are just back from furlough. But you
+will find the world power in full force still, when you get to some
+far-off frontier post. Very few lives have a steady fair breeze
+straight into heaven. 'Ye must take the wind in your face if ye will
+fetch Christ,' said old Samuel Rutherford; and most of us find it so.
+But then, 'How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where
+Christ is.'"
+
+And Magnus remembered instantly that ever since he came to West Point,
+he had hailed the west wind, because it seemed to come from home.
+
+"How can you always tell, sir, whence it comes?" he asked suddenly.
+"Being disagreeable doesn't prove a thing right."
+
+"Truly no. But you know what Christ himself is, Mr. Kindred; study
+him, his character, his will, his throne. It is not hard to match your
+colours, if you are really so minded. West Point is not so unlike
+everywhere else as you seem to think. I remember a young man who went
+from here to Texas, and wrote back that he was still fighting the
+world, the flesh, and the devil. Finding the world perhaps a little
+less down there, but the flesh and the devil about as usual. And so you
+will find it. 'The kingdom of God is within you'--not outside: whether
+at Governor's Island, or San Carlos."
+
+"What makes you speak of San Carlos, sir?" Magnus said, with almost a
+start.
+
+"One of the worst posts in the army, is it not?--or counted so?"
+
+"I am not afraid of San Carlos," said Magnus decidedly. "The devil
+always has to clear out, when an angel comes in."
+
+Mr. Wayne turned and looked at him.
+
+"So!" he said; "that is all settled, is it? But no, my young sir: Satan
+held a dispute with an archangel once, long enough for some pretty
+strong words on both sides. And you are going to take an angel to San
+Carlos!"
+
+Almost just what Mr. Erskine had said.
+
+"Were you ever there, sir?" Magnus asked.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Doesn't the place need angels?"
+
+And now Mr. Wayne laughed.
+
+"You have the best of me there," he said. "Yes, not a doubt of that, it
+does. And it is the very place that the white wings love to brighten
+if they can. But Mr. Kindred, if your particular angel is to live at
+San Carlos--or anywhere--and not break her heart; spread her white
+wings and fly away from earth and you together; you have got to fight
+the devil yourself; hand to hand, and wherever you find him. These
+earthly angels are not quite so robust as the old painters make out the
+heavenly to be."
+
+"She is the very centre of my life!" cried Magnus. But Mr. Wayne sighed.
+
+"It happened once," he said, "that a young graduate of West Point
+brought his three-months' bride not to San Carlos, but to Fortress
+Monroe. Of course, the 'pleasant fellows' of the garrison went to work
+to entertain him, and one of them told me this story:
+
+"'We had a little supper party,' he said. 'Not very large, but correct
+and choice; and we kept it up pretty late; and X. Y. got more than he
+could manage gracefully. So some of the stronger heads among us set out
+to get him home. Late, as I said; servants asleep, lights out, and I
+guess we knocked and rang more than once. Then X. Y.'s young wife came
+down, candle in hand, to let him in. Poor girl--I did feel sorry for
+her when I saw her white face, as the candle flared out upon him.'"
+
+There came up before Charlemagne Kindred, as his friend spoke, the
+vision of another face; so blanched, so stricken in its grief, and all
+for him. He bowed his head upon his hands.
+
+Mr. Wayne asked never a word. He looked at the fine young man beside
+him, not knowing just what he might have touched, and then away over
+the fair hills and the soft flowing river. What a world! Peace written
+everywhere on the exquisite setting; and everywhere in the picture the
+sharp life and death conflict. Then the glad words in the Revelation
+made answer:
+
+"And I saw, and, behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a
+bow: and he went forth, conquering and to conquer."
+
+"Amen!" Mr. Wayne said aloud: adding half under his breath: "'Oh that
+thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the
+mountains might flow down at thy presence!'"
+
+Magnus looked up in surprise.
+
+"Only an old habit of mine," Mr. Wayne said, smiling at him. "I live so
+much alone, that I very often talk to myself for lack of a listener."
+
+"Do you want to see these mountains flow down?" Magnus asked, gazing in
+his turn at the fair hills.
+
+"Not these in themselves; only I long for all which the prophet's words
+imply. To see the crooked made straight, and the rough places plain;
+to hear the royal proclamation of the Prince of Peace sound out across
+this burdened earth; one could be willing to have 'every mountain and
+island' moved out of their places. To have that trumpet blast fill all
+the air:
+
+"'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
+his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'"
+
+"No more miserable captives to the power of evil; no more strong men
+'whom Satan hath bound at his own will."
+
+    "No midnight shades, no clouded sun,
+    But sacred, high, eternal noons."
+
+"How naturally the words follow:
+
+"'We give thee thanks, O Lord, because thou hast taken to thee thy
+great power, and hast reigned.'"
+
+Then Magnus began and told him the whole story; pouring out details,
+and not sparing himself in the least. And Mr. Wayne listened in deepest
+silence, with a grave, tender face which drew on confidence. Magnus did
+not once name Cherry, only at the end he said:
+
+"I told her everything. And if I thought I should ever again make her
+look as she did then, I think I would shoot myself."
+
+"Powder is very cheap," Mr. Wayne said slowly. "It is the meanest,
+smallest, silliest back door through which a man ever shirked his
+difficulties. But to live a strong life, to have one's self in hand
+and keep a tight rein, that costs, and costs tremendously; demands
+a man's whole will-power, and the mighty grace of God. There is no
+promise whatever to the one who runs away; they are all: 'To him that
+overcometh.'"
+
+"Yes sir, I know," Magnus answered him. "But instead of costing, it
+seems to me the only life that pays."
+
+"And where do you get dividends, but from investments?" said Mr. Wayne
+quickly. "You gain from what you put in: knowledge from study, health
+from exercise, advance from toil. You bone discipline, and you stand
+one; you bone mathematics, and you max it every time."
+
+"No, you don't," said Magnus. "Not some of us."
+
+"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more brains
+than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower fellow
+maxes it _for him_; the dividends are as large as the stock will
+warrant. And to my mind, that is the only ambition worth a copper. I've
+no patience with this trying to get ahead of somebody else in any line.
+Get ahead of yourself; break your own record."
+
+"Not making other men your measure," Magnus said.
+
+"No. That's the way Paul puts it: 'I press toward the mark for the
+prize'; not to get ahead of Peter or James or John. The colour markers
+always in advance, flagging out new ground."
+
+"What do you count a man's colour markers, sir?" Magnus said, looking
+amused.
+
+"Perhaps clean purpose of heart and loyalty to God would come near
+it. The Great Captain has thrown open to you--to every young man--a
+wondrous Promised Land. He says: 'Go in and possess it. Ye are well
+able to overcome.' The land is not all 'fish and cucumbers and melons,'
+with a good deal of garlic, like the Egypt degradation and bondage; but
+'a goodly land of springs and fountains, of oil olive and honey; whose
+stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.' I do
+not believe you cadets are half aggressive enough."
+
+"In what way, sir?"
+
+"Every way. Suppose your colour markers had been up to their duty on
+that sad night, and you pressing forward for the Lord's 'Well done.'"
+
+"Yes," Magnus answered, with a thrill of pain that somehow got into his
+voice.
+
+"Or suppose," Mr. Wayne went on, laying a tender hand on the young
+man's shoulder, "suppose you had been praying for those other men whose
+ways you knew; working with them, persuading them into the service of
+Christ?"
+
+"Oh, that could not be," Mr. Kindred said decidedly. "At least, I might
+pray for them, of course, but I could not say much."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Against cadet code, sir. We let each other pretty well alone."
+
+"Cadet code!" Mr. Wayne repeated. "You tease each other now and then, I
+fancy?"
+
+"Always!"
+
+"And laugh at each other?"
+
+"Without stint."
+
+"Perhaps introduce each other occasionally?"
+
+"Why, of course, sir!" Magnus answered.
+
+"And probably the cadet code would permit you to pull a man out of the
+river, or tell him the barracks were ablaze? It is framed only against
+the important things, hey?"
+
+"Don't you call it important to pull a man out of the river?" Magnus
+asked, with a laugh.
+
+"Rather. Nothing like pulling him into the kingdom."
+
+The clouds sailed silently by, river and hill darkening and brightening
+as the shadows fell and passed; the leaves rustled softly among the oak
+branches and stirred with a different music among the pines. Then from
+far down below sounded a drum--Magnus started up.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Wayne!" he said earnestly. "Come to the guard-house
+before call to quarters. I must go."
+
+"I will walk down with you," said his friend.
+
+"But I must run!"
+
+And away he went, springing down the hill through every short cut that
+could be found; the grey and white showing, and hiding, and coming out
+again further on.
+
+Mr. Wayne watched him with great interest, taking his own pace the
+while down the hill; and now, as he went, from every other quarter came
+just such flying figures. From the woods, from Flirtation, from the
+river; from lingering last words on doorsteps, and girls and bonbons in
+the houses. Hastening along with the graceful ease of long practice,
+hurrying to lose themselves behind the grim grey walls of barracks.
+
+And Mr. Wayne watched and laughed; but then his eyes grew grave. Will
+they make such haste at every call of duty, these gay youngsters? on
+hand and "ready" at each noble muster? Alas, no! Even now some are
+getting an "absence," and some a "late," and of others the guns are
+not cleaned and the bell buttons will be tarnished. Ready! it is a
+short word; but it means a man's whole ceaseless purpose, self-denial,
+and care. How little those speeding figures on the green guessed that
+anybody on the old hillside was praying for them; but I believe the
+very skill and swiftness with which they darted along, gave stringency
+to the prayer; such power for good, such forces for evil; such ease
+in doing the right thing, such recklessness, sometimes, whether it was
+done or not. Through his glass, Mr. Wayne could study it all out.
+
+See that one now; a tall fellow, going over the ground at a rate to
+take common people's breath away. It is not altogether his fault that
+he has to run for it; his best girl is on hand to-day, and this was a
+critical walk round Flirtation. Drum-calls were scarcely heard, and
+minutes flew unheeded. No carelessness of orders kept him back, and no
+contempt for them make him linger now. He does not mean to have even
+a late; and so dashes on and wins. There is some jeering and clapping
+as the tall figure comes up; "Two-forty" being his affectionate
+soubriquet; but all the same he is there, in ranks, with about ten
+seconds or less to spare.
+
+Another--Oh, yes, he set out to run; anathematising the drum, the
+parade, and the regulations, and so soon stops; runs again--and stops,
+with a sort of what's-the-use air. "How much time?" he asks another,
+who is walking calmly on.
+
+"None at all."
+
+Whereupon he quickens his steps; but not so the second. The drum-beats
+come thicker and faster--that makes no odds. It is only a "skin" more
+or less, he says to himself; and he's sure to get it some other way,
+if not this; and he has lost his Christmas leave already. So, while
+the rest fall in, and answer to roll-call, he comes leisurely up to
+barracks, some minutes after the last man has shouted "Here!"
+
+That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll "fess
+cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may get and
+still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of meaning
+there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it here and
+runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times,
+and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post.
+He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured
+glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and
+unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's
+counsels and his father's rules.
+
+"_Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien._"
+
+You see he is such a pleasant fellow,--handsome, rich, plausible; a
+great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about equally divided
+between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all thrown away; and
+worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks for other men. But
+he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much more courage to do
+wrong than he has to do right.
+
+It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the Post, a
+day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth is swelled,
+his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine proportions. But
+he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his side gazes up into
+the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the first defenders of
+the country, newly risen from the shadows of old Fort Clinton.
+
+To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of Mr.
+Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried to
+win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite
+privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do
+_that_, every time.
+
+Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every minute
+that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out of
+doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it most.
+
+"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on
+earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in the afternoon they walked
+up from Battery Knox, and paused in the little clearing where "Dade
+and his Command" will be thought of for many a long day. "Such wonders
+of beauty on every side, in mountains and sky and river; and whichever
+way you turn, such reminders of men who have 'fought a good fight' on
+the field of honour. Look at the old flag, and think how it has been
+shot at and insulted; defied and threatened; yet how splendidly it
+floats off to-day! And the guns that lie sleeping beneath its shadow
+were captured by men who knew no such words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And
+the great iron links once stretched across the river tell of other
+chains triumphantly broken, in the face of fearful odds. On all sides
+you find written: 'Faithful unto death.' Life purpose, life and death
+effort, life-blood, have done it all; the blood of men who 'counted not
+their life dear unto themselves' when the country had need. And the one
+traitor among them--why, you will not have his name even in sight! His
+tablet is a blank."
+
+Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to himself:
+
+"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for
+I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the
+name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when we
+parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends with
+the flag; _now_ I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think you
+Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."
+
+    "If you cannot reach the nation,
+      Gather in the men you know:
+    Teach your friend the way to glory--
+      Draw your comrade where you go."
+
+Cadet Kindred stopped short and faced him.
+
+"Yes," Mr. Wayne said, answering the look; "I know all about it. But
+the Lord said: 'He that gathereth not with me, scattereth'. And if you
+think it will be easier to take positive ground and begin positive work
+for Christ among a lot of strange officers at your first post, _I_
+think you are mistaken."
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+UP CROWNEST
+
+    Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
+      Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet:
+    Crowds of larks in their matins hang over,
+      Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
+
+    --JEAN INGELOW.
+
+
+If Cadet Kindred rose up next morning with the very spirit of the
+Crusades astir in his heart; ready to charge down upon the Saracens,
+lance in rest; he said to himself as the day went on, that if Mr. Wayne
+had ever been a West Point cadet, that gentleman would know some things
+he did not know now.
+
+Here had Magnus been dreaming all night how he knocked a bumper out of
+Randolph's hand; how he had run Rig up to the first section in French;
+and how he had pitched Clinker back over the Commissary wall, just in
+time to prevent his being missed and "skinned." Also how he himself
+had been publicly thanked for these exploits by the Academic Board in
+full session. But, alas! "the stuff that dreams are made of" fades in
+the morning sun, and from these pleasing nocturnal visions Mr. Kindred
+passed to a particularly tough recitation, with corresponding low
+marks, and thence to the stubbornest horse in the hall, that would not
+take the hurdles, and made him instead take the tan. And now, as he
+sat in his room, tired and growly, the mail brought him nothing but a
+desperately perfumed pink note. Magnus said "Phew!" and moved to the
+window.
+
+"Sent the whole shop, hasn't she?" said Rig. "That's Mrs. Newcomb, a
+mile off."
+
+"Just listen, will you?" said Magnus. "She wants to give a picnic on
+Crownest, and tells me to bring men enough for five girls! How many
+apiece, do you suppose?"
+
+"Unknown quantity; all depends on the girls. Who are they?"
+
+"Doesn't tell. Miss Pretty, of course, for one; she is a niece or
+something. Then there's another girl, 'just from abroad,'--'and the
+rest you know.' Well, I'll take the new girl, at a venture."
+
+"Then you'll not have to think up any new grinds," said Rig. "Lucky
+man. And I'll take Miss Pretty. If she's heard all mine before, she
+won't say so. So we are two."
+
+"And Clinker's three----"
+
+"What do you have him for?" said Rig. "He's in every single thing--when
+he isn't on the area."
+
+"She wants him. By name," said Magnus. "Hopes 'dear Mr. Clinker will be
+at leisure.'"
+
+"That's a neat way of hoping he's out of Con." said Rig. "Say, didn't
+she have a granddaughter or something, getting rubbed up in Paris?
+That's the new girl."
+
+"Granddaughter!" said Magnus. "Just let Mrs. Newcomb hear you say that!
+But I'll take the rubbed-up girl, whoever she is, my risk. And Miss
+Frisk will take _you_. She's sure to be along."
+
+"Sure to get Clinker, if she is," said Rig. "Wonder if the little Busy
+Bee will come? Kin, you're hard on that girl."
+
+"Don't want me to be soft, do you?" said Magnus, with the drum cutting
+him short.
+
+Of course the names of the party were all out before Saturday; the
+girls could not talk of much else. And as for cadets, each girl might
+have had five, had the limits of the lunch basket agreed thereto. The
+day was perfect, the dresses faultless, and Mr. Clinker happily "at
+leisure," for once.
+
+Not everybody knows--but few _try_ to know--how witching that climb up
+Crownest is, if you take the old "Cadet Trail." The way goes along for
+a while at the level of the plain, but then betakes itself to the air;
+presently mounting up and up with a straight pitch before you. There
+come turns, of course, winding round some unscaleable rock; and gentler
+going over a small knoll or two, and quite a level stretch around the
+shoulder, in the "Nest." But very often it is just a steep ladder of
+a path, to be climbed as best you can. A wilderness of grey rock and
+green woods; feathery hemlocks, sombre oaks, ash trees, maples, and
+hickory. Below these, dogwood and other "cornels," with ironwood, shad
+blossom, witch hazel, and laurel. Lower still ferns--unlike those
+in the valley; with orchids of a new type, yellow gerardias, purple
+gerardias, partridge berry, and wintergreen. Then the brown leaves of
+last year, half covering the mosses, and thickly sprinkled in turn with
+the red and yellow of to-day.
+
+The rarest scents are in the air: the balsam breath of the sweet brier,
+and from the new-fallen and falling leaves that special fragrance of
+the autumn woods--sweet, racy, heart-piercing, a waft from days gone by
+and withered, their work all done.
+
+Many of the birds have already gone South; but robins are here, and
+chickadees, and the cry of the gulls is in perfect keeping with the
+cool air and the white caps on the river.
+
+Up through this wilderness of wild and fragrant things, the little
+party went joyously along; or if not quite that on Mrs. Newcomb's
+part, yet it is painful to relate that her trips and stumbles did but
+heighten the fun for all the rest. In many a place it took two men to
+get her on at all. Magnus would leave his pretty companion safe on some
+high standpoint, jump down again himself, and with Crane on the other
+side carefully engineer Mrs. Newcomb to a place beside her niece. It
+might also be noticed that Mr. Clinker and his convoy generally lagged
+behind at such crises, or got into some tangle themselves, from which
+they came out, safe and suddenly, as soon as Mrs. Newcomb was disposed
+of. And by and by Cadet Kindred, being quite alive to the situation,
+quickened his pace, and passed on too far ahead for any new service to
+be required of him.
+
+On and up the two flitted along--like grey and red squirrels,
+averred the toiling Mrs. Newcomb; but even for themselves there were
+difficulties.
+
+Here, for instance, stands an immense rock that stops the way. And as
+Miss Lane measures it with her eyes, behold! there is Magnus on top of
+it, reaching down his hand to her.
+
+"Do you expect me to climb up there?" Cadet gives a little gesture of
+the head which Dickens would have said meant, "He rather thought so."
+
+"How did you get there yourself?"
+
+"Came."
+
+"Are there any snakes up there?"
+
+"Not so many as where you are."
+
+Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the
+rock, then looked down complacently.
+
+"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did. Oh--what
+was that--a rattle?"
+
+"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.
+
+"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must people
+always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"
+
+"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."
+
+Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder
+self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came
+out upon the mountain's lovely head, and, after a shout of victory,
+sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how wonderfully fair earth is from
+the top of Crownest!
+
+On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in
+seven shades of green--slope beyond slope--till it touched the soft
+horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range rose, shoulder
+to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely pile. Then on the
+south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay shimmering in the
+sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the river on its eastern
+shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart, and you could see
+the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like grim ribs, running
+eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river itself was decked with
+various craft; over all there wandered a faint, fitful north breeze.
+
+From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the toiling
+party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special charm just
+then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the next time
+she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest; the girls
+might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly chafing against
+the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally, sometimes,
+when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig was laughing
+to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally; and aloud at
+the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the party fumed a
+little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How came those two to
+get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the grey and the red.
+
+"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.
+
+"I am sure you ladies are."
+
+"Oh, I am not talking of the whole human race," said Miss Lane: "it is
+cadets that are so odd, so unlike other people."
+
+"That is good," said Magnus. "One would not wish to be like everybody
+else."
+
+"How you chop one up. I mean other students. Do you try to be unlike
+all other cadets?"
+
+Magnus shook his head.
+
+"I get the credit sometimes, without trying."
+
+"And I can see you deserve it, too," said the girl. "You would have
+tugged Aunt Newcomb all the way up here, if you hadn't thought Mr.
+Clinker meant you should."
+
+Magnus laughed.
+
+"Do you call that being odd?" he said. "It is just even."
+
+"And then, instead of standing off like a shirk, you did the polite
+thing and ran away. Do you always run from difficulties, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Bad for me if I do," said Magnus. "A foe in the rear is worth two in
+front."
+
+"Then you generally fight?"
+
+"People, or things?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Well, as to the people," Magnus answered, "I have not been much
+tried. It depends on yourself somewhat, I fancy; and I have never been
+challenged since I entered the Corps."
+
+"What would you do if you were?"
+
+"What I would, is one thing," Magnus said rather slowly. "By my good
+leave, I should say no."
+
+"Would you--and be pointed at?"
+
+"You're sure to be pointed at for something," Magnus answered lightly.
+"It's a choice of cases."
+
+"But I cannot imagine a man like you saying no!" said the girl eagerly.
+"Not fight, if you were challenged? You are brave, I know."
+
+"How do you know? If I am, I shall never fight for fear of being
+pointed at."
+
+"But why?" Miss Lane repeated, her bright eyes searching his face.
+"Tell me quick, Mr. Kindred. They'll all be up here directly, and I
+cannot possibly wait to know till to-morrow. Why wouldn't you fight? I
+believe you could whip any man in the Corps."
+
+"There is one rule," said Magnus, meeting her look, "which I have sworn
+to keep. It is an old rule, and a short one, but it covers a great deal
+of ground. 'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of
+the Lord Jesus.' I could not so endorse my acceptance of a challenge."
+
+The girl looked at him with wide open eyes.
+
+"You will find those old rules of yours terribly in the way,
+sometimes," she said.
+
+"Sure sign that I am off the track, then," said her companion, smiling.
+"Fences don't matter when you mean to keep the road. But doubtless most
+good things have their inconvenient side."
+
+"Aunt Newcomb, for instance," said Miss Lane, changing her tone. "I
+think I should count both sides 'inconvenient,' if I had to pull her up
+the hill. By the way, Mr. Kindred, why didn't your rule oblige you to
+take the brunt of the burden to the last?"
+
+"It might in some cases," said Magnus; "not in this. Clinker had to
+earn his lunch, and there was no other way for him to do it."
+
+"Well, there they come," said Miss Lane, rising up, "to cut short our
+talk; I am quite sorry. You interest me, Mr. Kindred; cadets with
+'views' are a novelty. But I rather wish you would fight!"
+
+"I dare say I could get a broken head in the riding-hall some day, when
+I'm on Dangerfield--would that do?" said Magnus, laughing back at her
+as he went forward to give Mrs. Newcomb a hand, which was gratefully
+taken.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred--thank you! This has been certainly--the most awfully
+grand--walk I ever experienced."
+
+"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a
+clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my
+best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five
+walks on hand for to-morrow."
+
+"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.
+
+"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into the
+sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at once,
+and save what is left of mine."
+
+"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me to
+have two."
+
+"Much you care for regulations, up here."
+
+"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the
+baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."
+
+"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"
+
+Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all around
+them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and here and
+there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and chips, dry
+and bleached and just ready to burn.
+
+Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily spread,
+a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee put under--or
+over--its care. Then busy hands unpacked or uncovered the baskets.
+Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late peaches filled a third.
+Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb
+an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut cakes, and sweet chocolate;
+and the wind kept still, and did not blow even a napkin away.
+
+But the last time Magnus Kindred had been at a picnic, it was in the
+far-away home region, and with just the home group around him; and now
+it all came back to him in a moment; with the tones of his mother's
+voice as she asked for a blessing on their day's pleasure. And I
+suppose it was this that made him pause unconsciously, after he had
+taken his stand by the fire to pour out the steaming coffee.
+
+"What is it?" said Mrs. Newcomb, in her plaintive voice. "Not hot yet?"
+
+Then Miss Freak laughed out, and Miss Newcomb looked at her, and Miss
+Lane watched this cadet who had "views."
+
+"Oh, aunty!" cried Miss Freak, "don't you know he's one of the
+too-good-for-this-earth boys? Why, coffee out of an ice box would scald
+his throat, if somebody didn't pray over it first. He's waiting for you
+to say grace, ma'am."
+
+"Waiting for me!" Mrs. Newcomb repeated helplessly. "But your uncle
+always does it, you know, Freaky."
+
+"Well, he isn't here," said Miss Freak. "Come, aunty!" The girls were
+choking themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs; the cadets, better
+used to endurance, kept their gravity intact. Charlemagne Kindred
+stood absolutely still; but his thoughts went flying back to the
+honeysuckle-wreathed porch, and Cherry, and how she had waited for him.
+Blessings on her! she never came near him but to do him good.
+
+"Why doesn't the man pour out his coffee?" Miss Lane was saying
+impatiently to herself.
+
+"Mr. Kindred," said Mrs. Newcomb in a sort of appeal--"girls, be
+quiet--I am ashamed of you. Mr. Kindred, will you be kind enough to say
+grace yourself? Of course, it is quite proper to have it done, and a
+man can do it so much better."
+
+"Not this man!" So shot the feeling through Cadet Charlemagne. This
+man, who had never even come near such a thing in public. But quick as
+Nehemiah got his orders, so on the instant the young cadet had his.
+Was he not pledged to shun no point of witness-bearing? And, with
+again one swift thought of Cherry, Magnus obeyed; standing there by the
+little fire, while good Mrs. Newcomb bowed her head, and the others
+watched him from their mossy seats. And the words were Cherry's own, as
+she had said them on that well-remembered morning.
+
+"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."
+This was a very small thing to do, but I think nobody ever guessed what
+it cost Magnus Kindred. And as little did he imagine, how that small
+bit of open confession broadened out and took its full proportions to
+other eyes. There was something in the serious face, something in the
+reverent voice, something about it all, indeed, that everybody felt. As
+Mr. Kindred came forward now with Mrs. Newcomb's coffee cup, Clinker
+looked at him curiously, McLean with a sort of wondering veneration,
+while Miss Lane said to herself: "Fight! Of course he could!" But then
+Magnus threw himself into the fun, and in two minutes had fanned the
+frolic to a point that quite outshone the fire.
+
+"So nice to have a private chaplain along," Miss Freak had said airily,
+trying to throw off her thoughts. But the other girls frowned down
+all attempts at fun in that direction, and harmony reigned. Or, to
+speak more correctly, the lunch baskets reigned in a very harmonious
+atmosphere.
+
+Sitting about on moss or stones, after the good cheer had vanished,
+the cadets got off so many "grinds" that poor Mrs. Newcomb declared
+she should have no strength left to help her down the hill. Then they
+sang songs, and gave out conundrums. The girls made chains of the pine
+needles, and the men in grey put them on, and declared them emblematic
+and imperishable.
+
+On her part, Miss Lane went on with her study of Magnus Kindred,
+watching him keenly. She noticed that though he took the frail
+green links from her hands, putting them round his cap, twining them
+about his arm, he said no word of their being "fetters"--called
+them garlands, instead. She felt that in all the light play, the
+cavalier-like deference, there was no sham devotion, no hint of deeper
+things. Yet he wore his class ring. And she knew she was pretty, and
+felt certain she was well dressed. It piqued her; she would have liked
+to see those green chains press hard, with a permanent sensation. And
+then, when she went off to look at some side view which Mr. Clinker
+recommended, what did Mr. Kindred do but seat himself by Mrs. Newcomb
+and talk to her! It was extremely trying.
+
+I think, to me, the way down Crownest is more difficult than the way
+up; taking hold perhaps upon a set of less-used muscles; but the party
+all came safe and sound to the lower level and easier going of the
+plain.
+
+"Now you must be sure and come to us at Christmas," Mrs. Newcomb was
+saying, as they parted. "We shall expect you all."
+
+"Well, I can't come, sorry to say," Mr. Clinker answered with a laugh.
+"I've got a previous with the Com. Awfully hard lines for me--but it's
+just my luck."
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+CHRISTMAS LEAVE
+
+ Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they were men that stood
+ alone.
+
+  --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+Cold weather came early. Mrs. Newcomb's picnic was the last of the
+season, and most of the human birds of passage grew chilly, and took
+their bright plumage back to city streets. A few visitors lingered on;
+people with no children to put to school, or with some son or brother
+in the Corps.
+
+Only the steadfast old hills flung out their hardy colours--and flung
+them off; decking themselves with an occasional white cap instead. The
+blue river rolled by in deep foamy wrinkles; the distant Catskills had
+donned their snow.
+
+No parades now, but noisy drills, with light battery, siege battery,
+and sea-coast guns, making the hills roar out in countless echoes. Only
+Battery Knox lay quiet, unmoved in all the commotion, keeping silent
+watch near the white shaft of "Dade and his Command." While far away
+beyond the hubbub, a small army of white and grey and brown stones told
+of other soldiers, who had fought their last battle, and answered to
+the last command. Very little told there, indeed, but of the _soldier_;
+the _man_ almost left out. But on one old, old stone are words to make
+one's heart leap up for joy:
+
+"He that doeth the will of God, abideth forever."
+
+October ran its bright course, and the shorter, darker days of November
+came softly in, but very fair, even yet. The hills set forth their
+rocky heights and fastnesses, stripped now of the softening leaves,
+and still the cold grey of the stone was warmed and clouded with the
+wilderness of brown tree stems. And every here and there rose up a
+tall hemlock or cedar or pine, in its dark, dauntless green, while not
+a few red oaks still sported the tatters of their autumn flags. Along
+the river on the lower ground, black alder bushes showed a wealth of
+"winter berries," beautiful as coral beads, and a close match in colour.
+
+Drills ceased, and dress parade began; and in the dusky time between
+gunfire and supper the men had chance for a good constitutional upon
+the well-swept sidewalk of the officers' row. Wrapped in long grey
+fearnaughts, with steady, swinging step, they went up and down, in ones
+and twos and threes, almost like an open procession; talking, talking,
+and discussing. Now the last blunder of the "Com.," now the latest whim
+of the "Supe"; then the marks of the day. Here, consigning all tactical
+officers to the prompt dealing of a drumhead court-martial, and here
+busy with the charms of some fair new girl. Oftenest of all, perhaps,
+dwelling on Graduation, Furlough, and First-class camp.
+
+But you never saw them walk arm in arm, like other students,--this
+would strike any stranger. Close together, but both hands free. Perhaps
+the regulation salute, with its frequent, instant, and exact demands,
+may be partly the cause of this.
+
+A fellow once hastening over to the hop with a girl on one arm, and her
+shoes and fan laying claim to the other, passed a certain dignitary
+with only a bow of the head, and was of course reported.
+
+Going next day to explain and get the report off, he was told:
+
+"Drop the girl! Drop the shoes! Salute, salute!"
+
+Another feature of West Point life which I think would strike unwonted
+eyes, is the universal opening of front doors at four o'clock. Up to
+that time, after the midday refection of whatever name, West Point on
+the plain might be a city asleep, with slow pacing sentries guarding
+its slumbers. But when the sweet four o'clock bugle sounds out, waking
+the echoes and the antagonistic dogs, the houses wake up too. Bonnets
+go on, gloves slide into place, and the fair wearers come forth with a
+delightful sense of expecting or being expected (for both things are in
+place), and the thinnest veil of unconcern to hide it all. It is a very
+pretty scene.
+
+Officers and professors come hastening back from the section room, gay
+turnouts wheel hither and thither, and the cadets are presently out in
+force. For drill, for parade, for walks, according to the time of year
+and the state of the weather. Football was not yet the rage, in Magnus
+Kindred's time, nor bicycles; and so every man you met was practising
+the noble art of walking, or showing how splendidly West Point can ride.
+
+As November speeded away, Christmas leave began to rise up in the
+distance, and to claim many thoughts. Men who had lost it were down on
+their "luck" (the cadet spelling for carelessness), men who had won it
+debated in what way the few dear hours of freedom should be spent; and
+many a fellow from some far-down or far-off corner of the land stood
+pledged to go with his happier friend whose home was nearer by.
+
+In all these joys, as usual, the poor fourth classmen had no share.
+They walked, indeed, like the rest; one must do something; but they
+talked gloomy things. No Christmas leave for them--and not much of
+anything else but hard work. They were not supposed to need anything
+else. No damsels on the sidewalk proffered them sugar plums, very few
+people even knew them by sight.
+
+I will do Magnus Kindred the justice to say that the keen memory
+of some of his own early days at the Post made him a little bit
+thoughtful of these forlorn young strangers. It was no great credit to
+him, perhaps, if he now and then passed on to fourth class hands a box
+of Miss Flirt's best candy, but he did better than that. He gave words
+of encouragement and counsel, cheered up the faint hearts, and would
+smile and speak to a pleb on the sidewalk, just as if he himself had
+not been first sergeant, and a prime favourite with the ladies.
+
+Some people will say he could have had no time to look after anyone but
+himself, but you never know how much you have, till you divide it up
+with needy people. And I doubt if helping takes more time than hazing.
+It is rather a question of which word you will say, what look you will
+give. And there had come to Cadet Kindred the wholesome perception that
+he could be a power for good or for evil, with all these younger boys.
+Consciously or unconsciously, they were watching the upper classmen,
+and taking tone from them.
+
+"What is in the way of your living just as earnest Christian lives
+here, as at home?" he had said one day to some plebs who were gradually
+sliding back from all their good home habits. And one answered:
+
+"Because we are so far from home, sir, and can't go to church so often,
+and can't keep Sunday as we have been taught."
+
+But another said boldly:
+
+"Because the first classmen are so different in camp from what they are
+in prayer-meeting."
+
+And it set Magnus to thinking. His own pleb days were not so long past
+that he could forget how he used to watch Mr. Upright, to see what all
+his brave words in the prayer meeting came to in the week; finding the
+first captain's straight everyday walk a constant help. And just such
+service he himself was called upon to render to these new men.
+
+It had been a doubt with Mr. Kindred, as the holidays drew on, whether
+after all he would use his Christmas leave. He had it, easy enough, but
+what should he do with it? Home was too far away to be even thought of,
+and short of home, what was there he cared for? Magnus rather thought
+he would stay at the Post.
+
+However, as the time drew near, and Mrs. Newcomb renewed her
+invitation, and Mrs. Beguile sent up hers, Magnus yielded to the
+prospective charms of the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, and New
+York harbour; and joined the gay party that were going to town. Five
+days' escape from the reveille gun was, after all, worth something.
+
+Busy, gay days! In their quiet "cit" dress the cadets roamed about all
+day, and then at night, in correct cadet costume, went to dinner here
+and supper there, until Magnus thought he must have been presented to
+all the pretty girls in town. Rooms were full of floating sashes and
+falling lace and skirts that could "stand alone": and the men in grey
+moved about among the airiest kind of clouds and billows; a maze of
+bewildering scents and sounds and visions, with old friends and new on
+every hand.
+
+The last night of all there was a large gathering of young people at
+the house of Mrs. Beguile, and of course the West Pointers were petted
+and wondered over to their hearts' content. In fact Magnus had more of
+it than he wanted; he grew tired of being asked for bell buttons, and
+telling how often he had his hair cut. McLean enjoyed it, and Randolph
+could never have too many girls around, even if the fair creatures
+had to stand on tiptoe and peep over each other's shoulders. But Mr.
+Kindred was in a very critical mood, thinking of Cherry; and found
+himself comparing necks and shoulders on every hand. He was saying
+stringent things to himself anent one of the prodigal owners, when Mrs.
+Beguile touched him on the arm.
+
+"I do not wonder you are lost in admiration," she said, following his
+eyes, which were just then fixed on the youngest Miss Fashion; an
+extremely handsome young lady, too much of whose dress seemed to have
+slid down to the floor in a mass of curling frills and furbelows.
+
+"Like Venus rising from the sea, is she not, Mr. Kindred, with her
+white foamy draperies?"
+
+Magnus considered this rendering.
+
+"Why did Venus rise from the sea?" he asked abruptly. But now Mrs.
+Beguile looked at him.
+
+"Why?" she repeated. "Dear me! how should I know? I'm not the least bit
+classical. Because she liked to, I suppose. But my dear Mr. Kindred, as
+our great poet has beautifully remarked, 'Life is a business, not good
+cheer.' Will you come with me and make yourself useful?"
+
+"What an opening--to a man who has been totally useless for the last
+four days!" Magnus answered, as he followed his hostess to the supper
+room. "But if your poet had seen that table, Mrs. Beguile, he would
+have written down life to be good cheer and not business--couldn't help
+it, you know; it would have confused his mind to that extent."
+
+Mrs. Beguile took this as a great joke, and went about repeating it.
+
+"Cadets have such pretty ways of saying things," she remarked. "Oh,
+Busy, here's Mr. Kindred. You used to see him at West Point, you know,
+and he's just as nice as ever."
+
+Poor little Miss Bee! Did she need to be assured of that? But she bore
+herself gallantly, was just glad enough and not too glad to see him,
+gave one thought to her dress--so unfashionably high and plain--and
+never found out with what deep approval Cadet Kindred noticed its
+modest cut and simple trimmings.
+
+"Cherry might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids," he thought. Poor
+little Mabel!
+
+"Say, Kin," Rig confided to him as he went by with Miss Flirt's empty
+plate; "just two things not here, cast-iron pancakes, and 'Sammy.'"
+
+"And the first captain," added Randolph, "yelling out 'Battalion,
+rise!' before we're half through."
+
+"What do you think of this, for Commissary beef?" quoth Twinkle,
+devouring a sandwich in blissful ignorance of its component parts.
+
+"Mr. Kindred! Mr. Kindred!" called out Miss Freak from a window seat
+behind him; "do please get me a glass of punch. I'm just dying with
+thirst."
+
+Magnus stepped over to a side table and brought the young lady a glass
+of sparkling cold water. Miss Freak promptly handed it back.
+
+"What did you bring that for?" she asked. "I didn't say water, man
+alive!"
+
+"Best thing I know, when you are thirsty," said Magnus. "Try it once."
+
+"Try it once," the girl repeated mockingly. "Do you suppose I never
+have?"
+
+"She wants punch," remarked Miss Saucy.
+
+"She thinks she does."
+
+"She _knows_ she does," said Miss Freak, with a stamp of her little
+foot. "You'd better believe she knows what she wants."
+
+"I never heard that ladies could not be mistaken, did you?" said Magnus
+provokingly.
+
+"Mrs. Beguile! Mrs. Beguile!" called out Miss Freak, "here's one of
+your guests very rude to me!"
+
+"What is it, Freaky?" asked the good lady, bustling up. "Rude to you?
+Oh, I guess not. Mr. Kindred will take care of you."
+
+"If she will let me."
+
+"Why, he's the very man!" said Miss Freak. "I want some punch, and
+he'll not get it for me."
+
+"Not get it for you, dear?"
+
+"Doused me with cold water," said the young lady, pouting.
+
+"Doused you!" Mrs. Beguile looked at the pink draperies, which gave no
+sign of such heroic treatment; then she turned to Magnus.
+
+"I am trying to take care of her, Mrs. Beguile," Magnus said.
+
+The good lady looked at him,--the clean, clear face, the bright eyes;
+looked across to the great punch bowl, where the ladling and quaffing
+went ceaselessly on, her own boys among the crowd, and a shadow fell on
+her placid face.
+
+"Do you drink nothing but water yourself, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am."
+
+"Not even punch?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+Another look went across the room, and then Mrs. Beguile said with a
+half sigh:
+
+"Freaky, if I were you, I'd let him take care of me as he thinks best;
+and of himself, too. You are a brave man, Mr. Kindred."
+
+"'The Lord cover his head in the day of battle,'" said a low voice
+behind Magnus. He turned quickly, but perhaps the speaker had turned
+too, for he saw no sign.
+
+"I thought you wouldn't fight?" said Miss Lane, laughing up at him.
+
+As for Miss Freak, she pouted, and made believe cry; and Randolph
+darted over to the great bowl, coming back with a glass of punch in
+each hand, one for his own companion and one for Miss Freak.
+
+"Such airs!" commented portly Mrs. Chose, sailing by. "Setting himself
+up above the rest of the world. Just the way with those West Pointers.
+I told you so, Miranda; more strut than sense. I'll never take you to
+West Point again."
+
+"Oh, yes you will," said Miss Miranda cheerfully, "because I'm going.
+Give me the strut, every time."
+
+"I admire your courage, Mr. Kindred," said another lady; "it is quite
+touching in so young a man. But I am always sorry to see a fine thing
+wasted, thrown away: misdirected zeal, you know, for instance. You
+cannot think for a moment that one of those small glasses of punch
+could affect a person in any way?"
+
+"It might make him want another, Mrs. Bright," Magnus answered
+respectfully. She was a very pleasant, sensible woman, and had always
+been very kind to him.
+
+"Want another? Well, let him have it. Two such glasses of simple punch?
+Why, the head that wouldn't stand that isn't worth the purchase."
+
+"Mine would be worth more before than it would after," Magnus answered
+gaily, but not without a twinge.
+
+"Oh, are you particularly susceptible?"
+
+"Not that I know of, ma'am."
+
+"Of course, if you are," the lady went on, "you do right to let it
+alone. But you might grant others the pleasure. Really, I think it is
+rather narrow of you, Mr. Kindred, and so I don't like it. You know you
+have always been my model cadet."
+
+Magnus bowed.
+
+"Fences have a narrow look, I do suppose," he said, "but they are good
+things, in spots. And I'd rather disappoint you so, than in some other
+ways, Mrs. Bright."
+
+The two stood silent for a moment, looking off towards the punch bowl.
+Men came and went, and went and came, with other people's glasses; and
+then stood still and emptied their own. Young men, old men, with women
+on the outskirts.
+
+"And you will not get _me_ a glass?" said Mrs. Bright; looking up at
+her favourite.
+
+"No, ma'am, if you please," Magnus said, with very winning deference.
+"You will not ask me, Mrs. Bright?"
+
+"You cannot think there is any risk for _me_? Would it be against West
+Point regulations? But they are not in force here."
+
+"No; although West Point honour is mine to guard, wherever I am,"
+answered Magnus. "But I have said it to myself, that I will never take
+nor give the stuff in any form. For a regulation older than West Point,
+Mrs. Bright."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world
+standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'"
+
+Very hilarious voices from the region of the punch bowl emphasised the
+clear, brave words.
+
+"I don't like it," said the lady frankly. "You upset all my ideas."
+
+"But why do you keep him mewed up here in the corner, Mrs. Bright?"
+said Miss Saucy, who had been listening intently behind backs. "I don't
+believe he's had one scrap of supper. Have a cup of tea; do, Magnus.
+You can't live upon air, man, even in the plural. Here's some I brought
+you myself. Taste it and see how good it is. You like lemon, I know."
+
+Magnus took the cup from the glittering fingers, expressed his thanks,
+and tasted as he was bid. Then instantly turned and set the full cup
+down on the table, coming back to his place without a word.
+
+A great burst of laughter greeted him. Miss Saucy fairly sank down into
+a chair, and Miss Newcomb and a half-dozen more clapped hands with
+delight.
+
+"What is all this?" said Mrs. Bright sternly; the screaming style was
+not to her taste, and she had caught the sudden flush and gleam on the
+face of Charlemagne Kindred. "What is all this, girls?"
+
+"Rum," Magnus said briefly.
+
+"It wasn't!" cried Miss Saucy; "it was good, honest tea, Mrs. Bright."
+
+"With dishonest seasoning."
+
+"That was a very unladylike trick," said Mrs. Bright. "Girls, I am
+extremely astonished at you. Rum in tea? Why, I never heard of such a
+thing."
+
+"Oh, aunty," cried Miss Freak, with her hands on her sides, "there's
+lots of things you never heard of!"
+
+"Well, I am glad I have heard of _you_!" said Mrs. Bright, giving
+Magnus a good grip of her hand. "Glad I have heard you, too. And now I
+must go."
+
+Miss Lane, who had been a keen looker-on at all this, came up a little
+closer.
+
+"How does it work?" she said softly. "You know I warned you those old
+rules would get in your way."
+
+"They have not yet," said Magnus. "I am all standing, thank you."
+
+"I see; straighter than ever. It's a great thing to have 'views,'" said
+Miss Lane, with a laugh. "When they materialise like yours."
+
+For a few minutes the air was full of "See you at the New Year's
+Hop"--"Take you to the Hundredth Night"--"Come for first-class camp."
+Then the company separated, the lights went out, and the punch bowl was
+left to its own reflections.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT
+
+    Oh, who will leave West Point retreats,
+      A hundred days to come?
+    Oh, who will walk the city streets,
+      A hundred days to come?
+    Oh, who will wear their suits of cits,
+    Oh, who will boast of spooning fits,
+    Who'll lose their cents but not their wits,
+      A hundred days to come?
+
+    --_West Point Howitzer of '93._
+
+
+The January examination that year came on and went off, bearing with it
+but few wrecks. One or two hard-working men who were cut out for lines
+of life where mathematics counted less; with two or three careless
+ones who coveted lines where there was no work at all. And now in
+everybody's mind the cold days and hard studies ranged themselves in
+a shortening vista, with June at the end. June! the short word for
+first-class camp, furlough, yearling camp, and graduation. While to
+Charlemagne Kindred and many another, was added in the thought of
+friends at home who had promised to grace June with their presence.
+Some men talked about this, but he never did--at least, not in full.
+To his roommate he did sometimes speak of his mother and her coming,
+but not of his sisters; never of Cherry. No one knew that she existed,
+except the men who had been there, and they had been very much thrown
+off to the other girls even then. And as Magnus was extremely popular
+at West Point, there were always girls at hand to suggest unlimited
+chaffing, without crossing the continent to find occasion thereto.
+Letters came and went in troops, of course, but so they did for
+other men. Three girls he never heard of wrote to Magnus, desiring a
+correspondence, and he turned the letters over to Mr. Trent, who had
+quite a lively time. Thus, one way and another, the weeks swung on, and
+Washington's birthday was close at hand.
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter
+morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm
+exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the fourth classman
+detailed to announce the date might have been chaired and borne back to
+barracks on the shoulders of the crowd, had such doings been allowed
+at the Academy. As things were, however, all that could be given him
+was the further privilege of announcing next morning, that the days had
+dwindled to ninety nine.
+
+But just in here came the Hundredth Night extravaganza; like
+Hallowe'en, or the Carnival, or any other special occasion when wits
+run wild.
+
+If I should try to give you the details of any one particular Hundredth
+Night frolic, I might either make anomalous blunders or else mark out
+and specify some one special year, and so date my story. Let me rather,
+then, give a chance medley from many celebrations, of things that were
+done--or might have been done--only vouching for the general truth of
+its details.
+
+Of course Magnus Kindred was in the forefront of everything, with his
+untiring energy, fine voice, and ready wit; and no beavers could have
+worked harder over a winter house, than these men over one winter
+frolic. Plans, dresses, scenery, jokes, and poems, with here and there
+an elaborate mock-machine; what patience, what perseverance, what
+endless fertile wits, they did display. Every Saturday afternoon,
+every minute of release from quarters, went into the work. Ladies were
+called upon for hints and materials; good-natured officers gave their
+accoutrements and their advice. The very professors lent their coats to
+the wicked boys who were preparing to "skin" their benefactors, in the
+only way possible to cadets.
+
+For the men in grey may not argue, remonstrate, or petition; may not
+even ask why. "Theirs but to do and die," as they themselves would
+put it; until the Colour Line comes round, or the Hundredth Night.
+Then, twice in the year, they are allowed to state their opinions,
+grievances, and desires, though still within certain limits. Woe be to
+the man who ventures to disagree with his instructor in the section
+room; but at the Hundredth night he may make what fun of him he
+can--within limits.
+
+Of late, however, the censorship over these frolics has been so strict
+that they are shorn of their old glory. The wild garden effect has
+changed into more "correct" growths, well trained and trimmed: less
+distinctive, less individual. Wits will not play without space to play
+in. But in those times of which I write, it seems to have been thought
+that steam pent up was more dangerous than the same blown off; and that
+the quips and jibes and flings, so dear to cadet hearts, were most
+innocuous when well shaken up and aired twice a year.
+
+Cadet rebukes rarely miss the mark through being wrapped in too much
+cotton. But if a few cuts and scratches follow they are not deep, and
+the surrounding fun half heals them. I defy anybody to look grave, when
+that grey house "comes down" in a roar of merriment.
+
+Of course, many of the jokes are so local and technical that a stranger
+would be puzzled. West Point affairs, personal hits at cadets,
+or memories of the section room, figure largely. But whether you
+understand or not, you have to laugh, just for the rollicking joy that
+goes on behind you. The jolly storm of applause sweeps you helplessly
+along.
+
+There are years when you go to the Hundredth Night between snowbanks
+as high as yourself, and along slippery white paths; there are others
+when the hills are clouded, and the mist hangs low, and the gas
+lights twinkle and peer through a grey veil. There are still others
+when air and hills and sky are at the brightest and bonniest, with
+a clear, hard, brown earth; and you cross the plain amid a glory of
+contesting lights:--gas round the quarters; a young moon dipping her
+lovely crescent behind the hill; Newburgh's electric lights winking and
+blinking like live things, from ten miles away; and close before you,
+the whole front of barracks in a blaze of lit-up rooms. It is so fair,
+so weird, that you can only look and look, back and forth, from side to
+side.
+
+As you gaze and loiter, small parties pass you on the way: people
+intent upon other effects than those of light and shadow. Generally
+a cadet with a girl--or two girls; with sometimes a chaperon, and
+sometimes not. But remember that every West Point cadet is held to be a
+knight _par excellence_; a gentleman all through; and so, by long usage
+and experience, judged to be a fit and sufficient escort on every such
+occasion. It is the regular thing.
+
+And then when the figures flit by you side by side or arm in arm; pink
+and grey, or grey and yellow, or, as now, furs and cadet cloth, all
+your comment is for the pretty combination. And when some solitary
+greatcoat goes speeding along to meet an appointment at the Hotel or
+the houses, you instantly hope that the girl will not keep him waiting.
+
+For the minutes are running on; and whoever wants a good seat--or a
+seat at all--had better not delay.
+
+There is a grey throng about the steps of the old Mess Hall, and girls
+in quantity.
+
+They press up the stone steps, and pour into the hall, pretty and
+flushed, proud and sufficient. Officers with their families join in,
+and now and then a distinguished stranger; and these fill up the front
+seats. Then come civilians, visitors, and their escorts. Behind the
+curtain mysterious sounds of tools at work tell of preparations not
+quite complete. There is music, a pause, and more music; and then from
+behind the curtain a tall, grey figure steps gravely forth, bows low to
+the audience, and begins the regulation Hundredth Night address. It is
+the president of the first class.
+
+Whoever makes the speech, and whatever else he puts in it, the refrain
+is always:
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+I think I never knew but one exception; and I missed the old words
+then; but this night they were in full force. Yet the speech was in
+some ways as unlike most others as he himself was different from many
+men. Strong, tall, square shouldered, both mentally and physically,
+Cadet Trueman no more thought of turning a stone wall, or dodging a
+river, than if they had been pebbles and rivulets. Which way he ought
+to go, that way he went; the only sort of a steeplechase in which no
+man comes to grief. Not a brilliant man, but a diligent; "hard work and
+hard praying" had brought him nobly through. Trueman stood high, wore
+high chevrons, and knew less (experimentally) of the area of barracks
+than any man in his class. No ladies' man, as you might guess; although
+the chevrons, or something, won him many admiring looks. But if ever
+you met Mr. Trueman meandering round Flirtation with a girl, you might
+be sure it was a case of philanthropy, pure and simple, and that the
+damsel was on his hands by no volition of his own. And he never asked
+for the further favour of a walk after chapel, or on O. G. P. He always
+acquitted himself well on such occasions, but that was the last of it;
+and he joyfully slid back among the bachelors again. And now, as he
+came forward and bowed to the expectant throng, no thought of any--or
+all--the bright eyes in the room made his pulse one throb the quicker.
+He had stir enough, in the mere heading of his speech:
+
+"One hundred days to June!"
+
+"Who is that?" whispered a stylish new girl for whom Magnus Kindred
+played cavalier.
+
+"Fort Put. In moments of deepest affection, 'Old Put.'"
+
+"How absurd you cadets always are! Wherefore do you call him that?"
+
+"Only thing in the neighbourhood like him. Crownest is a trifle large
+for even his inches."
+
+The girl looked indignant, as if she thought Magnus was fooling her;
+but then the speech began.
+
+Happy for you, perhaps, that no complete copy has come to my hands;
+you are spared the danger of being even asked to read it. But the
+last sentences so fixed themselves in Magnus Kindred's mind that he
+sent them off to Cherry next day, word for word. And of course I have
+unlimited control of the correspondence. "Ladies and Gentlemen" figured
+politely in the opening words, but Cadet True soon forgot them; looking
+clean across the gay flower garden in front to the grey mass behind:
+the vivid, eager, forceful lives hid away beneath those trim dress
+coats.
+
+"One hundred days to June! To freedom, to power, to Life! Men of 18--,
+shall your freedom be liberty or license? your power sworn in for good,
+or for evil? Shall life be a failure--or a success? The names that rank
+highest to-day, will they keep their proud position? The names that
+stand lower, will they show the world what they could have done here,
+but for Wave Motion and Spanish?"
+
+And now Mr. Trueman had to pause, for this mention of their dire
+enemies brought the grey house down.
+
+"It may be--it can be, if you will," he went on. "Every man has it in
+him to do royal work. 'The people that know their God shall be strong,
+and do exploits.'
+
+    "Fight the fight, Christian!
+      Jesus is o'er thee.
+    Run the race, Christian!
+      Heaven is before thee.
+    Thee from the love of Christ
+      Nothing shall sever:
+    Mount when thy work is done,
+      Praise him forever."
+
+The grey figure bowed and disappeared behind the curtain amid great
+cheering.
+
+"Good for you, Old Put!" cried Magnus heartily. "You see," he explained
+to his companion, "True's just the same (or a trifle better) in
+barracks than he is at prayer-meeting. That's how he won his name.
+Nothing but treachery could have put the old fort in the hands of the
+enemy,--and that failed. I believe," said Mr. Kindred, turning bright
+eyes on his companion, "that if Arnold had carried out his plan, the
+rocks on the hillside would have risen up and fought back the invaders."
+
+Miss Cray looked at him.
+
+"You're very patriotic, aren't you, Mr. Kindred?"
+
+"Rather," Magnus answered with dry emphasis.
+
+"I've been abroad so long," said the pretty girl, "I get puzzled. I do
+know about Arnold. There's his tablet in the chapel, you know. But who
+were Grant and Sherman, anyway? Didn't they figure in the last war,
+somehow?"
+
+"Some people thought they did," said Cadet Kindred, with a face that
+had no expression whatever. And then, happily, the curtain drew up.
+
+But how shall I give any idea of the performance to one who has never
+seen the like? Hits at officers, burlesques of unpopular orders,
+take-offs of the girls, with jibes and chaff at each other that would
+have made anybody but cadets just savage. Being cadets, they caught
+the fun, stood the jeers, and laughed--roared--till the Mess Hall rang.
+
+With all this, songs--often very good; or a charming bit of "silent
+manual"; and scenes and situations sometimes true, always possible,
+and very droll. Then some mock machinery that one wondered how they
+ever found time to make; unheard-of problems and discoveries worked
+out in most ingenious ways, with just enough flavour of this or that
+instructor's style to "adorn the tale"--whether any moral came in or
+not.
+
+Enter a donkey, carefully compounded of four plebs within--and I cannot
+guess what without. Ears and tail of the proper length, hide of the
+proper colour. He is slightly jerky and uncertain about his first
+coming in; but that is all in keeping for a descendant of the donkey
+"what wouldn't go"; and there is no hitch whatever in the performance.
+I believe one of the legs fainted as time went on; but the little
+beast (I mean the donkey), being skilfully pulled by the tail, beat a
+masterly retreat upon the other three.
+
+A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon sketches
+of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams, and
+first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the other,
+with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of glowing
+praise and liking--and lo! there stands before you the life-size
+"counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly enlarged by
+the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the men cheer!
+They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes, but they love
+him none the less.
+
+Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming
+daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come
+flirting and fanning, bridling and prinking, in a way to instruct some
+_bona fide_ girls. The butterfly poise of these airy damsels is quite
+admirable, and could only have been won by long and careful study of
+the originals.
+
+A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a tail--longer than
+the donkey's.
+
+There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post;
+whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith
+not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner away,
+the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands unknown.
+
+Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to the
+old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in place
+at West Point,--and no one was caught. It was told, _sub rosa_, and
+with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The dog has been
+painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the chief culprit
+first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all this had passed,
+and the dog was himself again.
+
+Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and helmeted,
+went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when suddenly
+from behind the scenes slid in the dog--the paint stripes in order as
+they had been before, and the medallion on its side with the number of
+its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded little body
+gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin.
+
+Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the
+cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly
+saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical
+department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog
+was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons.
+But words cannot give the utter drollery of the thing, nor tell the
+perfect way in which it was carried out.
+
+Then came more music, and the reading of the _Howitzer_.
+
+A cadet _Howitzer_ is a small, wholly original newspaper, full of
+everything in general; grinds, burlesques, sharp hints and comments,
+with bits of ridiculous fact as well; free as air, and sometimes as
+breezy. Verses to the cadet girl, verses _at_ her, as well as touching
+the stringent professor, and the unpopular drill. Grievances painted in
+high colours, and jokes about cadets that are as merciless as they are
+many.
+
+Scene: Riding hall.
+
+Lieut. B.: "Mr. H., let go that horse's mane, sir!"
+
+Cadet H. "I--I--I'm afraid he'll fall down if I do, Lieutenant."
+
+"Why is T. like necessity?"
+
+"Because he knows no Law."
+
+"A first-class horse--the Spanish pony."
+
+"Mabel, what became of that West Pointer you were engaged to?"
+
+"O, he turned out to be a disappointer."
+
+Scene: Section room.
+
+Cadet L.: "Stucco is made by mixing gypsum with a large solution."
+
+Instructor: "Large solution of what?"
+
+Cadet: "The text does not state, sir. It just says it is mixed with a
+solution of size."
+
+Scene: Section room.
+
+Professor: "Now, gentlemen, the Indians made signs of natural and
+living objects their language. For instance, if they wished to
+represent the Little Horn River they drew a little horn; and if they
+wished to represent the Big Horn River, they drew a big horn."
+
+Cadet C.: "Professor, how did they represent the Little Big Horn?"
+
+Such, and such like, keen-worded trifles; a line, or a page long; often
+very bright, seldom complimentary, but always most impartial in their
+bestowal of hits.
+
+Miranda: "I think Mr. W. is the most absent-minded cadet I know."
+
+Jenny: "How so, dear?"
+
+Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were just
+sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"
+
+"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of
+Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on
+'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"
+
+So goes the _Howitzer_; and the audience are kindly told that at the
+end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass
+in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a
+day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."
+
+I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the
+saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold
+black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one
+laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the
+local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much
+explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his
+boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe
+urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last
+letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess
+what sort of hands will open the letter.
+
+Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well made-up
+damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed presently by
+a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering anxiously from
+side to side.
+
+"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too
+disappears.
+
+The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on the scene. He
+also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.
+
+"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this way."
+
+Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly
+assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written
+all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of
+pleasure.
+
+"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as he
+dives in among the shadows.
+
+The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy
+amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old
+Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents
+pertaining thereto, laughable enough.
+
+But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is Saturday
+night.
+
+The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the gay
+company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is over.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+PRESSING ON
+
+ I work with fury and delight, because I must get on, and I do get
+ on.
+
+  --BARON BUNSEN.
+
+
+Morning by morning now the shortening roll of days makes part of the
+cadet breakfast.
+
+"Ninety-nine days to June!"
+
+"Ninety-eight days to June!"
+
+"Ninety-seven days to June!"
+
+And all listen, and every heart takes a lighter bound. Ask any man,
+from now on, what is the news, and the odds are that you will get for
+answer:
+
+"Ninety-six days to June!"--or forty-six, as the case may be. I had a
+note once from a cadet, dated:
+
+"Barracks. Sixty-four days to June!"
+
+But then he forgot to sign his name. That did not matter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a strong pull, each man for himself, for the next three months;
+a sort of individual "tug of war." I think Magnus had never worked so
+hard in all the time he had been at West Point. Perhaps chemistry and
+wave motion had something to do with this, for our hero was no genius.
+Nothing but honest work carried him on. Higher thoughts than of rank
+lit up the musty pages, and made music for the dull company drills.
+Truly he was not unmindful of the charms of an engineer post for
+Cherry; but several born mathematicians stood between him and any hope
+of that. Yet all he _could_ do, he would. The honour of the Christian
+name, no less than Cherry's sweet life, was in his trust, to dim or
+to brighten; and no man should ever adorn the tale with the name of
+Charlemagne Kindred, when saying that religion spoiled men, and should
+be left to women and children.
+
+So Magnus had his own secret joy over every high mark. Never had he
+enjoyed "maxing it," as he did that winter, and never had he done it so
+often.
+
+Some years ago, when the graduating class received their Bibles, and
+Dr. Wm. M. Taylor made the presentation address, he bade every man
+cull from his morning reading--no matter how brief it was--a sort
+of rose-in-the-buttonhole word for the day. Something like that our
+young cadet had learned to do. Nothing had hindered his daily reading
+since furlough, hard as it seemed to spare the minutes, some days,
+when work was unusually pressing. But perhaps that very pressure
+taught him to dive right into the meaning of what he read; catch up
+a message, and bear it away. Now a promise, now a precept, now a
+prayer; a breath of joyous hope, a gleam of unearthly glory. That real
+rose-in-the-buttonhole which dress coats and blouses may never wear,
+would have drooped in the drill, fainted in the section room, and been
+lost in the tan bark. But it seemed to Magnus as if his invisible
+blooms grew only fairer as the day went on. The fragrance was royal, as
+it came and went in such variety.
+
+"Hopeth all things, endureth all things."--
+
+"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."--
+
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto
+men."--
+
+"Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me."--
+
+Nobody knew all this; few people read the signs; though they did
+note the high marks, and could say that "Kindred" (in his own way)
+was the gayest man in barracks. But I fear they deemed him a crank,
+all the same. Rig would look up at the clatter caused by "Analytical
+Mechanics," as it struck the corner of the room; and then see Magnus
+with an odd smile on his face make a rush for the obnoxious volume, and
+plunge into it again with all his might. "Studying like mad," as his
+easy-going comrade phrased it; but Magnus only called it "heartily."
+
+Or in the section room, with his wits gone a wool gathering, and his
+ideas in May-day confusion; every thought he had, tangled up with those
+last letters from home; desperately tempted to "bugle it," and let some
+other man bear the brunt; then the sweet "royal law" he was wearing
+that day gave its counsel, and braced him at once to do the right
+thing. He would answer, ready or unready, when his turn came. No man
+stumbled or doubted the truth of religion, because of any section-room
+meanness or selfishness on the part of Charlemagne Kindred.
+
+And so an unwelcome order, from perhaps a disagreeable man, turned
+round in the wind and came first (for him) as the Lord's command. "Obey
+them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." You will
+easily guess that Cadet Kindred remained high in discipline.
+
+And later on, first in studies also? No, by no means. Willet's Point
+never showed its head on the horizon; the leaders in the class were not
+men to be dislodged. And some studies came hard. Then (and now perhaps
+it is well I am far away from some of my friends) Cadet Kindred would
+have nothing to do with "ponies." Those seductive little frauds looked
+just as enticing, maybe, to him as to other men; but common sense and
+loyalty made him let them alone.
+
+"Common sense--for what am I here for," he answered Rig one day, "but
+to tread the paths of learning? And that does not mean going pony-back."
+
+"You can sort of line out the ground, you know," Rig said; "and then
+wear out your shoes all you want to at San Carlos."
+
+San Carlos! What visions came with the name. For a moment Rig's face
+showed through a golden haze.
+
+"But besides," Magnus went on, bringing his thoughts back, "it's not
+doing things 'heartily.' The Lord gave me this appointment to make just
+the most out of it I could. I cannot look up to Him from a 'pony,' and
+say I have learned my lesson."
+
+"But the Bible says, He always helps those that help themselves,"
+remarked Rig.
+
+"No, it doesn't; not the first word. You have borrowed some man's
+'pony' for that. It says 'Fear not, for I will help thee,'--" and
+Magnus plunged into his lesson again. The Divine strength that is
+trusted in, is a wonderful power; and Cadet Kindred pushed on and
+pushed up, every now and then took some other man's scalp, and never
+lost his own.
+
+And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed, by
+a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now and
+then guard duty; but between whiles full of quiet time to think.
+
+It was such a pleasure to pile up the study books Saturday night, and
+leave the dark mass untouched till Monday morning. It took faith--a
+good deal--in some crises of work, but it paid well. The free time was
+so good. Not hours snatched unlawfully, but taken of right, according
+to that most wise and blessed law of the Lord: "In it thou shalt not do
+any work."
+
+In fine weather Magnus kept himself much out of doors, letting the dust
+of the week clear all away from eyes and heart and brain, till the
+balance of things, so often confused in the weekday rush, swung steady
+and true once more.
+
+"I don't see how you do it, Kin," said Randolph one day. "Do you run a
+light after taps?"
+
+"Never," said Magnus. "I study all I can Saturday, and as early as I
+can Monday morning."
+
+"Always ready for eight o'clock?"
+
+"I will not say the details are always just as clear as they were on
+Saturday, but then my head is so much clearer. I get along, somehow."
+
+"Well, I should say you did!" commented Rig. "Maxing it every blessed
+day last week."
+
+
+
+
+XLV
+
+NOTHING SERIOUS
+
+    A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright
+      Conversed as they sat on the green.
+    Alonzo the brave was the name of this knight:
+      The damsel, the fair Imogene.
+
+    --LEWIS.
+
+
+One of the mild amusements of this spring for Magnus was watching Rig.
+For Mr. McLean had fallen in love. Not deeply, for that implies certain
+other depths--or hopelessly, for there was every likelihood that he
+would get out again all safe; but unmanageably. Unutterably, Rig called
+it, and Magnus unendurably.
+
+So the young man mooned over photographs, sported (in his room) an
+end of pink riband; tumbled his hair all he could, and went down in
+everything.
+
+"I say, Rig!" Magnus admonished him one night, "keep out of the
+'immortals,' whatever else you do."
+
+"I cannot do much of anything," Rig answered mournfully.
+
+"Well, I'd try, if I died in the effort," said Magnus. "Bone chevrons;
+your charmer has a quick eye for them."
+
+"She has a quick eye for everything."
+
+"Wearing bell buttons." But Rig did not heed him.
+
+"Confess, Kin, you never saw such eyes."
+
+"Only about five hundred and forty times, when I used to go
+cat-fishing. Ever notice catfish eyes, Rig?"
+
+"They're so blue!" said Cadet McLean. "So deeply, darkly----"
+
+"If you don't shut up," Magnus shouted at him, "I'll try if I can't
+shake some sense into you. Quit sighing like a furnace. You nearly blew
+the gas out."
+
+"Of course I can't expect you to understand," said Rig. "You live only
+in books, far away from all this sort of thing."
+
+"I hope so, this sort," said Magnus.
+
+"You see, my heart is larger than my head," said Mr. McLean. "Always
+was."
+
+But now Magnus threw down his book, and pitched into his friend
+very literally; pounding him, hustling him, getting him into a real
+fisticuff fight to protect himself.
+
+"Feel better, don't you?" said Mr. Kindred, when the two faced each
+other, flushed and panting. "Balance of power restored?"
+
+"I don't know how I feel!" said McLean. "I've lost all my ideas."
+
+"Well, don't advertise them at any high figure," said Magnus.
+
+    "Let 'em alone,
+      And they will come home,
+    With their little tails behind 'em.
+
+"Sit down and study, like a reasonable being. If I were a woman, I
+wouldn't _look_ at a man who couldn't hold his head up when my back was
+turned."
+
+"It is quite impossible for me to look at a book," said Rig.
+
+"Very good; sit still and sigh, and I'll write your explanation."
+
+"To whom? What about?" Rig sat up now and gazed at him.
+
+"To the Prof. To-morrow. As follows:
+
+"'Sir: I have the honour to state that I have fallen into a six-inch
+mud puddle, and cannot get out in time for recitation. So wave motion
+must wait.'"
+
+"Stuff!" McLean said rather angrily.
+
+"Stuff, and nothing but stuff. Rig, when you get fired in June, your
+dear devoted will not turn her head to see which way you go to take
+the train. Not much!" said Magnus, relieving his feelings with a bit
+of slang, and then diving into his own problems for the next day. And
+Rig could get neither word nor look more that night. But whatever
+traditions may say, unlimited chocolate creams do not help a man with
+his tactics; nor does plum cake after taps provide him a clear head for
+next day's wave motion.
+
+"You could make better marks, Mr. McLean," said the Superintendent one
+day, meeting Rig. "Why don't you, sir?"
+
+And if Rig had been openly honest, he would have answered:
+
+"Love--and mince pie, sir."
+
+Magnus scolded his friend, fought him, jeered him; then tried other
+measures.
+
+The days were softening and lengthening, with grass and flowers on
+the jump. Visitors were arriving in numbers; and for Magnus had come,
+from away across the continent, a bunch of snowdrops in Cherry's last
+letter. Somehow his own great happiness made the young cadet anxious
+for his friend.
+
+"Look here, Trent," he said one day to another classmate, "can't you
+pitch in and spoon that Curry girl? Rig will be ruined."
+
+"Spoon her yourself."
+
+"Haven't time. One more will make no difference to you."
+
+"Thanks. Rig will put a bullet in my head, if he suspects."
+
+"Well, your brain always did need fresh air," said Magnus, "so that
+will fit. Why, to-day, in the section room, Hammer asked him the colour
+of old red sandstone,--and Rig answered:
+
+"'Blue, Lieutenant.'"
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trent. "But isn't this rather a queer business to
+be talked up by our high and mighty magnate of the tender conscience?
+The man who keels over at the mere sight of a 'pony.'"
+
+"Pshaw! if it was some girls," said Magnus. "But it will make no
+difference to her either. You've both worn your hearts out--supposing
+you ever had any."
+
+"Thanks--awfully! And you think Miss Curry might be induced to hand
+over 'those fossil remains that she terms her affections' to me?"
+
+"To your temporary care. You wear chevrons," said Magnus. "And your
+affections are as fossilised as hers, allowing for the argument's sake
+that such things ever existed. Just stroll up on the other side, when
+Rig's around. She'll be delighted. And as neither of you could possibly
+fall in love with anybody, there'll be nobody hurt."
+
+"Except Rig."
+
+"Rig!" Magnus said impatiently. "Rig ought to be cut in little pieces
+and sewed up some other way."
+
+"Kin," said Mr. Trent, striking an easy attitude across the back of a
+chair, "you amuse me."
+
+"Well, clear out and amuse yourself," said Magnus. "I've got a previous
+with this old book. And if Catkins finds you here, you'll be skinned
+for all he is worth."
+
+Which warning Mr. Trent saw fit to heed.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI
+
+TRYING LETTERS
+
+    Though there's always enough to bear,
+      There is always something to do;
+    We have never to seek for care,
+      When we have the world to get through.
+
+    --CHARLES SWAIN.
+
+
+But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle? Magnus
+was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed human
+moths, wings grow anew very fast.
+
+Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but
+she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost
+his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool
+applications did but heighten the fever.
+
+From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet weather."
+Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time for drill,
+except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the rain sets in
+with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.
+
+Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself
+in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog.
+The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with
+spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and
+azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How
+fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the
+small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in
+another month _his_ birds of passage would be here, and the air full of
+their voices. Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half
+made him wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a
+one-sided leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down
+on the moss and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to
+the top of a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to
+the passing trains, and saluted the old flag.
+
+The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at them,
+he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on him.
+He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world to
+creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a
+swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it
+made.
+
+Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak
+a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly;
+and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And,
+of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself
+agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean
+cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming
+frankness:
+
+"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your
+back hair down."
+
+But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share of
+what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."
+
+Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring;
+and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average
+cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And
+the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when
+one gauzy creature looked up at him and said:
+
+"Isn't it strange? You know I've always wanted to live at an army
+post--but I'm not engaged yet,"--then Cadet Kindred grew silent, and
+as soon as possible resigned in favour of Mr. Clinker.
+
+So the hope-gilded days flew on: but with the end of May came a check.
+
+Magnus got back from a long walk, to find two letters on his table. I
+know it is the correct thing for hero and heroine to "tear open" their
+letters, but Magnus cut his as carefully as if the very envelope might
+hold its quota of words.
+
+"Dear Magnus," so the clear handwriting began, "I am afraid--no, I
+suppose I hope--that you will be very sorry. For I cannot go East with
+Mrs. Kindred and the girls."
+
+And here, truth compels me to say, Cadet Kindred threw down the letter,
+and stamped about the room in a small tempest of displeasure.
+
+"What's up?" queried Rig, who had noted the postmark. "Hasn't gone back
+on you, has she?"
+
+For which harmless suggestion, Magnus promptly tumbled the offender out
+of his chair, and left him to pick himself up.
+
+"I say! Steady on that, you know," commented Mr. McLean. "Girls are
+plenty; but where will you find a friend like me?"
+
+"That was a beastly insinuation!" said Magnus in hot wrath.
+
+"Was it? Girls are all alike, old boy." And Rig heaved a sigh.
+
+"They're not! And this isn't what you mean by a girl. It's a--a----"
+
+"An angel, perhaps," said Rig. "Then allow me to inquire what business
+you have to be rattled, with anything an angel sees fit to do."
+
+"Rig," said Magnus seriously, pausing before him, "do you know
+whereabouts we are in barracks?"
+
+"Second floor, first div.," Rig answered.
+
+"Well, you can have a chance to measure the breadth of the window, and
+the depth to the ground, just as soon as you want it."
+
+"Thanks, I'm sure," said Mr. McLean. "At this moment, I am hard at work
+on the problem of your temper, minus your common sense. What does the
+letter say?"
+
+"Don't know yet," said Magnus. "I've only read three lines."
+
+Rig looked at him, and then gathering up his own books, he carried them
+over to the cold steam pipes, laid them down, and perched himself at
+one end.
+
+"You must excuse me," he said; "you are so plainly insane, that a due
+regard to my personal safety brings about this temporary coolness.
+'Distance lends enchantment'--but you are more irresistible near by."
+
+Magnus flung back into his chair again, with a half groan, and took up
+the letter. If it had been release from quarters he would have gone to
+Fort Put for the reading.
+
+"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of reading
+on? She will not--and that's just where it is." And yet he read.
+
+"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey; and
+I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'--but I cannot, Magnus. Not this
+year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the girls are
+to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all to me; and
+maybe when you graduate we can all be there."
+
+"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk of
+anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are
+fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each
+other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought
+over and over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always
+pick you out from all the three hundred. Good-bye.--Your Cherry."
+
+It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his
+disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board
+of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.
+
+"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one day.
+"Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"
+
+"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say that
+when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes must
+find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly be.
+
+"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush at
+everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his
+scholarship.
+
+So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on
+the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him;
+won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.
+
+But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after
+Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition
+to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.
+
+"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay
+with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I
+live till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,--and two such
+journeys cost."
+
+Magnus sat back in great gloom, and declared that June was "fizzling
+out."
+
+"I suppose the next word will be that Viola and Rose have some sort of
+a previous at the North Pole," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XLVII
+
+MRS. CONGRESSMAN
+
+    Pure was her mind and simple her intent,
+    Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.
+
+    --CRABBE.
+
+
+But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave
+home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who
+had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some
+things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she
+liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it
+drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional
+and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her
+girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance
+of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his
+place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his
+sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about
+the bills.
+
+"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and
+where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's
+business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be
+the first."
+
+So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey,
+and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm
+afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for
+then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman
+voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always
+ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It was as
+good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on the side
+track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened the whole
+car; curled everybody's feathers...."
+
+It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into
+"Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet
+in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned
+and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even
+of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the
+words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs.
+Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the
+country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in
+the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on
+their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M.
+C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.
+
+And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of
+rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the
+11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.
+
+People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it is
+to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time of
+year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an
+endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will
+change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing
+cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north
+wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern
+Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now
+decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to
+shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white
+paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and reports, with
+little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the edge.
+
+It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river in full
+flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east wind. The green
+of the hills--the endless shades of the young leafage--seemed almost
+to change while you looked. The girls grew too breathless to talk even
+about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes of Mrs. Congressman, there was
+positive refreshment in the way those two arm-chairs whirled on their
+pivots, for last glimpses and new effects.
+
+"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours," she
+said.
+
+"Tired--how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just see that
+vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what Cooper
+means by 'wing and wing.'"
+
+"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I wish
+it would;" and she plied her fan.
+
+"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the
+entrancing view.
+
+"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I
+know a little."
+
+"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose
+gratefully.
+
+"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking
+amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people,
+to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one
+direction all the time, there."
+
+"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!" And
+the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other still.
+
+"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman, tying
+her bonnet strings. "Well, children, I'm glad you're so happy, and
+it's a real pleasure to have you along. Some girls are just a nuisance
+at West Point."
+
+"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking out
+all the while.
+
+"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose, studying
+the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You know we
+have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we get there,
+how to do?"
+
+"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs. Congressman,
+who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which now and then
+came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you will. The
+chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as much as a
+girl, and that you both are, always."
+
+"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.
+
+"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might
+just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only,
+girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."
+
+This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.
+
+"Not anything!"
+
+"But, you do not mean Magnus."
+
+"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one; of
+course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do not."
+
+"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things
+there!" said Rose.
+
+"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take it
+out socially."
+
+The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked
+aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight
+of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets
+(except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.
+
+"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.
+
+"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said,
+pressing close to her window.
+
+Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads, the
+fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very
+amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they
+reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who
+would have a word to say to that statement.
+
+If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody
+there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched
+every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their
+leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf,
+that decked the road up the hill.
+
+Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm
+that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the
+usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey
+cloth in view from the omnibus.
+
+"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.
+
+"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.
+
+"Unless he's in the hospital."
+
+"In the hospital!"
+
+"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained
+his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss
+Somebody's cake."
+
+But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.
+
+"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart
+wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the
+girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.
+
+"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must tell
+you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with
+me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other
+circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes,
+and they'll think you mean _them_."
+
+How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near
+Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint
+spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the
+quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to
+the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.
+
+The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off quiets
+one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It was an
+extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman into the
+dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner, surveyed
+the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.
+
+"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's before
+you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to ourselves
+till we go away."
+
+"What is to happen to us?" said Violet merrily.
+
+"Walks," said Mrs. Ironwood. "And talks. And stands. I hope you've both
+brought plenty of shoes."
+
+"I noticed the stones, as we came along," said Rose.
+
+"Stones! It's the soft going that tells on the shoes, child. I brought
+Mary Gates here one rainy spring, and she finished her overshoes in a
+week, and I had to send her home."
+
+"In a week! Did she dance instead of walking?"
+
+"Danced attendance," said Mrs. Congressman. "I didn't mean to pun,
+girls, but that was the fact. Now I should take you straight off to the
+guard-house to see Magnus----"
+
+"The guard-house?"
+
+"The visitors' room, there, silly! but work begins at two o'clock, and
+we shouldn't find him. So I'll go and get a snooze, and you'd best do
+the same."
+
+"We could not possibly sleep," said Violet. "We'll sit out on the
+piazza and look."
+
+"It's a fine view, whichever way," said Mrs. Ironwood; "but the Land
+of Nod is more to my mind just now. Sit out here, then, or do what you
+like, only don't go off hotel limits. There's no town crier here. And
+call me at a quarter past three. And girls"--she put her head inside
+the door again--"whatever you do, don't go down and stand at the hotel
+fence."
+
+The girls listened to the retreating footsteps, but then they looked at
+each other and laughed.
+
+"West Point must be an odd place," said Rose.
+
+"And she is the oddest woman! What ails the hotel fence, any more than
+all other fences?" said Violet. "It looks pretty strong."
+
+However, they obeyed orders, and wandering about a little, as all doors
+stood open, came presently out upon the north piazza and the north
+view.
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII
+
+THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE
+
+    The little birds sang as if it were
+    The one day of summer in all the year.
+
+    --LOWELL.
+
+
+I do not know when Mrs. Congressman would have been roused from her
+nap, if the clock on the old tower had not told its tale of the passage
+of time. But when three sonorous notes had sounded, after that the
+girls kept close watch, for soon Magnus would be but a half hour away.
+
+They passed round to the west side, and sat watching the hills and the
+plain and the clock, by turns; and it wanted two minutes of the quarter
+when they went in. And Mrs. Ironwood was prompt. She waked up at once,
+donned a fresh gown and an astonishing bonnet; looked her girls over
+critically, to make sure their simple preparations had come out all
+right, then sailed away down the steps and across the plain, with her
+pretty convoy close following.
+
+Late spring everywhere, blue sky and hot sun; a ravishing green carpet,
+and just a stir of such air as breathes nowhere but in the Highlands.
+Gaily dressed women spotted the green, dark-blue officers came and
+went; the bugler at the sallyport handled and toned his bugle.
+
+Straight through the sallyport the Western dame led her two girls,
+passing grey coats on the way across the area, and meeting others
+at the guard-house; nodding to one, hailing another, but giving
+no introductions; until after making known her wishes to the
+magnificent officer of the day, she turned to her girls, and presented
+Cadet-Captain Trueman. Then panted up the narrow staircase to the
+visitors' room, which was hot, and not magnificent.
+
+[Illustration: PARADE REST IN CAMP]
+
+Mrs. Ironwood and her fan at once absorbed the window, the two girls
+stood shyly behind her; and back and forth before their eyes went the
+slim grey figures in the area. Some who knew Mrs. Ironwood and doffed
+their caps to her gave just a swift second glance at the two new faces.
+For a cadet never stares, or does it so surreptitiously from under his
+visor that nobody knows.
+
+But the minutes seemed long. Mrs. Ironwood's fan plied back and forth,
+the girls stood watching.
+
+"What makes them all look just alike?" said Violet. "I should say that
+man has been across six times already." Mrs. Ironwood laughed.
+
+"Maybe he has," she said. "You'll bring the chaos to order in a day or
+two. Look very monotonous, don't they? I suppose you'll not even know
+Magnus when he comes."
+
+But a little cry from both the girls answered that. Another grey figure
+came hurrying across the open space, swung his cap high in air beneath
+the window, and came tearing up the stairs.
+
+After the first words, Mrs. Ironwood went back to her seat, and left
+them to themselves, interviewing at more length some of her friends
+below; but then she made a move.
+
+"We must get out of here," she said. "There come more bonnets, and
+there'll be more cadets, and we shan't have standing room."
+
+"When the bugle blows," said Magnus. "I can't leave here till four
+o'clock. But it's close on that now."
+
+"And then we can have you all the rest of the afternoon," said Violet.
+
+"No, little peach blossom, you cannot. There's a review on hand. I'll
+take you down to the seats. There it goes--" And the sweet four o'clock
+call rang out in front of barracks, repeated then at different points,
+and answered by soft echoes from the hill.
+
+The little party made their way out, and down among the old trees by
+the officers' row, where already the seats were filling up. But Magnus
+found them a good place, and himself stood in front; mounting guard
+over his treasures with a joy and pride it was pleasant to see. He
+quite ignored the suggestive looks that came from other men in grey.
+Just now, he wanted his sisters all to himself. And the way they gazed
+at him could not be told.
+
+To see how he knew by instinct when an officer came by; instantly
+whirling around to salute, to note how very often that cap came off to
+some embodiment of fashion and finery, was a great study. For Magnus
+was on tiptoe, and put in all the flourishes the law allowed. Only at
+the sound of the first drum did his exalted state come down.
+
+"That drummer ought to be hung at the sallyport," he said.
+
+"But it is all so pretty," said Rose. "And so in keeping, Magnus."
+
+"You do not know drums," he said. "That call means: 'Charlemagne
+Kindred--and every other cadet out for a breath of fresh air--walk
+straight off to barracks.'"
+
+"Does it?" said Violet. "Then why don't you go? We'll walk over with
+you."
+
+"Sit still! Why don't I go?" and Mr. Kindred gave fresh utterance to
+his disdain.
+
+"Now it sounds again," said Rose. "Is that a second invitation to
+'walk'?"
+
+"No; this one says: 'Magnus Kindred--and every other man who is
+enjoying himself--run!'"
+
+"O, then, do go, dear!" pleaded the girls. "O, Magnus! _do_ not be
+late. See, those men are running."
+
+But Magnus gave no sort of heed. He bowed to Miss Newcomb, looked
+after the speeding grey coats, and remarked calmly:
+
+"Let them run. They want practice." But when the next call sounded,
+Magnus turned.
+
+"That spells," he said: "'Magnus Kindred--and every other poor fellow
+who doesn't mean to be skinned--scamper!'" and scamper he certainly
+did. The two girls watched him, breathless and anxious.
+
+"There are three ladies right in his way," said Violet. "Oh, I hope
+they'll not stop him!"
+
+But no, indeed; a cadet dodging a "late" is not so easily stopped.
+Magnus knew them, took off his cap to them, spoke some words of
+greeting, but never stayed his pace; and his sisters had the pleasure
+of seeing him dive in through the sallyport before the drum said
+another word. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"Such a boy!" said Rose.
+
+"But how he did run," said Violet. Then they both were silent with
+intensest interest. For the old grey barracks presently took to itself
+the well-known likeness of a beehive in swarming time, and ignorant
+eyes could as little tell what was going on as the uninitiated can
+guess that the bees are searching for their queen. Hanging round the
+doorways, clustering in front, with new forms all the time pouring out,
+until, like the tin pan of the farmer's wife, that mysterious drum
+brought order, and they settled down in a long, long line upon the
+sidewalk.
+
+Just at this point, with all the dangerous element in safe bonds, Mrs.
+Ironwood left her girls for a while and went for a chat on one of the
+hospitable porches behind her. Several other people also moved away,
+for a walk or a talk; and the vacant seats were taken by a handful of
+girls just come on the ground, and who, noting the new faces, were now
+in the keen pursuit of knowledge.
+
+At first, however, they seemed more eager to give it, talking fast and
+loud, and sometimes across the two young strangers who were watching
+every movement on the plain. But when the march down from barracks
+ended in another motionless line upon the green, and each girl began to
+pick out her friends and favourites, despite the confusing chin-straps,
+then it was impossible not to listen.
+
+"Look at Mr. True," said one; "he's a mere mathematical line."
+
+"He'd be adorable, if he wasn't such a poke," said another.
+
+"I'd give more to see that man brought to terms!"
+
+"What terms?"
+
+"Unconditional surrender. Down on his knees."
+
+"Mr. Randolph is just behind him," said the first. "And Mr. Crane is
+fourth from the end in B Company."
+
+"Which is Mr. Kindred?" said Rose, turning to her.
+
+"Second man with the cross-belt. Do you know him?" said the young lady,
+much surprised.
+
+"I have met him several times."
+
+"Well, anybody who knows Magnus Kindred after meeting him 'several
+times,' may go up head," said Miss Saucy.
+
+"Is he a poke, too?" asked Violet, with a grave face.
+
+"No, he's too wicked for that," said Miss Cray.
+
+"Wicked?" said little Miss Wren. "Why, he's one in discipline all the
+time."
+
+"Well, he'd better be two, and have a few grains of civility," said
+Miss Cray. "Absolutely he left me all standing in the middle of the
+plain yesterday, just because that ridiculous drum chose to beat!"
+
+"But that was a very good way to be left," said Rose merrily. "Perhaps
+if you had been all falling, he would have stayed."
+
+"Fine idea to work up!" said another girl, laughing, but Miss Cray
+tossed her head.
+
+"Nobody cared, either way," she said. "How do _you_ know what 'perhaps'
+he would have done?"
+
+"Why, we are both his sisters," said Violet. And for once in her life
+Miss Cray was taken aback.
+
+"Fancy it!" she said. "Where are you staying?"
+
+"At the hotel."
+
+"We are at Cranston's. Who is your chaperon?"
+
+"Mrs. Ironwood."
+
+Which was better care than Miss Cray herself could boast, and so the
+force of circumstances dealt another blow.
+
+"Well, don't serve me out too large a slice of humble pie," she said.
+"I'm awfully fond of Mr. Kindred, myself. The trouble is, he's not so
+awfully fond of me. And wounded hearts, you know!"
+
+"If Mr. McLean were here, he'd say: 'Steady!'" remarked Miss Wren. "Do
+you know Mr. McLean, too?" she said, turning to Violet.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Met _him_ 'several times'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you must come from the West?"
+
+"There are quite a number of people out there," said Violet.
+
+"And one can visit, even on a prairie," said Miss Cray politely. "But
+it seems so odd."
+
+Perhaps for a freer discussion of the oddity of things, that party
+moved away, and Mrs. Ironwood came back to her charge. But social
+duties still claimed her to such a degree that she hardly looked at the
+review, and not at all at the girls, for a good while. Then in some
+moment of silence, a soft, long-drawn breath made her turn her head.
+
+The cadets were just passing, double-timing round the square, and the
+good lady saw that her two girls had hold of hands, and that the eyes
+of both were full. What about? Only for one particular dress coat with
+a white cross-belt, one particular pair of shoes that darted past; the
+owner whereof was so far from feeling himself a hero that he was just
+pronouncing under breath the whole review a mean contrivance to keep
+men out in the sun. Ah, young brothers! have you any faint vision of
+what your sisters see in you?
+
+"Pull up your wraps, girls," said Mrs. Congressman. "It turns cool
+here, the minute the sun drops behind the hill. And I suppose wild
+horses wouldn't get you away before parade. Well, they'll have dealings
+with that man."
+
+The end of the battalion was just passing, one single cadet officer
+bringing up the rear; and this man's sash had come untied. And as he
+darted on, one long red streamer trailed gracefully behind him; too
+heavy to float, unless with more wind astir.
+
+The girls were in fits of merriment; only our two girls looked grave.
+
+"Just think!" whispered Rose; "it might have been Magnus."
+
+"But why doesn't he stop and tie it up?" said Violet.
+
+"Stop and tie it up?" said Mrs. Congressman, who caught the words.
+"Why, if his head was off, he couldn't stop to put it on. Not in a
+review."
+
+Between review and parade there was a charming bit of free time when
+Magnus came down to see his sisters. Miss Cray and her party took for
+granted he was coming also to see them, and there was some bridling and
+handling of sugar-plum boxes. And it was quite a shock, when Magnus,
+after bowing to them, turned away, and found himself a seat between
+"those two Western girls," whom he could see any time.
+
+Sweet brief minutes; I wonder if unlimited free hours can ever have
+the subtle charm that used to hang over the now-and-then release from
+quarters?
+
+Mr. Starr came up to claim acquaintance, and presently coaxed Rose
+away to introduce her to the sidewalk, as he said; Cadet-Captain
+Trueman appeared, preferring the same claim, though of so much later
+date. And Miss Cray looked on.
+
+As for my two girls, they were more than content; Violet finding the
+grave, dark-browed Mr. True a very interesting person indeed; and Rose
+so taken up with Mr. Starr's sallies of fun and comment, that she
+missed all the admiring glances bestowed upon her own sweet eyes and
+laughing mouth. The first drum came all too soon.
+
+Starr went on to just the point where they had turned before, came
+slowly back and led Rose to her seat; then standing before her and
+going on with his talk. And Miss Cray listened.
+
+"Mr. Trueman," she said presently, putting in her word, "we had a wager
+about you last night."
+
+"About me? That certainly speaks you all ladies of much leisure."
+
+"Now, don't begin to preach," said Miss Freak. "Be good for once, and
+tell us."
+
+"And what, if you please?"
+
+"The point was this," said Miss Saucy. "Kate said that before you will
+go down on your knees to a woman, you must have a cushion a mile high.
+The rest of us thought that perhaps a yard might do."
+
+"Pardon me!" said Mr. Trueman, with some energy; "if ever I kneel to a
+woman, I shall want no cushion!"
+
+And the tall cadet captain bowed gravely to Violet, touched his cap to
+the others, and walked away.
+
+A quick clearance of grey coats from about the seats followed. Over by
+the innocent-looking reveille gun stood two soldiers in blue, at the
+foot of the flagstaff were two more. The flag showed off its beauties,
+lifting, falling, floating away in circling folds upon the fitful
+air; then drooping, a mere line of colour against the staff. Then
+came a series of wild yells from the front of barracks, answering the
+roll-call, and then parade.
+
+In spite of the dignitaries who generally "assist" at a review, adding
+all that position or plumage can give, they never get off anything at
+West Point that is quite so good as an old-time dress parade. I use my
+adjective wittingly, for--no disrespect to the new tactics, they hurt
+the effect. To-night everything was perfect, even the music. The band
+struck up "Money Musk," or some other time-honoured quick-step, known
+in those happy days before "Boulanger" was heard of; the grey files
+came down the green in absolute order, and drew up in a long, unbroken,
+glancing line, before the seats.
+
+The hills across the river were in a glory of sunshine, the higher
+heads that sentinel the north entrance to the Highlands showed sunlight
+and shadow, too. The river went silently along, you could just hear the
+paddles of the _Mary Powell_, as she speeded round Gee's Point on her
+northward course. All this, while the adjutant dressed the line, and
+brought it to parade rest.
+
+"Sound off!"
+
+It matters little what they played then, for as the drum major raised
+his baton and struck his attitude, and the throng of bandsmen went
+nimbly after him, our two Western girls were absolutely and wholly
+bewitched. To see the black plumes slanting off as one before the
+breeze, with the stir of a red sash here and there, and the glinting of
+breast-plates and bayonets and bell buttons in that long moveless line.
+Then to behold the band of musicians getting tangled up in a maze at
+the turn, but coming out all right, and playing for dear life through
+it all,--they were so wrapped and lost, no wonder the gun made them
+jump.
+
+Then the wonder of the manual, to unwonted eyes; the comical
+different voices in which the sergeants reported, with hand on heart
+(supposedly), and the amused guesses as to how in Company D there
+should be two privates absent and unaccounted for. Even the jumble of
+the orders was delightful.
+
+"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., May 10, 18--" so
+much was generally plain. As also "Special Order. No. forty three-e-e!"
+But whether it gave Cadet Nameless leave of absence for two weeks, or
+said he was to be shot in two days, only the nature of the case made
+clear. To their ears, it might as well have been the one as the other.
+
+The reading ends, the adjutant tucks the folded paper into the breast
+of his dress coat, comes neatly round on one heel, and waves his sword
+to the officer in charge.
+
+"Sir, the orders are published."
+
+"Dismiss the parade, sir!"
+
+Another skilful pirouette, and the adjutant faces the line and sheathes
+his sword.
+
+"Parade dismissed!"
+
+The swords of all the cadet officers rattle down into the scabbard, the
+adjutant steps loftily back to his old place by the line.
+
+"Forward! Guide centre! March!"
+
+And with another gay burst of music, the cadet officers come forward,
+salute the officer in charge, and disperse (in these days draw up
+behind him); the long, grey line breaks into companies, the music
+changes its measure, and away they all go to barracks, to the sweet
+strains of "Pop Goes the Weasel!" Every right arm swings just so, every
+black shoe sole displays its regulation state, in most regulation
+order. But how many furtive blessings brushed the head of Cadet Kindred
+as he went by, that obtuse young fellow never guessed.
+
+Tea at the hotel, after all this, was prosaic enough, but doubtless the
+most soaring bird comes down to rest, and finds the lower lands quite
+bearable, with further flight in prospect. So the two girls relished
+their bread and butter and strawberries with no alloy, for was not
+Magnus coming after supper for a walk? Magnus, and perhaps two more.
+
+"Everything is so unusual," Rose said; "it makes one feel quite
+distinguished. Think of walking 'till call to quarters!"
+
+"Yes, think of it," said Mrs. Congressman, carefully creaming her black
+tea. "Then you've been in the cars night and day since Monday. You must
+excuse me, young ladies. I know girls are untirable where cadets are
+concerned, but I am too old a bird for that sort of chaff, and I am
+going straight to my bed, as soon as I see you off. With your brother
+along, you'll not need me."
+
+"May we sit on the piazza after we come back? Or must we go to bed,
+too?" asked Violet.
+
+"Sit there? Yes. Must you go to bed? No. Sit there and gaze at the
+barracks till shutting up time comes, and then go upstairs and carry it
+on from your window. You're not obliged to go to bed at all, while you
+are at West Point. Who's coming to-night?"
+
+"Magnus, of course, and Mr. Trueman. And Mr. McLean said he would, if
+he could."
+
+"Three for two girls; you begin well. There, they are coming out, and
+you can go stand at the fence, and I can go to my bed."
+
+"Why should we stand at the fence?"
+
+"'Mahomet and the mountain,'" said Mrs. Congressman. "Bell buttons
+cannot come any nearer, without a special permit."
+
+"But I do not like that," said Violet, drawing back. "You know you bade
+us not. It looks as if we were waiting for somebody."
+
+"Silly girl! That is just what you are doing: now isn't then. Come,
+I'll see you safe to the fence."
+
+So under that broad, protecting shadow the girls went down the walk;
+shy, and glad, and expectant, and just a trifle afraid; for were there
+not _four_ dark figures coming rapidly across the plain? It was all so
+strange and entrancing; the straight shadows, the measured step.
+
+"Ah, here you are!" cried Magnus. "Good-evening, Mrs. Ironwood."
+
+"How d'ye do again," said that lady. "How d'ye do, Mr. Trueman, and Mr.
+McLean--and, as I'm alive!--Mr. Bouché! I suppose two of you have come
+for me. I'm so broad, you think one wouldn't hear what the other was
+saying, and you could both fool me to your heart's content."
+
+There was a laugh and a protest (very honest, so far as the coming for
+_her_ was concerned), and then the young people turned away, and Mrs.
+Congressman went to her much coveted repose.
+
+"She fulfils her destiny," said Mr. Bouché, as he placed himself by
+Rose. "The only possible use of a chaperon is to go to sleep."
+
+
+
+
+XLIX
+
+FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES
+
+    When feelings were young, and the world was new.
+
+    --PRINGLE.
+
+
+There is no need to describe that walk, nor the many that followed it.
+Anybody who has been a girl--or had care of a girl--at West Point,
+knows without telling; though doubtless the walks vary according to
+the girl. But hither and thither, then as now, went Peace and War, in
+endless new combinations. Down among the grey rocks and green mosses of
+Flirtation, where the tide flowed by as softly as the minutes, and all
+the pretty whispers sounded true. Or up on the old fort; green enough
+once, but in these days pathetic as well as lovely in its helpless
+decline, and where much history might have been talked, and was not.
+Kosciusko's garden, Fort Clinton, even the Officer's Row--what tales
+they might tell, and are silent.
+
+I must do Mrs. Ironwood the justice to say, that she did not fulfil
+her destiny after that night, so far as it involved going to sleep
+when she should be on duty. And she did the duty well, as befits long
+habit. Always accidentally on hand; keen-eyed, though taking no notice;
+interfering when she must, in a way that was wholly pleasant--and
+unmanageable. The two girls, so unlearned in the world, could not have
+had a more wisely careful friend. Violet never guessed how it was that
+she was generally free to walk with Mr. Trueman, nor why Mr. Clinker
+always fell to the lot of Mrs. Ironwood herself. "She must be very fond
+of him," thought the girls. And Magnus was careful, too, in a way, and
+would by no means present everybody he knew to his two young sisters.
+
+So within that twofold invisible fence Violet and Rose moved joyously
+on, and had--as they wrote home--"the very loveliest time that girls
+could."
+
+And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon
+ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other
+girls were borne meekly; and the days when he was on guard called forth
+less lamentation. In short (in the prettiest sort of way) the cadet
+fever had claimed our two young Westerners. As how should it not, when
+they were in such demand? Men did not stand round them to see "what
+those girls would do next," the poorest sort of a compliment; but came
+for the real liking and appreciation of the fair womanliness, of which
+even faulty men have an idea--or an ideal. Then fresh common sense is
+very pleasant when you find it; and if Rose was thought too sensible by
+some--or too sedate, Violet was as full of fun and frolic as any young,
+unspoiled nature ought to be; so they set each other off. But the fun
+was not pointed with slang, nor did the frolic show out in shrieks of
+laughter, or in familiar ways. It never occurred to either of them
+that it was witty to say "Get out!" or ladylike to beg for buttons and
+buckles. Or interesting, to give a kiss to some man who was unmannerly
+enough to ask it. But nobody dared that of them.
+
+Mrs. Ironwood's "sleepy" eyes saw all these things; saw also,
+by degrees, some others. She could tell, to a time, how often
+Cadet-Captain Trueman had walked with Violet, as also that Violet
+seemed quite unconscious that he came oftener than other men.
+
+"Great pity!" said Mrs. Ironwood in her heart, waving her fan there
+on the hotel piazza. "He's the best fellow living--and she's the girl
+of girls for him. But she hasn't a sou--and _he_ hasn't; it would
+never do. I did try to keep Rose in the way--but my! he'd get round a
+standing army. Study, drills, examination, don't head him off one bit.
+A fine piece of three weeks' work! And in ten days more he graduates,
+and there's an end."
+
+And just at that very time, this is what was going on among the
+casemates at Fort Putnam.
+
+"Do you think you could live on a second lieutenant's pay?" Trueman was
+saying. "It is not much, you know--but then at first we should probably
+be stationed at some small one-company post, where it would not be
+needful to make a show."
+
+"I have never lived where it was needful, or possible, to make a show,"
+said Violet, with a bit of a laugh at the idea of being "stationed"
+anywhere. "But you know I have had no chance to think of anything yet."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Trueman; "it's all very sudden to you. But
+the first minute I saw you I knew I had met my fate, and I have done
+nothing but think, ever since. Thinking out the fairest story that ever
+came into any man's heart. And I am going so soon. Write home to-night,
+will you, Miss Violet, and get _leave_ to promise?"
+
+And then with the sound of coming footsteps, the two drew apart a
+little, and walked decorously down the hill; Trueman screening himself
+carefully with Violet's blue parasol from the sun without, and she
+conscious only of a strange new sunlight within.
+
+Rose, meanwhile, was having a different sort of talk with Mr. Bouché;
+an American, despite his French name.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, stood well up in his class, and was
+proficient in more than West Point learning; but as much adrift as any
+unpiloted boat in all matters of faith, and some of practice. Why he
+sought out Rose Kindred (as he had done persistently from the day she
+came) it would be hard to tell, unless from that peculiar masculine
+contrariness which, as Mrs. Ironwood phrased it, "makes Arctic men
+always swear by the South Pole."
+
+It was Mr. Bouché's special delight to get Rose away from everyone
+else, find her a splendid seat in some leafy nook, throw himself down
+on the grass where he must needs look up and so could properly gaze
+into her face, and then draw her into an argument. I do not know that
+Rose was more wedded to her opinions than other women, but she knew
+what she believed, which they do not all. And when the point was of
+importance she could fight, and fight well; zeal and love of the truth
+holding their own fearlessly against more polished weapons. Even as did
+the old "Queen's Arm" in the hand of one of her ancestors at Concord.
+
+On this particular afternoon, every place seemed taken. Gee's Point, of
+course, but also the seat by the river edge, and the almost unscalable
+rocks, and the grey stones that lie about the way to Battery Knox.
+
+"Never mind," Rose said. "I am not tired. I would just as leave walk."
+
+"Tired! You? No," said Mr. Bouché; "you are the most rested creature
+that ever lived. But I am a lazy fellow, and I want a comfortable
+place, where you can lecture me."
+
+"Upon your laziness?"
+
+"Upon what you will. I need it all round."
+
+"There will not be time for an all-round lecture before parade."
+
+"Bother parade!" said Mr. Bouché. "Why need you remind a fellow of
+parade, just when he's happy? Here--come this way. Now we can dive
+through these bushes--look out for your dress, Miss Rose!--and we can
+sit on the rock and be out of the way of all the spoons. And Catkins
+himself couldn't find us."
+
+Laughing at him, guarding her dress, following through the tangle
+like a true fresh-air girl, Rose presently forgot everything in the
+loveliness that was all about. Behind them, trees and bushes were both
+shade and screen; but in front there was only rock, river, and hill.
+The grey ledge on which they stood took a sudden dip almost at their
+feet, and went down, down, sheer and smooth, with little to break the
+line till it ended in a low fringe of riverside bushes. And the stream
+itself, curling rapidly round Gee's Point, went in full flow through
+the broadening channel towards Anthony's Nose and the "Race." One or two
+sailing vessels beat up against the breeze; from under the fringe of
+bushes came the measured dip of oars. The east-side hills, with their
+wavy outline, caught the full glory of the sinking sun.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful!" Rose cried.
+
+"Yes!" said Mr. Bouché, who had been eyeing the girl much as she
+studied the landscape; "just what I was thinking."
+
+"It is like nothing I ever saw anywhere else," said Rose.
+
+"Nor I," assented her companion.
+
+"You see, I have never been just here before," said Rose, turning at
+the somewhat peculiar tone of voice. "Have you?"
+
+"I am not sure--that I have," said Mr. Bouché, considering with himself
+whether certain sensations in the region of his heart could possibly
+(in a cadet of such wide experience) mean something new. "It rather
+seems to me not. What are you going to lecture me about, Miss Rose?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Oh, yes, you are!" cried Bouché, rousing up. "That's not fair. It is
+in the bond that you are to lecture."
+
+"Who signed the bond?"
+
+"I--for self and partner," said Bouché audaciously.
+
+"'Himself and he,'" said Rose, quoting Cowper.
+
+[Illustration: FLIRTATION]
+
+"Now, that is truly unkind," said Mr. Bouché, with an injured air; "and
+therefore not like you, Miss Rose. And people should always speak in
+character. I am surprised at you. Do you believe that I never think of
+anybody but myself?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose when you are speaking to me, you must be thinking of me
+a little," said Rose, a faint tinge coming into her cheeks as she made
+the admission. "Look at that eagle flying across the river."
+
+"Let him fly--" said Bouché. "You really suppose I think of you 'a
+little,' then? When it's week days and Sundays, Saturdays and common
+days. When the reveille gun has grown sweet to my ear, because----"
+
+"Now hush!" Rose interrupted him. "That is a good place to stop.
+Nothing ever yet made the reveille gun sound sweet to a cadet."
+
+"Other cadets."
+
+"Well, you are just another cadet," said Rose.
+
+Bouché burst into a laugh, in spite of his efforts to look tragic.
+
+"There," he said; "she's making fun of me. It's all up. I am only 'just
+another cadet.' One more in her train. Only so many additional bell
+buttons, and a pair of chevrons thrown in."
+
+"Who is the professor of nonsense here?" Rose demanded. "I never saw
+such proficients as you cadets are, in all my life. Have you had forty
+pages to learn? and are you trying them off on me? Very well recited,
+Mr. Bouché."
+
+"It isn't at all. You are getting off grinds on me the whole time, and
+that's not fair. I should think conscientious scruples would hinder
+you."
+
+"Conscientious scruples?"
+
+"Yes," said Bouché. "The way you throw away opportunities tries even my
+conscience. You see, Miss Rose, _I_ never had folks to stand round me
+and keep me straight. I've been a Topsy boy, all my life."
+
+"Topsy-turvy?" suggested Rose.
+
+Bouché drew a deep sigh.
+
+"There it goes again," he said; "I shall have to take it, I suppose.
+But I guess it's true. And now, when somebody has a chance to set me
+right, she don't do it."
+
+"What could she do?" Rose asked, seriously now.
+
+"For one thing, she could take a long, long walk with me on Sunday.
+Keep me out of mischief the whole afternoon."
+
+"You mistake, Mr. Bouché," said Rose, turning her clear, grave eyes
+upon him. "Getting into mischief one's self, never helps anybody else
+out."
+
+"How would you get in?" Bouché said eagerly. "I'd max it on care of
+you."
+
+"Ah, yes, I do not doubt. But--I was not brought up so," Rose said,
+hesitating over her words. "At home, Sunday is such a special,
+set-apart, happy day. We never take it for common things."
+
+"It would be a very special and happy day for me, if you would take the
+walk," said Bouché. "Of course _you_ would count it 'common' doings to
+go with me, any day."
+
+"It is not fair to twist my words," said Rose, looking troubled.
+
+"Then if it would be _un_common, you can go. You are throwing down
+opportunities, Miss Rose. I'll take you to some remote, far-wilderness
+corner, and you shall preach to me till the drum beats. I'm as meek as
+skim-milk on Sunday. Why, if you only tell me to take my cap and go to
+chapel, I shall do it."
+
+"But you have to do that."
+
+"You'd better believe I wouldn't be there else," said Bouché. "But I'll
+listen to you a quarter longer than we give the chaplain."
+
+"I do not think you will--for I shall not speak, on Sunday," said Rose.
+
+"Not speak! Turning into 'a sweet, silent Carthusian,' and thinking up
+hard things to say to me on Monday."
+
+Rose did not at once answer.
+
+"Mr. Bouché," she said, "I think you make a great mistake about the
+chapel."
+
+"It's the biggest-sized mistake to make me go there."
+
+"But if you went willingly, you would forget all about being made to
+go," said Rose.
+
+How Bouché laughed! Rose coloured a little, but stood her ground.
+
+"I mean," she said, "the bonds you strive against are the ones that
+press hard."
+
+"Good beginning," said the cadet, controlling himself. "Go on, Miss
+Rose."
+
+"Well," she said, "then you need not have laughed at me quite so much.
+But somebody says, there are two ends to a sermon."
+
+"Only one here," said Bouché, "and that's at the beginning."
+
+"Two ends," Rose went on steadily; "the human and the Divine, the text
+and the preacher. If you begin with the preacher, one man may not like
+him, and another one may----"
+
+"That man hasn't reported yet," Bouché interrupted her.
+
+"And it would be just the same," Rose said, "if an angel came and
+preached to you. Some men would be sure to criticise him, and study the
+length of his wings."
+
+"Wishing he'd use 'em to fly away with; that would be me, every
+time--unless he wore your bonnet."
+
+"So the best speaker would not please you all," Rose concluded. "But if
+you would begin with the text, you could not dispute that authority,
+nor question that style. You would not _dare_ to criticise it. And if
+you were studying the text all the way through, no sermon could seem
+dull, because it would have such living light upon it, from the Lord's
+own living words."
+
+There was such a light and glow on the girl's own face, that Mr. Bouché
+gazed at her with evident admiration.
+
+"All depends," he said. "Give me my particular angel for the preacher,
+and the text may go."
+
+"Mr. Bouché," said Rose, rising up, "I am sure I heard a drum."
+
+"You can always hear a drum here, any time of day or night."
+
+"Not that drum; listen!"
+
+"Happy drum to be listened to."
+
+"But seriously, we must walk on; you will be late."
+
+"'One private absent.' Hard on the Com. But it's not imminent yet, Miss
+Rose."
+
+"Why, you do not look!" said Rose. "See how the shadow lies on the
+river. Please go! Just run on; never mind me."
+
+"Never mind you!" said Bouché, taking leisurely steps at her side. "Not
+if I know it."
+
+"Mr. Bouché, you will be late."
+
+"Like enough. The first sergeant of D Company will tell it with his
+hand on his heart, regretfully adding: ''Tis true, 'tis pity; pity
+'tis, 'tis true.' And old Powder Flask will jump for joy in his
+regulation shoes."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"The chance of skinning me for the ninety-ninth time this week."
+
+"Well, I'll not be responsible for his joy," said Rose. "Good-bye!" And
+as they came to one of the many cross-paths that led towards the plain,
+Rose suddenly turned up the ascent, running so lightly and easily that
+it was almost as pretty to see as the regular double-time. Bouché
+stood open-eyed for a second, and then came up with her, fuming.
+
+"Now this is atrocious, preposterous, unheard of!" he said. "I don't
+care a button for a 'late.'"
+
+"Well, you should," said Rose, laughing round at him, keeping her pace
+and her breath admirably. "And this might turn into a cold absence. You
+ought to care. Magnus says discipline counts. There's a different sort
+of text for you."
+
+"I vow!" said Bouché. "Don't you give me any of _his_ wise sayings, or
+I'll punch his head when I get back to barracks, the first thing."
+
+"Not the _first_," said Rose with a gay laugh, as they reached the edge
+of the open, "Look! there goes the band. Run, Mr. Bouché!"
+
+"As if I hadn't been running!" said Bouché, much aggrieved. "Miss Rose,
+I'll owe you one better for this."
+
+And then, run he did.
+
+
+
+
+L
+
+FAIRYLAND
+
+    Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,
+    Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low;
+    Their banners and their crests waving in a row.
+
+    --FRERE.
+
+
+The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I had
+best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather,
+the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail
+delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out
+and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited
+taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave
+the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and
+frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than they.
+
+The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have
+grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary
+chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost
+graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels
+repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But
+alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere--with you!" That might have
+been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are down;
+and Choice opens its eyes and waits.
+
+In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the
+looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or
+San Carlos: comes also the question of comforts and climates. These
+delicate creatures can walk all day and dance all night in West Point
+air. But what will their high heels do at Huachuca? and how will their
+fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle Pass? Are they brave to be left
+with only soldier attendants when the young lieutenant is ordered off
+on a scout after Indians? Can they make bread, where the baker does
+not come round? and keep their sweet patience when some "ranking" new
+arrival swoops down upon their pretty quarters, and bids them move? Or
+again, what if the modest pay of a second-lieutenant should not comport
+with twenty-dollar bonnets?
+
+Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known
+for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's
+acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And
+no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for
+just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which
+the men have won their shoulder-straps.
+
+Among all the unwonted eyes that ever saw June come over West Point,
+none could get more delight than did Cadet Kindred's two young sisters.
+The mere shining out of the whole post in white trousers was an event.
+And the guns that greeted the Board of Visitors were, to the full, as
+imposing, as the various "planks" in that respected body. The girls
+watched every point of the welcoming review, and then studied the
+chosen guests as they trooped into the "big house" reception. But
+better than chicken salad indoors, was the music discoursed by the band
+in the pretty grounds outside. It may be said, however, that Violet did
+not fail to see Mr. Trueman, in sash and plume, go up the steps with
+the rest of the graduating class, and to think for one brief moment
+that it might be pleasant to go there too.
+
+Only parade that night, but a wonderful walk after supper; and next
+day, and every day for ten more, a series of varied pleasures.
+
+The examinations in the library were positively awe-inspiring; such
+battle plans, such hieroglyphics. There was some trembling of heart
+the first time they saw Magnus under fire; but he so plainly knew
+what he was about, that fear soon passed into rejoicing. And when Mr.
+Clinker was set to read Spanish, and the story (as translated) sounded
+unutterably ridiculous, Mrs. Ironwood declared that her two girls
+behaved better than she did.
+
+Something of this in the morning; at night a concert; in the afternoon
+a drill. Perhaps on the cavalry plain with the ear-tearing racket of
+the Light Battery; where the guns were sometimes pointed at the ladies,
+and the ladies cried out, and stopped their ears, and ran away; and
+the hills sent back the thunder, and the descending sun half glorified
+the clouds of dust. Or maybe they went down by the river, and saw
+Mr. Trueman and a throng of unknown men build the pontoon bridge,
+themselves sitting on the grass in a blaze of sunshine, which the north
+wind softened down. With gay dresses on every side, and grey-and-white
+men standing behind them, or down on the grass too. Sugar-plums in
+many hands, the perfume of flirtation in all the air; and certainly
+their own attendant cavaliers were well disposed for both these soft
+delectations. But if Rose looked round, it was generally to put some
+intelligent question, which Bouché could only answer in kind; and
+Violet's bright eyes were too eagerly watching what Mr. True did with
+his boat, to heed what Randolph whispered about _them_.
+
+How skilfully those huge grey pontoons swung into line; how stirring
+was the sounding tramp of the plank-bearers; how curiously they locked
+arms going back, and how very charming was the walk over that strange
+bridge when it was done.
+
+[Illustration: CADET BOAT AND CREW]
+
+Another day came skirmish drill, with the grey files in all sorts of
+varied action; the men scattered over the plain as a sower casts his
+seed. Speeding down in the hollow, dashing up the ridge, disappearing
+behind the trees, and firing straight at the pretty spectators. In
+those days, the short midway rest was all right for visiting; and so,
+when the other men dropped down on the grass, Magnus and Mr. Trueman
+and quite a little crowd came over to the seats, cap in hand. Smoky,
+and dusty, and hot--and charming--for a few minutes of lively talk. To
+the begrimed warriors every girl looked perfectly resplendent, in her
+fresh summer dress.
+
+Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee
+to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers
+standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the
+chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each
+straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass.
+Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground--but for these! It was
+all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the ground
+sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of danger.
+
+One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched up
+with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and
+fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the
+guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark
+figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass
+which the crimson fire caught in its red glow.
+
+Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry
+drill on the plain and the grand charge.
+
+In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in watchful
+waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent, and
+caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There was
+one lady in particular, handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody,
+whose son was in the drill, and whose fears were many and public. In
+the midst of the most harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it,
+"on thorns"; and she danced about as if it were true.
+
+Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see at all;
+with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or expostulation--it
+was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch her when the charge
+really came,--and forgot her as July forgets December.
+
+There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by
+the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining
+his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them
+looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a
+better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then
+quicker, till the word was given:
+
+"Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas cyclone
+upon the resounding road.
+
+In some of the quieter moments before the charge, Rose and Violet had
+picked out two or three men they knew, noting their horses (they were
+not all dark then); and now, even in that dusty whirlwind, the grey
+and the black could be seen and followed. And--yes, certainly--Mr.
+Trueman's horse has leaped the Hotel fence, and the plucky rider puts
+him at it again, and comes bounding back. And Mr. Clinker's steed
+has swerved at the crossroad and gone dashing along towards Trophy
+Point, for freedom and Highland Falls. However, he missed in both,
+and everything came out right, and nobody was hurt; and the drill was
+pronounced in every way first-class. But for days after, when Violet
+shut her eyes, she seemed to see the flashing sabres, and hear again
+the ringing shout; and to watch that particular grey horse as he leaped
+the hedge.
+
+Then came graduation; and Violet had the first sight of Mr. Trueman's
+diploma, as soon as he could step aside and show it. And Magnus was
+made first captain, and Mr. Bouché shone forth as adjutant; and even
+Mr. McLean found his arm adorned with three bright bars, to his own
+astonishment.
+
+"All owing to Kin," he confided to the two sisters. "If he hadn't
+pinched me black and blue every day since Christmas, I should be on my
+way back to Kansas, to hoe potatoes for the rest of my life."
+
+It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Trueman lingered at the post for a
+few days in "cits," and finally departed with a permit to show himself
+in the Western home, and plead his own cause there.
+
+Mrs. Ironwood lingered, too, even longer, to let her charge have a
+taste of the pretty concerts and guard-mounting in camp; and then the
+girls packed their trunk, and saw the hills fade away in a mist that
+was all in their own eyes.
+
+
+
+
+LI
+
+THE HOME-STRETCH
+
+    A gold fringe on the purpling hem
+      Of hills the river runs,
+    As down its long green valley falls
+      The last of summer suns.
+    Along its tawny gravel bed
+      Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
+    As if its meadow-levels felt
+      The hurry of the hill,
+    Noiseless between its banks of green
+      From curve to curve it slips;
+    The drowsy maple shadows rest
+      Like fingers on its lips.
+
+    --WHITTIER.
+
+
+To come down from two girls of your own to none, is a long step; and
+I think if ever Cadet Charlemagne was ready to put the full value on
+the many fair and gay women at the Point, it was just then, when his
+sisters had gone. Not another sight of his own to be hoped for till a
+whole long year should roll away. First-class camp though it was, I
+think he would have liked the busy term-time better.
+
+But he talked with Miss Lane, he walked with Miss Newcomb; and did the
+civil thing to a handful of new visitors; went to picnics, teas, and
+such like merrymakings; and through it all found himself pining for
+Cherry, and wondering what they were all about at home. In the very
+midst of the frolic, with bright eyes and soft hands on every side, the
+refrain of the old song would keep coming up:
+
+    "O this is no' my ain lassie!
+      Fair though the lassie be."
+
+Such a mood works differently with different men; with Magnus it
+wrought in a very becoming fashion. For the high mark put upon the
+three girls far away, set the standard for his behaviour to those
+near by. "Help them," Cherry had said. And so, over his ordinary good
+manners and winning ways, there had come that grave air of chivalry,
+that deference to women _because_ they were women, which sets off a
+man's own manhood as nothing else can. His heart was elsewhere, but his
+best service was theirs to command. Now and then he ventured a reproof.
+
+"You must not do that," he said one day to Miss Lane; receiving an
+instant "Thank you!" which spoke her good stuff. And even when he came
+between Miss Saucy and some lawless escapade with a firm: "You shall
+not do that!" the words were so courteous and earnest that the girl
+yielded with:
+
+"There, there--I won't. Hush up!"
+
+It was kind work to do, and the giving pleasure was always pleasant;
+but for his own delights Magnus fell back into his solitary woodside
+walks, with now and then a long pull upon the river. Up and down the
+shining current; fighting the wind, breasting the tide; tossed with
+mimic billows, or shivering a mirror of blue; so he went. Now coasting
+along at oar's length from the shore, where the hills rose up in
+castellated masses of rock and the cool shadow lay deep; then resting
+on his oars, and gazing through the peerless north gateway at the
+flood of sunset over Newburgh Bay. Sometimes showing it all to Cherry,
+"on their wedding trip"; or again, sent back here as Commandant, with
+Cherry the fair Frau Commander of the Post. And then--
+
+A faint strain of music broke in upon his dream; the oars hung
+motionless, dripping their bright drops.
+
+A soldier's funeral was passing slowly up the winding Camptown road;
+the grave notes of the band coming clear and soft across the water;
+the flag drooped midway. Magnus reverently bared his head. Then he sat
+listening.
+
+There was so little tide that a dip of the oars now and then kept the
+boat in place; and Magnus sat there motionless, until the third volley
+rang out among the echoes, and to the usual lively racket the men came
+marching home.
+
+"Yes!" he said to himself, as he began to pull down stream again. "When
+the time comes for Old Glory to wrap me up, let them bring me here and
+lay me there, to sleep among the hills."
+
+And with a shake of the head at his own musings, Cadet Charlemagne made
+the boat fairly spin till it reached the landing, and dashed into the
+sallyport with full five minutes to spare.
+
+The Fourth of July that year rose exceedingly hot. A misty haze veiled
+the mountains, the dew lay thick on every blade of grass; the silent
+black-mouthed guns were dripping with moisture.
+
+Being a holiday, even the reveille gun took an extra nap; and the camp
+lay in absolute stillness for a half hour beyond its usual time. Only
+the sentries paced up and down in the heightening glare; and far away
+in the Logtown regions you could hear the sputtering of fire-crackers
+and know that Independence Day was begun.
+
+Meanwhile, by the same token, a lively ambush was preparing in the
+quiet camp--a thing not distinctly set down and forbidden in West Point
+rules, and with what we call constructive evidence cadets concern
+themselves but little. And so with happy unconcern, Magnus and Twinkle,
+and pretty much all the first class who were not on duty, arranged the
+frolic. And for once the plebs liked their orders.
+
+Up came the sun, touching Crownest, gilding Fort Putnam, peering into
+every bush and tree; and from the other side up came the band, their
+white helmets making a winding line of light across the plain. They
+took post at one corner of the camp; and then, as the Stars and Stripes
+swung slowly up to the head of the flagstaff, began their march and
+their music, saluting the colours.
+
+You have all heard how the piper of Hamelin played the rats out, where
+none were seen before; and something like that happened now. The camp
+was for all useful purposes asleep. But as soon as the inspiring notes
+of "The Red, White, and Blue" broke up the stillness, there came a stir.
+
+At quick step, and to a full-blast medley of national airs, the band
+passed through the camp; up A Company Street and down B Company Street;
+and as they went, out poured a chance-medley crowd to match. A crowd of
+plebs, wrapped in sheets, in blankets, in every sort of harum-scarum
+costume; with brooms for muskets, and the strict orders of upper
+classmen for regulations.
+
+With all other cadet eyes peering through tent curtains to watch, the
+crazy throng came after the band in full procession. And even when the
+officer in charge woke up to the state of things, these agile boys
+kept out of the way; slipped through between tents to the next Company
+street, and then re-forming and marching on joyously, until, as the
+band came round to its starting point, and "Yankee Doodle" filled all
+the air, the queer contingent drew up in order before them, solemnly
+presented arms (alias broom-sticks) scattered, dived, and disappeared.
+And only the most sedate and orderly faces could be seen at roll-call.
+
+That was great fun. Better than the Fourth of July dinner, Magnus
+declared.
+
+The usual festivities graced the morning. The muster, and the march
+across the plain to the old trees before the library. The band played,
+Magnus read the "Declaration," and Mr. Bouché made a speech which
+proved him, in theory, a model patriot.
+
+Then the midday salute of forty odd guns thundered out among the hills;
+returned by them in six times as many echoes; and the work of the day
+was done. Once upon a time, when powder was cheap, there used to be a
+salute at sunrise, too, and at sundown.
+
+Magnus strolled away to one of his haunts by the river, and sat himself
+down to watch the tide come in. It was almost full flood; the water
+creeping silently up, hiding every mud-stained rock, floating off the
+drift from every corner. One could see how it picked up its freight
+of chips and sticks and sawdust; but the current was so strong, the
+water so bright, that the dark streaks hardly counted. In fact, Magnus
+enjoyed the whole process, finding fair images for himself.
+
+"Just so," he thought, "would the June-tide set in, when:
+
+    "Whatever of life has ebbed away
+    Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
+    Into every green inlet, and creek, and bay."
+
+Bearing away then, of course, to parts unknown, all the disagreeables
+of life; studies, drills, and regulations. Wave motion giving place to
+Cherry. "It is so pleasant," said one of these pre-graduates to me, "to
+think of never again having to do anything I don't want to do!"
+
+Magnus was so deep in his dreams down there one day that a step close
+by made him start. This was no gauze-winged vision, however, but a
+poor, homesick pleb. In the gray, baggy suit of first initiation, with
+clouded brow and an air of general forlornness, he looked as little
+like flood tide as a fellow could do.
+
+He glanced at the trim first classman down among the bushes, went a few
+steps on, turned, hesitated, and finally came up behind Magnus.
+
+"Shall I disturb you, sir?" he said deprecatingly.
+
+"No; come on. Rocks are Government property. You're Mr. Renwick, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The boy sat himself down at the water's edge, and looked gloomily off.
+He was a slight fellow, just touching the regulation age; fair-skinned,
+soft-haired, with an unmistakable air of love and petting about him.
+"A mother's boy" all over. There were hearts aching for a sight of him
+somewhere, without a doubt.
+
+Magnus eyed him a while from a first-class standpoint; then his look
+softened. What wretched, desperate hours he himself had spent in that
+very dress among those very rocks. And then of a sudden Cadet Kindred
+fell to wondering what the Lord would say to this poor heart, were he
+there himself in bodily presence? And the reply was instant:
+
+"Be pitiful, be courteous."
+
+"You were in the pleb formation on the Fourth?" he said abruptly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Liked it?"
+
+"No, sir. At least I liked it well enough, but I didn't enjoy it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Last Fourth was better."
+
+"Oh, was it!" said Magnus ironically. "Did you think to bring
+home-doings in your pocket when you came to West Point?"
+
+"No, sir," said Renwick, with a sigh. "I suppose not."
+
+"If you had all you wanted at home, why didn't you stay there?"
+
+"I had _not_ all I wanted," said the boy, rousing up. "I wanted an
+education, and we were too poor for me to get it anywhere else."
+
+"My case precisely. And to-day you think home is worth all the
+education that ever was heard of. So have I, a thousand times. But it
+isn't, for all."
+
+"Did _you_ ever feel so, Mr. Kindred?" said the boy, changing his seat
+for one a little nearer. "Everybody says you've had a clear run of
+luck, straight through."
+
+"Stuff!" Magnus answered him. "Are you a Christian, Mr. Renwick?"
+
+"I hope so, sir."
+
+"Hope so! Well, are you an American?"
+
+"Why, of course I am."
+
+"How do you know? You may be a Chinese."
+
+"Well, I know--whether I can tell how or not," said the boy.
+
+"Certain sure where you belong in this world, and not sure at all where
+you belong in the next. Unsound business, Mr. Renwick."
+
+Renwick looked at him.
+
+"You are a queer man!" he said.
+
+"My one distinction. Found I couldn't lead off in anything else, here.
+What are _you_ going to be?"
+
+"A success--if I can, sir."
+
+"Well, the only way to success is, to succeed."
+
+"I know as much as that myself, sir."
+
+"Practise it then. You might as well try to take that hill at one
+jump, as think to be a success in January and June, and a failure all
+the rest of the time. Unless you're a fine mixture of laziness and
+mathematics. I am not myself."
+
+"Very little mathematics about me," said Renwick; "and they speak as if
+that was everything here. So I don't see what I am to do."
+
+"Do?" Magnus said. "Why, dig like a prairie dog! Things are not so deep
+down that they _can't_ be routed out. And get all the help you can, and
+take all you can get."
+
+"Do you mean 'ponies'?" said Renwick with a doubtful look.
+
+"I do _not_ mean 'ponies'!"
+
+"But they say _you_ are always so busy?"
+
+"O yes, I'm busy enough; have to look out for my own scalp, you know.
+My advice is always at your service, but my time most generally not."
+
+"Then I don't see what you mean, sir."
+
+"Have you a Bible, Mr. Renwick?"
+
+"Yes, sir, of course."
+
+"Read it?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Well, at one of those rare intervals," said Magnus, "put three marks
+in it. A red one here:
+
+"'Call upon me here in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee.'"
+
+The boy drew a long sigh.
+
+"Mother's verse," he said. "But that will not bring me home."
+
+"No, and you don't want to go. Then a long blue one here:
+
+"'What time I am afraid I will trust in thee.'"
+
+"Hold on there," said Renwick. "I'm not afraid, sir, and I don't expect
+to be."
+
+"You will be, quite unexpectedly, some day, when you get into the
+section room and find you have left your wits in barracks. But put a
+broad white mark here, and _keep_ it white:
+
+"'Walk in the light.'"
+
+"Keep out of all dark ways, Mr. Renwick. You can have the Lord's help
+every time and all the time, on those terms."
+
+Renwick looked at him again.
+
+"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of getting through West Point
+_so_," he said.
+
+"Tiptop way, you'll find," said Magnus.
+
+"And that is your whole list of directions?"
+
+"Finished up with the first one: dig! You must work like all the
+beavers between whiles, or you'll never have the face to pray such
+prayers."
+
+"I heard you were odd," was Renwick's comment.
+
+"And now you think the half wasn't told you. Sound doctrine,
+nevertheless."
+
+"But mathematics!" said the boy; "and natural philosophy! and Spanish!"
+
+"Know them all through now, don't you?" said Magnus; "and so want no
+help."
+
+"No, no, sir! of course not. But I mean--Mr. Kindred, do all the head
+men get to the top of the class your way?"
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"Then why do you lay it out for me?"
+
+"Only sure way I know."
+
+"To push me up head?"
+
+"To put you somewhere where it's worth while for a man to stand," said
+Magnus. "You might come out head--and be a disgrace to the service. You
+might go down before French twistifications, get dropped--and live to
+bless the country some other way."
+
+"I thought you meant I should be sure to graduate," said Renwick,
+disappointed.
+
+"There's but one thing sure." And rising to his feet, Cadet Kindred
+chanted out a scrap of an old hymn.
+
+    "Looking off unto Jesus,
+      I go not astray:
+    My eyes are on him
+      And he shows me the way.
+    The path may seem dark
+      As he leads me along;
+    But following Jesus,
+      I cannot go wrong."
+
+"Does it ever seem dark to you, sir?" Renwick said wistfully.
+
+"Lots of times."
+
+"It is so hateful here," the boy burst forth; "the place, and the
+drills, and the cadets, and everything!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it!" said Magnus heartily. "I have felt just so. Why,
+there are days when I should like to shoot the cadets, burn down the
+barracks, pitch all those old study books into the blaze, and tie the
+Tacs within roasting distance."
+
+The two looked at each other, and then both broke into a laugh.
+
+"Splendid old place, isn't it?" said Mr. Kindred. "And the drills are
+as good as the rack for stretching a man. And the cadets aren't much
+worse than the rest of the world. You and I are two of them. Come on!
+Let's go take a look at the flag. That always puts me to rights when I
+turn sour. 'Hail, Columbia, happy land!' and West Point is part of it."
+
+    "The sweet red, white, and blue,
+      The brave red, white and blue,
+    Has done so much for me,
+      And done so much for you."
+
+
+
+
+LII
+
+THE BIG RECEPTION
+
+    When shall I come to the top of that same hill?
+    ----You do climb up it now; look how we labour.
+
+    --SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+A very busy six months followed first-class camp; the autumn full
+of drills and study, the winter of examination, hard work, and the
+Hundredth Night. With the opening spring poured in the usual flood of
+tradesmen and their wares; company drills began, early visitors came,
+and June was coming. The lower classmen, as usual, were on tiptoe with
+glee and excitement; and, also as usual, were the ballasting thoughts
+in many a first-class head. Questions of regiments, of posts, and of
+girls.
+
+But for Charlemagne Kindred all that was settled. If he were ordered
+to the North Pole, and stationed on the tip end of it, he should still
+take Cherry. And if he could not keep the wind from roughening her soft
+hair, Lieutenant Kindred would be a much more incompetent person than
+Cadet Charlemagne thought possible. Cherry was just the girl for Arctic
+regions; she would sketch the icebergs, sing to the seals, and teach
+them Greek. And in the long evenings by their driftwood fire, they
+could plan out where to live when he wore three stars on his shoulder,
+and was retired on full pay for special services as yet unknown.
+A little soon for that, to be sure; but there is no harm in being
+beforehand, even "quite some," as they say in New Jersey. They could
+draw plans for the house, and so save on architects when the time came.
+
+Other big questions came up for other men. Should this one assume
+at once the debt which the dear home people shouldered so patiently
+to send him to West Point? And how much can this other save from his
+slender pay, to help educate his young brothers and sisters? It touches
+one's heart to see the dainty articles of dress that are bought for the
+girls at home, whose life has been chiefly homespun.
+
+Then what work will they find to do at the strange, far-away posts?
+Work in that other army to which, as boys, they were mustered in? For
+there are many church members in the corps; and I doubt if there is
+one to whom the old vows do not come up in mind before graduation.
+Sometimes, perhaps, with a never-so-keen perception of what Paul meant
+when he said: "I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." Paul
+could have claimed the lower honours too; learned, skilled, an acute
+theologian, a matchless writer. But no earthly plaudits were in his
+thoughts; only the Lord's "Well done"; the crown which those Royal
+hands would give him "at that day."
+
+The spring flew on, tossing off its freight of snowdrops, violets,
+columbine, and apple blossoms. Twenty-three days to June, twenty-two
+days; then came more tidings.
+
+Mr. Erskine was failing, so the mother wrote; failing steadily and
+fast. It was doubtful if Magnus would see his friend again; and the
+young cadet's heart went out with a great yearning to the lonely girl
+of whom he would so soon be the chief earthly protector. And once again
+Magnus gave thanks for that grace which had brought him through the
+fire, and made him fit to take such a charge. But none of them could
+come for graduation.
+
+"Of course we cannot leave Cherry," so Violet wrote; "one of us is up
+there all the time. Cherry looks like a white wind-flower. O, Magnus, I
+wish you were here!" And Magnus gave a groan and turned to his tally:
+twenty-one days to June.
+
+But he did what he could. He wrote Cherry a letter every day, saying
+everything he could to beguile her thoughts. He sent the last picture
+of himself, and the class picture, and a photograph of the up-river
+view. In every letter went his marks for the day, with what bits of
+mischief or of news the Post could furnish. He told what girls he had
+walked with, and of his rambles alone; giving her much to read and to
+talk of. With all this he studied untiringly, refused invitations, went
+up in his marks, and was often fagged enough when tattoo beat; but less
+with the work than with excitement and tension.
+
+He had applied for a regiment not then near San Carlos; but so much
+depended upon how many men went to Willet's Point that he could guess
+little as to his own placing. One thing was sure, he was learning
+fast. Lessons of patience, of self-control, of trust; so winning true
+promotion, day by day. Finding out also, with new understanding,
+the exceeding helpfulness of prayer; learning to lay down cares and
+questions at the feet of that blessed Lord Jesus who "doeth all things
+well." Rank and post, life and death, could safely be left with Him! A
+great peace and a great strength were in the face of Magnus Kindred in
+those days.
+
+If he seemed graver than usual, it was that with every chance his
+thoughts flew away. Or, rather, were some of them always in that
+far-off sick-room. For whoever else might be with her, Magnus knew,
+unerringly, how Cherry's heart reached out for him. How, in every hard
+moment, with every new token of the coming sorrow, the longing for him
+leaped up and grew. Sometimes it made him almost desperate enough to
+go, at all risks.
+
+As a last comfort to himself and to her, Magnus took off his class ring
+and expressed it on, bidding her wear it till he came to put another in
+its place. She would not take it last summer, but she must _now_. And
+there was no telling what that ring was to the girl, and to her father
+as well, making the bond so tangible and real. Cherry studied it in
+her lonely night watches, and Mr. Erskine's heart gave thanks at every
+gleam of the stone as her hands' sweet ministry came about him. While
+far away, Magnus, on his part, was verifying and honouring all their
+trust.
+
+So came on June, with her rose-trimmed slippers; and it seemed that
+first summer afternoon as if the whole countryside poured down upon
+West Point. Long before four o'clock the seats were full, then crowded;
+the wagon-load of campstools vanished as they came; and soon even
+standing-room was at a premium. And when the Board of Visitors had
+reviewed the Corps, and the Corps the Board, everybody who had the
+right crowded in to the reception, while the left-out throng whirled
+round with one accord, and sat staring with all its eyes at the open
+door and solid front of the Superintendent's quarters. If only X-rays
+had been on hand! The interest grew to a keen point when the first
+class (all together then, though now they go scattering in) passed
+through the gate, doffed their plumed hats, and vanished within the
+doorway.
+
+Magnus was claimed by old friends and presented to new, had a great
+grip of Mr. Wayne's hand, and brought little Miss Bee a plate of
+lobster salad deeply bordered with sunshine.
+
+I think Cadet Charlemagne had learned a little more about girls than he
+once knew; and the light and colour that came into this particular shy
+face at sight of him, smote him with a sense of at least possible past
+mistakes. She had no need to think so much of his small civilities.
+And Mr. Kindred bowed himself away, and made merry in a gauzy circle
+of colours near by. And then, when Miss Bee looked so left out in the
+cold, Magnus rushed up again, took her plate, brought her an ice, and
+made things worse than ever. Manlike, he thought the fast-and-loose
+plan worked to admiration.
+
+Now privately, Miss Bee cared nothing for lobster and very little for
+ice; but it felt so good to be noticed and to have something to do,
+that I think she hardly knew what she had. And had not Mr. Kindred said
+the ice would "refresh" her? So she ate a little, played with it a
+little, and heard, nolens-volens, a good deal of talk.
+
+"Why, here is Mr. Kindred!" said one of his Christmas friends. "All on
+tiptoe for shoulder-straps."
+
+"Mr. Kindred has small occasion to stand on 'tiptoe' for anything,"
+said Miss Lane. "But what have you done with your beautiful class ring?
+Not lost it?"
+
+"Hardly, since I know where it is. Lost things are said to keep cool
+company in the moon."
+
+"What is keeping company with your ring?" said Miss Saucy. "Your heart,
+of course?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Will she be here for the hop?"
+
+"Since when were hearts feminine? No, I do not think 'she' will," said
+Magnus. "Hearts are best at home, hop nights."
+
+The talk went on, the crowd drifted; and little Miss Bee in her corner
+held her plate and ate her ice, and tasted nothing. Of course, she
+had seen that the ring was missing; but then no girl had boasted its
+possession. And men took whims.
+
+What tales dark corners could tell; of hard-pressed fights, of
+struggles, of victory! The band played, the throng increased--then
+began to thin out. Presently Magnus came and took the plate from the
+weary fingers, asking if she would have anything more.
+
+"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the smile
+and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch a
+handful of the gayest bonbons and mottoes, and bestow them in Miss
+Bee's own hands. A man's blunder, again! And yet perhaps not. Of
+course the sweets were not eaten; they were conveyed away and stored
+among Miss Bee's few chiefest treasures; but I think in time they
+became a comfort, too; shining tokens of what a friend she had had in
+one of the foremost men of the Corps. It could not be helped that this
+put other men at a discount.
+
+For the ten days that followed no one saw much of Cadet Kindred, in any
+of those between-times that he could call his own. West Point outlines
+had cast their lovely spell about him; and with every chance he was
+down by the river, up among the rocks; climbing the leafy ways; saying
+good-bye, and then coming back to say it again.
+
+
+
+
+LIII
+
+THE FIRST POST
+
+    A ravelled rainbow overhead
+    Lets down to life its varying thread;
+    Love's blue,--joy's gold,--and fair between
+    Hope's shifting light of emerald green;
+    With either side, in deep relief,
+    A crimson pain, a violet grief.
+
+    --MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+I never understand how people can chatter all through the graduating
+parade. Standing before other people who fain would see, but with their
+own backs to the show; gabbling on about trains and stages, weather and
+wraps, to the utter discomfiture of the quiet souls who are straining
+their ears to catch the "standing," just then read out by the cadet
+adjutant; and finally pausing long enough to wonder "Whatever is he
+talking so long about, anyway?"
+
+"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. Special order, No.
+fifty-nine!" So much with the knowledge that comes by iteration, you
+make out; but the human wall shuts off the rest. Such people should
+stay at home.
+
+If you are a stranger and unwarned, you may easily miss some special
+points in the show to-night. You will not know that, when the battalion
+comes marching down to the tune of "The Dashing White Sergeant," it
+means that from fifty to seventy of its men are on dress parade for the
+last time. And as they come nearer and wheel into line, you will hardly
+notice, that among those orderly grey figures, there is every here and
+there one who carries only side-arms, his musket left behind. And when
+these come out and form a quiet line in front of the rest, you will
+not guess that they are never again to go through the manual or be
+mingled with the other men. Also for this night, the Commandant himself
+steps out upon the ground, instead of the usual officer in charge.
+
+The line is dressed, and then--
+
+"Parade rest!" and then--
+
+"Sound off!"
+
+And with sweet, clear rendering, the band begins to play:
+
+    "In cottage or palace,
+      Wherever I roam,
+    Be it ever so humble,
+      There's no place like home.
+    Home! Home!
+      Sweet, sweet home!"--
+
+O what does it mean, to those men who (except for the short furlough)
+have been four years in exile! They give no sign; motionless as so many
+statues; the black chin straps merging faces, and hiding what may be
+there. The June air stirs the soft edges of the black plumes, floating
+them off as one; the sunset glitters on buckle and bayonet; the great
+garrison flag curls and uncurls its mighty folds. "It may be for years
+and it may be for ever," before the men of that front rank will look
+upon the scene again. They have hated it, sometimes, and longed to get
+away, but now they know how well they love it. What things those old
+hills and they have gone through together! from the forlorn pleb days
+until now. And even with that thought, the band lapses softly into
+another mood:
+
+    "Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
+    And never brought to mind?"
+
+and every heart answers to the pleading of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+For these classmates, after to-morrow, will be scattered to the four
+winds. Some, not to meet again till they are grey-haired men; never
+_all_ to stand together, until the day when before the King "in his
+glory," "shall be gathered all nations." Believers or unbelievers, they
+think of it now. They may not speak nor touch each other, nor turn the
+head, but they think.
+
+It is as well, perhaps, that "The girl I left behind me" puts in her
+word just here, and you have to laugh, partly because you were so near
+crying. But Lang Syne and Sweet Home have the last saying, as the band
+comes back to its place.
+
+Parade goes on, and for once everybody is "present or accounted for."
+The orders are published, the standing read (not always, in these
+days), and then the graduating class come forward, and with dress hats
+off and held at the correct angle, shake hands with the Commandant and
+have a short address from him. And while the little company pass down
+and stand in line before the trees (not that either, now), the old
+Commandant turns hastily away from the show, and seeks his own front
+door. It is a long ago "Lang Syne" that he remembers, and far better
+than these youngsters, he knows what all this means.
+
+But the music begins again, with another change. "I see them on their
+winding way" fills all the air. The lines break up; and buckle and
+bayonet, sash and plume, come gaily past the seats, and then as they
+pass the waiting graduates, again the plumed hats come off, while
+cheers ring out in eager greeting from their comrades marching by.
+
+"I know I shall cry when it comes to that!" said a gay young first
+classman to me. And I have no doubt he did. But there are no lookers-on
+in front of them, and the old plain tells no tales.
+
+The next ten or twelve waking hours are little but hurry and rush.
+The big hop on hand for society men: with farewell visits, last ends
+of packing, and countless bits of red tape to be tied in regulation
+knots. Then last looks at the river, and hands laid lovingly and for
+the last time upon some of the old grey rocks.
+
+In front of the library a platform is raised, and draped with the
+star-spangled banner, and a canvas canopy stretches across from tree
+to tree. Strong ropes wall in the space below, where stand the chairs,
+rank after rank, and as the morning hours run on, sentinels guard the
+ropes against all intruders. The seats, of course, are, first of all,
+for cadets and people of the Post, but just there does the dear general
+public wish to sit, and for whom the chairs are placed affects them not
+at all. So, for an hour or more, there is a sort of running fight--a
+skirmish line--all round the lines of rope, and the sentries well nigh
+meet their match. Demands, complaints, exclamations, are loud-voiced
+and many, and neither orders nor fixed bayonets win much respect.
+
+"Those are the orders, ma'am."
+
+"I'm not responsible, ma'am."
+
+"No, ma'am, no one allowed inside the ropes."
+
+"Sit there? Those seats are reserved for the mothers, ma'am."
+
+"But _we_ are the mothers," cried one good dame to the stony official.
+And as the guard turned to ward off some new intruder, one could but
+laugh at the adroitness with which she slipped in behind his back,
+to be again ordered out. At last come dignitaries in such very full
+feather that the crowd stands back and becomes a trifle more modest.
+The hands on the clock move on, cadets who were wandering about
+with mothers and friends leave them and go off to barracks. Men for
+the platform come leisurely along, sure of a good place; the upper
+ten for the seats below make more speed, seeking the best. Then the
+superintendent, the adjutant, and all the glittering people in train
+of the Board of Visitors, mount the platform, and make it a study
+of sheen and colour. Drums sound in the distance, then nearer, and
+the whole battalion comes marching down. They halt at the back of the
+crowd, stack arms, and the graduating class file in and take their
+seats.
+
+There is a short prayer from the chaplain, "Hail, Columbia!" from
+the band, and then the address--or, maybe two. From the president of
+the board generally, followed often by words from some high ranking
+officer, or some notability in civil life. Addresses sometimes wise,
+sometimes more--otherwise--than one could wish; very seldom vivid
+and instinct with fire. The country figures, of course, and "this
+Institution," and the flag, with the service, in a mild sort of way.
+All eyes are fixed upon this particular class, and the army welcomes it
+with open arms. And the cadets have done well, and the professors have
+done their best. On the whole, the sort of speeches to which you would
+like to apply a match and bring them to either a blaze or to ashes. How
+rarely--Oh, how rarely!--have these veterans in camp or council one
+word of real cheer, wisdom, and fire, for these "youngsters," these
+smooth-faced new recruits.
+
+Perhaps it makes less difference than I think to the grave young men
+waiting there, bare-headed and absorbed; they have been at such high
+pressure, and have so much else to think of. They listen, and applaud,
+from time to time, and generally in the right place. Once in a while
+you may notice that just _there_ the Southern hands are silent.
+
+More music follows, and then the adjutant with his stack of diplomas
+comes to the front and stands behind the Superintendent, or whoever is
+to give them out: in the old days, it was often General Sherman. One by
+one he takes the parchment from the adjutant, and the names are called
+off in order of standing.
+
+"Harvey Linton!"
+
+A tall, dark-haired young fellow rises from the grey mass, comes to
+the foot of the platform, and with a low bow takes the credentials for
+which he has toiled so bravely.
+
+"I congratulate you, sir," says the donor; "not so much for being at
+the head as for the hard work which has put you there,"--and Linton
+bows again, and goes back to his seat.
+
+"Yes, he has done very well--ve--ry well," so his father in the crowd
+answers friendly words, trying hard to seem unconscious that his son
+has carried off first honours.
+
+"Anson Dent!" and this time it is a broad shouldered Wisconsiner,
+followed by a Virginian, a fair haired Hoosier, and all the rest. But
+you notice other differences among the men. For while some smile and
+bow gratefully, others give the briefest sort of nod, and some none at
+all. Some flush, and some grow pale, and some hands almost grab the
+diploma as if a right had been long withheld. And one casts furtive
+glances towards a certain bewitching bonnet in the crowd, as he goes
+to his seat, and the next sends a deeper gaze across the gay lines,
+seeking a face and dress the plainest there, but the best beloved in
+all the world; while many see only the friends a thousand miles away.
+One man unrolls his diploma and studies it with all his eyes, his
+neighbour plays with his, as if it were the veriest trifle--a mere
+bagatelle.
+
+"Charlemagne Kindred!"
+
+And I am bound to own that this man went forward in a dream. With one
+swift glance at Mr. Wayne, he did catch the loving interest in that
+face, but the rest of the people might as well have been a fog bank. He
+was feeling so much that he seemed not to feel at all, until when they
+broke up, and Twinkle pressed through the crowd, crying:
+
+"Where is my mother! I want my mother!"
+
+And then Magnus could have shaken him, for daring to put his own
+heart-cry in words.
+
+Indiscriminate cheering was not the fashion in those days. A specially
+popular man, or one who had done his work against special odds, might
+have some hearty plaudits. But generally the applause was kept for "the
+last man," who by brilliant carelessness or industrious breaking of
+regulations, footed "the immortals." Of course, they all cheered _him_.
+Had he not kept someone else from being "last man?"--even now and then
+(it is whispered) closing up the class end so that no one else _could_
+fall through. But after all, _somebody_ must be last, so cheer him on.
+He may outrank you yet, in life.
+
+The scene changes. Everyone rises to the "Star-Spangled Banner," there
+is the benediction, the cadets march away to the "Left Behind Girl"
+once more; and then girls present, who will not accept the situation,
+tear along to the front of barracks to hear the new orders.
+
+The companies are drawn up in line, never again to stand together
+there, and the adjutant publishes the orders for the last time.
+
+It is a long reading. Lists of the men who graduate, of the men who
+go on furlough, and of the new cadet officers; and again the friendly
+chin-straps do the part of words, and "conceal thought." But if you are
+near enough, and know the faces, you can see a gleam in the eyes of the
+men who are to wear chevrons, or gloom on the faces of some who are
+left in ranks, while the furlough men are almost dancing. But not even
+a half-inch stir, anywhere.
+
+When the reading is done, and they break ranks, then indeed frolic
+breaks loose, and every sort of thing is on hand. Graduates rush
+to their rooms, clasping a hand here and there as they go, to put
+off the grey once more and forever. Furlough men also "scoot" away,
+eager to come out in "cits" for the journey; while the others hug and
+congratulate each other in a threefold tangle, sometimes; the new
+officers hurry to put on their chevrons; and (lest the fun should be
+one-sided) are now and then caught and borne away and put under the
+hydrant by the zealous yearlings.
+
+Meantime the sallyport fills up with girls, matrons, friends, old
+graduates, and people in general. The gay overflow pours out into the
+area of barracks, all waiting to see the young lieutenants and the
+furlough men shine out in "cits." And they are about as different from
+each other, when they come, as they were in the old candidate days. One
+tall man in an extra tall hat, the next neat and harmonious down to
+his small handbag, and this one just a trifle loud and mixed. Twos and
+threes and one alone, hardly to be known at first, with their canes and
+neckties. The furlough men shine all over with joy, the young graduates
+have thoughts. So this face grows grave over a handshake, and this
+other stalwart fellow breaks down in his words of farewell, and leaves
+them unsaid.
+
+Mr. Wayne stood there with the rest, watching for Magnus, and then
+having a word with him from time to time, until that matter-of-fact
+regulation drum beat the call for dinner, and the new cadet officers
+marched the men away.
+
+The air is still full of hurry, for most of those who are going want
+to take the down boat, and there are a few last calls to pay, and some
+unfinished business with the commissary or the "Com." But one way and
+another the area is cleared, the men slip out of sight, and graduation
+is over. Few words may tell the rest.
+
+Mr. Erskine had passed away from this earthly life, during that very
+week in June; and it was a very pale and grief-stricken girl, much
+needing him, that Magnus took in his arms when he reached home. And
+later on in the summer there was a quiet wedding, with just a few
+classmates in full-dress uniform to light up the room, and Mr. Wayne to
+join the two hands in a bond which should never be broken.
+
+And their first post? What does that matter? However, it was one with
+plenty to do, and some things to bear; a good place wherein to shine as
+the Lord's true servants, and an excellent one from which to look up to
+Him.
+
+For the rest, it stood on high ground, with a fine outlook, and a fair
+climate. It was called Fort Content.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+  Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.
+
+  Blank pages have been removed.
+
+  There are inconsistencies in the display of attributions in the poetry
+  and quotes following chapter headings. These have been retained.
+
+  In the body of the text closing quotes have been omitted before
+  poetry, after a colon and in correspondence. The text reproduced here
+  is true to the original.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST POINT COLORS***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 62275-0.txt or 62275-0.zip *******
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+</head>
+<body>
+<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, West Point Colors, by Anna Bartlett Warner</h1>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
+and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.  If you are not
+located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
+<p>Title: West Point Colors</p>
+<p>Author: Anna Bartlett Warner</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 30, 2020  [eBook #62275]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST POINT COLORS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by MWS, Val Wooff,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive<br />
+    (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff; width: 100%; margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      <a href="https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn">
+      https://archive.org/details/westpointcolorsa00warn</a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pgx" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="cover" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="745" alt="Cover " />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>WEST POINT COLORS</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<img src="images/frontis_600.jpg" width="375" height="590" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE FLAG</div>
+</div> </div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center ph1"><br /> <br />
+WEST POINT<br />
+COLORS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="small">BY</span></p>
+
+<p class="center ph2">ANNA B. WARNER</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8"><i>"My only regret is that I have but one life to give</i></span>
+<span class="i6"><i>for my country."</i></span>
+<span class="i25"><span class="smcap">Nathan Hale.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 146px;">
+<img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="146" height="112" alt="Colophon" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">New York &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Toronto</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="large">Fleming H. Revell Company</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London and Edinburgh</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center"><br /> <br />
+Copyright, 1903, by</p>
+<p class="center">FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY</p>
+<p class="center">(<i>October</i>)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /> <br />
+New York:158 Fifth Avenue<br />
+Chicago: 63 Washington Street<br />
+Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.<br />
+London: 21 Paternoster Square<br />
+Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<div class="table">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></td>
+<td></td><td align="right"><span class="small"> PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#I">I.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#II">II.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Means to an End</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#III">III.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Night Express</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">21</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ready for Duty</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#V">V.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Flag</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Lonely Candidate</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">54</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">In for It</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">60</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a> </td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rubs the Wrong Way</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">67</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Camp Hard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">73</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#X">X.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Band Concert</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">78</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">88</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><i>Off</i> <span class="smcap">Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">92</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Blue Christmas</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">97</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Camp Golightly</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">106</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Signaling for Help</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">112</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Re-enforcements Ready</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">117</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a>
+</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Three Cheers and a Tiger</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">124</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a>
+</td><td align="left"><span class="smcap">High Summer</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">129</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Visitors' Seats</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">138</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Just Thee and Me</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">142</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Me Only</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">150</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Girls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">157</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Grim Gray Walls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">167</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ninety-nine Days to June</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">173</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Furlough</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">180</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cherry</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">189</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Off Limits</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">199</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Exhibition</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">209</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Skirmishing</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">218</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">A Morning Talk</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">226<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Summer Girl</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">238</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Laying Foundations</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">245</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Building Thereon</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">258</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Ambushes</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">272</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Of Course</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">278</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">San Carlos</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">284</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rushed into Camp</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">288</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">High Ground</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">293</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">More Girls</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">299</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XL">XL.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">On Fort Put</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">305</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLI">XLI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Up Crownest</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">321</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLII">XLII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Christmas Leave</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">332</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIII">XLIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Hundredth Night</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">343</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIV">XLIV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Pressing On</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">355</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLV">XLV.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Nothing Serious</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">360</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVI">XLVI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Trying Letters</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">364</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVII">XLVII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Congressman</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">369</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLVIII">XLVIII.</a> </td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Guard-House in June</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">376</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#XLIX">XLIX.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Flirtation and Other Places</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">388</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#L">L.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Fairyland</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">398</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LI">LI.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Home Stretch</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">404</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LII">LII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Big Reception</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">414</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><a href="#LIII">LIII.</a></td>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The First Post</span>,</td>
+<td align="right">420</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="table">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" align="right"><span class="small">FACING PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Flag</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><i>Title</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Barracks in Winter</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Color Guard</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Mounting Heavy Guns in Fort Clinton</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cadet Room in Barracks</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Parade Rest in Camp</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_377">377</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Flirtation</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cadet Boat and Crew</span>,</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#Page_401">401</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION TO THIS TALE OF A<br />
+POSSIBLE CADET</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some of my friends in a certain cadet class beset me to write a West
+Point story; promising me incidents at will, a plot, a name, and a
+tactical officer for "the villain." Perhaps it was because I declined
+this last sensational detail that they backed out of all the rest, and
+having given my boat a shove into deep water, left me to row and pilot
+as best I might.</p>
+
+<p>However, help came from other men, in other classes. I was cheered
+on in my work, and given story after story, with full leave to use them
+as I chose; and so it falls out that my book is quite true.</p>
+
+<p>Not that all the happenings ever came to any one cadet, or within
+the bounds of any four years' course. But they have almost all, at some
+time, been part of somebody's cadet life at West Point. With what men,
+or in what years, it does not matter: the last decade of the nineteenth
+century nearly enough covers the whole.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried hard to have the small technicalities quite correct.
+Yet as rules do vary now and then, even at West Point, everything may
+not always <i>seem</i> right, to this or that graduate. And, of course, I
+may have blundered here and there.</p>
+
+<p>Certain points in cadet life I was especially asked to handle; and
+if once or twice I have told only what <i>might</i> have been, even there I
+had the warrant of cadet opinion.</p>
+
+<p>As for the fancy names, it was so hard to find plain ones that
+were not down in some Army List or Visitors' Book, that I made up a
+few, choosing rather to give caps which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+nobody would put on than others quite sure to be appropriated. Truly, I
+did not name Miss Dangleum: a young officer did that, and Cadet Devlin
+was also dubbed by one who knew.</p>
+
+<p>Since certain words of my story were written a few changes have
+come in. The cadet classes have pledged themselves to abolish hazing;
+the Hundredth Night (in its old wild glee) has been forbidden; the
+Cadet Howitzer is spiked. The shady nooks along "Flirtation" have
+been cleared up; Fort Clinton is a memory, the tents are brown, and
+Dade's white shaft now stands in the gayest and sunniest of all the
+thoroughfares. But human nature survives,&mdash;and "boodle"&mdash;and
+the girls, so that my book is declared to be still "absolutely
+true."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes when I watch that grey throng in the Chapel, I have a
+great wish that I could see the other little army with whom they are to
+join hands. So much depends on them. For womanhood sets the standard
+for the world of men.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She's like the keystone to an arch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That consummates all beauty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She's like the music to a march,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That sheds a joy on duty."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such she should be.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p><span class="i20">A. B. W.</span></p>
+<p><span class="i25"><span class="smcap">Martlaer's Rock.</span></span><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br />
+THE BOY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>The lions, if they left not the forest, would capture no prey; and
+the arrow, if it quitted not the bow, would not strike the mark.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Arabian Nights.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The precise date of my story does not matter: the world strikes a
+much more even average than we are apt to think; and still, as of old,
+"the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
+done, is that which shall be done."</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, then, there was a boy whose name was Charlemagne
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus" was the home version. I think his two young sisters were
+perhaps rather proud of the royal-republican title, and would by no
+means let it come down to "Charley," and so lose itself in the crowd.
+Once in a while, when a longer lecture than usual was called for, Mrs.
+Kindred would say Charlemagne: but I doubt if it had much effect,
+unless to give Magnus some slighting thoughts of the ancestor who had
+first borne his name.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred was a widow of ten years' standing; and she and Magnus,
+and the two young sisters, made up the family. There is nothing on
+earth sweeter than girls can be; and these two filled out the fair
+pattern, with few breaks or flaws. But no history or inheritance of
+even a name had been wasted on them, and they set out in life
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+as plain Rose and Violet, named for their father's favourite
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had not at all, however, the same reverence for his sisters
+that they felt for him, which was a pity; for really I think they
+deserved it better.</p>
+
+<p>But another drawback to the perfections of my hero,&mdash;a common
+one enough with heroes, and which after all proved him the real
+thing,&mdash;he had not five cents to his name. And failing this, the
+question came up very naturally, what else he could have "to his name,"
+to make that worth the carrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, he'd make a beautiful minister!" said Rose, who, enshrined
+in the very rosiest corner of her heart, had a faint, far-away picture
+of her father in the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>"He would make a beautiful anything," said the mother, her
+eyes shining at the mere thought of her boy. "But he cannot be a
+minister, Rose, at least not in his father's church, without going to
+college."</p>
+
+<p>"And that takes money," said Violet. "Mamma, if I were Uncle Sam,
+I'd have free colleges. I can't see why not, just as well as free
+schools."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like to hear you say 'Uncle Sam,' Violet. It is not
+respectful to the Government."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus does."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred might have answered that the bump of reverence was not
+as yet developed in that young magnate's head to any alarming degree,
+but no such disloyal words came out. She sat thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"The Government has one free college, you know, girls," she said;
+"at least, I suppose it may be called that. Two, in fact: the Naval
+Academy at Annapolis, and the Military Academy at West Point. I wonder
+it never occurred to me before."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point!" exclaimed both the girls, open-eyed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+"Then he'd be a soldier, and wear a uniform," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and then there would be a war, and he would get killed," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he wouldn't," said Violet. "Catch Magnus letting anybody shoot
+<i>him</i>. He's a good deal too quick for that. Besides, people can get
+killed anywhere. Missionaries do, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder I never thought of West Point," Mrs. Kindred repeated.
+"Hush, girls; don't say such things. There is no war now, and maybe
+there never will be again. Magnus would like it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd be splendid in uniform," said Rose, "he's so tall."</p>
+
+<p>"Too tall," said the mother with a sigh. "Magnus grows altogether
+too fast. Perhaps West Point would be just the thing for him, and make
+him spread out a little. You know, girls, what big fellows some of
+those army men are, in papa's book of officers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Violet doubtfully, "big enough. But then Magnus never
+could be as broad as he is long, so we needn't worry."</p>
+
+<p>A cheery whistle, strong and sweet and clear, pierced through the
+summer air outside; and with one consent the three talkers hurried
+to the window to look out. It was a back window, commanding easily a
+woodshed, a small garden, and a barn.</p>
+
+<p>In the woodshed, hard at work upon a somewhat elaborate dog-house,
+stood the young future victim of mathematics and wave motion. Coat off,
+hat tossed down, hands busily chiselling out some bit of ornamentation;
+the head with its shock of brown curls bent low over his work. And very
+appropriately just then, for the thoughts that filled the air, Magnus
+was whistling "Yankee Doodle": his limber young tones going with great
+force and discern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>ment
+into all the ups and downs of that delightful old melody. Do not
+mistake me and think the words ironical; I am extremely fond of "Yankee
+Doodle," myself.</p>
+
+<p>"How queer he should be whistling that!" said Rose. "Oh, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come up here. We were just talking about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk away."</p>
+
+<p>"But mother and all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good I am down here, then," said the boy, eyeing a bit of board
+along the edge to see if it was straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" cried Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"You know she doesn't like to praise me to my face," said Magnus,
+carefully planing the aforesaid edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Conceited boy!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I suppose he was that, just a little; but what can happen to
+average masculine nature, with three such bits of the feminine to stand
+round and gaze at its perfections? Magnus brought his board to a nicety
+of straightness, tossed off the shavings, gave another toss to his
+brown hair&mdash;then looked up at the sweet cluster of faces in the
+window and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"All's safe up there, so long as I stay down here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The three were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"He is such a beauty!" said Rose under her breath. "He grows better
+and handsomer every day."</p>
+
+<p>"But we want to talk to you!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I can wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we cannot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Front door's open," said Magnus, falling to work with his hammer,
+and once more lapsing into the sweets of "Yankee Doodle."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, may we tell him?" said Rose. "May we ask him how he'd like
+it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+"Why, yes, dear; that can do no harm," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>So the girls went down to the woodshed, perching themselves on some
+hard places each side of their big brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, how would you like to be a soldier?"</p>
+
+<p>"When there's a war, you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>That was beginning at the wrong end; the two young faces grew
+suddenly grave. But, after all, there was no war then, and probably
+never would be, as their mother had said.</p>
+
+<p>"But we mean <i>now</i>," Rose went on. "How would you like to go to West
+Point?"</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to learn to be a soldier!" said Violet impressively.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed in high derision.</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers!" he said&mdash;"Popinjays. Parrots and popinjays. There
+was one of those fellows at Clear Spring last summer, and he had airs
+enough to fly a kite with a tail a mile long."</p>
+
+<p>Again the two young sisters were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>you</i> would not, Magnus, when you came home," said Violet. "Oh,
+Rose! just think of his coming home on vacation!"</p>
+
+<p>"And if all the rest are like that, you could be what mamma
+calls a 'beautiful example,'" said Rose. "I heard Cherry speak
+of that 'fellow,' as you call him. She said his uniform was very
+interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry doesn't care a copper for such stuff!" said Magnus hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she can admire a uniform," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>But to that Magnus made no reply.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br />
+MEANS TO AN END</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">The nightingale flew away, and time flew also.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Charlemagne got his appointment. In a very commonplace way, after
+all, like most other boys; in spite of his long name and his longer
+list of qualifications. Some relative knew the Congressman of the
+district, had done business with him in the pre-official days, and in
+one of the intervals of home rest after Washington fatigues, young
+Kindred was taken over to the dignitary's whereabouts, and presented
+as one who was eager to serve his country in another line. There was
+nothing heroic about the whole proceeding, and the man was not an ideal
+Congressman; but he answered the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The interview would have made a fine subject for a picture. The
+boy, on his dignity every inch of him, making believe that he did not
+care a continental about the matter; but too unskilled in dissembling
+to prove the fact, and keep down the quick flashes of eye and flushes
+of cheek. The introducer, the childless uncle to whom his sister's son
+was the one boy of all the world. Opposite them the old Congressman,
+with chair at an uncertain angle and hat ditto; tilting back in the
+cool shady porch, and listening with a scarce hid smile to the tale of
+Charlemagne's attainments.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he room in his head for anything more?" he demanded, when Mr.
+Thorn paused. "He'll want a little, over there."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+"I am ready to learn all they teach, sir!" said young Magnus, firing
+up. "You think I don't know anything now&mdash;and maybe I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe&mdash;" said the Congressman drily. "How about the <i>outside</i>
+of your head? You'll get it rough and ready, at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got hands!" said Magnus with another flush.</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the Honourable Miles Ironwood. "Well, take good care of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have understood," put in Mr. Thorn, "that hazing is quite
+stamped out at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ironwood skilfully rocked his chair upon its two hind legs, a
+mocking smile upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever see a bit of woodland that was half trees and two-thirds
+rocks?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I was brought up on just such a place," said Mr. Thorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever fight a fire there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm&mdash;I thought perhaps you hadn't," said the Congressman.
+"Well, Mr. Thorn, this district is not represented at West Point just
+now; last appointment resigned some months ago, and I suppose it had
+better be filled. And this young man doesn't look as if he would give
+the Tacs more trouble than common. And if they go for him, that is his
+lookout and not mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the Tacs, sir?" inquired Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Men who come round every morning to see if you have washed your
+face," said Mr. Ironwood, without moving a muscle of his own. "And
+every night, to tuck you up and bring away the light."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured indignantly; but a certain twinkle in Mr. Ironwood's
+eye kept him silent.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they teach there, chiefly?" said Mr. Thorn. "What had
+Magnus better learn before he goes?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+"Learn everything you can, when you are going <i>anywhere</i>," said Mr.
+Ironwood impressively. "They teach riding&mdash;a little&mdash;at West
+Point. And mathematics&mdash;some."</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne can ride," said his uncle proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"On his head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why no!" said Mr. Thorn. "Will that be required?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen 'em on their heads, in that riding-hall," said the
+Congressman with an easy change of position.</p>
+
+<p>"They teach the classics, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll hear something about Achilles, like as not," said Mr.
+Ironwood. "Hector, too. Not so much of either as he will of
+Charlemagne."</p>
+
+<p>Again the suggestive gleam of the eye acted upon the boy as both
+spur and check.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have no general advice to give him, Mr. Ironwood, as to
+what he had best do to prepare himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prepare himself?" Mr. Ironwood brought his chair down on all-fours
+with considerable force. "If that boy wants to get ready for West
+Point, let him do every blessed thing he <i>don't</i> want to do and not one
+that he <i>does</i>, between now and next June. Good-morning: I'll attend to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"He's an old buzzard!" said Magnus as they walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"A little sudden, sometimes," said his mild uncle. "But he's a smart
+man&mdash;a very smart man. And now I think of it, he was there once
+himself, and didn't get through. That's what makes him so down on the
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been a very smart man if he couldn't get through West
+Point," Magnus said, with a boy's easy contempt.</p>
+
+<p>But smart or not, Mr. Ironwood was as good as his word. And so in
+due course it was set forth in the <i>Army and Navy Journal</i>, that among
+the candidates for the Military Academy the following June would be
+found one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Charlemagne Kindred. And the local paper of Barren Heights (albeit not
+generally concerning itself with West Point) got hold of the item and
+copied it out in full. And so astonishing was it to see Charlemagne's
+name in print that the family copy of said paper would have been quite
+worn out with much study and handling, if Mrs. Kindred had not rescued
+it, and laid it safe away among the family archives.</p>
+
+<p>As for Cherry, after first privately breaking her heart because
+Magnus was going away, she then plucked up courage and common sense,
+and became the proudest little maiden that could be found among all the
+patient readers of the <i>Barren Heights View</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is safe to say that Magnus reversed Mr. Ironwood's wise counsel
+at every point and every time. Having himself been a failure at West
+Point, the Congressman's opinion was counted a failure too; would have
+been, anyhow, I fancy; and Charlemagne Kindred got ready for West
+Point by doing every possible thing he wanted to do, and letting the
+things he did not want to do, alone. Even when the rainy days of May
+went weeping by, and the fateful June was close at hand, what that boy
+did&mdash;and was allowed to do&mdash;would not bear telling. "He is
+going away," hushed every reproof; and "when I am gone," forestalled
+criticism. Refuse him? scold him?&mdash;the three gentle hearts at home
+were quite beyond all that.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, he ought to have studied hard, the whole time; but then
+Magnus was so quick and bright it could not be really needful. And if
+Mrs. Kindred now and then sighed, and wondered what the end would be,
+if the beginning was so lawless, and what her husband the minister
+would have said to his only son becoming a soldier&mdash;the girls had
+the answer ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Why mother, it is to defend the Country! My father went to the war
+once, himself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+"Yes, in time of need," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus says that when there is no danger is the time to
+prepare," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Mrs. Kindred said again with a smile and a sigh, pleased at
+such wisdom in her boy; although it was a principle of sound business
+which Magnus had never been known to act upon, in any one single
+case.</p>
+
+<p>But even he sobered down a little, as the last home day drew on.
+When the new trunk was packed, and Magnus had said good-bye to all
+the neighbourhood, and taken his last walk with Cherry; cheering up
+her forebodings in various efficacious ways best known to himself and
+to her; when there was nothing left but the good-night, and the early
+breakfast, and the parting&mdash;then, indeed, things began to look
+serious, and the boy too.</p>
+
+<p>He sat that evening, taking the clearest sort of mental photographs.
+He saw the grief that lay back of his mother's brave words and tender
+smiles: saw it, as it were, on that other background of the older
+and deeper sorrow which never left her face. He noticed the white
+lines that marked the brown hair above her temples. He studied her
+hands: slender, white, but with that unmistakable character of use and
+usefulness which some hands have.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his sisters: fair, innocent slips of girls as you could
+find, East or West: their tears coming and going, their smiles playing
+hide and seek. Who ever had three such blessed bits of womankind
+entrusted to him? and who would take care of them when he, tall
+Charlemagne Kindred, should be far away? Magnus registered in his heart
+some vows that night, which to his honour he kept.</p>
+
+<p>Then his eyes went down again to his mother's hands. They were
+quietly folded in her lap; but as Magnus looked, he seemed to see them
+busy in a hundred different ways, and always for him. Steadying his
+baby steps, cooling his aching head; binding up scratches and cuts;
+sewing on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+buttons, knitting socks, mending gloves. Now laid tenderly on his
+shoulder in some time of persuasion or entreaty&mdash;and now held out,
+both of them, to receive the penitent.</p>
+
+<p>But here Magnus jumped up and fled away, out of the room, out of the
+house; and poured forth his agony of tears in the old orchard, under
+the quiet stars.</p>
+
+<p>At his age, however, such showers are brief, and often end in a
+highly exalted state of mind. Magnus came back to the house protector
+of his mother, defender of his sisters, and knight-errant for all
+womankind in general&mdash;especially Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry would have given what coppers she had in the world, and some
+silver to boot, to spend that last evening and morning at the Kindred
+house, and the girls had entreated her to stay, but she was a very
+self-contained little damsel and said no. "Little" is not descriptive,
+however, for Cherry was growing up tall and straight as a plumed reed
+by the river side; with a wealth of dark brown hair, and large serious
+eyes, and delicate brows that, when they laughed, went into curves as
+lovely and mischievous as the proverbial bow of Cupid. The whole of the
+demure face laughed then, with dimples here and dimples there.</p>
+
+<p>Brought up until six years old with a frail, invalid mother, and
+since then by a student father, the child had early learned to keep
+herself to herself with severe decision. And keep herself hid according
+to her own ideas, Cherry feared she could not, if she was at hand to
+see Magnus Kindred go. Besides&mdash;Magnus himself had not asked
+her!</p>
+
+<p>"But why will you not stay, Cherry?" the girls persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise
+Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady
+steps toward her own gate, so soon as tea was over. To be sure, Magnus
+did see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+her and come bounding after; and, to be sure, she found out then that
+she was not really in such haste as she had thought: but still Magnus
+would never have got the sort of farewell he did, if he had not been
+saucy and taken it. Though, alas! I am afraid his after-memory of the
+parting was for a time less tender and true than hers.</p>
+
+<p>So there were only the three home faces about the boy that last
+morning, and only the three sore hearts to plan and prepare his
+breakfast and every other possible sort of ministration. And magnate as
+he was, Charlemagne found those three as much as he could bear.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br />
+THE NIGHT EXPRESS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.<br /></span></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down
+sentiment and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty
+and feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at
+the shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer
+a kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway"
+mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a
+good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines
+until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty."
+But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and
+you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round
+you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark
+line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across
+the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally
+ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than
+wait.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and
+his setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being
+late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after
+the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but
+pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+go with him to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so
+much faster alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him
+loiter.</p>
+
+<p>So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and
+waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe
+indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the
+greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother,
+and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed
+to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's
+house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why,
+the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West
+Point. Nevertheless, he went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"For men must work and women must weep."</p>
+
+<p>Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic
+than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with
+a derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother,
+and the three girls.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic
+to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you
+would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed,
+there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth
+remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly
+aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving
+for seats.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly
+the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its
+exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>The first day and the first night went by wearily enough.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Magnus had decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his
+anxious mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And
+so he could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that
+long first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were
+softer (as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of
+the night express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car!
+What gruff voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him.
+Disgust, fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands,
+until, as the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He
+wondered what was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be
+ill: and never guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly
+homesick.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a
+little country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been
+sitting far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had
+called forth no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and
+roar ceased for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes
+of the little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in
+the moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked
+down the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up
+the darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late
+fellow-passengers&mdash;then as the way opened, and the mother moved
+on, the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to
+that small, unknown world.</p>
+
+<p>"Dood-night, folks!" she said&mdash;and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus
+quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch
+of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger
+than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was
+he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+to him? If indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should
+die by the way.</p>
+
+<p>He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down
+over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion,
+and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small
+stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place,
+where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally
+brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of
+viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out.
+Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides
+had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch
+<i>them</i>&mdash;look at them even&mdash;in his present mood, he could
+not.</p>
+
+<p>The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness
+and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors.
+It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too
+short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the
+passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest,
+and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had
+had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy
+could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A
+somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place
+of others left behind at the station.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat,
+and only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the
+train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of a
+different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build; close
+shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and in
+order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and not
+from that tailor to all the crowned heads,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+High Style. Over the whole man was that look of absolute
+cleanness&mdash;mental, moral, and physical&mdash;which a smooth face
+always sets off to the best advantage. Step firm and businesslike, eyes
+quick and kind. A man "at leisure from himself," for all the work his
+Master might set before him. Was there, perhaps, work here?</p>
+
+<p>The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping
+off at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night
+drew on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there
+one by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car,
+and from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing
+that he would come and sit by <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of
+the chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another,
+"Run, speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no
+audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the
+car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by
+young Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br />
+READY FOR DUTY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">The man that wants me is the man I want.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Dr. Edward Payson.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the
+stranger said as he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the
+answer broader than the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on
+softly to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul,
+wait thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a
+minute or two.</p>
+
+<p>"They had supper at Beaver Junction."</p>
+
+<p>"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I didn't want any."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said
+Mr. Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They <i>used</i> to
+stop at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the
+road."</p>
+
+<p>He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the
+conductor was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that
+another chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where
+they had to wait for the train from Combination.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a
+closer survey.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. It will not be near <i>me</i> for two years," said Magnus,
+trying to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his
+travels, and far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was
+almost a groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West
+Point?" he said the next minute in his quick way.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get
+to West Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you
+will see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first
+thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd
+better do a little at it before you get there."</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the
+merry glance that went with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Often."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up
+in his interest.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr.
+Wayne. "With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart
+to, and never get it back."</p>
+
+<p>"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All
+sorts."</p>
+
+<p>"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Be it ever so homely,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember
+varieties?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was
+waste time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get
+through."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near
+home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so
+everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But
+here is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my
+guest, and when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you
+don't want to go, and eat when you are not hungry."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly
+lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer
+railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from
+munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time
+seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came
+back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise
+and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into
+life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole
+little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a
+sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and
+sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when
+Magnus roused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and the young head
+sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back of the seat,
+then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had vanished,
+and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.</p>
+
+<p>"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the
+clear skin and pure colour, "and well brought up"&mdash;for
+unmistakable lines of truth and intelligence marked the face.
+"Warm-hearted&mdash;almost&mdash;as a woman, and wilful enough for two!
+What will he do at West Point? and what will West Point do to him?"</p>
+
+<p>The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that
+longing petition of the Lord himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that
+thou shouldest keep them from the evil."</p>
+
+<p>So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep,
+until the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two
+new-made friends went back to their car after breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ordered to report to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, not until Friday."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you stay to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything
+at West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in
+town with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you live in town, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred,
+and he entered into this plan with great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+alacrity; nor ever guessed, till he went home on furlough and put up at
+the same hotel, how large a part of his fare that night was paid by Mr.
+Wayne himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least
+according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands
+on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two
+o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him
+sleep a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened
+again until broad daylight.</p>
+
+<p>The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus,
+the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own.
+Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat,
+orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading
+his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and
+then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his
+own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came
+a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then
+Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone,
+which was all that could be wished.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together.
+There their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road,
+while Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said
+Mr. Wayne, as they stepped along.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard work, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you
+expect to keep yourself at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own will, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to
+its duty?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and
+often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow
+up the whole concern."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy
+with some quickness.</p>
+
+<p>"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the
+wrong things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to
+have the 'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working
+order."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be
+for four years."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at
+West Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the
+United States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether
+you like it or not, whether you understand it or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing
+to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but
+that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and
+neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the
+least."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds hard," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> hard."</p>
+
+<p>"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus
+with a boy's air of competent criticism.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If
+the authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I
+would have that written up over your door in gilt letters."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the
+absolute needs-be."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a
+wondering look at his new-found friend.</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and
+a few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may
+come to."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been <i>there</i>?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad
+I am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all
+that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got
+shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as
+much in grey as you ever will in blue."</p>
+
+<p>"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls
+is the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else,
+from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders&mdash;sworn
+in to obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must
+have forgotten. He never <i>means</i> to disobey.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on
+this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name,
+it is a West Point tactical officer."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+"Who is he?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue,
+specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."</p>
+
+<p>"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see
+if you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that
+on me!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne laughed a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that
+you haven't got does not pay at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with
+growing distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and
+that often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear
+to obey orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come
+out. From the time you get up till the time you go to bed,&mdash;and
+after."</p>
+
+<p>"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive
+lift of the brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being
+asleep will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will
+come round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if
+you are not <i>too</i> tired, I think you had better get up.'"</p>
+
+<p>It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that
+the boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.</p>
+
+<p>"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his
+self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with
+corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it
+comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."</p>
+
+<p>"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that
+kind office for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+another man detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house
+by his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was
+not all of enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered
+Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you
+can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you
+must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and
+pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up
+the other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I <i>am</i> rather
+lazy."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I
+want you to make friends with the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the
+time? That is glorious!"</p>
+
+<p>"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm
+flag in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What
+would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came
+by who did not like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to
+offend?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"But Young America can <i>suppose</i>, for the argument's sake," said Mr.
+Wayne, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as
+you say. And I say, the man would come
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+down, a long sight ahead of the Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending
+anybody, for the flag."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point.
+Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are
+open."</p>
+
+<p>So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train
+moved slowly out of the Grand Central.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br />
+THE FLAG</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now it catches the gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the morning's first beam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Francis Key.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you
+leave the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in
+the long passage under ever-arching streets; and whatever the Harlem
+end of New York may have been, it is not delightsome to look upon
+now.</p>
+
+<p>But the way to the turn is not long; and once round that corner, and
+racing along the river side, there is enough to see, well worth the
+seeing. And it was all new to Magnus. The wonderful rush of the mighty
+river, rolling its blue waves in endless curls and undulations; the
+stately Palisades, with their drapings of June green; the white-winged
+craft on the water, and the white-winged gulls in the air; all made the
+boy's heart leap. Here went a steamer, ploughing her crested furrows;
+now and then the train stopped for breath at some station with a
+strange name. It was all a wonderful new world.</p>
+
+<p>With his face close to the window Magnus looked eagerly out; sending
+his gaze as far up the river as the headlands and bends would let him;
+and at last in the distance beyond the narrowing waters of Haverstraw
+Bay, and above the nearer hillsides, rose lovely mountain-heads. Not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+towering and stupendous, such as he might have seen many a time in the
+Western States, but soft, rounded, exquisite; just high enough, in
+fact, to claim the dignified name of mountains, as distinguished from
+mere hills. What they were, and where they belonged, Magnus could not
+tell. They rose up, and stretched out, and locked in, in an impassable
+sort of way; as if they might be miles off from the river. He did not
+know whether West Point was near them. And yet, by his time-table,
+there was but one station more before he must leave the train.</p>
+
+<p>Now the engine rushed inland for a bit, losing sight of the river,
+and Magnus studied the time-table again, assuring himself for the
+twentieth time of the precise hour and minute when he was expected to
+reach Garrisons. Then as the train drew up at Peekskill, he gazed out
+at that dingy combination which gathers round a railway station. The
+engine got its quantum of water, darted on, and then&mdash;ah, what
+could be fairer! Magnus almost shouted with delight as they swept
+around the curve, with the full south view for a moment, past Anthony's
+Nose, and with the Dunderberg across the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"What are these mountains called?" he asked of a Peekskill passenger
+who had taken the seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Highlands&mdash;Hudson Highlands," said the man. "You don't belong
+round here, likely?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never was here before."</p>
+
+<p>"You've come to the right place, then. Aint purtier mountings
+nowhere. Such a lot o' happenings, too. Now, right <i>here</i>,"&mdash;as
+the train rushed through a deep rock cut,&mdash;"just about here, was
+where Benedict Arnold sneaked off to find the <i>Vulture</i>. And earth nor
+water didn't nary one on 'em open and swaller him up."</p>
+
+<p>"Then this is Teller's Point!" cried Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Teller's Point it is. And up yonder, to your right, is where the
+scamp was livin', and gettin' his breakfast that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+mornin', when the Father of his country come, and all but cotched him.
+Tell you, these old hills has seen things! But now look this way a bit.
+See that crick over there, and the mill? Fort Montgomery's one side,
+to the north, and t'other side o' the crick is Fort Clinton; and down
+there, atween 'em, is where they fit the battle and killed my great
+grandfather. They do say, the Continentals was that mad they pitched
+all the Hessians into the crick. Tell you what, young man, it's fine to
+have one o' the family die in the service. I aint partic'lar about its
+bein' me, you understand, but some one on 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'd be ready to have it you?" said Magnus, eyeing his new
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Likely I would, if the tug came. Life's life, howsoever, when there
+aint no special call to get along without it. They're tryin' to learn
+them boys at West Point how to fight; but la! this here sham work don't
+go for nothin'. Live in peace till the time comes, say I."</p>
+
+<p>"But you want to be ready for the time," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready?" the man repeated. "Take your pitchfork and <i>go</i>. That's
+ready enough for me. It did average well, in '76."</p>
+
+<p>"Garri-sons!" sang out the brakeman, flinging back the door.
+"Garrisons! Ferry to West Point."</p>
+
+<p>And in another minute Magnus was out on the platform, and heard the
+little ferryboat ringing her bell. He looked eagerly about him, found
+the right official to take his check, and following that bell, marched
+down to the <i>Highlander</i>, and went on board.</p>
+
+<p>A down train was nearly due, so there were a few minutes to wait;
+and Magnus pushed straight on to the little forward deck, and then
+forgot everything in what he saw.</p>
+
+<p>It was unearthly fair, this bit of the world that lay before him.
+The lovely green further shore, decked from river side to sky edge in
+the rich growth and colouring of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+early summer; the hills but hardly yet in their full depth of green, so
+that the dark cedars and hemlocks stood out markedly among the tender
+hues of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and maples. From the midst of the
+trees on the table-land rose up chimneys, pointed roofs, round roofs,
+and domes, which as yet meant nothing to Charlemagne Kindred. The river
+rolled placidly by, stirred into wavelets by the fresh, sweet breeze;
+close at hand he could hear the soft lapping of the water against the
+sides of the boat. All sweet, all strange; and between the two, Magnus
+very nearly let his head go down.</p>
+
+<p>But now came the thunder of the down train; the inviting ding-dong
+of the ferryboat made itself once more heard, a little throng of
+passengers came hurrying on board, and then they were off. Crossing the
+Rubicon, Magnus felt, if he did not say.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments still he stood quite alone on the forward deck.
+How fast the little steamer parted the blue waters that lay between
+him and his new life! Hilltops to the north, hilltops to the south,
+Anthony's Nose cutting the river off on the one hand, Martlaer's
+Rock&mdash;the old "East Point" of the maps&mdash;closing it in on the
+other. Before him, West Point, "Tacs," and orders; behind him, the road
+by which he had come from home.</p>
+
+<p>Then the swing-door slammed, and a bevy of girls came rushing
+out to the front of the boat. Magnus turned to look at them, then
+instinctively took a stand further back, where he could gaze less
+visibly.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly he had seen girls enough to know the genus, but these were
+a new species. Such hats, such heels, such giggles, such bewildering
+dresses. Such knots of riband, such spots of velvet, such piles of
+artificial flowers, such very pretty faces. Not handsome, like Cherry,
+Magnus said indignantly, calling himself to order; and then began to
+wonder how Cherry would look dressed <i>so</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+And even as the thought came, he heard one whisper to the other, "A
+candidate."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus felt unreasonably angry. What business had they to pick
+him out? And how was he a marked man, anyway? But their notice of him
+was short.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at Jenny!" giggled one, half under her breath, pointing to a
+girl who leaned on the railing, and never took her eyes from the West
+Point shore. "He isn't on the watch, sweet child: it's one o'clock,
+and they're all in the Mess Hall. Don't send such wistful looks on
+ahead, or they'll mount the hill and spoil his digestion." And she half
+whistled, half sang:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come fill up your glasses, and don't stand back;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Vive la compagnie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drink to the health of our Captain Jack&mdash;&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"You don't call him plain 'Jack' yet, do you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you <i>could</i> talk a little sense!" murmured the girl at the
+railing. "I shall never call him '<i>plain</i>' anything."</p>
+
+<p>The girls choked with laughter, which half rippled out, and half was
+smothered. Then the talk went on, in the same undertones; not as if it
+was meant to be heard, and yet which Magnus could not help hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"She's such a Paul Pry! Said to me the other day when we were out
+walking, 'But you are not in love with any one of the class?' I said,
+'No; I'm in love with the whole class.' Oh, dear! it will be too
+dreadful when they all go!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are always candidates," whispered another, with a glance
+towards Magnus, and then the boat touched her landing, and the girls
+hurried on shore.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus did not hurry. He had no quarters to spend on omnibus fare,
+and no mind at all to be wedged in among those lively ladies. He picked
+up his bag and walked after the stage as it slowly climbed the hill. A
+few swift strides would have easily taken him beyond it. But he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+lingered and loitered, sat down on the tall stone curbing of the road,
+and tried to find out why he felt so uncomfortable. What if he was a
+"candidate"? There was Cherry, and the other two girls at home, on
+tiptoe over that very fact. Why should West Point feel so differently?
+He had come to learn to serve and to defend his country; to grace her
+ranks, wherever he might be.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked after his stageful of enemies, and seeing that
+they had turned down towards the south, he quickened his steps, and
+soon reached the top of the hill. There paused again, partly for
+strangeness, and partly for wonder. It was all so beautiful, so new.</p>
+
+<p>The grass, close shaven and vividly green, covered the ground on
+every side; up the slopes, and down in the hollows; with only the
+cavalry plain lying brown and bare in the sunshine. Buildings, with
+hardly two alike, were dropped down for the most part in a long,
+curving line, the end of which he could not see. No people, anywhere,
+for it was dinner time or lunch time all over the Post; only as
+Magnus crossed the road to get a nearer view of the buildings, he
+came upon a very distinguished personage with a gun on his shoulder,
+pacing aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. His uniform was blue, his
+"deportment" fierce. "He must be an officer," thought the boy to
+himself, "and this some special important point he must watch."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus found a seat under a friendly tree, and studied him. That
+slow, ceaseless, back-and-forth march, fascinated the quicksilver
+youngster. Orioles whistled over his head, sparrows sang, catbirds
+cried out in fear or shouted for joy. Further off was the whistle and
+roar of trains, and the bell of the ferryboat. In every pause the
+breeze rustled softly by, and the river plashed against the shore. He
+had never seen anything so lovely in all his life. But now, where were
+all those voices?&mdash;a mild roar of talk.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Plainly, in that small grey stone castle just over the way.</p>
+
+<p>He strolled on again, passed the old Academic, and came out upon the
+plain. And then for a while he forgot everything but what his eyes took
+in.</p>
+
+<p>The smooth greensward, irregularly framed in with trees, and having
+here and there a slight undulation which only heightened its beauty,
+lay shimmering in the summer sun. On one side, behind the trees, the
+row of houses went its winding way; on the other, the trees drew
+together rather thinly in a little wood; but Magnus just then gave
+no heed to either. His eyes followed the green right on to a sort of
+jumping-off place, where the ground dropped suddenly all along the
+line. There too was a closer-set clump of trees; and from among them,
+white and slim, rose the tall flagstaff, bearing aloft the beautiful
+banner of the Stars and Stripes.</p>
+
+<p>There was not much wind, and the great flag hung in those half-way
+curves which are more picturesque than the full expansion. Softly
+twisting, turning, its mighty folds; the red, white, and blue seeming
+ever in playful strife for the upper hand, which should show most and
+which give way.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at it, and then instantly bared his head. He had
+never seen so large a flag, nor ever one that floated with such clear
+assumption of its rights; such careless, easy grace in claiming and
+keeping them. "Make a friend of the flag," Mr. Wayne had said, and from
+this moment the boy took it to his very heart. Fight for it? Aye, that
+he would!</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly across the plain, still watching the flag, until
+he stood close beneath it, and could hear the soft flapping of the
+halyards as they beat against the pole. But now it was fairyland
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>All about him, spotting the green grass, were guns: big
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+guns and little guns; shining black and mouldy green; with piles
+of wicked-looking black shot. The guns themselves, like many other
+senders-forth of mischief, looked sleepy and innocent enough. Tall
+trees rose up, bordering the little platform, from which the ground
+fell off steeply towards the river; some younger and softer tree heads
+showing there and hindering the further view. But Magnus wanted no more
+views just then.</p>
+
+<p>He stood leaning back against the white flagstaff, and for the
+moment felt content. Over his head the lovely folds of the flag curled
+and drooped and stretched away upon the wind; and again, as Magnus
+looked up at it, he doffed his hat. Then he found himself wondering
+what they did to the grass in this part of the world, to make it so
+smooth and soft and even. Then two or three uniforms went by, and he
+wondered over them: it was in truth fairyland. Oh, if the folks at home
+could only see it! And then, suddenly, fairyland shifted its place, and
+fled away far out West, to the lonely regions of Barren Heights. Oh,
+if&mdash;not that they were here, but that he was there!&mdash;just
+back once more at home! The boy's hat came down low over his eyes. What
+did that old flag care for him? And what did he care for grass, or
+views, or uniforms, or anything else, but only just to see mother, and
+the girls, and Cherry?</p>
+
+<p>"Bracing up" is often so useful a process that one must not be
+too hard upon the agents that oblige us thereto; and this time the
+agents were very comely. A cluster of young girls, clad in all the
+pretty frippery of the day, came giggling along the walk towards the
+flagstaff. It was not, Say something and laugh at it&mdash;or, Say
+something to make the others laugh; but there was a chronic state of
+giggle, as if life were such a very droll thing that no occasional
+outburst could do it justice. The walk passed the flagstaff with some
+little green space between; and they came flickering
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+along (I am really at a loss for a word); changing places, pulling each
+other, pushing each other, whispering, sometimes half-dancing, down the
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that Magnus "braced up" immediately; and still
+leaning against the flagstaff, watched them from under his hat.</p>
+
+<p>These were not his fair foes of the ferryboat, whom he had supposed
+were rare specimens: now he was to learn that the species is widespread
+and common, in June. Again he heard the obnoxious word, "candidate."</p>
+
+<p>"Holding up the flagstaff, as usual," said the leading girl. "I do
+verily believe they think that's what they come for."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said another. "Don't talk so loud. He might hear."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll hear worse than that, before he's been here many days," said
+the first. "I'll just break it to him by degrees. Say, girls, let's go
+and give him his 'technical,' and get the start of Devlin Fritz."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> be quiet!" said a third. "No wonder they all call you 'Miss
+Saucy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It's something to have them <i>all</i> call you anything," returned the
+young lady with much content.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's true!" said another. "I declare, girls, I think it's too
+bad. Here I've spent ten pounds of candy since I came, and I haven't
+got one special cadet yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Huyler's?" demanded Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Huyler's."</p>
+
+<p>"Get Dulce to hand you over Mr. Day. She bores the poor boy to
+death. I know he'd be glad of almost any change," said Miss Flirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Or she might try a 'candied date,'" suggested Miss Saucy with a
+sideway gesture.</p>
+
+<p>In the small babel of words and laughter that followed this, the
+girls drifted away out of hearing, and the sweet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+summer air was silent again. The leaves clapped hands softly, the folds
+of the beautiful flag curled and played as before over the head of the
+young candidate. But in the heart of Magnus himself, just now, the
+summer grace and peace found no foothold. Rather, his thoughts were
+like a November gale, with the air full of dust and rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>What if he <i>was</i> a candidate? Men had to be, when they first came,
+he supposed. And what if he <i>did</i> mean to hold up the flagstaff? who
+had a better right? Magnus looked up defiantly, and made a profound
+reverence to the Stars and Stripes. All the same, he edged away as
+he saw another party of girls approaching, and went and sat down on
+a long iron seat among the tree shadows. One thing was certain: his
+sisters&mdash;and Cherry&mdash;should never set foot here, if he could
+help it. He had been thinking&mdash;if only they could get money
+enough&mdash;how fine it would be to have them all come and see this
+beautiful place. Such walks as they could take! But West Point just
+<i>swarmed</i> with girls already. And at this point of his meditations
+Magnus was quite sure that he heard "candidate" again, from another
+jocund voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, let's find out."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" said a pink vision.</p>
+
+<p>"Fun," said the white one: "Oh, I know the regulation questions."
+And but half under her breath, the pretty tones sang out:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"See where he hails from&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What is his name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who was his 'pred.,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And why he came."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Who cares?" said the other girl, hurrying her along.
+"Come, we are late."</p>
+
+<p>That party passed, followed, it must be owned, by some rather fierce
+looks from Magnus. Then, slowly strolling down the pathway, came two
+more: a girl, in the height of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+every fashion, and a tall fellow in close-fitting grey coat and the
+whitest of unwrinkled trousers. Over his head he carried the girl's
+scarlet and lace parasol, shielding himself as carefully as if she had
+brought it for that express purpose. As perhaps she had: who knows? At
+all events, the little lady gazed up at the dark sunburnt face, with
+its vivid background, as if nothing could be too good to screen such a
+complexion. And he looked down at her&mdash;well, women never get just
+what they give, but he did look very admiringly; as if the delicate
+face needed nothing, not even a parasol.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever was the reason, this couple made Magnus more irate than
+any that had gone before. There was an instant antagonism to the tall
+cadet. His uniform was so becoming, and fitted so well; the glancing
+buttons were so attractive; the gold bars on the upper arm had such
+a distinguished look; the young stranger set him down at once for a
+coxcomb. But there was a little envy in it all. How cleverly he cut
+down the military stride to keep step with the girl's mincing feet; a
+difficult thing, as Magnus knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Taking care of his own precious face, and letting hers burn!" quoth
+the young civilian; but all the same, he would have given more money
+than he was likely to have soon to be in just such guise himself, with
+Cherry by his side. He'd show that fellow a thing or two.</p>
+
+<p>He was getting homesick again. All these people, with their friends
+and their fun, made him feel so desolately far away from everybody. He
+slouched his hat down further, and wandered off again, not looking much
+where he went; just following the path beneath his feet. Slowly round
+the guns, then on along the bank, and there found more seats. There
+was no sound of voice or step here, and Magnus sat down wearily, and
+leaned his head on his arm, and tried to fight the homesickness. For
+the moment he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+despised the whole race of girls, Cherry, of course, excepted.
+"Simpering up into that fellow's face, as if there had never been a man
+before, nor would be again."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, there was certainly a twinge of envy in Charlemagne's heart.
+The tall cadet had carried himself with such careless, graceful
+erectness that there was no relief to be had out of calling him a
+"ramrod." And his white trousers were <i>so</i> white, and so without a
+wrinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to know how he manages that," thought Magnus, the envy
+passing into wonder. With him, white trousers had been always uncertain
+and short-lived things. And now his thoughts flew far away again,
+over hills and prairie land; and once more he was going through wild
+exploits at home; getting himself wet and muddy, and having the girls
+laugh at him from the midst of their intact fresh draperies. Magnus
+drew a long, heavy sigh.</p>
+
+<p>Then he roused himself and sat up; for again those measured steps,
+the peculiar tread of which he was just learning to know, sounded near
+by; and another cadet, from the opposite direction, came down the walk.
+He glanced at Magnus, then crossed the grass, and took his seat on the
+other end of the same bench; but said not a word, only gazed placidly
+up the river. And now, as one always looks whither another is looking,
+so also did Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>There were no trees in the way here, and the view was open. Close
+at his feet the ground fell sharply down to the level of the siege
+battery, where a dozen guns and mortars kept grim watch, their ugly
+black mouths pointed up-stream. Beyond the green parapet nothing made
+much show till you reached the river itself, which for ten miles here
+came flowing gently down, with no sharp turns; the whole of "Martlaer's
+Reach" lay full in sight. In the far, far distance, an irregularly
+broken line of blue peaks brushed softly against the sky. At their feet
+lay the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+green wooded slopes of the Newburgh hills, with Newburgh itself
+sparkling in the sun. The line stretched across so straight from side
+to side, as if there the river began.</p>
+
+<p>Nearer, and on either hand, rising in abrupt masses from the water's
+edge, lay Butter Hill and Breakneck, Bull Hill and Crow Nest; pillars
+of the north Highland gateway. All green, from brow to base, except
+where every now and then the granite framework of the mountains pushed
+itself through in crags and ridges. The green was exquisite, with all
+the lush hues of June.</p>
+
+<p>Between the hills the flood of the great river poured along
+unchecked, until where in the very foreground the grey-green bluff
+of Martlaer's Rock thrust itself out athwart the stream; bringing
+it with one sharp turn to its very narrowest and deepest part. For
+a little distance then, in front of Magnus, the river ran east and
+west&mdash;along the Rock; then took another short turn, and went
+racing south; the lovely "Shaw-na-taw-ty," that "flows toward the
+midday." Between the river and the homesick boy lay only the broken
+hillside and the silent guns.</p>
+
+<p>There were no human voices, either, but a chance medley of sweet
+sounds from other throats. Song sparrows in their rollicking glee, with
+the homespun twitter of a chipping sparrow, giving her brood their
+first outing. Robins kept up their changing chorus; crows cawed; among
+the distant trees you could hear the thrush bells now and then. The
+indescribable sighs and murmurs and trills of the summer wind, the soft
+touches of the mighty river along its banks, filled every moment of
+unappropriated time.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus forgot everything, as he looked and listened. June threw her
+warm spell over him, and for the minute again he was content.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that can't be beat," remarked his neighbour in grey, who had
+been watching him closely. "Look at it all you want to; now is a good
+time."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+"I think every time is good, for such a view," Magnus said, facing
+round.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you report?" asked the other abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow." Magnus answered the question, perceiving the next
+instant that again he was noted as a candidate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, next week, if you are here, you'll find some other hills
+lying round promiscuous, and you won't think quite so much about
+these."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know I was to report at all?"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No mistaking a candidate," he said. "You have the real all-overish
+look about you. And no need to huff up at it, either. I've been there
+myself, so I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it here?" said Magnus, the flush cooling down.</p>
+
+<p>"Fair to middling. When I'm up in math., keep out of Con., and don't
+get skinned too often."</p>
+
+<p>This was high Dutch to Magnus. But he was at the age when pertinent
+questions are far harder to ask than the impertinent; and nothing would
+have made him show his ignorance. He went back to the last subject.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you know, because you've been a candidate yourself; but who
+tells all these girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the girls!" said the cadet. "Yes, there's a good many girls
+here; and what some of 'em don't know, and don't do, wouldn't fill a
+collar-box. Even Crinkem's head could hold it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Crinkem?"</p>
+
+<p>"My respected classmate. Absolutely worried along so far, and gone
+on furlough. Nobody can guess how he did it, either. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>The cadet gave a long, "Whew!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you have for week days?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+"Not quite," said Magnus, smiling in spite of himself. "They call me
+Magnus, at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't do you any good here," said the other, shaking his head.
+"Name's got to go down in full, if it was Beelzebub Nebuchadnezzar.
+You'll be rechristened for common use."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they always do that?" said Magnus, looking grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Mostly."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus reddened.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see what the Faculty have to do with my name," he said.
+"It's not their business."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the Faculty, as you call them, at all," said the cadet, "but
+your beloved fellow-students. They will take almost as anxious care of
+you as will the Com."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the other cadets!" said Magnus loftily. "I'll take care of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I would," said the man in grey with dry emphasis. "Not too many at
+once. There's quite a few of them."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat studying the north view without seeing it.</p>
+
+<p>"But how is this?" he said suddenly. "You say your classmate has
+gone on furlough&mdash;why aren't you gone too?"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Some men leave their country for their country's good," he said,
+"and some stay in it, same at same. I lost my furlough. But anyhow
+Crinkem went ahead of time; folks sick at home. He's always in
+luck."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lost</i> it," Magnus repeated. "How could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy enough, if you run against the Tacs in a tight place. Lose
+anything here, except your heart and your appetite."</p>
+
+<p>But to these last words Magnus gave no heed; his whole soul was
+astir with this new idea. <i>Lose his furlough!</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+Not go home even at the end of the two long years!</p>
+
+<p>"Can you do that?" he said. "Is it often done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so very. Oh, you can do it, fast enough, if you have a run of
+bad luck, as I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe in luck," Magnus answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you? Well, you will, when you've been here a month."</p>
+
+<p>And now a party of strollers came by the seat; another much-dressed
+young damsel, set in a framework of grey uniforms. As they passed, the
+lady bowed; Magnus's friend stood up and doffed his cap, the other
+cadets also touching theirs; and again (against his will) Magnus
+admired and envied the easy precision of every movement. He wondered if
+he could take off his hat with that peculiar swing?&mdash;and said no,
+to himself, at once. But he would have it before furlough&mdash;and how
+astonished Cherry would be!</p>
+
+<p>"Been round Flirtation?" demanded his new acquaintance abruptly,
+watching the three who went slowly on towards where the path left the
+brow of the hill, and ran down among the cedars.</p>
+
+<p>"Round flirtation!"</p>
+
+<p>The cadet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't look so scared," he said&mdash;"it's only one of
+our walks. At least it isn't generally anything else. Come on, and
+I'll show it to you. I don't see what Fitch is after with that girl;
+cutting out poor little Day. And he can talk a dozen to Day's one. Come
+along."</p>
+
+<p>So they rose up, and stepped on at a good pace, till they had the
+others in full sight again; dropping then into the like easy saunter.
+At least it was easy to one, but for Magnus like being in bonds; and he
+was constantly getting ahead, checking himself, and falling back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+"I'll teach them how to walk, when I'm once in," he thought. Then
+aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"We should call this slow doings out West," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said his companion. "Generally want to get there, out West, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"We certainly do."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Well, those folks don't."</p>
+
+<p>It was such a self-evident fact about the three in front, that
+Magnus looked from them to the man at his side, and his eyes flashed
+with fun. They both laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do none of them ever want to get <i>anywhere</i>?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Not often&mdash;on Flirtation. Spoil the fun, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you say that is Mr. Fitch, and the other is Mr. Day, then who
+are you?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure!" said the cadet with a lazy drawl. "I've been wondering
+how long a Westerner could get along without asking."</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus grew hot at this implied charge, he had no chance to show
+it then. A sudden drum-call, clear and loud, sent its racket through
+the still air. The cadet stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he said; "that beastly review is to come off, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>And without another word, he turned and darted up the hill. In
+another minute, Fitch and Day went speeding by, at the same keen,
+measured pace, which struck Magnus as unlike anything he had ever seen.
+A few bounds brought him up to the green level of the plain, where he
+could watch the three, as they hurried along to the grey barracks.
+Nor those three alone. From every side, from all directions, the grey
+and white came hurrying in. Hurrying&mdash;yet always with the same
+even, regular, swift step; the foot lifted just so high, the right arm
+swinging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+just so far; and with no seeming effort. Magnus saw one and another of
+them take off his cap to some lady as he flew by, but without the least
+pause or break. Only two or three very much belated men dropped into a
+walk as they neared the barracks. As Rosamund said, "It was too late to
+get up early."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br />
+A LONELY CANDIDATE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Nothing useless is, or low;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Each thing in its place is best:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And what seems but idle show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Strengthens and supports the rest.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus strolled leisurely along, thinking first that he could show
+these cadets how to run, and then beginning to have grave doubts on
+the subject; and finally finding himself a seat under the trees, where
+he could look and listen in shady comfort. Eyes and ears had full
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>There was a busy note of preparation everywhere, and especially
+among the drums. Beating there, and then beating here; the sound caught
+up and echoed back from the grey rocks on the green hillside. Then
+came out uniforms of various sorts (Magnus personified the dress, not
+knowing the men) and proceeded to mark off a certain space on the green
+in front of him, setting a gay little banner at the four corners of a
+large, large square.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at first slowly, but soon hurrying up from every point
+of the compass, a many-coloured crowd swarmed in and filled the
+seats&mdash;filled them presently so full that Magnus gave up his place
+to the next gauzy creature that came along. She fluttered down into the
+seat with much gratulation and no thanks, and Magnus gravely took his
+stand in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>He had no lack of company, even there. Officers in various uniforms,
+civilians in all sorts of coats, and girls in all sorts of finery,
+stood beside and around him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+And now, also, there came straying in another small posse, whom Magnus
+instinctively knew as of his own kind. Yes, they must be candidates;
+partly, perhaps, because they could not possibly be anything else; no
+other class owned them. Yet how did <i>he</i> know that?&mdash;to whom all
+classes here were strange. What possible connection between that dapper
+little fellow in straw hat and black alpaca coat, and this young giant
+who wore a cloth cap and a fluttering linen duster? Or how was his
+next neighbour in a Derby and long frock coat like the fourth man, who
+wore brown trousers, a cutaway coat, and a wide-awake? Yet even Magnus
+could see that "candidate" was written on them all. So plainly, indeed,
+that he stepped further back and put himself behind the tree. Anybody
+who looked at him standing there&mdash;and some did look&mdash;saw a
+tall, well-made young fellow in a neat and perfectly unobtrusive suit
+of brown-grey cloth. Very dark hair and with a wilful curl that tossed
+it about every way. Excellent features, ignorant as yet of life's
+moulding touch; and a sweet, mobile mouth, set just now in very grave
+lines indeed, and so hiding one of the great charms of his face. For
+nobody could watch Magnus Kindred when he smiled or laughed, and not
+notice the <i>clean</i> look: the utterly pure and true lines into which
+those grave ones changed. For the rest, hands and feet were well shaped
+and in excellent order; and the whole bearing was both self-reliant and
+unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>But it seemed as if the gayer grew the scene, the soberer grew that
+young face gazing out from behind the tree. For of all the lonely
+places, commend me to an unknown throng of pleasure-seekers, where
+everyone belongs to someone, is waiting for someone, or is waited for,
+and you belong to none. No eyes are watching for you, no heart stirs
+when you come in sight; and no one will miss you if you do not come at
+all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded
+almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between
+himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls,
+thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them
+was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and
+flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own
+dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the
+boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers
+he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He
+looks pretty homesick."</p>
+
+<p>"Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German,
+Floy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>he</i> can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached
+the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a
+candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't
+wear chevrons."</p>
+
+<p>And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next
+neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve
+to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him.
+These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken
+cords are strong.</p>
+
+<p>How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood
+where they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees,
+and made a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians,
+matrons, girls&mdash;and candidates. Little children dropped down
+on the green edge of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and
+hard-pushed people sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant
+came along, waving them off with his black wand. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+the people jumped up, growling and frowning, and, as soon as they saw
+his back, dropped down again.</p>
+
+<p>As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening
+cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he
+would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations.
+Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit
+or change. Not to see home again for two long years.</p>
+
+<p>Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set
+himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all
+his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to
+someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the
+whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper.
+"Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the review went on; the citizen actors showed how they
+could not march and the cadets how they could; and this last part was
+so fine that Magnus fairly forgot himself and his trouble. Round the
+great square they went; the grey and white lines moving like some one
+elastic thing. Corners made no break, hot sunbeams seemed unnoticed.
+So they marched round; first slow, then fast; and then began the
+double-timing.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful it was! Privates in their glancing lines; cadet
+officers leading on, and running backwards or forwards with equally
+unerring footsteps. Heading all, the Commandant. Years had passed away
+since he learned the double-quick; and the supple boy had changed
+into the grey-haired man; but his foot never faltered, his step never
+lagged. The white-plumed blue uniform led on the grey with a gallantry
+it was pretty to see. Magnus watched the whole with deepest admiration;
+down to the last bit of timeful running with no music to mark it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>He was noticing every step; eyeing the black shoe-soles
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+that came up as one, the bent-knee line of white trousers, the glitter
+of the guns; forgetting everything else, when again the hated word came
+full upon his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Just look at that candidate, will you! It's as good as a play. I
+wonder he didn't join in."</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as," was answered in a drawling tone by her escort. "There he
+stands. Study his perfections now, while you can, Miss Jenny. Next week
+he will have ceased to shine upon the polite world. Exit the candidate,
+enter the beast. That is, if he gets in, which is doubtful."</p>
+
+<p>A small thing may do the work where a large one fails; trains got no
+hearing, after that. That he would enter became instantly a fixed fact
+to that particular candidate.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was certainly pretty. How would Cherry look, sitting
+there, and with himself in a grey coat bending over her, and twirling
+her parasol? Cherry was handsomer&mdash;miles away&mdash;than this
+girl. Deeper eyes, tenderer mouth, more glowing cheeks, too, for that
+matter. Yet she would not look <i>so</i>, the boy honestly owned to himself,
+though fuming a little over the admission; the whole make-up would be
+different. The very idea of such shoes as this damsel thrust out into
+the sunlight had never entered Cherry's wholesome head. "Shoe pegs,"
+Magnus called the heels, with great scorn, and set right in the middle
+of her foot. And scarlet stockings. And her dress&mdash;what was it
+made of? No, Cherry would not look so; and however he might frown,
+Magnus felt the glamour, as most men do, of city dressmaking and "the
+correct thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Country-made gowns look so different," said someone behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Then that girl further on, in fluffs of white lace and muslin, white
+shoes, white gloves, and her dainty head crowned with "an acre" of
+Leghorn, and "a half bushel" of roses. No, neither would Cherry look
+like her. And now the boy's fancy brought the little country
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+maiden, in her country garb&mdash;even her Sunday best&mdash;and set
+her down beside these two. A plain white gown, with no setting off but
+the simple ruffles which Cherry had embroidered, and the exquisite
+laundry work which she had also done herself. Black shoes, which were
+made for walking ("but either one of those white ones could hold 'em
+both," thought Magnus, in his hot fancy). Then a broad straw hat, round
+which Violet's deft fingers had twined a dark green riband; while the
+hands, which were small, indeed, and comely, but unwhitened with either
+idleness or lemon, wore only a pair of spotless Lisle thread gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at the pink, the white, the tan kids all about him,
+and drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"But she <i>shall</i> sit there!" he said, with one of his fierce mental
+bursts. "She shall sit there, and look just so. No, not just so, for,
+if they try their prettiest, they can never any of them look like
+her."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br />
+IN FOR IT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">With this hand work, and with the other pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And God will bless them both from day to day.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Old Vierlander Motto.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some little time after the foregoing events, the
+following letter was sent from the West Point
+Post Office:</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Camp Hard</span>, June &mdash;, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Folks at Home</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am in for it. Uncle Sam has me, body and soul. At least
+the body is self-evident, and as I don't get time to say my soul's my
+own, I suppose he claims that, too,&mdash;Mr. Wayne to the contrary.
+Bought and paid for and sworn in; and earmarks enough for a drove of
+pigs. Do you want to know what I look like, you girls? Just at present
+I am a compound of grey and green in about equal mixture. No, I guess
+the green has it. Hair cut short, army shoes, and a brand new prison
+dress which might fit anybody else as well as it does me, and better. I
+get up by a gun, and go to bed by a drum, and have a bugle to tell me
+when to go to sleep, and as we are young and tender in the ways of the
+world, at every meal the first captain informs us when to stop eating.
+(He's nothing special to look at, Cherry. Don't open your eyes too
+wide. But he's such an old spoon that he's always in a hurry to get out
+and walk with some girl or other)."</p>
+
+<p>"We study straight lines in the morning, and play leap-frog <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> in
+the afternoon; and have girls come and make fun of us while we're at
+it. Yesterday they enjoyed it more than was good for themselves, and
+one of the officers ordered them off."</p>
+
+<p>"There are two special prigs in chevrons, who have charge of our
+thumbs and shoulderblades; and when you girls come to see me, <i>one</i>
+of 'em won't get an introduction, that's all. What do you think he
+did yesterday? It was hot enough to melt down your ideas, if you had
+any&mdash;hot as the middle line of the equator; and he had been
+drilling us as if he had never been drilled himself, and didn't know
+how it felt. So, when drill was over, he stood a lot of us round his
+tent door in the sun, and then made iced lemonade, and sat there
+drinking it with us looking on. Give us some? Not quite. Go to the
+store and buy our own lemons, Rose? Why, we can't get a shoestring
+without a special order. Corporal Mean smuggled in his sugar from the
+Mess Hall; and I guess Miss Flyaway brought him the lemons. If you want
+to know about Miss Flyaway, she's one of the girls; a summer girl, as
+they say here, and we plebs could spare her till winter just as well as
+not. She's as bad as a third-class corporal&mdash;only we can laugh at
+her and we can't at him. If we did, we'd be skinned in a minute. This
+is what I should hear read out after parade:</p>
+
+<p>"'Kindred&mdash;disrespect to superior officer, at about 4.30 <span
+class="smcap">P. M.</span>'&mdash;demerits according. Oh, well! we'll
+wear through somehow; it takes a good deal to kill a man. And they're
+not all like that. Cadet Captain Steady called me into his tent to-day
+and gave me a whole lot of good advice that would have gone to mother's
+heart. There's another Captain, too, Mr. Upright, who's as nice as
+he can be; and some of the Tacs aren't very bad to take. But we've
+got one in our company! I just wish you could see him. We call him
+Towser&mdash;because he's always nosing round,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+and sniffing about everywhere, to see what sort of a dry bone he
+can find to pick. He hasn't hived any of mine yet, but he spied
+a whole square inch of paper in front of Randolph's tent and
+reported him for disorder. You have to polish your shoestrings
+to go down A Company street, when he's in charge. So whoever
+sees him coming fires off a volley, and then we all know.
+Bow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow&mdash;wow!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll like my tentmate, Rig. That's not his name, of course,
+but we call him so because he's so B. J. about his dress. They don't
+leave him much hair to brush, but what he has takes up half his spare
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know mother is aching to put in her questions&mdash;just
+waiting till I get through writing stuff. Well, ma'am, you see, we just
+<i>have</i> to praise ourselves a little bit here, because if we don't do
+it, it don't get done; and so I call myself a pretty good boy. Whether
+I'd suit you exactly, I'll not say. I go to prayer-meeting twice a
+week and once to Chapel (<i>have</i> to go there, so you needn't give me
+a credit), and I've not missed reading my chapter one day yet. Mr.
+Upright came by the other day when I was at it, and he stopped and
+walked in."</p>
+
+<p>"'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he
+said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as much
+as you like; the more, the better. Remember:</p>
+
+<p class="center">"'He always wins, who sides with God.'"<br /></p>
+
+<p>"So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long
+as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours
+flying&mdash;a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here
+sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he declares:
+says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned back, and so he
+has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says there's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+no place in the course for religion; just as well give it up
+first as last."</p>
+
+<p>"So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her
+dictionary and never taught me how to spell the words."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years
+ago; though how she can enjoy herself up there, with him
+going on as he does down here, I can't see. Maybe she
+doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other
+all round for me, beginning anywhere."</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+"<span class="smcap">Magnus Kindred</span>,<br />
+U. S. Corps of Cadets."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow.
+But you see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his
+feelings to look like an acorn."</p>
+
+<p>This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped;
+went on the orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in
+due course, across the continent to the far-off simple home
+at Barren Heights. There it alighted with the force and
+precision of a bombshell. That is, if force may be measured
+by commotion.</p>
+
+<p>The strange phrases, the new ideas, the dim, vague
+vision of most unwonted doings&mdash;there is no telling what
+a stir-up it all was. The three girls had gone to the post
+office together in the course of their afternoon walk, and
+had taken turns at bringing the precious missive home.
+Now they sat about on the front steps, while Mrs. Kindred,
+in the porch rocking chair, opened and read the letter aloud.</p>
+
+<p>I think she never even thought of a hidden meaning in
+"Camp Hard," passing it by as a mere name; but as she
+read on, even where the words themselves were perplexing,
+their intent was unmistakable. At the end of almost the
+very first sentence Mrs. Kindred took off her glasses, laid
+them down on the letter, and looked about her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+"No time to say his soul is his own," she said. "Why, what does this
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody else had felt the shock, but as usual they all crowded in
+to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be just his way of talking," said Violet. "Don't you know,
+mother, that when Magnus gets excited he always goes on stilts?"</p>
+
+<p>"And of course, he is very busy," said Rose, "with so many new
+things to do."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can see he is talking in the air, Mrs. Kindred," said
+Cherry's sweet voice, "because he instances something for which he does
+<i>not</i> want time. Magnus has never called his soul his own, since he
+gave it to Christ to save and keep."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear boy!" said the mother. "Thank you, Cherry, for reminding me.
+Yes, I will not doubt,"&mdash;and she read on.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see why he says 'skinned,'" said Violet. "It's a very
+queer way to talk."</p>
+
+<p>"But just like him," said Rose. "Magnus always did talk
+wild&mdash;just a little bit," the sisterly censure softening down.
+"And you see they play games for exercise&mdash;so that is very
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose studying straight lines must mean drawing," said Cherry,
+looking down at the open letter. "Magnus will not care what they do, if
+they will only let him draw."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so anxious about all <i>that</i>," said the mother
+thoughtfully. "Boys at school must have some hardships and do many
+things they do not like. And you see he does go to prayer-meeting and
+read the Bible."</p>
+
+<p>"But he says such strange things," said Violet, studying the letter
+from her side. "Do all people in the East have names like that?
+'Rig,' and 'Mean,' and 'Upright'&mdash;it sounds like the Pilgrim's
+Progress."</p>
+
+<p>"And so it is," said the mother, smiling faintly, through
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+two big teardrops, "and Magnus is going over a part of the road where
+we have never been. That must be, girls. But the Lord is as strong
+there as here in Barren Heights; and Magnus is no weaker than he was at
+home&mdash;bless his dear heart! He never could bear that word 'weak.'
+I wish he had told us what he means by 'a storm flag.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it must be a flag that flies in all weathers!" cried Cherry.
+"So strong that the wind cannot tear it, and so deep-coloured that the
+rain cannot wash it out."</p>
+
+<p>Well for them all that she did not know enough to add, "And so small
+that it can hardly be seen."</p>
+
+<p>But no such thought cast its dark shadow. Mrs. Kindred looked at the
+sweet eyes, all aglow with the spirit of the martyrs; the lips in a
+quiver, the cheeks in a flush; then took Cherry in her arms and kissed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"You are never anything but a blessing," she said, and went away
+to pour out tears and petitions in her own private room; with a
+heart-aching sense all the while that she wished some other boy had
+the glory and the brass buttons, and that her own Magnus was safe at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the girls in the porch talked on.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you are right about the flag, Cherry," said Rose, "but
+there are other things I cannot understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It is dreadful about his clothes," put in Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mind <i>that</i> so much," said Rose. "Mother always said
+Magnus was a fidget to fit. But what <i>can</i> he mean by B. J.? Oh, girls,
+do you think it could possibly be some dreadful expression he has
+learned, and didn't like to write out to us?" And Rose put her head
+down, in great distress.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>could</i> not be!" said Violet, with a scared look. "Why, you are
+talking about Magnus! Rose, I believe you are crazy."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I must be," said Rose, lifting her head and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+brushing off the tears. "Of course, it is all my nonsense. Cherry,
+where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home," said the girl, pulling on her deep sun-bonnet. "I have
+something to do. I'll be down again soon."</p>
+
+<p>No one noticed how white the young face had grown while the other
+girls wept; no one guessed the cause of this sudden home-going; but as
+she went, Cherry clenched her hands for very anguish of heart. <i>Magnus</i>
+change like that? <i>Magnus</i> learn words so bad that he would not write
+them home? No indeed!&mdash;it could not be; she knew it could not.
+All the same, that vision of possibility had come into her heart, and
+come to stay; and nothing stilled the aching until she had carried her
+burden to the feet of Him, "Who is able to keep you from falling, and
+to present you faultless before the presence of his glory."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry did not cry: she was not given to tears: but from that day
+on, two Bible verses answered to each other in her heart like a sweet
+chime:</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, that have not defiled their
+garments," and "He is able to save to the uttermost."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br />
+RUBS THE WRONG WAY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Now don't go off half cock; folks never gains<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By usin' pepper sarce instead o' brains.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If Cadet Magnus Kindred knew in a general sort of
+way that all the simple, loving women folk at home
+were praying for him morning, noon, and night,
+"and watching thereunto with all perseverance," it was
+with a very easy remembrance of the fact, and not the
+faintest idea that anything but pleasure touched the case.
+And he would have simply shouted at Rose's panic over the
+unexplained "B. J." In fact, if anybody knows the origin
+of those two cabalistic letters, Magnus certainly did not.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he had scant time for running down questions. Drills began
+as soon as examination was over, and were pushed on "fiercely" (as
+Randolph declared), hot sun or no sun, rested or tired. Though Magnus
+had been used to such an active open-air life that all this came easier
+to him than to some others. As to the rest, he got along pretty well
+for a "pleb," having a certain sensible nature which made light of
+hardships, and was not quick to take offence. So when he was jeered and
+pointed at, chin poked in and toes pushed out, he rarely said anything
+stronger, even to himself, than, "Just you wait!" Good common sense
+everywhere befriended him, even when the drill masters abused their
+power, or first classmen showed their prowess by "jumping" plebs.</p>
+
+<p>So he brought in water and cleaned guns; stood attention, and stood
+his ground; and when the time came for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+that amusement, "advanced ghosts" in the most correct terms, but kept
+his musket against all attempts of Cadet Devlin and his compeers. Nay,
+on one such occasion, he gave the marauder the most accurate measure
+of himself upon the ground that the young man had ever had. Of course
+Magnus was reported, but he gave too straight answers for the charge
+to stand, and the upshot was that Mr. Devlin lost his chevrons "for
+hazing plebs." The whole account caused great consternation at home,
+only lulled by the assurance Magnus gave that if he had let anyone take
+his gun, he himself might have been put in "light prison" or sent home
+in disgrace. For to the bewildered mind of a pleb in those early days,
+anything might happen.</p>
+
+<p>Devlin swore vengeance, and in a small way carried it out. But young
+Kindred laughed off some things, ignored others, and now and then gave
+Mr. Devlin a blaze out of his honest eyes before which that gentleman
+rather shrivelled up. Nobody liked to exactly try to handle Charlemagne
+Kindred: there was about him "a look of unknown quantities"&mdash;as
+Mr. Upright remarked one day. Cadet Upright was a staunch friend; and
+it was a blessing to all the plebs in Camp Hard that year that he was
+head man over them.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and clean my gun, Mr. Kindred," he would say, adding, when
+Magnus was in the tent, "The gun is not very dirty, and there is no
+hurry about it, but you must be doing something, and in here is better
+than out there."</p>
+
+<p>A fact which Magnus realised when from the cool recesses of the tent
+he saw other plebs fetching water in the sun, or standing attention for
+a lecture from Mr. Devlin: teased and worried and laughed at by Mr.
+Prank.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the fervid days of that July that Rig ("poor Rig," as
+Magnus generally termed him in the letters home) went through a small
+bit of experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+which, by his own account, made him "a sadder, if not a wiser, man."</p>
+
+<p>The morning was intensely hot. The plebs had been out at their
+early drill and now in the canvas shade were enjoying a few minutes'
+rest. Guard-mounting was just over, and for a brief space no one had
+anything special to do. The visitors' seats were nearly deserted, with
+only a few sentimentals from either side the colour-line still lounging
+there. The sentries paced up and down in full fatigue dress: the row of
+stacked arms shimmered in the heat.</p>
+
+<p>In his tent Magnus was devouring over again the last night's letter
+from home, and so did not notice what was going on, until the shadow of
+Cadet Prank in the tent door made him look up in time to see Rig (alias
+McLean) start to his feet and stand very stiff indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-day, Mr. McLean," said the man with chevrons. "Don't disturb
+yourself, I'll not come in. I know you've been hard at it this morning,
+and I really hate to ask you to go out again,&mdash;but in such a
+case,"&mdash;and Mr. Prank gazed into the glowing sunshine in deep
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, watching from the depths of the tent, saw the gleam which
+no effort of Prank's could keep out of his eyes, with the dangerously
+solemn lines about the mouth. But poor Rig at such honeyed words from
+an upper classman, lost what little everyday perception belonged to
+him. "He's just got to learn for himself, though," thought Magnus,
+looking on with intense amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank suddenly turned and glanced suspiciously down towards the
+listener; but Magnus was all quiet, behind his letter.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mr. McLean," Prank went on, dropping his voice a little,
+"I want a man I can trust, to do me a small service. If you are not too
+much fatigued&mdash;it would not take long."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+Visions of Mr. Prank for his bosom friend, and Camp Hard suddenly
+transformed into Elysium, floated before Rig's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir,&mdash;no, sir," he answered, gathering up the points.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really but a minute's work," said Prank with another glance
+over Rig's head towards Magnus; "but a particular friend of mine has
+gone on guard without his gloves. Most absent-minded man alive! And if
+the Com. comes along, he's ruined. So I thought if you would just take
+them to him&mdash;you see <i>I</i> should have to report him. He's on post
+No. 6."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank held out a pair of immaculate white gloves. But now Rig
+drew back. To waylay a sentinel on his beat, was something so clearly
+beyond pleb limits that he took fright.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he began; "certainly, sir. But you know, sir, it's
+against orders, I believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank drew himself up to all his inches.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," he said. "Of course, I don't know much about
+regulations and never heard the orders. Very kind of you to instruct
+me, I am sure; I shall not forget it! Sorry to have disturbed your
+toilette, Mr. McLean, but I thought such a trifle could not seriously
+put you out. Someone else, probably, will be kind enough&mdash;whose
+hair curls easier than yours."</p>
+
+<p>And tucking the white gloves into the cadet pocket (his sleeve), Mr.
+Prank strode haughtily away.</p>
+
+<p>Rig felt miserable. He did not see that Magnus in his dark
+corner was shaking from head to foot. But to lose his character for
+obligingness! With a bound he was after the retreating chevrons.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Prank!" he said. "Of course I didn't mean that you didn't
+know, sir; and I have just thought of a way, if you think it will do. I
+can hang the gloves on one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+of the bayonets where the arms are stacked, you know, sir, and then he
+can get them for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"The very thing!" said Prank, with a well-kept face. "I see you
+are bright, Mr. McLean, as well as obliging. Take the gloves, my dear
+fellow, and be quick. And count upon me hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>With a swelling heart Rig stepped briskly up to the shining row of
+guns, where not an inch nor a line was out of the most spick-and-span
+state of military precision, and hung the white pendant on a glittering
+point of steel. And as he turned&mdash;alas! he was tapped on the
+shoulder and marched off to the guard tent "for tampering with the
+arms."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have minded that so much," he said afterwards to
+Magnus, "if I hadn't been such a double-distilled fool. And I'm not a
+fool really, you know,&mdash;but I'm not 'a gem of purest ray serene,'
+either. And I just lost my head with being told I was."</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of that sort of sport (to give it its common name) went on
+in Camp Hard, and even the most patient men grew tired of it, and the
+most good-natured got cross. It is monotonous when all the fun goes to
+somebody else. Even the straight shoulders sometimes rebelled against
+the perpetual bracing up; and many a poor fourth classman wished that
+his grey trousers had no side seam which could serve as a landmark to
+his weary thumbs: for in those days "finning out" was in full force.</p>
+
+<p>But indeed it was sometimes hard to take even what the law
+allowed.</p>
+
+<p>A strict order had been published that no cadet should ask a pleb
+to perform any menial service, but when Corporal Main remarked, "Mr.
+Stone, there are some very dusty shoes in my tent,"&mdash;no more was
+needed. Stone was just come in from drill, and ached in every inch; but
+he went at the shoes, and cleaned and rubbed and polished
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+for dear life, while Corporal Main strolled off with Miss Flyaway, and
+told her the story.</p>
+
+<p>Again, another humane order was read out one day in the Mess Hall,
+to the effect that in that place of supposed relaxation plebs need not
+"brace," but might sit and stand "at will." But the minute the reader's
+back was turned Cadet Prank drawled out:</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, hadn't you all a great deal <i>rather</i> brace up?"</p>
+
+<p>And so many hurriedly answered, "Yes, sir!" that the contrary noes
+were never counted.</p>
+
+<p>That was the way of it; and by dint of being laughed at and pointed
+at; drilled, straightened, pulled into shape, and called "beasts," the
+fourth classmen began to feel as if in truth the name fitted. They
+huddled together in corners, talked in whispers, and told endless
+stories of home.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX<br />
+CAMP HARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Marcus Antonius.</i> Cæsar dear, is there no way this
+troubling my dear little plebeian sentinels can be stopped?<br />
+<i>Cæsar.</i> There probably is, but we have not found it
+yet.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Colour Line Tragedy of 1890.</i></span></div>
+
+<p>Nor yet. And so, year by year, for a time, the
+new fourth classmen worked out pretty fairly
+Lowell's lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mis'ble as roosters in a rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heads down, and tails half-mast."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred was speeding along through camp one morning, thinking
+of home, when he was hailed by an upper classman.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, beast, what's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus made answer, with what composure of face and voice he could
+call up at such short notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you come from?" And again the reply came with fair
+coolness.</p>
+
+<p>"Got so few men out there, they give 'em long names to stretch out
+and cover the country. Who was your pred.?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunn, sir. He resigned, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good example for you to follow in November," said Mr. Seaton, "but
+you've got to be taken care of in the mean time. Wipe that smile off,
+sir! What's your technical name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got any, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if anyone asks you that again, tell 'em it's Lorenzo Monkey,"
+said Seaton, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus shook his fist at him (mentally), but what can <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> a
+pleb do? And so to the next inquirer he answered (pretty ungraciously,
+it must be owned):</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody said it was Lorenzo Monkey, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't have a monkey without a tail," said Mr. Danby. "Now remember,
+beast, you are technically called: 'Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not
+fame.' Take your eyes off me, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Well, the tail grew&mdash;naturally; and every time the name was
+called for, to amuse one man or a dozen, somebody would add on a word,
+and then Magnus was bid to rattle the whole thing off, amid shouts of
+laughter. He was required also to write out his technical name in full,
+and hand the paper in under the guise of an official document: a half
+sheet of paper duly folded, and inscribed as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Camp Hard,<br />
+West Point, N. Y.,<br />
+July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.<br /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="center">Kindred, C,
+<br />
+Cadet Private. Co. "A." 4th Class.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="center">Subscribed Copy of<br />
+"Technical Name."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p>Within, it ran thus:</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Camp Hard,<br />
+West Point, N. Y.,<br />
+July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.<br />
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple. (Through the proper channels.)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>: I have the honour to submit the following,&mdash;my technical
+name for the summer encampment, U. S. M. A. To wit:</p>
+
+<p>I am Lorenzo Monkey; and the name is not fame. It is tame: it is
+lame: it is shame: it is blame: it is game. Yet I claim, a Colonial
+dame was my flame, when I came. Same at same.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Very respectfully,</p>
+<p class="right">Your obedient servant,<br />
+Charlemagne Kindred,<br />
+Cadet Private, Co. "A." Fourth Class.</p>
+
+<p>To Cadet Lieut. Crabapple,<br />
+Commanding Battalion of Crabs.<br />
+<br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+Magnus chafed at all this stuff; growled over it, almost resisted;
+and yet it was wise to pass things by as quietly as he could. All the
+same, his feeling towards some of the upper classmen was getting to be
+a very fixed fact, indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Prank, for instance, was much given to hops,&mdash;also to
+prinking for the same: and it was in his heart to combine all the good
+things he could, and "crawling" plebs came in among the rest. So on hop
+nights, after supper, when Mr. Prank was shaving, dressing, and vainly
+endeavouring to curl his short hair, Magnus Kindred was frequently
+detailed as valet. The work being to follow Mr. Prank about the tent
+and fan him during these fatigues, and also to soothe and attune his
+feelings by singing "Annie Laurie" or some other lovelorn ditty. How
+Magnus did hate it!&mdash;and how he did secretly vow vengeance, if
+ever he himself should have half a chance with Mr. Prank's best girl!
+But then! Mr. Prank had a relay of "best girls," and could spare one or
+two just as well as not.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the two men who "tented" with Magnus thought he
+had an easy time.</p>
+
+<p>"If you had to black Mr. Mean's shoes!" said Randolph.</p>
+
+<p>"Or clear up after old Seaton," said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>Rig's technical name taxed all his powers of memory and patience. It
+began:</p>
+
+<p>"I am the distilled quintessence of stuff, the double-dyed result of
+being dipped in the Styx,"&mdash;and so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>, and to Rig,
+certainly, <i>ad nauseam</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Homesickness had broken loose in the fourth class, of late, and
+become epidemic. These boys were but boys, and the manliest of them
+all would&mdash;many a day&mdash;have given up his hopes of being a
+brigadier just to lay his head down on his mother's apron, and have
+her pet him and comfort him, and make him feel that he was not a
+"beast."</p>
+
+<p>"But she'd not find any hair to stroke, now," said Magnus
+
+Kindred, in one of these spasms. And then he caught
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+hold of himself again, set his teeth in his favourite fashion, and
+announced to himself that he meant to be adjutant.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll not look like you, either," he went on, apostrophising Mr.
+Larkin, who just then came strolling by between two admiring girls,
+turning from one to the other with much the air of the exquisite who
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Really, now, you know&mdash;won't somebody come and share me?"</p>
+
+<p>The young adjutant's buttons were very bright, and his waist was
+very small; and the red and white (brown) of his complexion left
+nothing to be desired. If he had been a girl, you might have called his
+walk "willowy," but I know not the masculine of that. And the barber
+had plainly been open to persuasion in his case, and had left almost a
+lovelock or two on the tall head.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred watched the party go by, but they did not see him.
+In one of the rocky, shady nooks on Flirtation, where the green leaves
+rustle and the river whispers softly to the shore, there he had hidden
+himself away with his sweet and bitter fancies. Hard, literal facts
+they were just then, for Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>The footsteps died away, and more came, quicker and brisker than the
+first; and two cadets went by his hiding place. Then another with his
+best girl (for the time being); and Magnus watched them all. As the
+silence fell again a wood thrush in the shadows behind him rang its
+liquid chime.</p>
+
+<p>Then a tall cadet with chevrons, and the dainty air and manner which
+had earned him the soubriquet of "Gentleman Joe," passed slowly by with
+his mother on his arm; he bending down to her, and she looking up to
+him, while a little white fidget of ten years old flitted about the
+two.</p>
+
+<p>But when these were out of sight, then Magnus Kindred threw himself
+face down among the moss and ferns, and gave no further heed to outside
+things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+"Oh, mother!&mdash;and Cherry, and Violet, and Rose&mdash;and home!" It
+was very bitter for a while. And when at last, in answer to a distant
+drum-call, Magnus roused himself, and got on his feet, he knew that he
+hated that drum, and all it betokened, just as hard as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Gentler thoughts came, as he mounted the hill. The clear notes of
+the thrushes were all around him, but in their grave sweetness there
+were no faltering tones; and while it pierced the boy's heart it
+strengthened it, too. Yes, one day <i>he</i> would be the tall man with
+chevrons, leading his mother along Flirtation; and she should be as
+proud of him as Mrs. Gresham was of her son. And, instead of that child
+in white, there would be&mdash;but here the drum became imperative, and
+Magnus stowed away all the rest of his thoughts, and double-timed every
+remaining step up to Camp Hard.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="X" id="X"></a>X<br />
+BAND CONCERT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I cannot bear it any longer, said the pewter soldier as he sat on the
+drawers; it is so lonely and melancholy here.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>It was the evening for band concert at the camp: a warm first of
+August. A red glow lingered over Crownest, the stars came out slowly,
+hazy with the heat; the katydids were publishing their arrival in the
+usual contradictory way. As the twilight deepened, the camp began to
+light up, and in front of the colour-line one especial burner shone
+full upon the concert programme, which was posted on a stick. Beyond
+this a small circle of lights marked the standing place of the band.</p>
+
+<p>Cadets were everywhere&mdash;half in a tent, or half out; walking,
+sauntering, standing, in twos and threes and half-dozens; some down on
+the grass where the lights shone full, and some hid away in the shadows
+towards Fort Clinton.</p>
+
+<p>Other figures were coming up, too, and dresses of every hue flitted
+across the plain. The dew lay sweet and fresh upon every grass-blade,
+but then the grass was short, and nobody minded dew when going to band
+concert.</p>
+
+<p>Often some grey uniform was escorting some dainty lady: these
+coming straight from the houses, and those others pausing, after a
+delightful tryst at Trophy Point, or a saunter along the upper bends of
+Flirtation. For, in those days, the concert night limits were&mdash;so
+far as you could hear and distinguish the music.</p>
+
+<p>The plebs kept together, and away from the gay throng;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+unless where some especially happy boy had a cousin on hand. But a
+great event had marked that day in Camp Hard; for the obnoxious "grey
+bags" had disappeared, giving place to the full uniform, bell buttons
+and all complete; and at last the plebs looked like cadets.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred had been as jubilant as anyone over the change,
+and nobody had given a heartier parting kick to the grey bag. But "a
+competency is what a man has, and a little more"&mdash;and so, then,
+the young man wanted someone to look at him. How his mother and sisters
+would have stroked the sleeve of that wonderful dress coat, and admired
+the buttons: how they would have studied out every turn of braid and
+quirl of adornment. And Cherry&mdash;no, they were not her little hands
+he seemed to feel on his arm: her hands were just folded in their
+pretty way, and she stood a few steps off, laughing at the others,
+and secretly admiring him. She never said so, but what innocent,
+true-hearted girl can quite keep it out of her eyes, when her hero
+stands before her? Or, if the eyes sometimes grew shy and turned away,
+the lips laughed, and told it still.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus said, almost aloud, his own lips
+parting in a smile at the sweet vision. But then they closed again
+firmer than ever. Two thousand miles away (it seemed five thousand to
+Magnus), and two whole years before he could go there. And a weary sigh
+measured off both time and space, and found them endless.</p>
+
+<p>"Joseph," whispered Mrs. Gresham to her son (they were just opposite
+Magnus), "who is that boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kindred&mdash;fourth class."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks like a first-class fellow," said Mrs. Gresham, watching
+him, as he suddenly moved off and joined the grey circle around
+the band. "What a fine face he has! I noticed him yesterday before
+parade."</p>
+
+<p>"Good fellow enough," assented Mr. Gresham, who was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+just then "noticing" the arrival of Miss Saucy. "But he's so awfully
+homesick. Blue as Cat's eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're not obliged to call me 'Cat,' sir, if you <i>are</i> a
+captain," said the little girl, trying hard to make a pinch tell
+through the thick cadet cloth. "He's the one that was up among the
+rocks, Aunt Effie. I told you, and you wouldn't look."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," said Mrs. Gresham. "Never try to see anybody who
+does not wish to be seen, Catty."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Catty pouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he was a cadet," she said, "for I saw the bell buttons. And
+I thought cadets <i>always</i> want to be looked at. They act so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a burst of laughter from the group that had gathered round
+Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a pity she's not a little older!" cried Miss Flyaway.
+"Your mainstay ought not to graduate for six years to come, Mrs.
+Gresham, that Catty might be up to the situation. But then, we poor
+damsels would have lost him. So it's best as it is. Things are
+generally best as they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Some few things might be improved," said Mrs. Gresham quietly.
+"Joseph, I wish you would bring up Mr. Kindred, and introduce him."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now. We can spare you so long as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Miss Flirt, making a
+profound courtesy; while Miss Flyaway called after him: "Don't hurry
+yourself, we'll wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him you wouldn't go away for <i>anything</i>," said the
+irrepressible Catty.</p>
+
+<p>"You saucy monkey!" said Miss Flirt. "You ought to be in bed and
+asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you were, at my age," said Catty, with better logic
+than she knew.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+"Hush, Catty!" said her aunt. "Mr. Carr, who is that officer talking
+with Mrs. Seaton?"</p>
+
+<p>"The arch-fiend, <i>we</i> call him," said Carr, with a laugh. "He's the
+professor of confusion worse confounded, Mrs. Gresham. Do you want him
+brought up, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no: here comes Joseph. How do you do, Mr. Kindred?" And
+Mrs. Gresham gave Magnus a warm clasp of the hand that went to his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit here by me," she said, making room for Magnus. "I
+suppose you enjoy these concerts very much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," Magnus answered her. "They make a change."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you go to the hops, if you want a change?" said Catty,
+leaning her elbows on her aunt's lap, and gazing up at the new
+acquaintance. Magnus laughed in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know but I do?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I never see you there when I go," said Catty.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you, child," said Miss Flirt, coming to the rescue. "Mr.
+Kindred never goes to the hops in the hop room, because at this time of
+year he has no end of hops outdoors."</p>
+
+<p>Catty looked mystified.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not talking to you," she said, turning her back. "But I never
+met you out walking either, Mr. Kindred. Don't you ever walk with
+anybody but your best girl? I never do, when my special cadet's on
+guard."</p>
+
+<p>Amid the little hubbub which this called forth, Mrs. Gresham rose
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will give me your arm, Mr. Kindred," she said, "I should
+like to walk round the camp. The lights and shades show so differently
+from different points; it is pleasant to watch them. I have been in
+Europe for three years, and West Point is new to me. What is the band
+playing now?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+"I'm not sure, ma'am. One of Moore's melodies comes next."</p>
+
+<p>"How lovely the shadows are! I used to be quite a painter in my
+young days," said Mrs. Gresham as they strolled along. "Is that one of
+your studies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not this year, ma'am. Indeed we have no real studies 'in camp.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But still many things that deserve the name: I understand. What do
+you call the hardest thing you have to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes, 'study to be quiet,'" said Magnus, with a look and tone
+at once so playful and so full of feeling that Mrs. Gresham opened her
+heart, and took him right in.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can well believe it. And I am glad you have
+Bible words at hand for your hard places."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care about them?" said Magnus quickly. "I thought nobody
+did, here."</p>
+
+<p>"About Bible words? Oh, yes they do!" said Mrs. Gresham, with her
+gentle smile. "You do not know many people here yet, Mr. Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am not likely to, very soon," said Magnus. "But I spoke too
+quick. Yes, I know there are some right here in the Corps who care.
+There's Mr. Upright of the first class. I do not believe he ever misses
+a chance of doing the out-and-out thing for a Christian to do. And Mr.
+True of the third, he's another. Oh, there are a lot among us that know
+enough&mdash;if we only hold out," he added soberly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gresham had listened for her son's name, but it did not come.
+He, too, "knew enough," but alas! only that very morning when he
+came in from drill, Magnus had heard him curse his horse, and the
+instructor, and the whole concern, in terms that would have wrung the
+gentle mother's heart. The girls did not know, as they hung
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+upon his arm; the officers did not guess, seeing only the
+straight military figure and good face: only God knew, and
+the fellow-students to whom Gresham was setting his example.
+The mother felt the omission, sighed, waited, and
+sighed again; then silently locked up her fears and her
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>must</i> hold out, Mr. Kindred," she said. "If you are a
+professing Christian, you have sworn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," Magnus answered soberly, "and I mean it, too. But
+there are harder times here than you can guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the pinch that shows what a man is," said Mrs. Gresham. "If
+you must run, run before the firing begins."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But remember, too," said Mrs. Gresham, "that here as everywhere
+else: on the Hill Difficulty of West Point, no less than among the
+Delectable Mountains at home, you are to be a witness for Christ."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am&mdash;you would think so," said Magnus excitedly, "and
+so mother thinks. But how are you going to do anything <i>here</i>? Religion
+don't count, in this old camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Religion may come in and stay, even where she is not fêted and
+caressed," said Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true enough," said the boy, colouring. "All the same, you
+can't guess, as I said, what a hard time she has. And now guard duty
+begins; and it'll be drill and walk post, walk post and drill, night
+and day. Your shoulders poked in, and your feet kicked out. Skinned if
+you don't skin somebody else, and nearly skinned actually if you do.
+Told forty things a day that you don't understand, and then given extra
+tours <i>because</i> you don't. That's what they say. Why, there are six
+hundred and sixty-eight separate regulations that we are supposed to
+keep!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+"Six hundred and sixty-eight!" said Mrs. Gresham. "Well, it must
+take a very lively imagination to 'suppose' that three hundred boys
+will keep six hundred and sixty-eight regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"They know we can't do it," said Magnus hotly. "But we're bid to,
+all the same. And they punish us if we don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Mrs. Gresham," said another voice, and Cadet Main
+(alias Mean) came up and shook hands. "What work of charity have you in
+tow now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred has been telling me about the many regulations," said
+Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, regulations!" said Main. "Yes, there's quite a little many of
+'em. Keeps a fellow busy to break 'em all; but some of us max it, every
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Break them? You mean 'keep them,'" said Mrs. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"No I don't&mdash;not I!" said Main, laughing. "You'd better believe
+I don't. Why, the only fun I have in life is breaking regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Breaking them?" repeated Mrs. Gresham, looking bewildered. "But you
+will get yourself into trouble, so, Mr. Main."</p>
+
+<p>"Will, shall, have, and expect to," said Main. "I'm bound to get
+some fun out of this old prison."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the walls open, rather suddenly, and let you out."</p>
+
+<p>"Make my best bow, and go. It'll be a great loss to the service. But
+you should talk to Lorenzo here, Mrs. Gresham; he's played good boy
+ever since he came. Regular pet of the Com.'s, he is. Why, he won't
+even help carry off Sammy from the Mess Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"And pray how comes 'Sammy,' as you call him, to need carrying
+off?" demanded Mrs. Gresham severely. But that brought such a chorus of
+laughter from the whole <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+group of cadets (several more had gathered round), that
+Mrs. Gresham let her question drop.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll run it up to the hotel some day, and present him, Mrs.
+Gresham," said Main.</p>
+
+<p>"If you 'run it'&mdash;to anywhere I am, I'll not see you," said the
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you <i>can't</i> keep all the regulations," said Devlin. "Not if
+you did your level best. You just <i>have</i> to break them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it all for&mdash;this Blue Book you tell of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Light reading for the Academic Board," suggested Mr. Sharpless.</p>
+
+<p>"Skinning made easy," said Main. "Every new Tac makes a new rule and
+tacks it on. They'll bring it up to a thousand presently."</p>
+
+<p>They had made the circuit of the camp, and now came round once more
+to the open space before the lights, with its shadowy border where the
+motley groups paused, moved on, went in and out. The camp points of
+flame flickered, and peered into the dusk; contesting now with a nobler
+light their right of search. For in the east the moon was rising;
+lifting her fair face above the hilltops, and pouring a flood of summer
+glory over river and plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so she will be rising at home," Magnus thought. "With the
+girls all sitting on the steps, and mother in her rocking chair in the
+porch."</p>
+
+<p>It is well for the homesick cadet that his surroundings are so fine,
+beguiling him with their beauty; but it is also a good thing that he
+never can do much "mooning" at once. Before Magnus had got to the
+middle of his third sigh came the sharp voice of the drum, calling him
+to order. And yet "sharp" is hardly the word; only neglected duty takes
+on that tone, but the drum-call was brisk, imperative, unmistakable.
+Yet fine, as well, and stirring; as duty attended to always is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+It was pretty to see the grey and white figures coming out from
+the dusky shadows among the trees, and crossing to the tents. Some
+at a quick run, others slowly, as under protest: here and there one
+very lingeringly, with many a backward look and farewell word, to some
+white-robed vision that shewed angelic in the uncertain light.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the racket of drum and fife filled all the air, rattling
+up and down the company streets. The crowd scattered, the band tramped
+off; and still here and there a tardy cadet came hurrying in, but only
+in time to get a cold "late" or "absence."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it <i>is</i> such fun to make them run!" said one fair creature
+delightedly. "I just kept Mr. Dunkirk fooling along after the first
+drum; and there he goes, for all he is worth."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late?" queried a quiet lady in a dark dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Not too late to get to bed," said Miss Saucy. "They won't make
+him walk post to-night, poor boy. But he'll be on the black list
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you won't have him to walk with on Saturday," said another
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Have somebody else, <i>ma chère</i>. One gets tired of the same man too
+often. If I didn't trip him up now and then I should die of a surfeit
+of honey, and never have a chance at treacle and lumps of sugar."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you mean to say," said the lady in black, "do you really
+mean to say that you get these young men into difficulty <i>wilfully</i>?
+That <i>you</i> are responsible for their being late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do everything wilfully," said the girl&mdash;"and I am
+never responsible for anything. So I don't know how you'll fix it."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell the Commandant to-morrow!" said the lady excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"No good." said the girl. "He can't skin me&mdash;and he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+<i>will</i> skin him. It don't hurt much: <i>he</i> don't care. Says
+he don't."</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to care!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely he ought," said Miss Saucy. "Oh, he's not absolute
+perfection&mdash;won't be canonised till he's dead, I dare say."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI<br />
+ON GUARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Twelve small strokes on the tinkling bell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Midnight comes, and all is well!</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Culprit Fay.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, with the new uniform came also new work, as Magnus had been
+warned. Guard duty put in its claim, and the plebs were promoted to
+walk post, and to learn what upper classmen could do to make that duty
+unpleasant. "Jumping plebs" went on with variations. "Crawling" seems
+to be the favourite word now, but probably the thing itself is not much
+slower than it was of yore.</p>
+
+<p>The first night on guard was a never-to-be-forgotten thing to Magnus
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quiet night enough, so far as disturbances went, for this
+time the tide of mischief seemed to set in some other direction. But
+that only left the power of the night itself unchecked. So still, so
+solemn, so sweet, and yet with such a bitter flavour. Strange beyond
+description, and beautiful past all telling.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne had gone on with the second relief, tattoo had beat, and
+taps had said its closing word; and now all private lights were out.
+The day had been hot, but the night came down dewy and cool; and the
+full summer moon was slowly flooding the world with glory, and lining
+out everything in clear black and white.</p>
+
+<p>Every tent wall was raised to let in the air. The prostrate men
+on the floors were as still as the white canvas above their heads.
+Sleeping off drills and difficulties here,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+and there plotting and planning; or perhaps gazing out into the night
+with wide-open, homesick eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A faint breath stirred the trees around Camp Hard; from across the
+plain one could just catch the sound of slow footsteps, where the
+enlisted sentry paced up and down the Officers' Row. Far below, on the
+river, boats went and came: a sloop, dreaming noiselessly along on the
+incoming tide; or two steamers, signalling before they met. You could
+hear the dash of the swell upon the shore, and the panting breath of
+the fierce little tugs, with the more stately beat of the paddles of a
+side-wheeler. Over all, the moon rode high and clear.</p>
+
+<p>And, for this night, the Western pleb was unmolested. Not a stray
+ghost crossed his beat. Up and down, up and down, in company with his
+shadow, the slow, measured step leaving his thoughts free: and they had
+all gone home. And so it was, that by degrees Magnus Kindred fell into
+one of his desperate fits of lonely homesickness, ready to fire off his
+musket, or do any lawless thing, if only so he might be arrested and
+dismissed to freedom, mother, and the girls. And on post you cannot
+throw your arms into the air and yourself down on the ground; not get
+even the smallest bit of any such slight relief.</p>
+
+<p>As Magnus turned on his beat, pacing now towards the western hills,
+the exceeding beauty of the bit of star-spangled sky to the north was
+full in view. The Great Bear and his associates held on their shining
+way, despite the moon, calm, high, lifted above all of earth's tears
+and turmoils. What was that his mother used to sing?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ye stars are but the shining dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of my divine abode;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pavement of those heavenly courts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where I shall see my God."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus remembered with another of his sharp twinges.</p>
+
+<p>"All right for her!" he thought, pacing back again to <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> meet
+the moon, "all right for them all! But the folks that tread those
+pavements have gotten the victory."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think, myself," Cadet Kindred went on candidly, eyeing the
+stars once more, "that I am fighting for it hard enough to hurt, just
+at present. 'Gotten the victory,'" he repeated to himself, "won it, and
+kept it."</p>
+
+<p>The dear folks at home might not even be thinking of him, just then;
+they were doubtless all peacefully asleep, each having laid down her
+heart's desire at the feet of Him "that keepeth Israel," so leaving the
+far-off young sentinel in His tender care. But Magnus knew, almost as
+if he had heard them, the prayers sent up for him that night.</p>
+
+<p>A sharp, resonant cry brought him suddenly back to Camp Hard and
+duty. From the post in front of the camp the sentinel gave the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Number One! Half-past ten o'clock and all's--well!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it came to Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Now the guard had been admonished, that very day, not to mumble the
+words, but to give each its full value, clear and strong. But this
+first man was sleepy, or lazy, and gave small heed to the order. His
+"All's well!" was loud enough, but seemed rather a matter of hope than
+of certainty.</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure that Magnus even supposed that he himself was working
+out the spirit of the order, but he was homesick and disheartened,
+as well as ignorant of military affairs; and with that a little bit
+reckless, and ready to do anything for a change. What did it matter,
+anyhow? And so, as it came to his turn, he shouted forth the call at
+the top of his voice, and to the closing notes of the retreat bugle
+call at parade.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/090music.jpg" width="600" height="94" alt="music" />
+<div class="caption">Number-two: Half-past ten o'clock and all is ... well!</div>
+<p class="center">[<a href="music/no2.mid">Listen</a>]</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+And half the camp heard it.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there was a stir, and Magnus was reported for "calling
+the hour in an improper manner." But he went scot-free, after all, by
+reason, doubtless, of his short acquaintance with guard duty.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII<br />
+<i>OFF</i> GUARD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Are you shining for Jesus loyally,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shining just anywhere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not only in easy places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Not only just here and there?</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">F. R. Havergal.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In such fashion days and weeks rolled by; as time-wheels will, over
+the roughest ground, and through the most uninteresting country. For
+without doubt, drills can become monotonous; and if the body yielded
+itself more and more easily to regulations, as the time went on, so did
+not always the mind.</p>
+
+<p>At first, in the strangeness of everything, details went for less,
+but now that he no longer wore the grey bag, to have his toes still
+kicked out set his blood tingling. He was so well made by nature, that
+"this extra regulation ramrod style," as he spitefully termed it,
+seemed like persecution. For some of the drill masters by no means
+slackened their demands as the need of them grew less.</p>
+
+<p>"Get your shoulders back, Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Get</i> them back, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Get</i> them <i>back</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"He had better take a sledge hammer and pound them
+in," Magnus declared one day.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be pounded for disrespect," Rig warned
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; it's a true bill. I don't respect that man,
+and I never shall."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+"But officers, you know," suggested Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, officers!" said Magnus loftily. "What business has he to be an officer,
+with the manners of a boot-black?"</p>
+
+<p>However, as I said, time did wear on; with parades, drills,
+gymnastics, and the rest of it. And in the intervals, when upper
+classmen walked with the pretty girls, and went to teas and picnics,
+the plebs drew together and eyed them from a distance, making many
+comments, uttering many groans; but, most of all, knitting up firm and
+strong the class bond which no after-years could break.</p>
+
+<p>This class bond is a most natural thing among boys who have faced
+hardships side by side; and in a way, it is very fine; but it has its
+danger, too.</p>
+
+<p>The stand taken by each one in the class for and with each other
+one, in those first hard weeks when they feel as if every man's
+hand was against them all, sometimes passes into a "Stand by the
+class!" which cramps the influence, and hinders the action of many an
+individual man. "The class, right or wrong!" is never a safe motto.</p>
+
+<p>One other little event in camp life that summer may be told over
+here, for its after-effect upon Magnus Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>There were two or three men in the pleb class who, by reason of a
+certain offhand brightness of thought and tongue, had more influence
+with the rest than they deserved, for either their principles or their
+brains. Men able to put the wrong thing into such brilliant words, that
+the real meaning was lost sight of in the fun and the glitter. And so,
+in the scarcity of amusements, Magnus fell into the habit of lingering
+where they stood; listening to their sayings, laughing at their
+sallies, and, to a certain degree, following their lead. And, as often
+happens, the light words, the smart speeches which were not true, won
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+their way. He began to hearken more readily, and more easily lent
+himself to plans and projects he might better have let alone; getting
+into the swirl of a current not likely to land him on any good and
+fruitful shore.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as birds of a feather are apt to find each other out,
+some men of like tendencies in the first class made common cause, in a
+way; finding an admiring look of any sort quite pleasant, and a pleb a
+convenient catspaw, now and then. They made the musical ones come in
+for a chorus; and under such innocent cover matured their plans, and
+told their stories, to nobody's good.</p>
+
+<p>If one of these wits set forth the fact that "Muffti" was sure to
+lead the prayer-meeting that night, Magnus would perhaps stay in his
+tent, or wander off beyond sound of the hymns, which always pricked
+his conscience and his heart as well. Or if some smart man made fun of
+the preacher who was to fill the chaplain's place during the summer
+vacation, Magnus was careful the next Sunday to practise himself in the
+fine art of sitting bolt upright when fast asleep. He grew to be an
+expert at smuggling in "boodle": he took the loan of books he had much
+better have let alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Come round to my tent after dinner, Mr. Kindred," said Cadet
+Upright one day; and of course Magnus went; then stood attention in the
+straightest sort of way; very much wondering for what unknown breach of
+rules he was to be called to account by the first Captain.</p>
+
+<p>So he stood up to all his inches, just within the tent door, while
+Cadet Captain Upright sat on a camp stool facing him; a stray sunbeam
+working its way in to touch the chevrons, and lighting up the honest,
+sunburnt face. Mr. Upright was no beauty, but not a man in the Corps
+was more thoroughly respected than he. "Not much to look at," said Sam
+Weller of his hat, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+"Mr. Kindred," began Upright, "I asked you to come, because I wanted
+to talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and Magnus responded, "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You are in danger," Upright went on. "You are taking risks no wise
+man will shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done, sir?" Magnus demanded, stiffening slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing special, to my knowledge," said the first captain, "But I
+see you in slippery places, where sooner or later a man must go down.
+And the mud often sticks for a good while to come, even after&mdash;and
+even if&mdash;he picks himself up and gets away."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see, sir," Magnus began&mdash;"what risks are you talking
+of, Mr. Upright?"</p>
+
+<p>"The risk of being false to yourself, and to your Christian pledge
+and name; the risk of (practically) forgetting your mother and your
+mother's words."</p>
+
+<p>But now Magnus burst forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgetting my mother!" he said. Then checking himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, sir, that proves you never saw her, Mr. Upright."</p>
+
+<p>Upright laughed, and his eyes shone.</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you!" he said heartily. "But, Mr. Kindred, you are
+training with the wrong crowd."</p>
+
+<p>And now Magnus coloured, and his eyes went down. Upright watched him
+for a moment in silence; then he took up a slip of paper, and held it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a reminding text I wrote off for you," he said. "Take it
+with you up and down the post. 'He setteth a print on the heels of my
+feet.' That will do, sir," and Magnus saluted, and whirled away.</p>
+
+<p>"Might be the Com. himself, for the style he talks!" he grumbled,
+under his breath. But all the same, the words sank in. They were too
+true to miss a hearing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+on the one side, and had been too kindly spoken to lose
+it, on the other. Yes, he was training with the wrong
+crowd, there was no doubt of that.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus winced under the confession. There was no one he so little
+liked to find fault with as himself, and to court-martial Cadet
+Kindred, on his own knowledge and belief, was extremely unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>But the finding of the Court is rarely severe in such cases;
+and Magnus presently let himself off with a few admonitions to be
+more careful. He went to prayer-meeting regularly, boned discipline
+a little, and kept away from that crowd (what he called) "all he
+could."</p>
+
+<p>Then they broke camp, and marched into barracks, and that was a
+help, for work began at a rate that left scant time for lawless play.
+Magnus Kindred had studied before, studied hard, but never with the
+exactness of drill and discipline and pressure that now filled every
+day. Breakfast, recitation, study, dinner, study, recitation, drill;
+then dress parade, supper, and study. Some of the plebs resigned and
+went home, others talked gloomily of being "found" in January; before
+which wintry fear homesickness itself gave way. And again others drew
+the buckles of their armour tight, looked well to their stirrups, and
+went at the difficulties, lance in rest.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/097fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="351" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE BARRACKS IN WINTER</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII<br />
+A BLUE CHRISTMAS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">No age, no race, no single soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By lofty tumbling wins the goal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The steady pace it keeps between;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The little points it makes unseen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By these, achieved in gathering might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It moveth on, and out of sight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wins, through all that's overpast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The city of its hopes at last.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Whitney.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of these true knights Charlemagne Kindred was one. Lessons,
+problems, questions, went down before his fierce assault. He had never
+enjoyed being headed off in what he chose to do; and had pledged it to
+himself that if ever anything did that kind office for him, it should
+not be West Point.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> stop me?" he would say to some particularly obnoxious book.
+"<i>You</i> get in my way?" and probably the hard-headed volume would then
+and there find itself pitched to the furthest corner of the room. But
+after that little expression of opinion, Magnus would pick the book up,
+and bone with all his might. Smith's "Conic Sections" got quite used to
+such short excursions, and Ketel's "French Grammar" grew old before its
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Rig's method was different.</p>
+
+<p>"Kin, I'm growing grey," he said plaintively one morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Grey as a goose."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but really," said Rig, laying down the book. "This thing's too
+hard, you know. Breaks a man all up."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+"You'd best stick yourself together again before two o'clock," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"No good," said Rig, taking up another study volume from the heap.
+"I'll try this a while. Nobody ought to be expected to learn such
+stuff."</p>
+
+<p>"Put that book down!" Magnus thundered at him, from his own
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can put it down easy enough," Rig said rather sulkily. "But I
+can't see what business it is of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Now fold your hands, and spell zero ten times backwards," said
+Magnus, "and then take your Davies, and go to work. Unless you want to
+fess solid for the rest of your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;Say, Kin,&mdash;what a good fellow Mr. Upright is."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upright's a cold max. Mind your business."</p>
+
+<p>Pushing and pulling did a good deal for Rig that winter. There was a
+little stir about the holidays, when the happy upper classmen who had
+won their Christmas leave went off for unlimited bliss in a limited
+time, and those who had lost it abused "luck." And there was also the
+mild interest of a better dinner than usual. But to the plebs, for whom
+no getting away was possible, and to whom no Point festivities were
+open, that first Christmas was a thing to live through as best they
+might. I think some of them despised even the dinner, with the flavour
+of their mother's cookery yet lingering and fresh.</p>
+
+<p>How hard it was! "The most miserable day they ever spent," as many
+a one has said since. And the letters and home trifles that arrived
+in the mail-bag were not much help in the line of bracing up. Magnus
+put Cherry's bookmark in his Bible, and his mother's picture up his
+sleeve; while the toilet cushion and cover on which the two girls had
+bestowed so many loving looks, as they wrought out the pretty devices,
+were hid away in his clothes bag; no such decorations being allowed in
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+Then he wrote letters to them all, then he tried to study, but who
+can study on a legal holiday?</p>
+
+<p>So at last Cadet Kindred donned his grey fearnaught, wandered
+down among the rocks and snow-drifts on Flirtation, and listened
+to the grinding of the ice cakes in the dark river. The sky, blue
+with an unearthly far-away depth of colour, was pushed back by the
+whitened hills: all nature seemed locked up and unapproachable and
+unsympathising.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Those fair blue heavens so distant are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their very clearness seems to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">How far, how far!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They lie above man's stormy way."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And Magnus Kindred felt as desperately lonesome as he thought it was
+in the power of man to be.</p>
+
+<p>There were no loiterers now under the "Kissing Rock"; no echoing
+steps within "First-class Cave"; all the old seats and trysting places
+were snow capped and silent. Even the broad folds of the Post flag
+would have been some company, a little cheer to his sad eyes as he once
+more came out upon the plain. But the Post flag was safely folded away;
+and only a wee, wintry looking storm flag, whipped out in many a past
+gale, was abroad to brave the keen-edged airs that stirred round Trophy
+Point. Could anything exceed the dreariness and length of that wretched
+Christmas Day?</p>
+
+<p>Then such cake for tea&mdash;though I doubt if Purcell's best would
+have suited Magnus that night. He was glad when the drummers began
+their noisy tattoo, that he might unroll his mattress, go to bed, and
+forget his misery.</p>
+
+<p>New Year's Day was not quite so bad, perhaps because the coming
+examination lent at least a dash of red pepper to the monotony, and the
+first evening of the new year was full of study and talk, questions,
+fears, and surmisings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+Blue letters home went off in troops, and many a man arranged
+definitely just what he would do after he was "found," of which last
+fact he felt sure. With the great hop that graced this week, or the gay
+damsels who graced the hop, the fourth class had nothing to do.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural enough that the strain and fatigue of the examination
+should be followed by a certain dislike for work at all. The men who
+were "found" had vanished; the men who had gone up a section were
+quietly in place, while others had as quietly joined "the Immortals,"
+a better name than its popular substitute. And from now on until June,
+things would remain pretty much as they were.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder, then, if the reaction set in strong. Snow blocked the
+favourite cadet walks; permits for skating were cut. No parades, no
+stirring drills, except in the riding-hall, and the plebs had no good
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were stormy days when even the officers' row was gloomy,
+and things grew very tame indeed. The bent bows ached to spring back,
+and the pent-up steam was ready to blow off in any direction; for
+mischief at least makes a change, and to break regulations and not be
+found out, gave life a certain flavour. It was a pity, but not at all
+strange.</p>
+
+<p>And so, in some parts of the barracks, license, not liberty, was the
+popular word. The great point of interest by day and by night being how
+to defy the blue book, and not get caught.</p>
+
+<p>The leaders were bright men, some of them; personable, pleasant to
+talk to, fair mathematicians, and capital cooks over the gas-light.
+Several had friends who sent them money, sweets, mince pies, and
+tobacco: all smuggled in by unscrupulous outside hands. And these
+dainties were freely dispensed by the happy owners.</p>
+
+<p>As to the rest, they were light fingered enough for pick-
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+pockets, and could abstract and convey to barracks anything&mdash;except
+"Sammy"&mdash;from the mess-hall table; and I have even been told that
+this one exception lost its place that year.</p>
+
+<p>But so far, you could charge things pretty fairly upon fun, and the
+delightful exercise of skill. If, as was alleged, they carried off two
+pounds of sugar for every lemon they got hold of, still, one must do
+something; and as they said, "the sugar was all paid for out of their
+own allowance."</p>
+
+<p>A much graver thing&mdash;perhaps the worst in the whole
+business&mdash;was the bribing enlisted men. Some free lances, indeed,
+were much too fond of "chancing" it, to do their frisky deeds by proxy.
+They fetched for themselves what they wanted, with a daring of which
+I may not tell. But others would get the sentry at the gate to pass
+things in; or a bandsman to bring all sorts of contraband goods from
+the Falls. Other people helped, but a mess-hall waiter could only lose
+his place and run away, while the sentinels were in trust.</p>
+
+<p>Now Magnus Kindred had not been so brought up, and the sight and
+hearing of certain things at first made him indignant. But they looked
+lighter coloured the fifteenth time than the first. The memory of Mr.
+Upright's words also faded out, and when springtime came, and days grew
+long and nights were bright, he had fallen back into much the old way,
+and was training with (or training) the wrong crowd. And he was so
+agile and wary that he never got caught, which was perhaps his loss.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you work it, Kin," Rig complained one day. "You do
+everything you have a mind to, and yet even Towser will swear you in
+for sweet cream every time. But as for me, if both my shoe toes aren't
+blacked exactly alike, I'm skinned to a certainty."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+I am not sure that Magnus relished the compliment,&mdash;one has a
+choice about praise,&mdash;but he made no answer, and did not change
+his too successful ways.</p>
+
+<p>And thus that pleb winter did much work for him in more lines than
+one. For you cannot keep hard at hard studies, as he did, without a
+swift and increasing rate of progress; the Hill Difficulty of West
+Point, as Mrs. Gresham had called it, yielded better and better
+footing, week by week. But alas, it is also true that you cannot
+constantly fling even small stones at the law, without that fine pillar
+of strength's being chipped and frayed, and in a sort defaced. Magnus
+Kindred did not call his doings by any such dignified name, but all
+the same, freedom and lawlessness were getting very much mixed in his
+mind. While the right of the authorities to command, and his own right
+to disobey, were in a worse tangle still. The wise, dignified, and
+wholesome rule of "Honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear," was much
+dethroned in those days.</p>
+
+<p>So the course of the days and the drift of the ways went on. Winter
+slid early into spring. Company drills began, and the full tide of
+everything set in, especially walks. Bright parasols appeared on the
+sidewalk, and the old seat at Gee's Point once more received its
+guests.</p>
+
+<p>A general stir of preparation was in the air; grass was dressed,
+branches trimmed, and rubbish burned. Cleaning house was on hand, and
+dressmakers; and always drills, drills, drills. To the Post in general,
+these signs meant the coming of the Board of Visitors, and all the
+whirl of examination week: but to the cadets, chiefly June.</p>
+
+<p>All that spring, in spite of much work, Magnus Kindred wrote home
+very regularly; long, amusing letters. Telling less of his inner life
+than the hearts at home would have liked; but the strangeness of what
+he said of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+outer partly covered this up. And I doubt whether Magnus knew how
+little he told.</p>
+
+<p>Of one thing, however, he was dimly conscious. At first, his
+mother's expressions of trust and hope, given in Bible words or her
+own, had been a comfort and help to him; they seemed to bring her
+nearer and to make him stronger. But of late he had been often inclined
+to slur over those parts of her letters, and to hurry on "to get the
+news first"&mdash;as he put it to himself. He never stopped to ask why;
+and it was again Mr. Upright who opened his eyes, and showed him how
+quietly they had been closing and falling asleep.</p>
+
+<p>There are tears as well as smiles, on that fateful day in June. Here
+is a mother, who, having had her son within easy reach for the last
+four years, knows that now, after the short graduation leave, he will
+be whirled away beyond her ken. To Barrancas, it may be, or Huachuca,
+or Indian Territory. So the mother breaks down and cries visibly.</p>
+
+<p>And here are roommates, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in all
+sorts of hardships, now henceforth, until, they are grey-haired men,
+to live as far apart as this broad country can put them; and it is a
+sobering thought.</p>
+
+<p>Then, this pretty, timid girl, who has ventured her heart on the
+insecure ground of cadet soft speeches; or thought out her wedding
+dress after one particular walk around Flirtation; or tried the class
+ring on one of her own slender fingers, without being asked to keep it
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is too dreadful!" she cries, stamping her little foot, and
+with the tears all ready, when that heartless band fall off into "The
+Girl I Left Behind Me." "I can <i>not</i> see what they find in that old
+tune."</p>
+
+<p>It goes hard with her, sometimes, poor child, in matter of
+health.</p>
+
+<p>And sometimes a like hope is laid down with the grey,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+and the blue must seek another charmer; and earth is&mdash;henceforth
+and comparatively&mdash;a desert. All sorts of things happen at
+graduation; and when you hear an eager, "You will be sure to come back
+in August," it does not follow that he will, or that she will wait for
+him if he does.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no shallow sentiment about Mr. Upright. On the day
+of his graduation, the young first captain, having put off his cadet
+honours and come out in plain "cits," went down to the mess-hall dinner
+to look round the old place once more, and to speak farewell words
+to his own company and the Corps. Magnus Kindred caught his eye and
+smile, and started a yell for Mr. Upright, which quite cut short that
+young man's power to say much; but every word had the resonance of true
+metal.</p>
+
+<p>"'Quit you like men! be strong.' 'Strong in the Lord, and in the
+power of his might,'" he said; vainly trying to shake all the hands
+held out to him. But if the tones faltered, the meaning was full
+strung, and Magnus once more opened his eyes, and looked at himself and
+his doings. And the more he looked, the less he liked it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good day for feeling blue. The sudden quiet, the cut-down
+numbers; envy of the furlough men, and to a degree, of the graduates,
+made men restless and dull. No drill, no parade, and not even "a plank"
+left of the Board of Visitors. Not even many girls to look at; for half
+the Post, and three-tenths of the visitors, had sailed away with the
+gay throng on the down boat, and candidates swarmed everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred strolled off by himself to the river edge, sat down
+and looked himself over.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely getting used to things!" he confided to his favourite
+oaks and cedars. And then he began to see what was the character of
+those things. Of course, a boy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+could not grow up anywhere, alas! in this poor world, and not now and
+then hear men swear; but oaths from his <i>comrades</i> had at first shocked
+him exceedingly. There was one man, for instance, who for a low mark in
+the section room, a bad ride, a rainy Saturday, would have his mouth so
+full of cursing that it seemed hard to get it all out. He lived near
+Magnus; and many a time had the boy secretly stopped his ears to shut
+out the terrible words. Rig said the air was "blue" with them.</p>
+
+<p>But quick and keen it came to Magnus now, that he had long ceased
+to take any such precautions. Ah! only last night, after the reading
+of the black list, he had wondered idly to himself, whether Carr would
+find something new to say.</p>
+
+<p>Some hot, unwonted tears sprang up at that, with some very pricking
+thoughts of the four pure hearts at home keeping watch for him. And the
+thoughts grew and piled up, and sharpened their edges.</p>
+
+<p>I should have said that when the new cadet officers were read out on
+Graduation Day, Magnus found himself promoted to the rank of corporal.
+Soon after this the Corps went into camp.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV<br />
+CAMP GOLIGHTLY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">As 'twixt the silences, now far, now nigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rings the sharp challenge, hums the low reply.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yearling Camp was wonderfully unlike the dreary pleb camp of a year
+ago. The special hazers, drill masters, and tormentors of last year
+were gone away on furlough, or gone for good, and there was a new first
+class to take the lead. And if everyone was sorry to lose Mr. Upright,
+"many a dry eye followed" Mr. Devlin and Mr. Prank.</p>
+
+<p>Now the yearlings threw off their reserve, came out of hiding, and
+were introduced to the ladies. Some wore chevrons, some were drill
+masters, some frequented the hops, and almost all of them learned
+to play the cavalier and to win fair companions for walks before
+breakfast and after drill; for band practice, for band concert, and the
+delightful wanderings on O. G. P. The long winter months of work were
+in the dim distance, the next big milestone was marked furlough, and
+at hand were summer and the summer girl. Sisters came, and cousins;
+introductions were many, flirtations not a few.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the most delicious place!" cried Nina Dangleum one day. "You
+are always falling in love, and it never comes to anything."</p>
+
+<p>It was not to be supposed that amid such breezes Magnus Kindred
+could keep himself unfanned. To give him his due, he had no particular
+taste for flirting, and did not often mean it; he was too earnest a
+fellow to like half-way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+measures, or to go into anything only skin-deep. And I think his own
+blessed cluster of womankind at home had set the standard too high for
+him to enjoy drawing a girl on to be silly, even if it was amusing to
+see. He had also not much taste for talking unmitigated stuff, or much
+knack at doing it, and at this time of his existence would have nearly
+endorsed Mr. Weller's words:</p>
+
+<p>"Wot's the use o' calling a young 'ooman a Wenus? Just as well call
+her a griffin, or a king's arms."</p>
+
+<p>But the gales that stirred about West Point just then were very
+perfume-laden; and almost any woman might seem like an angel, when you
+first come out of the double shadow of pleb year and barracks, where
+tactical officers were your chief glimpses of the outside world.</p>
+
+<p>The soft, "Mr. Kindred, I saw you coming clear across the plain,"
+smoothed down very pleasantly the plumage which had been so roughly
+stroked the wrong way. The "Tac" might have reported those very bell
+buttons that very day as in need of rubbing up; but if Miss Flyaway
+could see them as soon as the man left camp, you perceive it took off
+the effect.</p>
+
+<p>In matters of discipline, however, and of military precision Magnus
+was, on the whole, a careful fellow (Rig spelled it "lucky"), and so
+when other men had their freedom tied up, he was often detailed to walk
+with the friend or the cousin and give her "a good time." Thus he came
+in for rather more than his share of sweets.</p>
+
+<p>It was charming to wander almost anywhere in those fair days, and
+well nigh as good to lie in the shadow of the trees about Fort Clinton,
+with a book or without. The "without" was Rig's style.</p>
+
+<p>"Kin&mdash;I'm no end comfortable!" he declared one day, lying back
+on the green with his arms above his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Same at same," responded Magnus, from behind his home newspaper.
+Rig suddenly sat up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+"Say, Kin, I want to go to artillery drill to-morrow night as chief
+of caissons."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. If you're detailed for guard, shall I take the girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Steady!"</p>
+
+<p>But after all, so it fell out; and when the Band concert began,
+Magnus escorted Miss Dangleum through the shadows to where the light
+battery guns stood ready, helped her to mount a caisson, and was in
+close attendance till the drum beat. One of these old caissons was
+quite a favourite "box" with the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Beastly!" Rig declared it all, when he came off guard next day.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him having the spooniest sort of a time," said Randolph
+maliciously. "Chappy and the Kitten were on the next gun. I say, I'm
+tired walking post. I'm going to bone colours."</p>
+
+<p>"Go in and win," Magnus admonished him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll see," said Randolph. And to be sure, such a polishing
+of buttons, and rubbing up of arms, as followed were unknown before in
+Randolph's tent. Magnus declared that the buttons made him wink clear
+across A Company Street.</p>
+
+<p>Just at the last possible moment before the critical guard-mounting,
+Randolph rushed in upon his two friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, boys, lend me a pair of white trousers. I can't find any of
+mine that are fit to go with my buttons."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've only one pair fit to go with mine," said Magnus. "Sorry!
+but they'd be too long for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig's will do," said Randolph, making a dash at the pile of
+trousers. "Thanks awfully. My, how they shine!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 386px;">
+<img src="images/109fp_600.jpg" width="386" height="600" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">THE COLOR GUARD</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Well, they certainly did. Spotless, unwrinkled, as if they, too,
+had been "boning" colours. Randolph marched out on higher heels than
+those prescribed in the regulations, and later on presented himself
+fearlessly as a candidate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+for honours. And the inspecting officer's face seemed to say he had
+reason; Randolph could see approval in every look and gesture. Gloves,
+buttons, gun were scrutinised; the trousers were dazzling and smooth.
+Then the officer passed round for a back view. Hair right length,
+collar right height above the grey, belt and buttons adjusted to a
+nicety.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Randolph," said the cadet adjutant, as he came round in front,
+"I would have given you colours but for those trousers."</p>
+
+<p>And when Randolph got in and scrutinised himself he found that the
+borrowed trousers were deeply frayed at the ankle! After which the
+young man professed himself blue and bored.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck," he said. "But I'll get even with him, see if I
+don't. They were only fringed behind."</p>
+
+<p>Two or three days after this, Randolph accosted Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin, want some fun? Like to see Coxy scared within an inch of
+his life?"</p>
+
+<p>"No sort of objection on my part; rather B. J. in you to propose
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's more than propose," said Randolph. "Just you hang round my
+tent about nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>Then after supper Randolph took his stand at the foot of A Company
+Street, where the plebs were busily going back and forth between the
+hydrant and the tents.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Johnson!" he said, hailing a D Company pleb, but keeping his
+voice well down.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The pleb slackened his pace a little, but did not look round, and
+Randolph stood glancing carelessly about, as if thinking of nothing in
+particular.</p>
+
+<p>"When you have carried in that pail come at once to the darkened
+tent at the head of the street."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+"What is your name, sir?" to another.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ummerstot, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upstart! I would like to know, Mr. Upstart, if you have no
+superior whose pail needs tilling as well as your own? Go home at once,
+and then report at my tent. The one with no light in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>When six more were under orders, Randolph strolled back to the front
+of his tent, and as fast as the plebs came up, he passed them in. They
+might stand at ease, but must not talk above a whisper. When they were
+all in hiding, Randolph spoke through the closed door of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Johnson!" in a low undertone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Your special technical name for this evening is <i>Hippotherium</i>. Do
+you hive it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Upstart! Your special name till tattoo is <i>Semnopithereus</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Parboil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Carboil, sir," said the poor pleb, with a mild preference for
+his own name.</p>
+
+<p>"I said <i>Parboil</i>. Your name will be <i>Cereopithereus</i>. Mr.
+Cereopithereus, you are first cousin to Mr. Semnopithereus, and
+according to Darwin, you each bear the same relation to a man that a
+pleb does to his superiors."</p>
+
+<p>So the eight names were given, and then Randolph began again:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ichthyosaurus, you and your fellow animals will answer to your
+special technical names at roll-call, by a growl. You, sir, are an
+extinct reptile. Did you ever hear an extinct reptile growl?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You other animals, stop that unseemly snicker. Where have you
+lived, sir, all your life to know so little?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+"In Massachusetts, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The very headquarters of fossil life. Well, sir, if you have any
+imagination at all, growl as nearly as you can in the hypothetical
+voice of that extinct reptile called an Ichthyosaurus."</p>
+
+<p>A low growl, ending in a suppressed chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Order there, in the zoölogical museum! Mr. Hippotherium!" and
+another growl followed in a different key.</p>
+
+<p>"How," said Randolph, when the roll had been gone through, "the
+countersign is: 'Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!' Do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The painful general growl that answered him was cut short by a
+smothered laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Attention! When you hear the countersign and see the tent flap
+lifted you are to growl all together, with your deepest and heaviest
+roar."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes passed silently by. Randolph loitered about near
+the tent, as one might do who found the evening air refreshing. Then
+suddenly Adjutant Cox passed down the colour line.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Cox," Randolph hailed him, "come and see what I've got in my
+tent."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking only of boodle, for which he had a soft spot, Mr. Cox came
+up, and pushed back the tent flap.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!" cried Randolph, and from the
+darkness poured forth such a horrible and very prehistoric roar that
+the tall cadet made one spring across the company street, demanding in
+no gentle tones of Randolph "What on earth he had got there?" Then,
+"hiving" the joke, he walked rapidly away. Only one such roar could
+be risked, and after a little more hectoring the plebs were let out
+quietly one by one, and Randolph sought out Magnus and Rig to receive
+their compliments on his success.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV<br />
+SIGNALING FOR HELP</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">All common things, each day's events,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That with the hour begin and end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our pleasures, and our discontents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Are rounds by which we may ascend.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was a new experience to be on guard as corporal; and instead of
+the tedious pacing up and down, to go round the camp at set intervals,
+posting the reliefs, and then to sleep or lounge in the guard tent. No
+more sounding out the "All's well!" in proper, or improper, style; but
+it seemed to Magnus that he never missed hearing it.</p>
+
+<p>But whereas in the old days he used to wish every time he called the
+hour that the beautiful, serious, and weird cry could reach across the
+continent, even to his mother's ears, now, on the whole, he was content
+that it did not.</p>
+
+<p>"If only she could hear it!" he used to think; if only the "All's
+well!" could cross those weary miles that kept her away. But now,
+somehow, he did not wish it. Yes, it was all well with the camp, all
+well with the Post; was it all well with him? Would the words bear a
+true report as <i>she</i> would understand them?</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred studied the point a good deal as he lay there in the
+guard tent looking himself over, or stole a solitary walk now and then.
+And I say "stole" advisedly. Short of stealing away, a solitary walk
+was hard to get.</p>
+
+<p>If, at the risk of his neck, he slid down some sheer cliff to the
+river's edge, few indeed would follow him, but a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+cadet boat might come along shore with a barge-load of girls in tow.
+And sometimes he was quick enough to dodge behind the bushes, and
+sometimes he sat still and let the shower of exclamations come.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just <i>see</i> Mr. Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred, <i>please</i> get right into the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't a permit."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nobody round," said the Kitten. "Jump in quick. You <i>never</i>
+can get back up there without being dashed to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly <i>with</i>. Then there'll be one less 'additional' in the
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"How dreadful! I thought you were better brought up than to talk
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you really so very well brought up?" said the Kitten, with her
+head on one side. "Do you know, I should never have thought it."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus rose to his feet, and doffed his cap profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you've done it, Puss," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I don't see how," said the Kitten. "I hate well-brought-up
+people; that's why I spoke."</p>
+
+<p>"Better hate Kin as fast as you can, then," said Chappy from the
+boat, "so's there'll be a chance for some of the rest of us. Why, he
+don't sleep in chapel more than every other Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"How can he help going to sleep, poor boy?" said Miss Saucy. "Such
+sermons!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come now," said another cadet, "that last sermon wasn't half
+bad. And not more than twice as long as was necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but for these times!" quoth Miss Saucy. "Why, it was just like
+saying 'Be good,' don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hard upon the times, wasn't it?" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+"Well, row on," said the Kitten with a deep sigh. "I see by his face
+nothing <i>I</i> can say will do any good. But it is such a pity! I never
+guessed he was that sort. A new fad, isn't it?" she said in a loud
+aside, as the oars dipped and rose. "Good-bye, Mr. Kindred! I hope your
+meditations will be very profitable."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," Magnus answered, standing up again, "I think they
+will."</p>
+
+<p>He watched the boat as it went on over the dimpling water, then
+changed his place a little, and began on a new end of his thoughts.
+This girl had "never guessed he was that sort."</p>
+
+<p>Maybe she was only telling society fibs, but Magnus would not let
+himself off so. For what reason had he ever given her to think him a
+Christian? Where had his colours been, in all these walks and talks and
+meetings? Up his sleeve, in hiding?</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot flaunt them in people's faces," Magnus pleaded for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>No, and no more did the flag its stars and stripes; only waved them
+joyously overhead.</p>
+
+<p>He had been ready to say that the constant frolic with the gay
+crowd was not good for him, but how about his side of the influence?
+Had he ever tried talking sense to girls whom he condemned for talking
+only nonsense? "Ye are the salt of the earth," but salt refreshes,
+stimulates, purifies; how far had he been like that? Without being
+priggish, without setting up for a preacher, could he not show in
+every way that the service of Christ was better than all else, and the
+knowledge of Him the most joyful thing in all this world? "Ye are my
+witnesses," said the Lord Jesus; and what sort of testimony did Cadet
+Magnus Kindred give from day to day? No matter how other men did, what
+had he done?</p>
+
+<p>The final outcome of all these cogitations was a letter. <br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">
+"<span class="smcap">Camp Golightly</span>,<br />
+"July &mdash;, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you don't come East and look after your boy. How
+do you know what he is about here? Better come and see whether you
+want him home on furlough; that is, if that time ever comes, which I
+don't believe it will. Three, six, well nigh eight months yet before it
+will even be 'One hundred days to June.' Besides, they may find me in
+January, and then, instead of going home, I should go as straight to
+the Antipodes as if they'd shot me out of a catapult."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy; I'm not skinned more than twice a day on an
+average; skins grow fast here, and skinning is nothing when you get
+used to it. So the eels say. And I'm sure to take daddy's scalp when we
+get back to barracks. Not much of a possession, either, I must own."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realise, ma'am, that your son is that much detested and
+overworked and maligned being a yearling Corporal?&mdash;wearing
+chevrons, and sporting dignity enough for three Major-Generals?
+Come and see me drill the plebs; best fun you ever saw in your
+life&mdash;when you aren't one of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"But now, mother, this is serious. Do bring up our three girls
+respectably, so that when they come here for first-class camp, they'll
+know how to behave. But first of all, you've got to come yourself and
+brush me up. Buy your ticket for West Point, stop at Garrisons, cross
+in the ferryboat, and take the omnibus up the hill. Look out both sides
+all the way up; and the minute you see a grey uniform throw up his cap,
+get out. I suppose I might run it down the hill, but then if I get in
+con. and couldn't see you all the time you were here, it wouldn't pay.
+And Towser'd be sure to be round with his patent magnifiers."</p>
+
+<p>"So I'll go to the edge of limits, and as you don't know
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+where that is, look out. If you get lost, I'll put Towser on the track
+and he'll know where you are before you know it yourself. I wonder the
+Phil. Department don't set him to work on the lost Pleiad."</p>
+
+<p>"Heigh-ho! I wish you were here this minute&mdash;with your bag full
+of gingercakes. I was on guard last night, and had nothing to eat but
+those old cast-iron sandwiches. So we put 'em in the reveille gun and
+they went off that way. Love to the girls. Don't bring 'em this time,
+but come yourself."</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Your (very) third class Corporal,</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Charlemagne Kindred</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"I enclose a picture of myself which you may like to see."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI<br />
+RE-ENFORCEMENTS READY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes
+choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours
+assez de moyens. &mdash;<span class="smcap">Rochefoucauld.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say
+that never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits
+of boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so
+received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at
+things cannot wear them out.</p>
+
+<p>At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke
+down and cried. Partly for joy&mdash;for how handsome he was! and how
+those bell buttons did set him off!&mdash;partly for the wild longing
+it stirred to have him in their arms again. But with this came in
+another feeling: that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was
+their own wayward, careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away
+behind that perfectly buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point
+makes a wonderful change, which even accustomed eyes find marvellous;
+what wonder that these unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He
+had graduated from the mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.</p>
+
+<p>If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it
+may be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that
+really belonged to it. <i>This</i> exact, stately young man, <i>her</i> Magnus,
+who used to catch her in his
+
+arms and whirl her off her feet. <i>This</i> soldierly fellow <i>their</i>
+brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the
+window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the
+smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said
+Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak
+calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added,
+feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point
+and a soldier and look like my little boy still."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of
+my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow
+seen, anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed
+one bit. Just see how they laugh at you&mdash;&mdash;" But that look
+stopped the words.</p>
+
+<p>"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window.
+"What are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came
+through the hall and into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing
+themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place
+behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's
+cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.</p>
+
+<p>But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at
+first sight of that wonderful presentation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+of her hero, but then she stood quite still; her fingers interlacing
+each other, the red and white playing hide and seek on her young
+face. That undefined change which they all felt came to her with a
+difference. For Magnus had never been hers to have and to hold, but
+only to gaze at from a safe distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become
+more wonderful than ever. Whether this put him further away or not gave
+Cherry no trouble just then; she had forgotten herself and the whole
+world at first sight of this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said
+plaintively; and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in
+the most matter-of-fact way:</p>
+
+<p>"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you
+always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her
+face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor
+Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she
+had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it
+that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look
+inside; <i>could</i> Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by
+the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was
+just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest
+Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.</p>
+
+<p>"You are strange people not to like it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad
+because it looks different."</p>
+
+<p>"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying
+the hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go
+flying open, in the Army."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing
+at her young soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+Dear me! But take off your hat and sit down, child; here is a whole
+long letter to read."</p>
+
+<p>There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot
+cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the
+picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very
+first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her
+with bewildered eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said.
+"Why, I thought he had the whole Government to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone,
+I am sure," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is
+homesick, Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back
+again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his
+mother." Her voice choked a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite
+failing to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma,
+don't look so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of
+you; he ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then
+you can tell us all about him and the place and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities
+with their young feet, were too much for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, girls, I haven't the money."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have my new winter bonnet&mdash;which was to be," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+not to be," said Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong
+box."</p>
+
+<p>"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She
+sat looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is
+as still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to
+read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such
+a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading
+began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he
+says," pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard.
+Every sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the
+two faces that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's
+shining eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always
+in sight. Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which
+the others missed; and so now and then retired into her own private
+meditations. "Bring up <i>our</i> three girls" and "when <i>they</i> come."
+Clearly, then, she also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever
+that might be.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean
+about their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the
+Antipodes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the
+girl, too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he
+says all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't
+really changed him one bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+the picture. "I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to
+the dress a little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you
+really think I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"</p>
+
+<p>With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that
+nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the
+railway companies would do the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for
+your getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody
+could keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just
+fly out."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes
+the two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you.
+Read on, mamma, please."</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the
+real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"&mdash;third-class corporals
+and the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not
+clear up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully
+twice through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly
+announced that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get
+ready. And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they
+could go too.</p>
+
+<p>And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn
+not only bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the
+conductor. The girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the
+gingercakes there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief
+embroidered with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small
+pincushion "to go in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent
+him her last little drawing of the old apple tree which had been his
+own special private <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they all
+went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours joining
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good
+woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth
+and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went,
+we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless
+feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in
+any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for
+West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest,
+and then he'd he provided for."</p>
+
+<p>Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went
+home and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly
+away, very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she
+was going to see her boy.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII<br />
+THREE CHEERS AND A TIGER</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">'Twas morn, a most auspicious one:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the golden East the golden sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Came forth his glorious race to run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through clouds of most splendid tinges.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clouds that lately slept in shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But now seemed made<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of gold brocade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With magnificent golden fringes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hood.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, it was a royal August day. The last summer
+month has a very different character in different
+places. In town, where, instead of</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Three months of sunshine bound in sheaves"</p>
+
+<p>you have the same stored up in pavements and glowing from brown
+stone fronts, it is a time which men naturally enough choose for their
+vacation, and leave the city home behind them as fast and as far as
+they can. September rains may clear the air, but till then, away.</p>
+
+<p>But in the Highlands, with here and there a rare exception, August
+is one of the very loveliest months of all the year. We say of a
+human face that it is finer after life has given its touches and done
+somewhat of its fine chiselling, and a little so does the last summer
+month surpass the two that went before. More sedate than jocund June;
+far calmer than July with its tempests and fervid heats, the shadows
+fall differently, the changed lights give you a new insight into
+things. The days are so exquisite partly because they are shortening;
+the flowers hurry out in troops.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+And nowhere in all the year do we have such a succession of wonderful
+sunset skies as in August. Then the temperature is for the most part
+perfect; the cool mornings and evenings only the fairer for the midday
+heat. It is a time when you can sit out, dine out, and well nigh take
+leave of the house altogether.</p>
+
+<p>One wise thing inexperienced Mrs. Kindred remembered to do. From
+point to point as the miles rolled by, she sent postals to the girls at
+home, and one at the outset to Magnus. He knew just when to look for
+her. And so, when the day came, and dinner was over, Cadet Charlemagne
+reported his absence at the guard tent, and strolled away to Trophy
+Point, and seated himself to wait and watch. Too early yet by an hour;
+but he was restless and could do nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>The day was cloudless now; the noon heats still in the air; the
+hazy, lazy hum of the locusts thrilled out on every side. Perhaps lazy
+is not just the word&mdash;but there are no inflections; they fight it
+out on one line, as few tired workers ever can.</p>
+
+<p>A suspicion of real haze hung over Newburgh; the more distant hills
+looked faint and dreamy. Far up the river a long tow wound silently
+down, leaving its trail upon the quiet water; nearby a sloop or two
+went softly on, spreading their white wings to the breeze. There was
+just enough air stirring to lift and drop, lift and drop, the bunting
+on the flagstaff.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat looking and listening, drawing a deep breath now and
+then. How long it seemed since he first saw Trophy Point and that
+flagstaff!&mdash;and it was really but fourteen months. He glanced
+up at the flag, just then shaking out its lovely folds. That had not
+changed. And he knew his mother had not; she would be just the same
+blessed person she had always been. But how about himself? and what
+would she think of him? And now, studying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+that question, Magnus took out mentally his own private stand of
+colours and looked at them, matching them with the flag overhead. It
+hung very still just then; and yet he could see a star here, a touch of
+the stripes there. Storms might beat it to ribands, but they could not
+change the colours nor make the flag come down.</p>
+
+<p>"That weak strip of bunting!" thought Magnus, with a certain
+interlining of words not complimentary to himself. And other words
+written above his father's grave came quick and clear: "The world
+passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
+abideth forever."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stood up and walked slowly along the little path to another
+point, whence he could see the "Central" road.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no end glad she's coming!"&mdash;so ran his thoughts. "But I
+just wonder how she'll like her boy? And there she comes!"</p>
+
+<p>For now a puff of white smoke rose up at the mouth of the Breakneck
+tunnel and then fell into a long, curling line, and began to wind its
+way rapidly along the curves of the river road.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus watched it, jumped on the seat to see it better still, and
+then tossed his cap into the air like any boy let out of school.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah, old flag!" he cried; "there she comes! Now you'll see
+somebody worth looking at."</p>
+
+<p>The white line rushed on, paused at Cold Spring, whirled along over
+the north bay and hid itself in the green Island woods, while Magnus,
+again waving his cap and this time so recklessly that it was near
+going down the hill, hurried away to Battery Knox, ran up on the green
+parapet, and stood to watch. The engine came puffing over the south
+bay as if the fate of the nation hung on its speed, dived into the
+Garrisons tunnel and slowed up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+How long it stayed!</p>
+
+<p>"Just to put off mother and her little trunk!" thought Magnus,
+laughing to himself, and then getting such dim eyes that he could not
+see a thing. But he felt as if he could hug even the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>And now, puff, puff, the train slowly moved away from the station,
+and the little ferryboat rang her bell. Of course, his mother was
+there, in the small, dark throng that came down to the river, and of
+course he must therefore really see her, but&mdash;Oh! it was too
+tantalising! I think at that minute Magnus would have given anything
+(except furlough) for a good glass.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was off, steering across the river in a pretty curve to
+suit the tide; the smooth water turning back in two long lines of
+wrinkles in her wake.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus leaped down from the parapet and was speeding away up the
+path at a great rate when there came a hail:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kin&mdash;dred!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus paused to see.</p>
+
+<p>Clustered about the pathetic white column that looking calmly down
+on the silent river, tells in such vivid fashion its terrible tale of
+struggle and death, were three or four very summery looking girls: Miss
+Fashion, Miss Dangleum, and another whom Magnus did not know.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> come here, Mr. Kindred," pleaded Miss Dangleum.</p>
+
+<p>Well, a cadet is nothing if he is not a squire of distressed
+damsels. Magnus turned and jumped down to where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he said; "has a fan gone down the hill? or is a
+parasol in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"There, isn't that just like you!" said Miss Fashion. "No, nothing
+so serious as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Beguile has come," said Miss Dangleum, "and she asked you down
+to a private view of her eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>Nina</i>!" said Miss Beguile, in soft expostulation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+"We also wanted her to see yours," said Miss Nina daringly. "She
+doesn't believe cadets have any under those caps."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus doffed his own particular cap, as in duty bound, but the view
+Miss Beguile got of his eyes was very short and unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>"Now find us a nice seat," said Miss Dangleum. "We've got lots of
+boodle."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;at any other time," began Magnus, "but
+now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say you've got a previous?" cried the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Very previous, indeed. I am just going to meet my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother?" said Miss Beguile with the sweetest air of interest.
+"How charming!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, where does <i>she</i> come from?" drawled Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>But now Mr. Kindred's eyes came to the front and declared
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"She comes from <i>home</i>," he said. "Excuse me, I am late"; and with
+another touch of his cap Magnus sprang away up the path about as fast
+as a man could go and not run.</p>
+
+<p>"He has magnificent eyes," said Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but no use," said Miss Dangleum. "I cannot bring that man to
+terms, do what I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Flinty, is he?" said Miss Beguile. "Well, I mean to get hold of
+him, girls, I give you notice. He's the sort of man I like."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any sort you don't like, Bessie?" said Miss Fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's always great fun to have men round, no matter what sort
+they are," confessed her friend. "But the unapproachable is my dearest
+choice, every time."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br />
+HIGH SUMMER</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Far through the memory shines a happy day.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Magnus meanwhile went speeding on; leaping over space, and
+chafing at the lost minutes in terms not very flattering to his fair
+disturbers. But he was in good time, after all. The stage had waited
+for a West Shore train, and when Magnus reached the furthest and
+nearest point to which he might go, the horses with their light load
+were but just nearing the riding hall.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, slowly&mdash;how that stage did creep along. Magnus crossed
+the road, went back again, darted from one point to another; if only
+he could get a good glimpse inside! Now the lumbering thing turned a
+little; ah, it was just empty. No; surely that was a bonnet on the
+further seat; and now at this window looking out for him! And surely if
+ever a forage cap went high in air, one went then. But the moment it
+was within reach again Magnus pulled it far down over his own eyes. He
+had been at West Point more than a year, looking at tactical officers,
+professors, dignitaries of all sorts; with wild cadets and all kinds
+of girls; and now this was his mother's face, and like nothing else in
+all the world. The boy's heart gave a bound fit to burst something less
+elastic than a young heart always is.</p>
+
+<p>As for poor Mrs. Kindred, when she saw that cap go up in the air, of
+course you know what happened to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+But she would not look away, even to cry, and sat gazing at that tall
+figure in grey and drawing the long sobbing breaths that bear such a
+very mixed freight. She even forgot to pull the check string, and would
+have been driven straight on if Magnus, in a voice stern enough for the
+first captain, had not bidden the driver stop. And it seemed so natural
+and fitting that her boy should pay her fare that when he pulled out a
+hidden quarter and passed it up to the driver no qualms of fear that he
+might be "skinned" for so doing disturbed her mind. Of course cadets
+have no more business with pocket money than they have with pockets,
+but she did not know that.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got one hand on his arm, gripping it with the other hand as
+if he thought she might run away; and drew her rapidly along through
+the nearest byways to a nook among rocks and trees that he deemed his
+own private discovery. Once there, hidden away in the sweet, cool
+shadow, with the river plashing softly far below, and a wood thrush
+ringing his chimes near by, Cadet Corporal Kindred threw his cap down
+on the grass, put his arms round his mother, and hid his face in her
+neck as if he had been six years old.</p>
+
+<p>It was just what the mother needed. For at first sight, this tall,
+splendid fellow with braid and buttons and chevrons, straight as a
+line, and with all the saucy curls cut away, laid her under a spell.
+Except the first meeting kiss she had had hardly a sign from him unless
+that grip of her hand. But now, with her boy in her arms, he was her
+boy still, and she quite too happy for this lower world.</p>
+
+<p>"Child," she said at last, "what have they done with your hair? Have
+you been sick?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus looked up and laughed; the old shine in his eyes making
+her heart leap.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations," he said. "I am nothing any more but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+a bundle of regulations, mother. Might about as well be a convict
+labeled 379."</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations!" Mrs. Kindred repeated. "I wish I had the making of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had, mother. And there are some three hundred and odd
+more boys here, who would confidingly hand the job over to you. Then
+we'd have pie every day for dinner and cake for supper, Saturday in the
+middle of the week, and no Monday morning recitations."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus," said Mrs. Kindred, bewildered over this very mixed lot
+of grievances, "don't you have cake for supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now and then a mysterious compound which goes by that name," said
+Magnus. "We are having it scientifically analysed to see whether it is
+all new-process granite, or whether one part mud comes in."</p>
+
+<p>But here the innocent, perplexed face was too much for him. He
+almost shouted with fun, tossing his cap up higher than it had ever
+been.</p>
+
+<p>"You blessed mother!" he said. "You haven't changed one
+bit&mdash;not a pin's point. There was one on your shoulder just now to
+scratch me, exactly as there always used to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!" cried poor Mrs. Kindred. "I did not mean to leave
+that pin there. I just stuck it in last night in the sleeping car."</p>
+
+<p>"But you always did 'just stick it in,' you know," said Magnus
+disrespectfully; "and I never remember the time when it didn't just
+stick out. It wouldn't be you without a pin on your shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be you if you were not a saucy boy," said the mother,
+and then they looked in each other's eyes and laughed; how happy they
+were!</p>
+
+<p>"All right, mammy," said Magnus. "That pin gave me a welcome nothing
+else could. How are the girls?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+"The girls are lovely," said Mrs. Kindred. "Cherry has tried to fill
+your place, Magnus, ever since you came away."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm, I don't know about that," said Magnus. "Tell her she can't
+have but half of it, fair and square."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, you know how I talk," said Mrs. Kindred. "She could not
+really, dear, nor anybody else. But she is the dearest girl, Magnus,
+and so wise. We have to get her to explain all the queer things in your
+letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I write queer things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very; or they sound so to us. And I get quite worried sometimes.
+And then Cherry will say in that pretty way of hers, 'You know it is
+Magnus, Mrs. Kindred, so he could not mean <i>that</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>If two sparks flew from Cadet Kindred's eyes at these words, only
+the green moss at his feet was witness thereto. But, then, a very grave
+look came over his face. His mother watched him anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think I really <i>meant</i> that, dear?" she said. "No one on
+earth could fill my boy's place with me, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; I understand," he said, without looking up. "But she
+deserves it so. Cherry is a great deal better than I am, mother."</p>
+
+<p>The mother smiled contentedly. Very small improvement did her boy
+need for her. But she would not say that; just as well for him not to
+know how high he stood on the general merit roll. And it was a fine new
+West Point development, if Magnus was inclined to underrate his own
+perfections. Which, by the way, was not at all what that young man was
+doing. But Cherry's simple, unquestioning faith in him suddenly touched
+up his memory of certain things which (in spite of being "Magnus") he
+had done, and the recollection was not pleasant. Not very bad things,
+Oh, no! but by no means up to Cherry's standard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's not worth while for her to come on before furlough," he said,
+thinking aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Her?" Mrs. Kindred repeated questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, any one of the girls," said Magnus. "You see, the winter
+journey is one thing; and then in the winter there's such a beastly lot
+of studying to do. And in the spring I shall be boning every minute.
+But wait till first-class camp. Or you might all come back with me from
+furlough&mdash;just for a first sight of the place."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred. "Why Magnus, you talk as if we had
+the Bank of England at our back."</p>
+
+<p>"No, only me in front," said Magnus with a gleam of his bright eyes.
+"You don't suppose I am going to worry through the last two years here
+without a sight of you all? Wouldn't pay to bone rank if nobody came to
+see my chevrons. Just as well go on and get rattled like some of the
+rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said poor Mrs. Kindred. "'Rattled' and 'bone' you've
+said twice. And you called your studies 'beastly.' I thought they
+taught English at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>How Magnus laughed!</p>
+
+<p>"There are Tacs over yonder," he said, "with a party of summer
+girls; and one of the girls offered me a lot of boodle. And the Com.'s
+out riding, and the Supe's gone to town, and the Arch-fiend is at the
+seaside."</p>
+
+<p>"Now Charlemagne, stop!" said Mrs. Kindred. Magnus gave her another
+delighted hug.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh mammy!" he said; "this is you, and no mistake. I didn't quite
+believe it was at first." And kissing first one hand and then the
+other, Magnus put them both back in her lap, and laid his cheek down
+upon them. The mother got one hand away and softly stroked the fine
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand about your hair, yet," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And why do you wear such a thick coat this warm day, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Why my dear! Well, you might unbutton it at least," said Mrs.
+Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred was silent a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"I took my dinner in Poughkeepsie," she said, "because I was not
+sure of getting here in time for yours; and I know it is not good for
+you to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"No ma'am, it isn't&mdash;here," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"But we can have supper at any time you like."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, without raising his head, gave a groan and wished they
+could.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can," said Mrs. Kindred. "I can wait till late, or have
+it early, Magnus, just as suits you. What do you mean by sighing like
+that? What is in the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well!" said the mother, trying to smother her disappointment;
+"you have some other thing on hand? Never mind, dear, then we'll be
+together at breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we sha'n't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations. We cannot have one single meal together while you are
+here, mammy."</p>
+
+<p>And now, indeed, Mrs. Kindred had no more to say; the bands of red
+tape seemed to be winding all about her heart, and drawing very tight
+indeed. She had so pictured to herself the joy of once more handing her
+boy his cup of coffee. But it must be best for him, she said bravely to
+herself; or else they would not make such rules. And, whatever was best
+for him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>can</i> you do, dear?" she said aloud, but with a plaintiveness
+that went to the boy's heart. He sat up and took her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I can do lots, mammy!" he said. "Never you worry one bit. I can't
+do it for breakfast, and I can't do it to-night, but some other day
+I'll cut supper, and we'll have it down here together. And we'll have
+picnics instead of dinner. And I'll walk with you every minute of
+release from quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"Release!" The word jarred on the mother's ear; to what had she sent
+her boy? But then, whatever it was, it agreed with him splendidly;
+never had she seen Magnus in more jocund health and strength; life at
+its best was in every look and motion. And the eyes that flashed and
+sparkled at her were not the least in the world careworn or overworked.
+So Mrs. Kindred locked up all her dismayed pangs and questionings, and
+once more stroking her boy's cropped head, remarked that it was said to
+make the hair grow to cut it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a mop when I come out, then," said Magnus. "How does
+Cherry wear her hair now? same old way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Kindred; "only it's never twice just the
+same. You know her curls arrange themselves&mdash;as yours used to,
+Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Disarrange was the word for me. If anybody cuts hers off, I'll
+shoot him."</p>
+
+<p>"I think somebody did cut one off once, without being shot," said
+Mrs. Kindred. Magnus coloured.</p>
+
+<p>"That was only one," he said. "Why didn't you bring them all along?
+The girls, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you unreasonable boy," said his mother; "you expressly bade me
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"I had been here so long, I forgot that you always minded," said
+Magnus, with a saucy look.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I did <i>not</i> always," said Mrs. Kindred; "but the girls could
+not have come off in such a moment, Magnus; they were not ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Girls never are. They'd learn, if they had a week or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+two in camp. Bang goes the reveille gun&mdash;and in just two minutes
+you have to be dressed and out in line, swearing that 'Kindred, C.' is
+present and accounted for."</p>
+
+<p>"Swearing, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, some of the men make the statement pretty loud. I am one of
+the mild kind, and 'roar gently.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know what your gentle roars amount to," said his mother
+derisively. "But Magnus, do they really make you dress in two
+minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"By my watch."</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't got a watch," said the perplexed mother.</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore am subject now and then to miscalculations."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, West Point has not changed you yet, to hurt," said the
+mother, smiling at him. Magnus took her tender hands and put one on
+each side of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "it is the jolliest thing to see you sitting
+there, puzzling your dear head over my grinds. I could cry, if I wanted
+to. But I say, when you do bring the girls, don't give 'em time to get
+ready. They shan't come here looking as if they'd never had anything
+before, but had got it now, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But our girls have always had enough, you know, Magnus, and they
+are not likely to have any more," said Mrs. Kindred, cutting both
+knots.</p>
+
+<p>"They are worth all the girls I have seen here, multiplied by twelve
+dozen," said Magnus. "Oh, mother, why didn't they come! But I tell you,
+you'll have your hands full when they do. Violet will make a sensation.
+And Rose&mdash;I think True will be fathom deep at first sight of Rose;
+he likes quiet, sweet, strong girls."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think most people would," said Mrs. Kindred. "And how
+about Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing about Cherry."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Am I not to bring her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! she had better come too," said Magnus. "Mammy, it is
+as good as a month of Saturdays just to look at you. You are the
+handsomest woman on the Post."</p>
+
+<p>And now pink tinges came upon the sweet pale face; and Mrs. Kindred
+was certainly the happiest woman anywhere about.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX<br />
+THE VISITORS' SEATS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">With whom doth Time gallop withal?</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Alas. Time did not slacken his pace for those two people. After that
+very first day, when Mrs. Kindred really took in the astounding fact
+that she was <i>there</i>, she began to count almost the seconds as they
+ticked away, and grudged even those spent in sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She would sit far on into the night, looking over from her window to
+where her boy's tent rose up sharp and white in the moonshine; and with
+the first drum-beat in the morning was at her post, sending off her
+heart and her blessing to that grey line where Magnus stood. If he was
+on guard she watched for glimpses of his tall figure as he went up and
+down, posting reliefs, and in a sort loved the whole white battalion
+that marched away to dinner because one particular white helmet rested
+on his head. And never was there a more devoted frequenter of the camp,
+as she waited there on the visitors' seats for his moments of leisure,
+happy between whiles that he was at least nearby.</p>
+
+<p>Then she steadied her nerves to bear the sharp reports in the Light
+Battery drill, and watched man&oelig;uvres and evolutions as eagerly as
+if she understood them all. How stately Magnus looked in his various
+trappings; how nimbly he tumbled in and out of the caissons. And when
+the sergeant shouted out at parade:</p>
+
+<p>"Company A, one corporal absent!"&mdash;how thankful
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+that particular mother was that it could not possibly be <i>her</i> son.</p>
+
+<p>It was astonishing to see such honours and cares resting upon
+his young head; drilling plebs, posting sentinels; no wonder he had
+changed. Was the change in him all for the better? The mother could not
+quite tell. When Magnus was with her that joy swept everything else
+away; but sometimes, as she sat alone, her thoughts worked hard, and
+many things came in to tangle and perplex them.</p>
+
+<p>Loitering about the camp in this way, and never missing a formation,
+Mrs. Kindred also could not miss a good deal else. The Point was not
+crowded; but the summer girl&mdash;and the summer girl's supposed
+chaperon&mdash;were in sufficient force; and as young people nowadays
+think their words worth hearing, Mrs. Kindred did not need to strain
+her ears nor give undue attention to know much that was said and
+done.</p>
+
+<p>It was a glimpse into a life unguessed before. Her own had been
+simple, earnest, and useful, from her youth up. The three girls at home
+were as merry as crickets, and overflowing with fun and frolic; but
+the cricket fun&mdash;if fun it be&mdash;was not more guileless and
+true-hearted than theirs.</p>
+
+<p>But now, sitting under the trees and watching her boy from a
+distance, Mrs. Kindred would sometimes hear, close at hand, some word
+or sentiment that made her start and look round, with a great wish that
+the girl's mother were there; and behold, quite often she <i>was</i>. Then
+this mother would get up and change her seat.</p>
+
+<p>Small use. Near the new place sat a tall young lady in tennis rig
+set free, while her waist was drawn in until playing must have been
+hard work. A game had been on, for Miss Viny's cheeks were flushed, and
+she still brandished her racket. She was talking over her shoulder to a
+semi-young officer.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you have a great deal too much to do with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+Captain Chose, Miss Viny," said this gentleman. "You know he is in a
+very peculiar position with regard to his wife."</p>
+
+<p>And the handsome girl, flashing round at him her daring eyes, made
+answer:</p>
+
+<p>"That only makes him the more interesting!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred shivered slightly, and once more changed her seat.</p>
+
+<p>And <i>now</i> she got among a bevy of girls who were talking of Magnus;
+they fluttered in and settled down all around her, too eager over their
+subject to know or care who heard their talk.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get hold of him somehow. I'm bound to do it," said a dark girl
+in very extreme costume. "I told you I would, and I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Not worth the bother," said a plump little damsel in pink. "There
+are plenty more."</p>
+
+<p>"Not plenty with eyes like his; there's not such another pair in the
+Corps. They're just heavenly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aren't they?" said the plump girl. "When he looks at you it
+makes you feel queer all over."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you were going to say, all through," said Miss
+Beguile; "and you know there isn't any 'all through' to you,
+Kitten."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I call that <i>too</i> bad," said the Kitten. "When I am universally
+known to be all heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Good you are," said Miss Saucy, "for you give everyone a piece and
+the supply might fail. But there's a good deal of you, such as it is,
+Kitten. You'll turn the three F's, if you live long enough."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Some</i> people don't think there's too much of me," said the Kitten,
+pouting.</p>
+
+<p>"About half the Corps, I should judge. Now I believe in one grand
+master passion, don't you know. I think it's dear."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's a passion for a master&mdash;if you're in love with Mr.
+Kindred," said a fourth girl. "He'll manage you, Bessie. Make you
+behave."</p>
+
+<p>If anybody had had time to notice the quiet little mother sitting
+there, he would have seen a very perceptible start, and a pair of eyes
+as indignant as such tender eyes could be. <i>Those</i> girls after her
+young magnate? Mrs. Kindred was fit to go that moment to headquarters
+and demand a cordon of red tape to surround her boy. But she could do
+nothing; could not speak to the girls, could not (alas) even shake
+them. Then she seemed to remember seeing him bow to these very ones;
+and with a certain dress-coat air, which now Mrs. Kindred marked as one
+of the new things about Magnus that disturbed her.</p>
+
+<p>What if Cherry had seen and heard it all? And suddenly Mrs. Kindred
+knew why it was Cherry she thought of, and not Rose or Violet.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a new and difficult complication. Yes, of course, it was
+all natural, the mother felt, and plain enough now she thought of it.
+Whether Cherry herself yet knew, or not, she <i>would</i>, just as soon as
+Magnus took a fancy to somebody else. Could he do that, after having
+once known her? Mrs. Kindred waited till the next relief went on, and
+Magnus within the guard tent was quite out of sight, and then went to
+her room to think and to pray.</p>
+
+<p>Should she talk to Magnus?&mdash;no; skating is generally safer
+than navigation in broken ice. And the next day but one she was to go
+home.</p>
+
+<p>No further sight of her boy could be hoped for that night, and Mrs.
+Kindred shut herself in and watched the silent camp long after the
+sweet "curfew" bugle had cried to every light:</p>
+
+<p>"Put it out! Put it out! Put it out!"</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX<br />
+JUST THEE AND ME</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And minuting the long day's loss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The cedar's shadow, slow and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Creeps o'er the dial of grey moss.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The next day rose fairer than ever. Magnus came off at eight o'clock
+with "old guard privileges," and having also kind permission from the
+authorities to dine with his mother in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Now the ordering and preparing of this dinner had been a great
+joy to Mrs. Kindred; what though the correct dainties could not be
+had. Green corn to boil was an impossibility, even if a kettle could
+be found; and home-made rolls were far out of reach, and not all the
+canned things that were ever turned out could replace her own home-fed
+chickens and home-cured ham. The supplies from the baker were fresh
+and clean and well looking&mdash;yet Mrs. Kindred sighed, thinking of
+Violet's loaves of cake, and Cherry's pies.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, however, was not so critical, he did not see even such as
+these every day, and so enjoyed everything to his mother's heart's
+content. And as she feasted on her boy there was really no lack
+anywhere. The fair August lights and shades chased each other among
+cedars and oaks, the locusts hummed; the birds that had nestlings sped
+swiftly to and fro, bringing food. Fall after fall of rocky woods and
+winding road lay at their feet; below all, the white camp in its green
+setting, then the river&mdash;never twice
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+the same. Far up in the north the Catskills lifted their blue,
+changeless heads.</p>
+
+<p>It was all so wondrous and so new to Mrs. Kindred that she was
+watching it, taking it in, even when she thought she had no eyes but
+for Magnus. The hills bewitched her; the distant blue, the nearer
+green; on all sides she seemed to hear the silent chanting of her
+favourite psalm:</p>
+
+<p>"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help."</p>
+
+<p>Surely this was a place wherein to grow "strong in the Lord"; a
+place where to remember:</p>
+
+<p>"Thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures."</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy, you don't eat," said Magnus, beginning on another small pie.
+"You might venture&mdash;just a little. I think there'd be enough left
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I have too much," said the mother. "Magnus, don't eat any
+more of that pie; it is not Cherry's make, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know it! But her pies are across the continent, worse luck.
+It is good the know-nothing girls here don't try their hand. Shade of
+Scipio Africanus, what a poisoning of cadets there would be! Dr. Senna
+says that if it wasn't for Pretty Newcomb and her candy&mdash;with a
+sprained ankle now and then&mdash;he shouldn't have a man on the sick
+list."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is good," said Mrs. Kindred heartily; "the place must
+agree with you all. Magnus, do you know many people here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred cadets, more or less, and too many officers quite
+intimately," said Magnus, trying the cake. "Besides the bugler and the
+orderly."</p>
+
+<p>"Any ladies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite some."</p>
+
+<p>"I really do wish they taught English here," said
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+poor Mrs. Kindred. "You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the
+mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"</p>
+
+<p>"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously
+quoting Portia.</p>
+
+<p>"You do know her then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she
+talks," said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the
+Kitten?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested in anyone you know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast
+into the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that
+did their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first
+one hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips.
+And Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap,
+softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out
+here, nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."</p>
+
+<p>"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It is not growing like a tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That makes man better be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a
+whole half-inch. Call it three-quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory,
+and tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute
+they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a <i>very</i> saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look
+grave.</p>
+
+<p>"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last
+June. Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I
+think she could not be sweeter&mdash;and then the next day I think she
+is," said Mrs. Kindred warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really
+believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every
+chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class,
+and for two hours every day they study together."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are
+extremely developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have
+grown enough."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred,
+taking her turn at the irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books
+are on hand, but the pocket is wanting."</p>
+
+<p>"No pocket?"</p>
+
+<p>"No'm. <i>Now</i> you have an idea of desolate destitution."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+And Magnus raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white
+handkerchief from his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air,
+tucked it back again.</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder
+I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I
+couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what
+preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no
+Tacs up overhead,"&mdash;and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no
+pockets&mdash;why, I never heard of such doings!&mdash;then where do
+you put anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up my sleeve."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally <i>not</i> spoken
+of. In winter we have a resource&mdash;a small one; but in summer we
+should be hard up if it wasn't for the girls."</p>
+
+<p>"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred
+rather severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and
+empty them at our feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk
+in that way at home, and I do not like it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after
+me yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted
+the men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a
+man do? You must speak of people as you find them."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.</p>
+
+<p>"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+aren't lions, mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail
+of an angel stayed by him,&mdash;and mine comes&mdash;and will go!" And
+Magnus brought the beloved hands up to his face again.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing
+and delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That
+touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to
+be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas
+came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of
+order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too
+much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out,
+and the standing sure.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering
+in spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>has</i>," put in Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for
+loyalty to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew
+that was true of you."</p>
+
+<p>How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of
+the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird
+notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows,
+the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came
+to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing
+words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they
+sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless
+prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else.
+Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed
+eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and
+lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down
+into her lap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing
+off at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me.
+But mother, you don't know how hard it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places,
+nor is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had
+always at least a storm flag out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you guess what I meant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your
+flag down, even on the stormiest days."</p>
+
+<p>"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine
+anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean&mdash;and
+what it <i>does</i> mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The
+toughest wind that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from
+reveille to retreat. And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a
+touch of blue and a gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of
+the old pole."</p>
+
+<p>"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to
+fly my storm flag in fair weather."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to
+speak, and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her
+again, found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face
+was grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company
+Christians?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."</p>
+
+<p>"Or all your special associates?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no! Not by several and many."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+with aliens, and not an American left but the one in charge of the
+colours. What should he do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI<br />
+ME ONLY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Everything goes away," said the Dryad: "goes away as the
+clouds go, never to return." &mdash;<span class="smcap">Hans Andersen.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>That was the last long talk they had together. A brief walk next
+morning before eight o'clock; another&mdash;ah, how short&mdash;to the
+brow of the hill where they had met that first day; and then Magnus
+pulled his cap over his eyes and strode away to his hidden nook, and
+the mother went quietly sobbing down the hill. Alas! how fast the
+minutes flew now that had seemed so loitering when she came.</p>
+
+<p>As for Magnus, he watched the ferryboat every foot of the way over;
+waved his cap frantically to the cluster of dark spots that went up the
+sloping path to the station; then listened for the roar of the coming
+train with an intensity that made him start when he heard it. With
+a great pang he saw the pliant black line wind out from between the
+cloven rocks and swing along to the station, almost holding his breath
+in the minute's hush that came next. Hardly a minute; then puffs of
+black smoke curled up into the air, the engine gave its usual snort at
+such trifles as love and life and parting, and the train glided on into
+the tunnel, flew out across the bay, and past the Island; the trail of
+smoke fainted and faded away on the sweet summer air, and Cadet Kindred
+shook his fist at the whole thing.</p>
+
+<p>What right had that black engine to carry his mother off before his
+very eyes? And what business had he to be lingering there behind her?
+If it could have been done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+suddenly and quietly, I believe Magnus would have resigned on the spot,
+and taken the next train home.</p>
+
+<p>But red tape has its use. What letters and papers and statements
+such a step would involve; what answering of official questions; and
+Cadet Charlemagne Kindred did not feel prepared to state publicly that
+he, who had survived to be a yearling corporal, must now resign for
+homesickness. A drum-call in the distance also lent its persuasions.
+The usual is generally, after all, the easiest thing to do, so Magnus
+put his cap in position, and set his face towards camp and duty. But
+taking off the cap again, he first bowed very low towards the steadfast
+old hills through whose cuts and chasms his mother had just vanished,
+kissing his hand to her in mute farewell; then resolutely walked
+away.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pleb drill that afternoon, and with the way one has of
+being good by proxy, Mr. Kindred kept his little set of men to their
+work most unflinchingly, with small allowance for mistakes, and none
+at all for inattention. Such zeal bestowed upon himself would have
+wrought wonders. To hear him, you would have thought a mathematical
+line the only easy position, and any sort of twist or bend that might
+be ordered merely a pleasing variety of the same. "Brace up"&mdash;the
+poor, distracted fourth classmen felt sure he must have done it in his
+cradle.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dangleum came by and paused to look&mdash;and Magnus was
+sublimely unconscious of her presence; the Kitten held out a box of
+bonbons&mdash;and he went by at the double-quick. Then Miss Saucy
+joined the group, with Miss Bessie Beguile, and finally, that young
+lady's mother came slowly on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter here?" said the panting chaperon. "How you girls
+do run! What are you looking at? Who's fainted? These drills are
+positively barbarous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't you just wish he <i>would</i> faint?" cried the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+Kitten. "Such fun! Then we'd all rush in with our smelling-bottles,
+while Mrs. Beguile ran for water!"</p>
+
+<p>"While I&mdash;ran&mdash;for water!" quoth Mrs. Beguile, with a
+thought of her rather stout proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'd be the only one, you know, mamma," said Miss Bessie
+sweetly. "Because <i>we</i> couldn't invade the guard tents alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor in company, either," said Miss Saucy. "Nobody's going to faint,
+Mrs. Beguile, unless it's me, because we can't get Mr. Kindred to look
+at us."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" said Mrs. Beguile. "I am surprised! <i>Never</i> show such
+special interest. Why, you will turn the young man's head."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what we're after," said the Kitten. "And what we'll do, too.
+I'll <i>make</i> him look at me&mdash;I vow I will!"</p>
+
+<p>The words were spoken half aloud, but the young lady got not a
+glimpse of the eyes in question. Corporal Kindred's words of command
+rang out minus let or hinderance; and if the girls put themselves in
+the way, he led his men straight on, and they had to get out of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind," said Miss Saucy, after one of these raids. "It's
+fun. And he can't <i>help</i> seeing us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's ravishing to hear anything in such a voice," said Miss
+Beguile. "If I were going to be shot, I should like to have him give
+the order."</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow
+music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from
+the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a
+prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus
+walked slowly down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness,
+in these his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum.
+"They are so pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and
+experimentally).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill
+it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"</p>
+
+<p>And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the
+corporal turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no
+sign.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a
+box of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently
+deep abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could
+knock his cap off, I should die radiant."</p>
+
+<p>And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in
+the fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position;
+the peach fell harmlessly at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Attention!"</p>
+
+<p>The plebs started, and so did the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left
+to make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it
+up." But he did not.</p>
+
+<p>Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in
+the cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What
+pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This
+time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's
+witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from
+some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the
+group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin, Miss Dangleum wants you."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in
+the mood."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I tell her?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you like!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and
+have left a bear to keep house."</p>
+
+<p>Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do bring him!" cried a pretty voice. "I do so dote upon bears.
+Oh, I think they're dear! Which one is Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll know by his eyes, when he turns round," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's the only way I can ever tell cadets apart&mdash;by their
+eyes," said Miss Midget. "Is that the reason they order 'Eyes front' so
+much?&mdash;so that the officers can know which one to report?"</p>
+
+<p>Another laugh followed.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better believe old Towser would know, if they hadn't any eyes
+at all," said Randolph, "or if he hadn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he hasn't, much," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Stands to reason," said Rig, "because he's got 'em all
+over&mdash;diffused. In the back of his head, and on his
+shoulder-straps, and the white stripe down his trousers, and the point
+of his nose."</p>
+
+<p>"That's awfully funny!" said Miss Beguile. "Must make it awfully
+lively for all of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just does. The only enjoyment he has in life is skinning cadets. So
+it's 'Skin 'em! Skin 'em!' all the day long. Too much shirt-collar at
+breakfast, and too little coat above belt at drill."</p>
+
+<p>"And too much hair," said Mr. Carr. "I declare, when Towser comes
+rubbing up and down the back of my head, I feel as if I was a baby
+getting washed and dressed."</p>
+
+<p>The girls clapped their hands in applause.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Such pretty hair, too," said the Kitten, "or would be, I'm sure, if
+one could see it." Mr. Carr made a profound reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you so much," he said. "Awfully good of you. Wish you'd give
+Towser a hint."</p>
+
+<p>"Wherever did the poor man get such a name?" said Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Simple and descriptive," said Mr. Carr.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, D. T.," said Rig, "I wouldn't be as funny as I could,
+not every time, don't you know. You might get the blues for disrespect.
+He's sure to be round."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you call <i>him</i> 'D. T.'?" demanded another girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubletimes it every day," said Rig. "Gets a late in the morning,
+and a cold absence at night."</p>
+
+<p>"But what <i>can</i> we do to rouse Mr. Kindred from this awful
+abstraction?" said Miss Dangleum.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's give him homeopathic treatment," said the Kitten. "D. T.,
+double-time it over to the band and bid them play 'Love Not.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," said Rig. "He won't get there till the drum beats. 'Love
+Not'&mdash;I never heard of such a tune in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"You will&mdash;first time you make love to the wrong girl," said
+Miss Saucy. "Now go!"</p>
+
+<p>"They won't do it for him," said Carr; "they <i>can't</i>&mdash;unless
+the Com. or the officer in charge says so. You'll have to go yourself.
+Towser's in charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Send the Kitten," said Miss Dangleum. "That will just fit. Here,
+Puss, draw in your claws and stretch out your paws, and go get an order
+for the band to play 'Love Not.'"</p>
+
+<p>So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't do it," said Randolph.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole
+canine contingent."</p>
+
+<p>And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand,
+took their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.</p>
+
+<p>And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it
+so long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but
+slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been
+a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows
+came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet
+rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the
+old words kept sounding in his ears:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Love not! Love not!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thing you love may change."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved
+people at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers
+did write!</p>
+
+<p>He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then
+began the simple air again; and the words would come:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Love not! Love not!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thing you love may die."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A great pang shot through the boy's heart. <i>Could</i> such
+things happen to him? How had his mother looked?
+Magnus turned away from the band and hid himself in
+the dark recesses of his tent.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII<br />
+GIRLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Rien de trop est un point<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dont on parle sans cesse, et qu'on observe point.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">La Fontaine.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So Miss Dangleum failed for that time. But "To-morrow is also a
+day," says the proverb. And it is not in human nature to be always
+insensible to blandishments. Mr. Kindred found himself scanning his
+wonderful eyes in the small glass quite oftener than was needed. He
+could also pick out Miss Dangleum's red parasol clear across the plain
+from all its compeers; and knew at least half of Miss Beguile's fans by
+experience. She declared that he had broken a quarter of them, but this
+statement is plainly incorrect.</p>
+
+<p>The Point filled up to crowding as the encampment neared its close,
+and introductions, walks, picnics, were multiplied, and every cadet who
+liked the fun could have enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred, for one, had about all he could manage, Rig's
+favourite cousin was always on his hands when Rig himself was on guard
+or in confinement. This happened pretty often, and as Rig was his
+"wife" Magnus could not object. Chapman's sister was often turned over
+to him because Chapman's best girl was also at the Point.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was every now and then some plain, unnoticed girl whom
+Magnus in his chivalry would look after and take out, giving her a
+royal good time. There were guests at some of the houses where the
+young cadet had been made welcome, and he must help amuse them. And
+finally (for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+my hero was every inch a man), there were wits and beauties with
+whom he liked to stand at least as well as the best. It was all very
+enticing, and he was so lonely when his mother had gone that petting of
+any sort felt good.</p>
+
+<p>So that last part of August was one grand whirl, in which common
+sense and right ways got drawn in and danced a breakdown. At least that
+was what Cadet Kindred said of it himself in his calmer moments. For
+"Kindred&mdash;late at roll-call," "Kindred&mdash;absent at supper,"
+had been read out too often from the blue list after parade.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was on guard the last night but one of Camp Golightly, and
+between reliefs took time to foot up his accounts. What had he to
+show for those weeks since his mother went away? Or (excepting only
+her visit) for the whole of "Yearling Camp"? Not much, he thought to
+himself with a curl of his lip. The little pleasure he had given was
+easy and cheap; the pleasure he had had&mdash;well, it did not look
+very bright to him now. Not very satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed rather small business to take all the sweets he could get:
+compliments, flattery, and boodle, from girls to whom he neither would,
+could, nor should, give more in return than a walk or two; perhaps only
+the convenient phrase:</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, awfully."</p>
+
+<p>And that very phrase was his mother's aversion.</p>
+
+<p>And it was no end mean, to laugh at a thing and then afterwards
+score it sharply. Was he still "training with the wrong
+crowd"&mdash;only of girls this time?</p>
+
+<p>Then he changed his ground and came up on the other side. How far
+had he been a power for good in all those weeks? How much stronger or
+purer had any company been for his presence? Who had learned to think
+sweeter things of religion for his glad life? Whose doubts had weakened
+in the light of his faith? Was anyone more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+ready to swear fealty to Christ for <i>his</i> constant witnessing to the
+blessedness of the service? Nay, Cadet Kindred knew, now that he took
+time to think, what had ailed some of the merrymaking. It jarred his
+conscience. And sometimes he had felt it at the time.</p>
+
+<p>That Sunday afternoon, when he had walked about with Miss Dangleum,
+and smiled at her vapid infidelities, the twinge had been so sharp, as
+he thought of his mother in the old porch at home, drawing strength and
+knowledge from her open Bible, that he never did <i>that</i> thing again.
+But he had laughed at Miss Beguile's jests about church and church
+service, and the very next day, in chapel, had taken the sugar plums
+she offered under cover of her fan.</p>
+
+<p>He had been indignant when some girl, displeased with the sermon,
+shook her fist at the preacher then and there. But perhaps she had
+never been taught any better&mdash;and what had been his own criticisms
+of that very sermon? Just as open as he dared make them.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred felt rather sick of himself, on the whole.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a large place in which to keep your colours!" he said,
+looking down into his grey sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>In some things he had stood firm. The first brandy snap he got hold
+of at Mrs. Beguile's picnic went over the cliffs at Fort Putnam, to the
+great excitement of a nest of young squirrels. And the first bonbon
+drugged with rum followed: first, and last.</p>
+
+<p>"But, easy and cheap!" he repeated to himself. "I was not going to
+be tricked into taking that stuff. I had said I wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>What else had he "said"?</p>
+
+<p>Coming off next morning with O. G. P., Magnus got leave to go to the
+trunkroom, and hunted out a little copy of the Church covenant which he
+knew his mother had packed in with his other things. Then, under one of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+shadowing trees of Fort Clinton, he lay on the grass and read it
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"Unto Him, the Lord, you do now give yourself away, in a covenant
+never to be revoked, to be His willing servant forever."</p>
+
+<p>Was it like a good servant to listen to slighting talk about his
+Master's laws? To be silent when the Name that is above every name was
+lightly spoken? Could he not rise and go from any company? How long
+would he be quiet if his mother's name was handled so? He did always
+wince, he was glad to remember, but who had been the wiser?</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a poor little storm flag!" he said bitterly to himself.
+"And these are but catspaws that come to me."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus turned over on his elbow, and looked across to the flagstaff,
+where the colours were having a lively time in the breeze; looked and
+looked, his eyes growing very grave, his lips firm.</p>
+
+<p>"You're worth a half hundred of me, old comrade," he said, with a
+reverent wave of his cap. What was that his mother had said in her last
+letter?</p>
+
+<p>"Thou, therefore, my son, endure hardness, as a good soldier of
+Jesus Christ." Turning back after a while to his former position,
+Magnus found himself face to face with a pile of muslin and lace, of
+which Miss Saucy was the fair centre. She stood a little away, gazing
+pensively at him, her white kids clasped in what might be either
+entreaty or dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's nothing the matter, is there?" she said. "I was <i>so</i>
+afraid you'd had a sunstroke, or something. And you know you promised
+me a walk this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it's very rude of you to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is not too late for the walk," said Magnus,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+slipping the little book up his sleeve, and putting himself by the
+young lady's side. "Which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Round the plain. I mustn't get out of sight, because I have to walk
+with Mr. Chapman at twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"'Have to' expresses it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't make fun of him," said Miss Saucy. "Of course, he's not
+some people,&mdash;but then he never forgets his walks, which some
+people do. What was that book you were studying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>"Blue book?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, white."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was the black one. Boning discipline! I don't believe it.
+Not you."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see, then," she said. "I know it's just some old thing with
+a love letter inside. Give it to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus drew out the little book and handed it over, but Miss Saucy
+was a very bewildered girl indeed, as she turned the pages.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>" she said. "I can't make head or tail of this thing. What
+sort of stuff is it, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff that will wear."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll wear you&mdash;wear you out," said Miss Saucy. "You are
+at least two years older than you were last night. Oh, I don't know
+anything about religion, except the outside of course, don't you know;
+but that's enough. So the Chaplain has given you the points, and
+you're going to pose; Cadet Kindred, the serious man. Well, it'll be
+a variety. Come, let's go; I'll be the first to have a walk with him,
+anyhow. Will this do-o-o?" said the girl, drawling out her words, and
+bringing the corners of her little mouth as far down as they would go.
+"Mr. Kindred, what will be a profitable subject for us to discuss, as
+we take our solemn way under the brooding trees that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+shadow the path once called Flirtation? The low state of grace in the
+Corps, and what to do about it? Then when we've settled that we might
+turn our brilliant light upon the girls and go for them."</p>
+
+<p>"You said you wanted to walk on the plain," Magnus answered her.</p>
+
+<p>"Plain's too gay. Do you think, Mr. Kindred, you could lend me your
+lovely book just till to-morrow? It might do me no end of good. And you
+know how much I need it."</p>
+
+<p>"The book would do you no good at all," said Magnus, trying to
+keep cool. "If that is what you want, you had better read your own
+Bible."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't one to my name,&mdash;so there!" said Miss Saucy. "Oh, I
+never dare read the Bible, for fear of what I might find. I suppose you
+see me there quite often, all done up in black, and labelled like old
+letters. 'To be&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" Magnus said, so sharply and suddenly that Miss Saucy did
+stop for sheer amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I vow!" she said. "I wonder what right you have to speak to
+me so, Mr. Cadet Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"No right at all," said Magnus. "Only, if you play with Bible words,
+you will cut your own fingers; and I'm not going to stand by and see
+you do it. That is all. So if I should leave you and go back to camp,
+you'll know why." And Magnus strode on at a pace quite beyond the usual
+Flirtation saunter.</p>
+
+<p>"I never&mdash;was&mdash;so talked to&mdash;in all my&mdash;many
+years of existence," said Miss Saucy, pretending to whimper. "I
+know I'm an awfully bad girl&mdash;and it's awfully sweet of you
+to tell me so. Such a nice time, too, when there's nobody round to
+take my part. Really looks as if you <i>cared</i>," added she, with soft
+intonation. "Don't go so fast, Mr. Kindred, please! I won't say another
+word&mdash;not half a word. Not if we meet a procession of snakes. Or
+my best<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+man with another girl. Or your best girl with another man."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not meet her," said Magnus. "She is too far away."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is abominable," said Miss Saucy, as a turn of the walk
+brought them face to face with another couple. "That is awfully,
+savagely cruel. Oh, Nina Dangleum! Here is Mr. Kindred telling me he is
+engaged to be married! How are we all to live on and smile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me; I said nothing of the sort," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Awfully of the sort, I should say," retorted Miss Saucy. "Ought
+to be, if you're not. With a faraway girl that hides all the rest of
+creation."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are not to congratulate <i>both</i> parties?" said the second
+man in grey, Mr. Short.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, me, by all means&mdash;that I'm not the other girl," said
+Miss Saucy. "We've been having the awfullest quarrel! I never guessed
+Mr. Kindred had such a temper: he always struck me as one of the
+sweet-milk division. Like the Zulu's dog, you know, that eat up all the
+missionary's Bible and could never fight any&mdash;more."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the dog didn't die&mdash;if that's what you mean," said Miss
+Saucy. "Only his popularity."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about missionaries?" said Short, with a laugh.
+"That's a story made to order."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't! I guess I can hear things; I've got ears."</p>
+
+<p>"Two pink shells," Mr. Short suggested. Miss Saucy made him a
+sweeping courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>"Positively, the first decent word I've had said to me this morning.
+Mr. Kindred has been simply savage. But, do you know, Nina," she went
+on, half aside, "I think he believes it suits his style. Very fetching,
+don't you know. Why his eyes just glowed! If I wasn't so awfully afraid
+of him, I vow I'd make him angry every day."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nothing left for you two, that I see, but coffee and pistols," said
+Short. "I suppose you can shoot, Miss Saucy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I take the job off your hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no use!" said the girl. "Mr. Kindred can't fight. He's the
+Zulu's dog."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured; but with a quiet steadiness of face and voice that
+held the essence of bravery, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"True, Oh, Miss Saucy! So, as it is to be peace and not war, shall
+we walk on?"</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Saucy actually behaved herself, for the rest of the way;
+and declared afterwards that she never <i>had</i> known Mr. Kindred so
+fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon, Rig coming into the tent was much astonished
+to find Magnus with his arms on the locker, and his head on his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever's to pay now?" he said. "Just seen Pretty Newcomb go by
+with Carr? I wouldn't mind, Kin! There's several girls left."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig," said Magnus, looking up at him, "if you bring all your
+brilliant intellect to bear in September, I'm afraid the Institution
+will blow up."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't get the old thing started. Well, what is it, then? What
+are you at, all by yourself here? We've been having lots of fun in D
+Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Good place for it," said Magnus; "your sort."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you about, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Adding up two and two, and trying to make them six."</p>
+
+<p>"Talk of blowing things up!" said Rig; "if <i>that</i> isn't inflation!
+You'll find it a quicker job, Kin, to fetch in two more, if time is any
+object to you."</p>
+
+<p>"When you want sense," said Magnus, "go straight to the man who
+hasn't got any, and he'll give you his whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+stock. I'll pit you against the world. Clear out and curl your hair;
+I've got something to do."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus took from his Bible the slip of paper Mr. Upright had
+given him a year ago, then turned over to the fourth chapter of the
+first epistle of Peter, and put it in there for a mark. But he looked
+long and steadily at the staunch words:</p>
+
+<p>"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>After a little Rig came and peered over his shoulder again.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard at it yet?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Magnus, "and like to be. Just look at this! 'If ye be
+reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.' And I don't feel
+happy, worth a cent. I feel just as cross as two sticks."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't take that as a <i>command</i>," said Rig, looking puzzled.
+"Folks don't feel happy to order."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a command, no; it merely states the case. How I should feel if
+the cause were as dear to me as it ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd like to know what you're cross about," said Rig gloomily.
+"All the girls at your feet, and never twitted with anything by the
+Com. If it was me, now! You know how I shone in the blue list the other
+night."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hadn't really done anything," said Rig; "not worth
+mentioning, you know; and so I put in an explanation. And it was
+disallowed."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by 'naturally'?"</p>
+
+<p>"The way of the world, or the tactical part of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wasn't going to stand it, if it was, you know; and I polished
+up my buttons, brushed the top of my head, swept my face, and went to
+see the Supe."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Submitted your explanation to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Another, Kin, another, with variations. Told him I didn't really
+know the act was against rules. Which I didn't, except by hearsay; and
+that's not evidence in law."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you a copy of the blue book?" demanded Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Always sleep with it clasped to my heart, so as to know when to
+wake up," said Rig. "But now, Kin, what do you think the Supe did?
+Passed right over my innocent face and guileless bearing, my spotless
+gloves and inky shoes, and went for me like a Bengal tiger."</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. McLean,' he said, 'ignorance in your case is no excuse, sir.
+You have been reported for breaking almost every rule known to this
+Institution. That will do, sir.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And you came away, as usual, sadder and wiser?"</p>
+
+<p>Rig heaved a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "'sadder and wiser' will be my motto, Kin, as long
+as I stay here."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed and held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to make you better that, this year," he said.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII<br />
+THE GRIM GRAY WALLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">I'm older'n you,&mdash;and I've seen things a many;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And my experience,&mdash;tell ye what it's ben;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Folks that worked thorough was the ones that thriv;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But bad work follers ye's long's ye live.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Biglow Papers.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Next day the tents were struck; and the manifold delights of Camp
+Golightly drifted away beyond recall. But how pretty&mdash;and how
+gay&mdash;the scene was, that last morning.</p>
+
+<p>A perfect day to begin with; the air crisp enough to herald the
+coming fall; everything at its best, and the crowd at its largest.
+Mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and strangers, the whole
+Post, and half the neighbourhood. The groups are always very varied,
+often picturesque.</p>
+
+<p>Here stands a tall first classman, perfectly hemmed in by the dear
+people from home. His cap is off, and his face aglow; and lifted
+high up in his arms is the pet of the family; the little girl's hand
+straying round his neck, her soft childish dress and his gleaming
+chevrons setting each other off in a very perfect way.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond them is a many-coloured group of girls and dresses, but the
+girls look sleepy, and the muslins a trifle tired. The small hours of
+the hop last night have been too much for both. They are languidly
+talking over supposed conquests, rousing up now and then to say
+good-bye to special cadet friends, with many promises to come back next
+June for graduation. Under another tree is another
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+party in the freshest of dresses, but themselves in the dumps.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Amy!" says one of the calmest of the group, "you are almost
+crying!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is too awful to have it all go!" said Miss Amy, never taking
+her tearful gaze from the white tents. "I asked Ella this morning
+how she could possibly sit there and eat all that chicken and egg. I
+couldn't touch a thing!"</p>
+
+<p>And beyond these again stands a camera and its attendant genii,
+where a half-dozen mothers and their cadet sons are getting
+photographed together.</p>
+
+<p>Great army wagons pass back and forth between camp and barracks,
+bearing away bedding, lockers, brooms, and looking-glasses; and over
+the same short road go men in grey, with private effects too precious
+for the wagon, or perhaps only a belated broom.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the company streets there gathered and grew the while, this
+day, an array of rubbish; old shoes and gloves, old boxes that had once
+held boodle, white jars that <i>must</i> have known tobacco, and yet had
+baffled (somehow) all tactical noses. White handkerchiefs&mdash;this
+one, indeed, duly marked "Smith, J." but this other, alas! filmy and
+fine with embroidery and lace. Once coveted and begged for and hid
+away, now tossed out among mess-hall spoons, stray towels, and broken
+glass. Had it even, perhaps, belonged to the fair damsel now weeping
+over the coming wreck of Camp Golightly? Take warning, young ladies,
+and do not waste your pocket handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p>As time went on, the grey element gradually faded out from about the
+seats, and the white canvas began to shrink and fall from its smooth
+shapeliness, with cadets clustering in and about every tent.</p>
+
+<p>The drummers came, and the first drum sounded. The tents shivered
+and swayed, the cadets took new positions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+the breeze played over their heads and threatened to strike the tents
+at its own pleasure. Another drum, and now every eye and hand are
+needed to maintain even the semblance of a camp. Another&mdash;and the
+pretty little white town falls prostrate, and the grey men have the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>Then fold and bundle up, with some cheers for the quickest; the full
+band marches in, the Commandant leads off on horseback&mdash;and away
+goes the grey-and-white host, plumes waving, arms glancing, all down
+the old road to the officers' row, and so on to barracks. And over the
+plain in all sorts of groups and combinations, goes a motley crowd of
+the sovereign people, vainly striving to get there first.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Miss Amy! Your cambric handkerchief lies limp and low in
+D Company street; and the man who was to keep it "always" marches past
+in the battalion, his head high in air.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two of freedom follow, for getting settled; a few last
+bewitching walks are taken by some, while others peep into their study
+books and try to brush off a little of the summer's dust which dims
+that respected pile. And so comes the 1st of September.</p>
+
+<p>I think Magnus Kindred was glad to get back to barracks, if only
+to tackle the year which should bring in furlough, and the yearling
+course certainly gave him enough to do. But who could not work with
+furlough before him? and of late another thought had taken new hold of
+his heart. He was but one, yet the honour of the name he bore was just
+so far in his keeping. If he stood high, it would be one answer to the
+taunt that religion made muffs of men. That would surely be said, if he
+were low in discipline, careless in dress, idle in studies.</p>
+
+<p>So for one cause and another, Magnus worked with all his might;
+stood one in discipline, and in other things went
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+steadily up. And his example told; there was a strong, sound atmosphere
+about him that other men could feel.</p>
+
+<p>His dose of bitter-sweet thoughts about himself had done him good;
+and though he could not help hearing and seeing many things he did not
+like, join in them he would not, even if people laughed at him. More
+stringent orders than any blue book shows had taken new hold of the
+boy's heart, drawing him back from evil, speeding him on to good. "I
+have sworn unto the Lord, and I will perform it." Magnus and the flag
+had a good deal to say to each other in those days.</p>
+
+<p>What busy days they were! New studies, new drills, riding among
+the rest; but that was a delight. The days shortened, the girls
+drifted away to less studious regions, the leaves fell&mdash;then the
+snowflakes; and the winter settled down into the long, steady stride
+which brought furlough nearer with every step.</p>
+
+<p>January's first week sifted out several men from the yearling class;
+Mr. Carr among the rest. But as for some reason Mr. Carr took up his
+abode in the neighbourhood, he was still at least as useful an ally in
+helping them break regulations as he had been while in the Corps.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want some fun," Rig said to Magnus one day, "just hang round
+the west wall of the Academic after supper."</p>
+
+<p>"What about? I'm not going to put my fingers into a dark pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody wants 'em in. There'll be enough without yours," said Rig.
+"But Carr is going to bring up a grocery store, and I thought you might
+like to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring up a grocery! Look out it doesn't turn into light prison for
+some of you."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/170fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="353" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">MOUNTING HEAVY GUNS IN FORT CLINTON</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>However, groceries being rare in that particular locality, when
+Magnus went out for his evening walk he did stroll towards the old
+Academic. The night was moonless, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+not overbright with even stars; but the white spread of snow made
+things quite plain enough. And presently, as Magnus stepped down the
+walk, he saw a dark huddle of figures near the appointed west wall.
+A small sled and a very big box, with a half-dozen cadets playing
+stevedore.</p>
+
+<p>Then an officer came along the walk, meeting Magnus, who saluted
+and passed on. The officer glanced rather curiously down towards the
+dark group, but, with his mind full of something else, he merely took
+a short cut across the area, and so through the sallyport from the
+inside.</p>
+
+<p>It was at a critical moment. Box after box of chickens, mince pies,
+cakes, ham, sweets, celery, and so forth, had been pounced upon, stowed
+in bags, and carried off. Rig's turn came last.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it's a mistake, you all going the same way," he said, as
+he seized the last bag of chickens. "I'll slip round the corner, and
+come in from the plain."</p>
+
+<p>So round he went in the dusky light and met Lieutenant Benton in
+the very mouth of the sallyport. Rig saluted, and slipped in. But dark
+as it was under the grey arch, the officer's practised eyes found
+something unusual about the cadet outlines, and the next moment he
+turned and gave chase.</p>
+
+<p>Rig had the start, and would have got off out of sight in another
+second if Mr. Benton had not suddenly shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Cadet, halt!"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was all up.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you there, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chickens, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the guard-house and turn them in."</p>
+
+<p>Crestfallen and sour, Rig crossed the area, set his bag down at the
+door of the guardhouse, and went in with his report. Being promptly
+ordered to produce his plunder, Rig stepped to the door&mdash;and
+behold! one chicken only was left. The light-fingered, light-footed
+boys in grey had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+that two minutes rifled the bag and vanished. And Rig felt
+smaller than his own chicken when he turned it in, with the
+big bag, to the officer of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck!" he said gloomily. But he never knew who ate the
+chickens.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV<br />
+NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">The bargain must be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For this is a sort of engagement, you see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is binding on you, but not binding on me.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Nothing to Wear.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a
+two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home
+group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time
+the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of
+excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count
+the hours.</p>
+
+<p>A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and
+freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all
+alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective
+laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure.
+They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do
+not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are
+good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just
+perfect&mdash;except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers,
+scented air, and in the distance&mdash;June.</p>
+
+<p>For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class,
+graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges;
+for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings,
+and call themselves the happiest of all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men
+with samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords,
+hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs,
+canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most
+perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four
+years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether
+you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a
+plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep
+debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against
+another's.</p>
+
+<p>With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but
+over one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit"
+clothes in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that
+very account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them
+home. So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just
+what he would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness,
+he thought he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it
+to himself gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the
+sallyport in open day.</p>
+
+<p>It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised
+West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed
+until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus tossed the coat up to the ceiling, regardless of what might
+happen to the plaster, and joined the shopping band that very day.</p>
+
+<p>It was delightful now, in the soft spring weather, to go out at
+every release from quarters, for a stroll round the plain, or down by
+the river. How lovely Flirtation was! An army of "Dutchman's breeches"
+held all the best posts among the rocks by the wayside, scaling the
+cliffs even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+down by the landing. And in the deeper shade north of Battery Knox,
+whole beds of dog-tooth violets filled the spots of damper ground,
+lifting their elegant heads like the highbred beauties that they
+are.</p>
+
+<p>Among the tougher growths, iron wood and black birch were charming
+with their tresses, and the young tufts of maple and oak and hickory
+leaves were a joy to see. Shad blossoms and dogwood "picked out" the
+green; from some far-down hidden corner the spice bush spiced the air.
+Saxifrage spread whole sheets of bloom; and Lowell's "dear common
+flower" gleamed everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh
+from Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows.
+The company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not
+always games of solitaire.</p>
+
+<p>Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs.
+Granton, with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other
+people&mdash;Miss Bee and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just
+average damsels, but, of course, having a gay brother in the first
+class, they went everywhere, and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an
+heiress and played ditto, ditto upon yet stronger ground.</p>
+
+<p>In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just
+funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either
+wealth or beauty.</p>
+
+<p>She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant
+eyes and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of
+herself in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination.
+No poppy leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead,
+no foreign coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of
+home growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world
+than she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were
+large enough to button<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a trick of saying
+nothing she did not mean.</p>
+
+<p>No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point;
+cadets are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of
+all I have told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in
+the public interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one
+missed her, or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never
+scowled at each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what
+she had on. Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted
+every crumb of pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had
+had so little of it in her life, poor child! This was her first real
+outing. No wonder West Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born
+prince in disguise.</p>
+
+<p>At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious,
+perhaps, of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that
+changed a little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily
+as ever, when some grey uniform came up with:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay
+whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton,
+this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many
+a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade,
+and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody
+guessed it, and she never told.</p>
+
+<p>It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus
+suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all
+romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell
+buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy
+individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In truth, it was
+some time before the child picked up a dictionary of herself, with
+definitions.</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with
+keen eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile,
+and a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may
+happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl
+rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see
+and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk,
+when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion,
+right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it)
+enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he
+came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far
+too much of a gentleman&mdash;too much of a man&mdash;to try to draw
+her on for his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though
+he did pick up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and
+then he took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a
+"previous" against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all
+the while he was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his
+own mind so befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and
+surely one poor little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel
+the bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even
+though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does
+not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the
+distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus
+a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl
+<i>must</i> have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding
+at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too
+often played pilot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+to that he never gave a thought. All <i>that</i> was in the realm of
+impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.</p>
+
+<p>It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own
+counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask
+Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some
+others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time
+came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all
+parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.</p>
+
+<p>There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now
+than ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his
+life but home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about
+three lines, telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day,
+and in all the other between-times he was either freshening up his
+knowledge of some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks
+with June, and June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or
+caught a glimpse of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off,
+scaling the rocks or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck
+spot, quite beyond reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he
+would lie on the moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of
+the thrush; listen without hearing, as he planned his journey home.
+He would take such a train, and make such a connection, and jump off
+at the old station at just such a time. He would not tell them quite
+when to expect him, because they would be sure to come to meet him,
+and some of them would cry&mdash;right there before everybody. And it
+was a bother to attend to your luggage with three girls round your
+neck. But then Magnus laughed and coloured too. There could hardly be
+<i>three</i>&mdash;yet somehow two seemed even more objectionable. And still
+if he sent no word, and they did not meet him, there was a good half
+hour lost from that end of his furlough.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss
+Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight.
+She <i>must</i> have displeased him somehow.</p>
+
+<p>"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said
+Clive.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV<br />
+FURLOUGH</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Den away, away, for I can't wait any longer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Hooray! Hooray! I's goin' home!</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Old Shady.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is strange how some event towards which you have been working,
+and which seemed to fill earth and sky till you reached it, at once
+then sinks down and becomes hardly distinguishable from the plain. So
+passed by the examination to Magnus Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>In fact everybody is so fagged out by the 12th of June, tired with
+work, with gaiety and excitement, that feeling seems swallowed up of
+high pressure. This may be one reason why the bad success of other men
+affects so little those who have won through. Exceptionally strong as
+class feeling is at West Point, the dropped names seem to make very
+slight impression. And in some cases, of course, there is no surprise.
+When a man bones nothing but mischief, and tries to crowd into the
+three weeks before examination the study which should have filled six
+months, June is not always kind to him. Unless, indeed, he be one of
+those men who are pure mathematics&mdash;and even then the discipline
+column may cut him down. So it was with small surprise that Magnus
+heard Chapman's name among the "found deficient." Chapman did not
+whimper, but he took it hard.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that beastly calculus!" he confided to Magnus, in the hurried
+moments of parting. "Oh, yes! I know what you mean by raising your
+eyebrows, but a man couldn't live here if he didn't run it now and
+then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you see a man can't always live here if he does," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! Yes, he can. Only they don't all run against old Towser every
+time, as I did. No, it wasn't that at all, it was the calculus."</p>
+
+<p>And doubtless, in great measure, it was. Another boy, from far away,
+fairly came to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how I am to go home!" he said. "I don't know what my
+mother will say!"</p>
+
+<p>While another, who had got a turn-back, liked so little what his
+mother <i>did</i> say that he gave her a sharp little lecture on the
+Graduation ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell what makes you go on so!" he burst forth. "I'm only
+turned back. Lots of men are sent away altogether. Why do you talk like
+that? What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor mothers! It is often pathetic to hear them explain the case to
+other people.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a good boy, Miss Smith; but you know he has always been
+delicate. Hard study never agreed with him." (True, this last.)</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mrs. Brown, he has had such trouble with his eyes that I
+wonder he has kept up at all. I really must speak to the Superintendent
+about the study lights. Then these early recitations. Why, at home we
+never thought of waking him up till eight o'clock, and then gently, you
+know, and by degrees. And now he says that gun just goes through his
+head without a word of preparation. I suppose, really, that is what
+ails his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything here is so wretchedly mismanaged!" commented a wise and
+sympathetic damsel. "The cadets are abused at every turn. I don't see
+how they stand it. It is the meanest place!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've done what I could to straighten things," said a beaming
+matron. "Look at this bag,&mdash;absolutely worn out in the service. It
+has brought Tom <i>everything</i>&mdash;from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+cigars up. And when he wants money, he has only to say so."</p>
+
+<p>Strange, that with such care Tom should ever grumble at
+anything&mdash;especially regulations.</p>
+
+<p>But graduation has come and gone, the graduates have scattered; some
+for home, some for Europe, some to be married "on graduation leave."
+For three months they have "the world before them, where to choose."</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men, too, are scattered, yet more widely and
+individually, speeding away on the spider's web of railways that covers
+the country. Class supper was over, changed from a gay revel to a
+less brilliant memory, and Magnus Kindred went whirling along towards
+home. And the great question of taking them all by surprise was still
+unsettled.</p>
+
+<p>The home folks, however, had their own ideas on the subject, and for
+at least two days before Magnus could possibly come, they had met every
+train from the East; Mrs. Kindred, Rose, and Violet. Cherry went the
+first time, but after that absented herself on one plea or another. And
+so on that sweet June afternoon, when the train slowed up to let off
+the one passenger and the one trunk, the three were in hiding behind
+the station.</p>
+
+<p>No one could ever describe what that first home-coming was to
+Magnus. For miles and hours the excitement in the boy's heart had been
+working itself up to white heat, as point after point rose up to give
+him welcome. Here a cliff and there a hill; the schoolhouse near by,
+the church further off; if he had only had a dozen straw hats, I think
+eleven of them would have gone out of the window, for pure joy.</p>
+
+<p>But the little platform was empty, save of officials; not a creature
+got out of the train but Magnus, and not one was waiting to get in. Not
+a figure broke the broad June sunlight that filled the old road towards
+home. But when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+he had hurriedly tramped down the steps, he found himself in his
+mother's arms, with the two girls sobbing for joy on either side.</p>
+
+<p>Of the next few minutes, I think no one of them could afterwards
+give much account. Then Magnus, with one arm round his mother, gave
+that hand to Violet, and the other to Rose, and so they walked along.
+How they talked!&mdash;with tongues once set free; but most of all, how
+they looked at each other. Mother and son had met within the year, but
+the two girls gazed at their handsome brother with a surprised delight
+that could never have enough.</p>
+
+<p>"But I had forgotten that you were so brown, Magnus," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Drills."</p>
+
+<p>"You always were straight," said Violet, "but now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bracing up."</p>
+
+<p>"And your hair is <i>so</i> short," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Regulations."</p>
+
+<p>Then how they all laughed and hugged each other over again, for
+there were only the wild birds to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, certainly, if brevity be the soul of wit, you have improved
+in one line," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"They teach it out there," said Magnus. "'Mr. Kindred, your head is
+on one side, sir!'&mdash;'Yes, sir. Which side, sir?'"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you get for being so saucy?" asked the mother, as the
+laugh died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that time. Even Towser can't skin a man unless he gets hold
+of him. But wherever is Cherry? When you all came out of the first
+bush, I thought she would jump out of the second."</p>
+
+<p>"She's at home," said Rose. "We wanted her to come, and she
+wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"But she did the first time," said Violet eagerly; "the first day we
+thought you might come."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ho!&mdash;and as I didn't show up then she put on her
+high-heeled shoes," said Magnus. "Girls are all just alike the world
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they are not!" cried both the charming specimens then
+present. "And you shall not say that of Cherry. She is like nobody
+else&mdash;and nobody else is like her."</p>
+
+<p>And privately, Magnus thought his own two sisters very unlike most
+other girls. With their fresh, unjaded faces, undoctored complexions,
+untrammelled feet and waists, and unspoiled minds, they made a
+wonderful sweet contrast to Miss Dashaway and Miss Flirt. Magnus had
+not known how his estimate of women had run down among the crowd till
+he found it mounting up again, ten degrees at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Even Cherry's absenting herself&mdash;it provoked him heartily,
+and he felt himself much injured, but it was after all a refreshing
+change after Miss Dangleum's ways. Yes, demonstrations were the man's
+business, and in his present mood Magnus felt quite equal to them,
+could he but get hold of the right person.</p>
+
+<p>No half-grown girl in half-long dresses appeared, however, as they
+reached the house, but for a few minutes Magnus had all he could
+manage. The old dog (prudently left at home) was nearly as wild over
+the meeting as his young master; jumped upon him, clung to him, danced
+round him, whimpered, whined, and barked for joy. It was not five
+minutes before the two were rolling down the grass slope together,
+then running a sharp race, and then flying all over the old house from
+room to room. Magnus shouldered his trunk and rushed upstairs with it,
+and Plato dashed after him, wakening all the echoes that were anywhere
+about. The two girls, putting rolls in the oven and setting on cream
+and butter, almost danced in their tiptoe joy; the mother in the small
+sitting-room hid her face in her hands, and cried and gave thanks. Just
+to hear that boy's step overhead, what was it like? And then to have
+the pair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+come racing down the old stairs when supper was ready, Plato barking in
+a perfect scream of delight;&mdash;do you wonder that the prayer for a
+blessing was spoken low and falteringly? or that a hush filled all the
+room for some moments thereafter?</p>
+
+<p>Then the three busied themselves earnestly about their boy's supper,
+and the boy also lent his assistance; Plato lying on the floor and
+winking at him. The old dog was afraid to really go to sleep lest he
+should lose sight of his young master.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose her High Mightiness expects me to put on my war paint
+to-morrow, and to go and ca&mdash;ll," said Magnus, drawling out the
+last word with ridiculous intonation.</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Cherry? Now, Magnus, you shall not call her that," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall not, hey? I will call her anything I like," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on, then, and do it," cried Violet, with a laugh, "for
+here she is."</p>
+
+<p>And in more confusion than he expected from himself, after this
+bravado, Cadet Kindred started up from the table and found himself face
+to face with his old playmate.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry had the advantage of him; she had seen the photograph, and
+was partly prepared for what she saw now&mdash;not quite. But to
+Magnus, with eyes full of the gleesome, outspoken girl of sixteen, this
+vision of a tall, slender maiden of eighteen summers, with something of
+a woman's shy reserve floating round her like the daintiest filmy veil,
+was altogether new. He had seen nothing like it. She was so lovely, so
+dainty, so sweet&mdash;if any epithets presented themselves, they died
+on his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl, too, had caught her breath; the living presence is
+always so far beyond the picture. All her nicely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+prepared words of welcome took to their heels, and Cherry held out her
+hand and said simply:</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got hold of the hand, and kept it; held it fast while he
+pushed and pulled chairs about to give her a place by himself. The hand
+was something tangible&mdash;especially as it was not quite ready to be
+held.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I do?" he repeated, as she took her seat: "you don't care.
+Why didn't you come to meet me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had enough at the station."</p>
+
+<p>"And you had enough at home, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to do&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how can you spare the time to be here now?" said Mr. Kindred,
+pursuing his inquiries. A girl who did not wear even the semblance of a
+heart upon her sleeve was something new of late, and exasperating. "It
+is very frivolous work to sit by and see me eat supper."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be less so, when I get something to eat myself," Cherry
+answered demurely. "But I can wait still longer, if it is not certain
+the supply will hold out."</p>
+
+<p>"There! now you have got it," cried Rose, clapping her hands; "and
+good for you, too. Hectoring her in that style! Give her some berries,
+Magnus, before you eat another one. Cherry picked two thirds of them
+with her own fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"She did!" said Magnus, reddening in spite of himself under Cherry's
+fire; second classman on furlough and presumptive first sergeant though
+he was. "That explains why I've had to empty the sugar bowl. I'm sorry
+I have made such a raid, Cherry, but you shall have what is left."</p>
+
+<p>And swiftly he drew everything as near the girl's plate as the
+dishes could find room. Bread plate and butter plate, cake basket,
+cheese, cream pitcher, water pitcher, and the wreck of the broiled
+chicken. Then seizing the berry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+bowl Magnus began to pile the sweet wild strawberries upon her plate,
+adding slowly and skilfully till they ran down to the very edge and
+rose up in the middle a red fragrant cone.</p>
+
+<p>"How will that do to begin?" he said. "Will you have some
+sugar?&mdash;but I suppose not, as you picked them yourself and put all
+the tartness into mine."</p>
+
+<p>The other three looked on, laughing and interested; but now Cherry
+was out of her depth. She looked down at the strawberry hill, at the
+dishes, then glanced round at Magnus. What did he mean? Was he really
+vexed? Could he really think? It was the fairest kind of a look, so
+earnest and questioning. What do you mean? it said.</p>
+
+<p>I think Cadet Kindred knew very promptly what he meant, and saw some
+things clearly which had been hanging about in a sort of uncertain
+haze. And thus in answer to her shy questioning, Cherry met a look so
+keen and merry and full of mischief, full of she hardly knew what, that
+her eyes fell and the pink flushes came hurrying over her face.</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus laughed. He had the vantage now which belonged to him,
+and he felt better.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry," he said, "you are a transparent humbug! Mother, will you
+give me a cup of tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are an extremely rude boy," said Mrs. Kindred, putting
+in an extra lump of sugar the while. "If these are your West Point
+manners, you will need a few terms at some other school."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point manners are all packed away with my dress coat. This is
+the original Magnus variety."</p>
+
+<p>"It is good to know," said Rose. "Here we have all been rubbing
+<i>our</i> manners up, to receive you properly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Magnus, turning to gaze at Cherry.
+"Good to know, as you say. I did suspicion it was something got up for
+my express benefit."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let her alone, and finish your supper," said Mrs. Kindred. "That
+is, if you ever intend to finish."</p>
+
+<p>"Emphatically I do!" said Magnus. "If I didn't, I could never begin
+again, and that would be a loss out here. Cherry, give me just a few
+berries off your plate. I am bashful about taking any more out of the
+dish. The sugar has given out, too," he added, dropping his voice; "and
+these will not want any."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Cherry!&mdash;she literally found not a word to say, but
+sat looking down at her plate in helpless silence, as the hands she
+remembered so well conveyed away part of its contents. Then Rose came
+with a replenished sugar-bowl and set it down by him. But Magnus waved
+it away.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," he said. "These are too sweet for sugar. How do you
+suppose Cherry worked it, to get them all on her plate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy boy!" said Rose, "you put them there yourself. Magnus, is
+your dress coat here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly. Had to bring it along, lest a war should break out before
+I get back. May need it yet&mdash;&mdash;" with an indescribable
+inflection which only Cherry caught.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if you <i>have</i> done, as mother says," said Violet, "go straight
+upstairs and put it on, and come down and show yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Put on my dress coat, after such a supper," quoth Magnus. "I think
+I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be foolish," said Rose. "Go at once, if you want pancakes for
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it waffles&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, waffles," cried both the girls, laughing at him.
+"Now Magnus, go! While your hair is short."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI<br />
+CHERRY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">'Tis the middle watch of a summer night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Naught is seen in the vault on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the flood that rolls its milky hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A river of light, in the welkin blue.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Culprit Fay.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And thus it was, that in ten minutes or so there entered upon the
+scene a fine presentation of a West Point cadet: short hair, white
+collar, bell buttons, and all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Just inside the door Magnus paused, drew himself up, and gave a
+comprehensive military salute; then came on with quick, regulation
+step, halted in front of Cherry, and took off his cap with the true
+cadet swing.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought you'd be out, Miss Reserve. I saw you clear across the
+plain. Now Cherry, you must ask how I could possibly see so far."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you answer if I did?" Cherry said diplomatically. This
+photograph in person was not easy to talk to.</p>
+
+<p>"I should remark that I can always see some people, across the
+world. Then you must put your head on one side and say: 'But you know
+you have <i>such</i> eyes, Mr. Kindred!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I certainly shall not say <i>that</i>," Cherry declared, venturing
+a look.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you are a young peacock," said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine feathers, mammy. How do you like West Point, <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+Miss Reserve? Is this your first visit? Very warm, isn't it? What do
+think of our view?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how they laughed at him, Cherry and all! Magnus kept a grave
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you walk with me after supper?" he went on. And Cherry's sweet
+eyes opened full on him, to see what he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the way at all," said Magnus (approving it highly,
+all the same). "You must put your head on the other side now and say:
+'Really, Mr. Kindred&mdash;he! he!&mdash;I'm awfully sorry&mdash;but
+I've given all my walks away.' Then I shall answer fiercely: 'Tell me
+one of the men, and I'll go fight him and get it back.' Now, Cherry,
+clasp your hands and say pleadingly: 'Oh, no! Please don't, Mr.
+Kindred! I remember now&mdash;there is one walk just before breakfast.
+Would that be too early for you?' And I answer practically: 'Nothing is
+too early for me, Miss Reserve, after you have opened your eyes.' And
+then you must give me an admiring glance and say: 'Oh, don't talk of
+<i>my</i> eyes, Mr. Kindred!' Then the drum-beats, and I double-time it into
+camp."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not say 'you'&mdash;I should never say such things,"
+Cherry declared; this vision of other girls acting as a tonic, though
+she laughed with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! You do not say anything to me," retorted Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"She is too polite to interrupt you," said Rose. "Do you mean to say
+that West Point girls talk like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some of the girls. Cherry will when I have walked with her a few
+times."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry glanced up in quick denial, meeting then the aforesaid eyes
+looking so handsome and competent and full of frolic and power that her
+own beat a hasty retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"And you walk with such girls?" demanded Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;" Magnus said easily. "One cannot be uncivil just
+because they are complimentary."</p>
+
+<p>"But before breakfast!" said Rose. "Is there no other half hour in
+the day that would do?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, it's not <i>that</i> half hour in particular; it is every
+half hour they can get. You wouldn't have them pink and white their
+cheeks for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Pink their cheeks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Magnus. "Pink them&mdash;frost them. I'm sure I
+don't know how it's done."</p>
+
+<p>"You are telling traveller's tales," said Mrs. Kindred gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I like that!" said Magnus. "Why, mammy, they <i>all</i> do it.
+Clinker says so. At least not all, I suppose. Of course, there are
+exceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne"&mdash;began Mrs. Kindred. But at this word Magnus
+turned to her and "stood attention," bracing up to the fullest extent,
+and saluting with such profound gravity and respect that the rest all
+shouted, and the mother's face gave way.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no doing anything with you," she said. "You must give them
+no end of trouble at West Point. Go upstairs and take off that toggery,
+and see if you can be a reasonable boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to give Cherry her walk first," said Magnus. "She has
+never walked with a real live cadet; and she may as well practise on me
+before she undertakes the rest of the Corps next summer."</p>
+
+<p>"I look like that," said Cherry, with some scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much like it, I should say," responded Magnus. "I know how
+it will be. 'Say, Kindred, who's that awfully nice girl you've got on
+hand? Introduce me, won't you? Your sister, aint she? Well, don't let
+her promise all her walks to those spoony fellows. You want her to have
+a good time, you know.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Magnus hit it off with excellent mimicry, and the room was in a buzz
+of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall say," he went on, "that my sisters are in quite
+another package, and that to ensure her having a good time, she has
+promised all her walks to me."</p>
+
+<p>"She hasn't at all," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"She will&mdash;by that time," said Magnus confidently; enjoying the
+pulsating colour in Cherry's face, and comparing it with the unmoved
+tinting of poppy leaves. "Why, even to-night she'll not walk home with
+anybody but Cadet Kindred, in full canonicals."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus!" said his mother, "I think you are absolutely beside
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Do cadets all talk in that style?" demanded Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Not all so brilliantly as I do, by any means, but in the same
+general way."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I think they need a professor of common sense at West
+Point."</p>
+
+<p>"And I think you had better go to bed and to sleep," said Violet.
+"We'll walk home with Cherry. Your brain is getting overexcited."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence and solitude will calm it down," said Magnus. "If you all
+go, there will be a chatter, but Cherry and I know each other so well
+that there is no need to speak. She will not try to keep me, mammy;
+I'll be right back."</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt but Cherry was laughing when they set out, partly
+for nervousness, but also in part for the mere infectious atmosphere
+of frolic. She gave no sign, however, being much under the spell of
+the tall, erect figure at her side. Whenever she looked up and tried
+to throw off the glamour, one glint of the bell buttons brought it on
+worse than before.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't we walking very fast?" said Magnus mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you told your mother you would be right back," said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"From your front door&mdash;not from ours." The laugh rippled out at
+that, as Cherry moderated her pace.</p>
+
+<p>"No use, you see," said Magnus, falling into an easy saunter. "I can
+do the double faster than you can. I knew you meant to scoot away by
+yourself, the minute I went to change myself into a cit."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"You."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell upon this; then Magnus began again:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I really wanted to have you alone awhile&mdash;I wanted to
+ask tidings of an old friend of mine. I thought perhaps you could tell
+me where to find her; girls always seem to know about girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do not!" said Cherry hastily, running over in her mind all
+the girls she had ever heard of. "You should ask Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose doesn't know everything. I dare say you can tell me if she has
+moved off. I thought so much of her!" said Magnus pensively, gazing
+up at the stars. "We used to be very intimate. I left my heart in her
+keeping&mdash;whatever she did with it. Why&mdash;you will hardly
+believe me&mdash;but she used to live here, in your house. And when I
+was going away to West Point she kissed me right at this very gate."</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't!" cried Cherry hotly, and then hung her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do know her then?" said Magnus. "Why didn't you say so
+before? And where do you suppose she probably is now?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry resolutely stopped and faced him; what though the full
+moonlight effect well nigh swept off her self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "you are talking great nonsense. It may be the
+West Point fashionable way of talking sense, but we are plain folks out
+here and have not had your advantages."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And here Magnus made a bow so profound that it sent Cherry's words
+to the right-about.</p>
+
+<p>"What next?" said Magnus. "That is all more or less true, so far,
+but well begun is only half done."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is no use to talk to you!" said Cherry. "And it never was,
+for that matter."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> talking is of some use, however," said Magnus. "I have quite
+succeeded in bringing myself back to your recollection. What more did
+you want to say, pretty girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you are extremely silly," said Cherry, with the laugh getting
+into her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no contenting these women of sense!" said Magnus. "If I
+fib, she scolds: if I tell truth, she flouts me. If Derby drill will
+only handle this line of approaches, I shall learn how, in time. Don't
+walk so fast, wise damsel."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come in and see papa to-night?" said Cherry, not
+slackening her pace in the least.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, hardly," said Magnus. "I like to make it all safe with the
+daughter before I rush into the paternal presence."</p>
+
+<p>If Cherry had been that sort of a girl, I think she would have lent
+him a very earnest and hearty little cuff. As it was, she gave him
+one hopeless glance and slipped through the little gate, as her next
+neighbour would have said, "spryer'n an eel."</p>
+
+<p>But quick steps were play to Magnus, and before Cherry's foot had
+touched the doorstone he was beside her. His hands met round but not
+touching her, putting the girl in a charmed circle of space; and the
+strong, clear voice chanted out an old playtime couplet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Open the ring and let her in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And kiss her when you get her in."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus! do hush!" Cherry said desperately. <span
+class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+"You are altogether wild to-night. And everybody will find it out!" she
+added, as if that doubled the case. She made a quick motion to dive
+under "the ring" and get away, which was quite fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand still," Magnus admonished her. "Unless you want the prison
+walls to converge, as in that old tale of the Inquisition. I am going
+to put you straight through the catechism. First of all, will you
+confess that you are a humbug and a fraud?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am only myself," Cherry faltered, but standing so still now that
+she hardly dared breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"Only yourself&mdash;a very good answer. Well, I never want you to
+be anything else, more or less. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"The words are tolerably plain," said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if you are 'only yourself,' why didn't you welcome me
+home?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did you want me to say?" said Cherry, with again a little
+break in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Say?" repeated Magnus. "You should have thrown up your hands and
+eyes, and then taken down the dictionary and used every word there was
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>But now Cherry laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You would have had a pretty mixed dose, if I had," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is past," said Magnus; "you can't do it now. So you must
+have the catechism. Are you glad to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"You are delighted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"&mdash;a little slower.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of your wits with joy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Cherry; "you are the only person out of his wits."</p>
+
+<p>"Ready to do anything I ask you?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"In reason"&mdash;again slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You will dream of me to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"You will go wherever I want you to while I am here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;think so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will walk with me three times a day at West
+Point and with nobody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be at West Point. Magnus, do stop fooling
+and let me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Bid me good-night, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the way we said good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way I said good-bye," Cherry answered.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't the way <i>I</i> said good-bye," said Magnus. "<i>This</i> was
+the way. And this is the way I say good-night. Cherry, you are a
+transparent fraud."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must go," Cherry urged, very grave and quiet now. "If you
+do not go, you never can come again!" she added, as a last argument.</p>
+
+<p>"What a wise girl! I believe she could tackle warped surfaces."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they any harder to manage than you are?" said Cherry. "You
+know"&mdash;but she checked herself. It would not do to mention her
+father again, even to save his being waked up by all this talking under
+his window.</p>
+
+<p>"Know what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Less than you think," said Cherry coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"The professors have been trying to din that into me for the last
+two years," said Magnus, "but I never thought to have you take it up.
+What were you going to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sugar and spice," quoted Magnus. "Shows what I have to expect at my
+first wild frontier post."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you what to expect before that," said Cherry. "If you
+stay here moonshining any longer, you 'will be pale to-morrow,' like
+your namesake in Dickens."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can hand over some of your pinks," said Magnus. "Besides,
+my dear, I must inform you of a well-known West Point fact: truth
+misapplied ceases to be useful. Mr. Peter Magnus was storing his good
+looks to propound a certain question next day. Whereas I, having
+settled it to-night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But just there Cherry made a quick movement of her pretty head,
+stooped under the enclosing arms, and was out of sight in a second.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus ran down the hill, whistling at the top of his power. I am
+not sure that Cherry knew what he whistled; and I doubt if he knew
+himself; but I think it was "The Girl I Left behind Me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy," said Mrs. Kindred, as her cadet came in, "you forget
+that it is night in these Western regions. Have you been round the
+neighbourhood whistling people up?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus threw himself down on the floor at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy, if you'd not been allowed to whistle for two years, you
+would know how good it feels."</p>
+
+<p>"Not allowed to whistle? What could comfort you?" said the mother,
+laying her hand caressingly on his head. "Well, I suppose if three
+hundred boys got to whistling, the effect might be rather powerful."</p>
+
+<p>"What kept you so long, boy?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry. She is a rather slow girl, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't!" cried Violet. "<i>Never!</i> She is just the quickest girl
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry&mdash;as I have found her," said Magnus gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Do all cadets tell fibs?" inquired Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I am a shining exception, they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do they all look like you?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Making allowance for the difference of men," said Magnus, with easy
+assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"What are those things on your arm for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rank, power, and responsibility. They are not 'things,' they are
+chevrons."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the sense of cutting your hair so short?"</p>
+
+<p>"So as to see better how to skin us for 'too much shirt collar,'"
+replied Mr. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls," said the mother, "you must really let him go to bed. I do
+not think he half knows what he is about."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I, though!" cried Magnus, springing up. "Just one hour and a
+half ago tattoo beat, and I wasn't there to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>And once more the cap did duty in the air, as Magnus gave a
+tolerably quiet version of the class yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, child," his mother repeated, smiling at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must," said Magnus. "Cherry said I should be pale to-morrow.
+It is worth while going to sleep, with no reveille gun ahead."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII<br />
+OFF LIMITS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Forgotten the sounds of drum and fife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forgotten the winter days so drear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But all was keen with the glad new life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That throbs in the veins in the furlough year.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Howitzer of 1891.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was just like the cross grain of human nature that without a
+sound but the singing of birds to rouse him, our young soldier should
+wake up at precisely reveille gun time. In fact he did it for three
+days, to his great disgust; and then, as he said of himself, learned to
+know how happy he was.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, this first morning at home, with everything before him
+except drills and regulations, going to sleep again was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>So with the sublime unconsciousness of other people's slumbers which
+marks young men of his age, Magnus lay still and began to whistle. And
+with that other line of forgetfulness which shows the inferiority of
+the feminine mind, there was not a woman in the house but would have
+given her best sleep to hear him.</p>
+
+<p>They were not asleep, however, but up and stirring; and it was
+perhaps some closing door or opening window, or the long unheard voice
+of the coffee mill, which reminded Cadet Kindred that in these regions
+there was no preparatory drum; and that such a noise as he had been
+making would quite rule out the thought of any private suggestions at
+his door. Wherefore, he had better get up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+But what fun&mdash;to dress as he liked, in what he liked, and be as long as he
+liked about it.</p>
+
+<p>With these thoughts came another to hasten his motions: would Cherry
+come to breakfast? And if she did, then just when would she come? And
+here Magnus paused before a piquant illustration of the young lady
+herself, drawn from memory&mdash;or, as the <i>real</i> novelists put it,
+"which had been photographed on his heart in one brief moment." And
+thus it seemed:</p>
+
+<p>A tall, delicately formed girl, with dark hair, which did not
+crinkle and curl like his own, but parted in shining waves and rings;
+a complexion colourless in general, but where the rosy tints came and
+went like a pink cloud, in swift pulsations. The eyes&mdash;no, Mr.
+Kindred thought he had not a fair look at her eyes last night, and that
+was one thing to do to-day. Also her hand was a soft and fresh thing to
+touch. And at this point Magnus opened his door and passed out.</p>
+
+<p>On the way downstairs he peeped into his mother's room, but no one
+was there, and he went straight on to a small room on the first floor
+which was a sort of offshoot from the house, and hardly bigger than a
+good-sized bay window.</p>
+
+<p>But the picture he found there Magnus never forgot.</p>
+
+<p>The room had been his father's summer study. Too cold for winter
+use, but in June perfection, with every window open to the air. Roses
+and honeysuckles climbed up and ran across and strayed in; amid the
+tangle birds sang and twittered and builded. Further off were cattle
+and chickens, with an old drum major of a turkey cock strutting before
+the barnyard throng. The scent of hayfields was mingled with the yet
+rarer fragrance of new-mown grass.</p>
+
+<p>If the room had been larger, the minister's old library would have
+made small show; but as it was, the strips of wall between the windows
+were quite well covered. It was a very old affair in every way; leather
+covers much worn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+with handling, shutting in truths that were but the brighter for much
+believing. Very old-fashioned books. You could not find a copy of "Why
+I am a Doubter"; nor a single treatise on "The Eternal Equilibrium of
+Things." The glad toiler in Christ's vineyard had had no use for "The
+Trammels of Faith, and how I Got beyond Them"; and as little for "The
+Proper Sphere and Limit of the Bible, Set Forth and Defined."</p>
+
+<p>But there was Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," which the minister
+himself had also preached; with Bunyan's "Holy War between Diabolus
+and the Town of Mansoul," the which he himself had also waged; there
+was "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," upon which he now had entered.
+There was also old Matthew Henry's "Commentary" in its six volumes,
+which gave people so much to do on the plane of the lower criticism,
+that they had small chance to wish for the higher; with Fox's "Book of
+Martyrs," and "Lives of the Port Royalists," and Doddridge's "Rise and
+Progress of Religion in the Soul."</p>
+
+<p>Only two chairs were in the room: one, where inquirers had so
+often sat and troubled hearts found peace, was pushed back now, its
+service done; but the minister's chair still stood by the minister's
+table where lay the minister's Book of books; and in the chair sat the
+minister's widow.</p>
+
+<p>She was not reading at the moment: I think she had been listening
+to the gay sounds upstairs; and a tender, happy smile was on her lips,
+in perfect keeping with the words on which her eyes had been. But
+everything in that room was in keeping, to Magnus: his mother's cap
+looked to him not a whit purer than her face; nor was the shine outside
+the windows more gladsome than the look she turned to him. The young
+cadet was at her side in an instant, down on his knees with his head on
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"What waked you up so early, child?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The echo of that reveille gun came clear across the Continent for
+the express purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly. I heard you whistling some time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I disturb you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not do that," said the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"But you were reading."</p>
+
+<p>"Thoughts of you are never far away from the Bible, nor the Bible
+from thoughts of you. Where have you been reading this morning,
+Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've not been reading anywhere. Mother, do you think I had better
+run up for Cherry? or will she be here all right on time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Time for what?" said Mrs. Kindred, rather opening her eyes at this
+very rapid transit.</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say she would come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;no," said Magnus. "I took it for granted."</p>
+
+<p>"Never take anything for granted about Cherry, except that she will
+do just what is right. She never goes anywhere, Magnus, until she has
+given her father his breakfast and seen to his morning comfort in every
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think she might come," Magnus said discontentedly. "It's
+my first morning home. He could get along for once."</p>
+
+<p>The mother smiled a little at the wide space demanded by the young
+people in these days, and the side corner deemed enough for the elder;
+but the usurpers are too lovely and beloved to be resisted. And
+besides, there is a sort of "while they can"&mdash;that checks many a
+word; the tender, pathetic force of Dr. Bonar's thought:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Take thou my place, and be thy feast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweeter than mine has been!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Cherry will not come, Magnus," she said. "She never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+gets free before ten or eleven o'clock. So tell me why you have done no
+reading to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the habit," said Magnus. "I never do it in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your Bible time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I can be said to have one, it is more apt to be at night,"
+said Magnus. "I don't always read then, but most generally I do."</p>
+
+<p>"At night?" said the mother, carefully hiding all signs of the
+underground shock that made her heart tremble. "I like to read at
+night, too. But then, dear, if you do not read in the morning as well,
+you have no fresh heartful of the blessed words to live by through the
+day." And she looked round at Magnus with such eager, anxious, pleading
+eyes as went straight to his heart. Which truly was not far to seek,
+that morning. He jumped up and put himself in the other chair, drawing
+it up to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mammy," he said, "let me tell you about it. It's this way. The gun
+wakes me up. And I tumble downstairs half dressed, and declare at the
+top of my voice that I am myself, and nobody else. That is, the first
+sergeant calls 'Kindred!' and I yell back 'Here!' Then I rush in again,
+and tumble into bed, clothes and all, and get the very best nap you
+ever dreamed of."</p>
+
+<p>"Another nap? For how long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two minutes and a quarter, drum time. Then I finish dressing and go
+to breakfast. And after breakfast, we don't have very much time before
+recitation."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you read then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once in a while I do," said Magnus. "Not always. Maybe I do a
+little boning in math. Maybe I take a walk with the nicest girl there
+is round."</p>
+
+<p>His mother could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you always get the nicest?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" Magnus answered easily; "unless she happens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+to be somebody else's best. Sometimes then. You see, so long as she
+doesn't look me in the face, she can fancy I am her 'best' man."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Magnus!" his mother said, half laughing now, but really
+anxious; "how do you behave, to make that possible?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed too, with great delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough," he said, "how do I? Maybe I go through the
+motions."</p>
+
+<p>And now it was Mrs. Kindred who, after a moment's pause, changed the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, dear," she said, laying her hand on the open Bible, "I was
+reading just here: the parable of the sower. And my thoughts had been
+going back and forth from the seed which the fowls of the air were let
+pick up, to that other which fell in an honest and good heart, and
+'with patience,' brought forth an hundred-fold."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus ran his eyes over the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"There are lots of fowls of the air at the Academy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe no more than elsewhere. But they have no business in <i>your</i>
+life, Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"No, mammy, they haven't," he said, hesitating a little with the
+difficulty of making his case plain. "All the same, they come in. I'll
+go to a right down good prayer-meeting Sunday night, and come back
+meaning to be the joy of your heart from that time on. Think I'll go
+straight to bed, so as to be sure and keep good till morning. Well,
+the moon is coming up as I get back to camp, and there is Randolph
+with pink and white gowns in tow; and I stop to speak, and they all
+say: 'Oh, come for a little walk!' I don't want to, and I half turn
+away&mdash;and then I go. The prayer-meeting isn't all gone by the
+time I get back, but there has been more of it picked up than you'd
+like."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the mother answered, thinking in her heart that she had not
+prayed half enough for her boy in his hard places.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I've seen a man stay to Communion," Magnus went on, "and when
+we came out, there was Pretty Newcomb waiting for him in the rain, at
+the foot of the Chapel steps. Just walked him off alongside of her
+umbrella&mdash;or under it. And what are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. But, Magnus, you said 'Sunday' night. What sort of girls are
+at the Camp Sunday night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Summer girls," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear," said the mother, the cheerful tone coming back to
+her voice, "the Lord is 'able to keep you from falling,' even in the
+most difficult places; and to make you 'fruitful to every good work,'
+in spite of all the fowls of the air that ever fluttered down. But
+remember, that on your part the word is: 'Hold fast that which thou
+hast, that no man take thy crown.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I know." But then Magnus remembered something else, and was
+suddenly silent.</p>
+
+<p>And now came a soft, imperative call to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as
+the mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up
+at him with her true eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, <i>never</i> 'go through the motions,' as you call it, with the
+wrong woman. <i>Never</i>, as a sham. It dishonours the woman and degrades
+the man, and robs the other woman&mdash;the right one&mdash;of somewhat
+that belongs to her alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never really have, mammy," said Magnus gravely; "so make
+your mind easy. And I never shall&mdash;unless the right one throws
+ me over. I don't know what
+I'll do then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And in spite of all previous warning Magnus looked round the
+breakfast room for Cherry, and not finding her, felt very much
+aggrieved.</p>
+
+<p>There was no lack of talk and laughter, however; the joy of those
+four people in being together was extreme, and of course, the others
+did not miss Cherry, not having expected her, but Magnus did. The
+reserved, dainty girl had taken him by storm. They had always been
+inseparable as children, and as true boy and girl, though never with
+any freedom on her part, even then, that passed the prettiest bounds.
+Now she had stepped off a little, regarding him from a safer grown-up
+distance, and Magnus was wild to annihilate both time and space, and
+whatever else came in his way. She had bloomed out into something much
+rarer than he knew could be in the world, and Cadet Kindred surrendered
+at discretion, and without a summons. I believe he found that last
+fact the crowning charm. If Cherry had held forth her little finger to
+draw him on, or had in any way shortened that new indefinable distance
+between him and her, I think Magnus would have struck off a percentage
+from her perfections. It vexed and bewitched him equally.</p>
+
+<p>So the young man sat opposite the open window, where the smoke from
+the other house curled softly into view, and thought himself ill-used
+and happy in about half and half mixture. He watched the winding path,
+but it remained empty. Then he looked at his sisters; how handsome they
+were, too! Splendid girls, both of them; and wouldn't they make a stir
+in first-class camp? Of course his mother had always been perfection.
+And here his eyes came round to her, with a smile of such joyful love
+and content that poor Mrs. Kindred was very near making a goose of
+herself, as she would have phrased it. What it was to have her boy home
+again!</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot see why they don't move down here!"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+Magnus broke forth irrelevantly. "Living on there all by themselves in
+that stupid old house."</p>
+
+<p>"Stupid?" cried Violet. "Why, it's the very prettiest house in all
+the State."</p>
+
+<p>"You had best not let Cherry hear you say such things," remarked
+Rose. "She loves that house with all her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" said Magnus. "She'll have to leave it some time."</p>
+
+<p>"She will not while her father lives," said Mrs. Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, girls do it every day."</p>
+
+<p>"Girls&mdash;but not Cherry," the mother answered; and Magnus was
+so charmed with the saying, and the fair little pedestal on which
+it placed his heart's delight, that he adopted it for a private
+phrase of his own; used many times afterwards, it may be said, when
+"girls&mdash;but not Cherry," were around.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, when she will not come, you go to her?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she always comes," said Violet; "some time in the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Some time in the day!"</p>
+
+<p>"According to what she has to do. Only letter days she always came
+early, and left the work till she got back."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of it," corrected Rose. "But there's no letter due from Magnus
+to-day, you know, so we cannot tell when she will be here."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that is too bad!" said Mr. Kindred, pushing back his chair.
+"Coming to hear my letters, and not coming to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the letters were very interesting, you know&mdash;&mdash;"
+Violet began, and then thought it prudent to vanish.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear," said Mrs. Kindred, "as you must of course go up
+there this morning yourself before you pay any other visits, I do not
+see how it really matters."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+"No, of course," said Magnus briskly. "Oh, mammy, I wish you'd pick
+out a lot of such easy duties for me."</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot go with you," said Rose, "because we also have something
+to do; but we will come after you. You must wear your cadet clothes for
+Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus put himself in trim, and charging his sisters not to hurry
+on his account, and promising faithfully to wait till they came, began
+to mount the hill. Good for him the girls were busy&mdash;and yet,
+suppose that other girl were hid away in some part of the house to
+which Rose and Violet could go, while he could not?</p>
+
+<p>Magnus whistled his thoughts down the wind, as he went on, and then,
+with a sudden fancy to approach unnoticed, hushed his tones and even
+his steps, and went in, seeing nobody. Through the hall to the back
+door&mdash;and there got another picture to think of in barracks.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII<br />
+ON EXHIBITION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">Wise men always<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Affirm and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">That best is for a man<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Diligently<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">For to apply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">All business that he can.</span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sir T. More.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Red House had been set very near the branch road by which
+he came up, and in front there was only a short path and a bit of
+greensward, but at the back lay a big old-fashioned garden, sloping
+gaily down towards a bit of woodland and a talkative brook.</p>
+
+<p>Overlooking all this was a very wide porch with sashes on all sides
+which could be shut, but which on this warm still morning were all slid
+back. The porch within was full of flowers, with various rustic holders
+to hang and to stand and to rest on the sills, a wonderful basket of
+lilies of the valley being the centre piece on the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>There were traces in the house of other days and more Eastern
+regions, and the little spider-legged table was dark with long years
+of service, the spoons were slim-stemmed and delicate, the dishes of
+exquisite blue and white.</p>
+
+<p>But the dishes held very simple viands: bread, milk, wheat, with
+fruit and flowers, were about the whole, for some hurts or injuries
+dating back to the war time had slowly brought Mr. Erskine to a
+semi-invalid state, and Cherry wanted nothing but what her father
+had.</p>
+
+<p>I have told you nothing about Mr. Erskine&mdash;and yet he was a
+very noticeable man. Hair whitened more with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+sorrow than years (it had changed suddenly upon the death of his wife),
+cheeks where the native red still lingered, setting off the look of
+extremely delicate health, with features refined and above-board in
+every line. The eyes were both soft and flashing, the smile&mdash;once
+the merriest in the world&mdash;now never lost its shade of pathos.
+Everything about the man was refined, the daintily cared-for hand, the
+plain, scrupulously neat dress. Across one edge of the placid brow a
+red scar swept down and hid itself among the thick locks of frosted
+hair, and now, as you looked further, you could see that the right hand
+had lost its mate, and the left sleeve hung empty.</p>
+
+<p>With one hand resting lightly on that shoulder and kneeling at her
+father's side, Cherry read to him from a book laid open on the table,
+while Mr. Erskine was slowly finishing his plate of strawberries,
+dipping them, one by one, in the white sugar. Now and then a word of
+question, of comment, of explanation, passed between the two, with
+heads lifted and eyes meeting each other, then the reading went on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>This was what Magnus saw; and though he made out no words, the mere
+tones of Cherry's voice seemed to him as sweet as any bird or brook
+or leaf-stir in the whole morning concert; and I know not how long he
+might have stood there in the shadows of the hall, if little Snip, the
+terrier, being officer in charge and scenting mischief, had not rushed
+in from the garden on a tour of keen inspection coupled with much
+comment. Cherry rose quickly to her feet, Magnus stepped out upon the
+porch, and catching hold of her hand, as he went by, dropped down upon
+one knee by Mr. Erskine, in laughing glee at his astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus!" he cried. "My dear boy, is this you? Can it be possible!"
+The one arm came round the boy and drew him close.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is what made you stumble over your report of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+last night," Mr. Erskine went on, turning to Cherry; "you were hiding a
+secret." Cherry blushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I stumble, papa?" she said, carrying off the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much, for you. Well, my boy, there is no need to ask you how
+you are. Stand off there, and let me have a good look."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to come in war paint, sir," said Magnus, as he
+obeyed; "but they said at home you would want to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. Well, they certainly turn out&mdash;showy fellows
+over there." Mr. Erskine hesitated over his adjective, as if to choose
+a safe one. Cherry bit her lips, Magnus laughed and coloured too.</p>
+
+<p>"They try for it," he said; "but we hope to be useful also, some
+day, Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the 'some days' for being useful, I have ever found to-day
+the very best. Sit down and give an account of yourself. Let the cloth
+wait, Cherry. I suppose you want to hear it all, too. Unless you heard
+it last night."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, sir," said Magnus. "I did not have a chance to tell her
+half." This with a glance at Cherry, which she did not mean to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," she said, "it will take but a minute to finish the table,
+and then we can listen so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"Have your own way, love," her father answered, smiling. "My dear
+love!" he said under his breath, watching her. Then he turned to
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we know a good deal about you," he said, "for we have
+read and reread your letters, but I think I can understand them better
+now. And so these are the famous bell buttons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, the regulation sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, they are pretty bright," said Mr. Erskine, with an amused
+smile. "Are the coats still pocketless?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+Cadet Kindred disclosed the hiding place of his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"I should call that hard lines," said Mr. Erskine. "Your mother gave
+us a description when she came home, and I rather think Cherry cried
+over it. 'What <i>will</i> Magnus do without pockets?' she said. 'Because,
+you know, papa, if there was ever anything he did <i>not</i> have in his
+pocket, it was only what he could not find.' Do you remember, love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," said Cherry, much abashed at both the story and the laugh it
+brought, "I think it is enough to have said silly things without having
+them repeated."</p>
+
+<p>She fetched her work basket, and placing herself at the other side
+of her father, took out some bit of white stuff, and began to fold and
+hem with great speed and dexterity. Magnus watched her, wishing it
+were something for him. He had now and then seen a girl with a crochet
+needle in these two years, or straining her eyes over a piece of mussed
+unhappy looking drawnwork, but everything about Cherry and her basket
+was as fresh as the morning. Her strip of muslin might have just come
+from the shop, and have gone straight back there again, for all the
+disturbance it had from her neat handling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's a busy child," said Mr. Erskine fondly, noting where the
+eyes were bent; "busy and sweet as the day is long. But come, Magnus,
+draw up your chair, and let us have the story. Of course, as I said,
+we have heard a great deal, but we want the whole thing now, don't we,
+love? Do you wear all that finery every day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir, except when nobody is supposed to see us. We have an ugly,
+comfortable blouse for study, and meals, and recitations. With fatigue
+suits, of course, for drills."</p>
+
+<p>"Look your worst at recitations, hey? I should think it good policy
+to look your best."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't make any difference with those old buffers,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+said Magnus. "They don't care if you fess perfectly frigid. They'd just
+as soon give you zero as anything else."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine's mouth took on a quizzical look.</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds like cold weather, doesn't it, love?" he said. "But let
+us go on regularly. Suppose it was term-time, how would your day
+begin?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the gun, always, sir. Unless I am boning math. and have waked
+myself up for early study. I'm too much of a sleepyhead to do it
+often."</p>
+
+<p>"Best not; you need the sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but when you want to max it, and have been getting two-nine
+for three days running, you see that will not do," said Magnus. "And I
+will not bugle; and I can't fudge worth a cent."</p>
+
+<p>The comical look passed into a laugh this time, low and very
+pleasant, Cherry joining in, after a vain attempt to keep herself
+quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Next in prominence to the gun comes breakfast, I suppose," said Mr.
+Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, breakfast&mdash;slumgudgeon stew, and the rest of it," said
+Magnus. "But the bread and butter and milk are always good. They've
+taken to calling the roll after breakfast, as well as before, in case
+slumgudgeon should have laid some slain man under the table. Then comes
+a bit of release from quarters. If I've been fizzling lately, maybe I
+put in the time on French; but I am more apt to take a walk."</p>
+
+<p>"That is well," said Mr. Erskine. "A brisk walk puts the brain in
+good order."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not always a brisk walk, though," said Magnus. "Most often I
+go dawdling along with some girl."</p>
+
+<p>And now Cherry was so still that only the swift-flying needle seemed
+to move. Mr. Erskine looked amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think that a poor preparing for the section room," he said.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+"Can't be helped if it is," said Magnus. "There's such a lot of
+girls&mdash;and summer girls&mdash;about, it takes every minute you can
+get. Chappy comes up and says: 'Kin, just give my sister a walk, will
+you? Awfully nice girl, but if I don't bone a little I'll be found in
+French, sure guns. And besides, my best girl is here.' So I go. Then
+Miss Beguile says: 'Oh, Mr. Kindred! I've <i>never</i> seen Fort Putnam.
+Please take me!'"</p>
+
+<p>How they both laugh at him&mdash;Cherry holding back a little, then
+letting her merry notes ring in.</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds stringent," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you notice, love, his
+fine distinction between 'girls' and 'summer girls'? That is something
+we simple people know nothing of. By the way, I suppose <i>you</i> must be a
+summer girl&mdash;as he never sees you in the winter."</p>
+
+<p>"If anyone ever dares call her a summer girl," said Mr. Kindred
+promptly, "I'll knock him down quicker than he ever had it done
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"Hands off! I'll not call her so," said Mr. Erskine, laughing. "She
+is an everyday girl, and better each time. But Magnus, suppose <i>your</i>
+best girl happens to be also on hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"She never is, sir. She has not been at the Point since I went
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Hard on you, if she went there before; you speak as if she were a
+fixed fact. Do you know, Magnus, I am rather sorry to hear that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir?" demanded Magnus, noting the pulsating colour in the fair
+face bent over the needlework.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when I thought of it, I hoped you would keep clear of all
+such entanglements till you knew what you wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"I did, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course! I beg pardon; I should have said till you had seen a
+little more of the world."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+"Do you think the world is the place to choose, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine smiled, half sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only an old matchlock," he said, "and cannot cope with you
+young sharpshooters. But my boy, what I meant was this. When the boy
+goes off to college and grows into new mental strength and riches,
+and the girl stays at home and gets not half a chance, poor child, to
+do anything but wash dishes or (now do not glower at me) perhaps does
+not wish for higher things, then the man comes home raised to a plane
+where she is not fitted to stand by his side, and she can never be the
+helpmeet for him that she should."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus listened respectfully; watching that lovely, flitting colour,
+it was not hard to sit still.</p>
+
+<p>"You think," he said, "that some girls wouldn't amount to much at a
+one-company post. When a man was hard up for comrades?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless they were 'best girls' in truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, mine is," said Magnus confidently, "the very bestest
+sort. I don't know how much she knows&mdash;but if I stay at the
+Academy two years longer I shall have a stuffed head, full enough to
+lend on every occasion. Besides, it's not needful for a man's peace of
+mind that his wife should understand wave motion, is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine laughed at him, and Cherry laughed too, though now
+colouring furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is not needful," her father said, not noticing her,
+"unless in practice. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you.
+I had a friend, Magnus, who got entangled, as I call it, very early,
+went away to college, and when he came back with all his honours, his
+mother forbade the bans on that distinct plea; she said the girl was
+too ignorant. I think my friend would have gone straight on through it
+all, but the girl was not of that sort. She refused to enter any family
+by the side door. So they waited, the engagement was virtually broken,
+and years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+went by. Then the mother died, the man sought his old love and married
+her. But Magnus, the girl had spent those years not in lamenting, not
+in flirting, but in solid, hard study. So that when at last they went
+forth in life together she had passed him, and was the better educated
+of the two."</p>
+
+<p>What was Cherry laughing at? For while the cheeks had not all cooled
+down, the lips had parted in but half-controlled curls of fun.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if she was proficient in warped surfaces, I hope they enjoyed
+talking it over in their play-spells," said Magnus. "I've no use for
+some of those things, they sift out too many good men. We all felt bad
+to have Chuck go."</p>
+
+<p>"Finished his course?" said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"At West Point, sir; graduated at the wrong end, dropped. He did
+everything to stay; ran a light after taps, cut society, and sat night
+after night with his feet in cold water and his hands in his hair
+(what there was of it)," Magnus added in parenthesis. "But nothing did
+any good; he'd go next day and fess on a clean board. 'Mr. Simpkins,'
+the instructor asked him one day, 'are you as stupid at drill as you
+are in the section room?' And Chuck turned with the blandest face and
+answered: 'Nigh on to it, Lieutenant!' And he was."</p>
+
+<p>How the listeners laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"But that was Simpkins," Cherry remarked. "You said 'Chuck.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Chuck' was his cadet name."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they name everyone?" asked Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Very generally. But some names go with the office. The fattest man
+in the class is 'Tubs,' and the oldest 'Daddy'; while the cleanest-face
+man in all the Corps may be 'mud,' because his pred. or his resemblance
+owned the name. 'Deacon' and 'Squire', 'Mile-High' and 'Shorty',
+'Pretty Jones' and 'Lady Crane.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+"What is yours?" said Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Only 'Kin'; sometimes with the 'Kith' added. Do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see that you are a very wide-awake set of boys," said Mr.
+Erskine. Cherry slowly pulled off her thimble.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," she said, "I sent word that they must all come here to
+dinner, and it is time for me to go and see to things."</p>
+
+<p>"I will come and help," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," Cherry answered him gaily. "Housekeeping is one of
+the few things you have <i>not</i> studied. Stay and talk to your mother,
+she is just here."</p>
+
+<p>So while the two girls followed Cherry, the other three people sat
+talking over many things, the two elders closely scanning the young
+cadet; and he, all unconscious of their scrutiny, showing himself
+just as he was in truth. Certainly the stories and pranks he rattled
+off were full of mischief, and as surely they gave small token of a
+reverent respect for regulations. But there was no taint of anything
+mean or low, no word that savoured of "conduct unbecoming an officer
+and a gentleman." The mother breathed freer with every new light thrown
+upon his West Point life, and felt that her boy had come back to her
+pure as he had gone away. The eyes of the two old friends met in
+joyful sympathy time and again, as Magnus talked and told, and their
+laughter had no reserve of anxious questioning. And when at last Magnus
+detailed himself to go and look after the girls and dinner, Mr. Erskine
+stretched out his hand to the happy mother.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a splendid fellow," he said; "a grand boy! I congratulate you
+with all my heart."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX<br />
+SKIRMISHING</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">O wha can prudence think upon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sic a lassie by him?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O wha can prudence think upon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sae in love as I am?<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<i>Old Song.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus, meanwhile, with quite as much of the "boy" as the "grand"
+about him, despite his inches, tiptoed off along passages and through
+doorways that he knew by heart, following the hum of voices. So
+presently came out into the small summer kitchen, where a pleasant
+smell of good cookery steamed and puffed and whiffed from various
+vessels within and upon the stove. Dishes stood ready on the table,
+with white-covered pans of rolls just waiting to be baked, but save the
+old cat, winking and blinking by the oven door, there was nobody in
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus gave her a toss up in the air for old times' sake, peeped
+cautiously out at the broad back steps, then let himself easily down
+through the open window and came round the other way upon the scene of
+the sweet chatter that was going on.</p>
+
+<p>The three girls were on the steps, Rose and Violet hulling
+strawberries, while Cherry in a wide check apron, sat on the lowest
+step of all with a basket of lettuce at her side, picking over the
+fresh green leaves, and dropping them into a pan of cold water. A thick
+clump of lilac bushes served as a screen.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," Rose was saying, "I cannot believe it,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+yet. I think I cried for joy a little bit, when I waked up in the night
+and remembered that Magnus was really here."</p>
+
+<p>"And doesn't he look well?" said Violet; "and isn't he a beauty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not tell him that," Cherry answered with discretion. She would
+have given a ready enough answer a week ago, but somehow, with the
+continent no more between them, the young damsel had grown wary.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid everybody else will tell him," said Rose. "But he is not
+spoiled a bit <i>yet</i>. Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very mild way of giving her estimate, and Cherry scolded
+herself that she could not answer freely, as she had always done;
+called herself to account for the shyness which had sprung into life
+with, indeed, the very first coming of that photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"I am such a goose!" poor Cherry thought, bending down low over the
+lettuce basket. "What shall I do to myself? If only he had not acted so
+last night!"</p>
+
+<p>And just here, by way of composing matters, two hands came softly
+round her head, and were laid lightly and respectfully upon her eyes.
+It was one of his old teasing ways with her.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry's start passed almost into a tremor. She put up her hands to
+remove the obstruction, and they were taken and held fast; and what
+more Magnus might have dared had there been no witnesses, will never be
+known.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry lifted her face, trying to speak sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "you have not improved one bit. I thought
+West Point was to make a man of you&mdash;or a better man&mdash;or
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"It has made 'something' of me," he retorted, gazing down at her.
+"Give you three guesses."</p>
+
+<p>"Too much else to do. Set that pan of lettuce on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+table, please. Don't you see how busy I am?" And Cherry drew towards
+her a basket of green peas and began to shell with all her might.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it&mdash;to the depths of my heart," Magnus answered as he
+did her bidding. "Here, Viola, give us your apron. If I don't sit down
+and help this girl, I shall have her fainting away on my hands."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you will not," Cherry said very decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus spied a spare apron on a nail, and, tying it carefully
+round his neck, he put himself down on the doorstep, and dived in among
+the pea pods. Always taking, if he could, the very one of which Cherry
+had laid hold, and then dropping that and seizing her fingers, and then
+mysteriously scattering the peas from his own hands or shaking them
+out of hers, so that the rolling things had to be sought on all sides.
+Which last process Cadet Kindred pursued so zealously that more than
+once his face and Cherry's shining locks came very near together.</p>
+
+<p>The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two
+had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough
+to play, and to see it all go on again in the old fashion was too good
+for anything. Of the subtile difference that had crept in, their young
+eyes took no note. And Cherry herself tried hard to ignore it, laughing
+with the rest, and very well holding her own, but dimly conscious all
+the while that things she would have ventured once, she did not venture
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, why do you tie that string round your neck?" said Rose. "Have
+you forgotten how aprons are worn?"</p>
+
+<p>"A lost art. But this is the improved style, which I mean to
+introduce at West Point. I cannot see how the Tactical Department
+has overlooked aprons so long. We're too young to know when to wear
+overcoats, so aprons to keep our trousers clean would be just the
+thing. I'll introduce them."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+"When you go back, I suppose," said Rose sarcastically. "I'll lend
+you mine for a pattern."</p>
+
+<p>"When I go back as Com.," Magnus answered with dignity. "When I am
+Com. and Cherry is Supe. <i>then</i> you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"You could see now, if you would look," said Cherry, as a podful of
+peas rolled down the step.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking with all my eyes.&mdash;And they dare to call you a
+summer girl!" Magnus broke forth, watching the lovely pink cloud of
+colour that came and went with such swift changes.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you <i>please</i> tell us what a summer girl is like?" said Violet.
+"She has danced about a good deal in your letters, but we everyday
+people don't know what she is. Come, boy, describe her."</p>
+
+<p>"Her!" Magnus repeated. "She is to the full as plural as she is
+singular."</p>
+
+<p>"Many of them at West Point, are there?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Car loads; stunning, too, as they can be, some of them. Take your
+breath away. Say, girls, where's the old banjo? In existence yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes," said Rose. "Only no one has played it since you
+went away."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is here, too," said Violet. "Mother made us bring it this
+morning, because she was sure Mr. Erskine would like to hear you
+sing."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew <i>she</i>
+couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss
+Erskine first. About her namesake&mdash;and some other things."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the
+doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the
+peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was
+softly beating to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+stiff froth. The other girls had finished their berries, and sat
+near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed over clover and
+mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen. Behind him, Magnus
+could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went on within the
+house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long, plaintive moo,
+and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the wealth that
+came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head against the
+doorpost and listened.</p>
+
+<p>"That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold
+of him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls
+watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose
+bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and
+scents from hayfields and hills&mdash;it came upon Magnus Kindred like
+a spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the
+graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then
+sang out from the depths of his heart:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Home, home! Sweet, sweet home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O there's no place like home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had
+indeed never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices
+which can never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two
+years he had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and
+sweetened it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls.</p>
+
+<p>The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before;
+Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat
+in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there
+came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her
+breast as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at
+the singer, and then could not take her eyes away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his
+wont, being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things.
+From "Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"&mdash;back and forth as the band had
+done&mdash;so went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up
+some special association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful
+eyes that were fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their
+handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We twa hae paidlet in the burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Frae morning sun till dine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we've wandered mony a weary fit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sen auld lang syne."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is just what we did, Cerise&mdash;do you remember? And just
+what I have done, since."</p>
+
+<p>"But oh, Magnus!" she cried, "were you so homesick as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Homesick? Your blue apron is rose-colour to it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad we did not know," Cherry said with a long breath,
+beginning slowly to beat her cream. "You were very good not to
+tell."</p>
+
+<p>"And did nobody help you or speak to you?" questioned the two young
+sisters, coming up nearer to sit at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I had help enough," said Magnus, softly twanging the strings of his
+banjo. "Everybody from the Com. to the third-class corporals bade me
+brace up. And if I wanted a lonely walk in the open air on Saturday, I
+had only to wear my hair long and dishevelled as a sign of grief, and
+they'd give to me without asking. And if I dead-beat and went to the
+Hospital to get a chance to mope a little, Dr. Pestle would give me
+some compound to <i>make</i> me sick, lest I should lose my time and be down
+there for nothing. The Tacs were so afraid I should 'wet my couch with
+briny tears' that they made me keep the old thing tight rolled up till
+bed time. I was too tired to cry, then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+"Queer help," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"The best that could be, Rosy. They made me mad, and then I was all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"I should call that poor comfort," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing like it, however," said Magnus. "Dries up your feelings
+quicker than fourteen pocket-handkerchiefs. You owe the world one, and
+you mean to live till you pay it. So suicide can wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I wish you would not talk so," Cherry said appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now there is Cerise," Magnus went on. "If I could once make
+her thoroughly angry with me, she wouldn't mind anything else that
+happened. The thing is how. I haven't found out yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And you never will," said Rose. "You cannot do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot, hey? That is good to know. Gives me great freedom of
+action. I'll store up the information for future use."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you call her Cerise?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Practising my French. Of course I never thought of her in common
+English when I was away."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry, he cannot be with you five minutes without beginning to
+tease," said the girls, laughing. "He is the very same boy he always
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he has made good progress in the art of telling fibs," said
+Cherry in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Fibs!" Magnus repeated, with much unworded scorn. "You'll see
+about that. I mean to tell the truth while I am home now, if I never
+do again." And with the most funny, rollicking tone Mr. Kindred caught
+up his banjo and dashed off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me"; rattling
+it out, throwing in recitative here and there, and putting such spirit
+and vim into the performance that now the girls all laughed till
+they nearly cried again; but this time Cherry kept her eyes on her
+cream.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+Then quick and easily as the band had done, Magnus dropped once more
+into the plaintive burden of:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Home, home; sweet, sweet home;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no place like home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But now, when he stopped playing, his two sisters came round him
+caressing him, hanging upon him, and even Mrs. Kindred looked in from
+the other room and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, don't play that any more. You break my heart. I shall never
+be able to let you go back again."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laid the banjo aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fret now, mammy," he said. "It has been pretty tough, but the
+worst is over."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX<br />
+A MORNING TALK</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Hope rules a land forever green:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Are confident and gay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clouds at her bidding disappear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Points she to aught? The bliss draws near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And fancy rules the way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That was a wonderful day. But it may be remarked, that Mr. Kindred
+went home more than ever discontented with the length of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Living up there," he said, "when we are all down here. It is too
+bad. How many times a month does Cherry walk down here in the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"She need not walk in the sun," said the girls, laughing at him.
+"There is shade all the way if she wants it. Why, she comes every day,
+you foolish boy."</p>
+
+<p>"At what hour, generally, you foolish girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all sorts of times," said Violet; "after breakfast, and before
+dinner, and after tea. But they are both coming down to-day to dine
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will just go up and make sure they understand that,"
+said Magnus. "Cherry does not always take up an idea as quick as she
+might."</p>
+
+<p>And away he dashed out of the house and began to double-time it up
+the hill, the three women at home watching from the window in admiring
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the best looking fellow that ever was," said Rose. And the
+mother answered as Cherry had done:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but do not tell him so."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+Then the girls laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother," they cried, "you do it, every time you look at him."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus meanwhile sped lightly up the hill. He had his reasons for
+liking to go at this particular time; the picture yesterday was too
+lovely for him not to long to see it again, and it might be that Cherry
+read to her father every morning. Then what was the book? Cherry had
+closed it so suddenly upon his coming, that he caught no glimpse of
+the inside; but the outside stirred his curiosity. It was an old
+book, bound in the dainty old-time vellum, once marked and embossed
+with gold; but that was much faded and worn away. It did not look
+like a Bible, and yet that, Magnus felt, was the correct thing for
+Cherry&mdash;such a girl as she was&mdash;to be reading to her father
+at breakfast time. Other people's duties are marked out in such very
+distinct lines that even colour blindness is rarely doubtful over
+them.</p>
+
+<p>But no murmur of voices met him, as he paused at the front door; and
+something warned him to go quietly round the house to the steps that
+ran down into the garden. And sure enough, he had his picture, but a
+different one this time.</p>
+
+<p>A little white-covered tray on the upper step held bread and milk
+and berries, and on the step below sat Cherry, with a book in her lap.
+She jumped up at the sound of his footfall, and put the book away,
+coming back instantly to her place.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Erskine out?" Magnus asked, as he took position at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not out. It is one of the days when that old bullet wound
+gives so much trouble that the best thing is to keep quite still."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't read to him, such days?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has had the reading&mdash;and he had his breakfast,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+said Cherry; "but he made me come down and take mine in the fresh
+air."</p>
+
+<p>"And instead of doing it, you fall to reading again," said Magnus,
+reaching up his hand to the milk pitcher and filling her glass. "Please
+to begin at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Please to have some too, then. There are more strawberries on the
+table inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Two breakfasts to-day, against some other morning when I shall have
+none," said Magnus. "What are you waiting for? Something else I should
+get?" For Cherry sat lingering, and had not touched her spoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Magnus repeated, watching her. He had a spoonful of berries
+on the way to his mouth, and still her hands had not stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus&mdash;you haven't&mdash;will you ask the blessing?"
+Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>The berries came down with a rush.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said, with an odd change in his voice. And Cherry bent
+her head and spoke the few sweet words as simply and gladly as if they
+were but a breath of native air. Magnus was stirred more than he cared
+to own.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven and earth come pretty close together where you are," he
+broke out, eating his berries and forgetting the sugar.</p>
+
+<p>"Where anybody is," said Cherry. "Heaven must be near when the Lord
+is close by, 'with you,' and 'at your right hand.'"</p>
+
+<p>She was all changed this morning; so quiet, so self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," Magnus went on impulsively, "one gets out of
+practice. I've not heard a blessing asked for two years, till I came
+home. Except when mother and I had our picnic."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in your Mess Hall?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+"Well, I should say not!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can always ask one silently for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus gave a long groan.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe your flag is sixty feet long," he said. "What do you
+suppose the other three hundred men would say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Not care, I dare say. Well, to begin, they'd give me a silence,
+just as like as not."</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"A silence. That's what we give a Tac who oversteps bounds, or a
+party of women who are brought in to see the animals feed. There's a
+universal din up to that moment, and then every man drops his knife and
+fork, stops his tongue, and looks. You don't know what silence means
+till you've heard that."</p>
+
+<p>"What a very queer custom! And that is what they might do to you?
+But it could not last long, I suppose, because they would have to eat
+their breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it would not last long!" said Magnus ironically. "First Rig
+begins: 'Hello, Kin! Most through? Lose your breakfast?' And Crane:
+'Say, Kin! Come and bless what's left on our table.' And Crinkem would
+yell: 'Shut up, and let him alone! He's praying for strength to eat the
+steak.'"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's colour flitted back and forth as he spoke; then her eyes
+lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not sound pleasant," she said; "but Magnus, if I were you,
+I think I would try it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt you would," said Magnus, thinking his own thoughts.
+"Sixty feet long in all weathers. But Cerise, besides all that, there
+isn't time. We have but just so many minutes for breakfast, anyhow; and
+while I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+my eyes shut, somebody else might get my roll. No great
+gain, but still a loss."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be very sad," said Cherry, with a comical smile. "But
+then, you would enjoy the rest so much better. Magnus," she went on
+seriously, "did you ever think how many faint-hearted Christians there
+may be in the crowd who would take courage from you to do right?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so help me face the silence?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is grand to face wrong things for right reasons!" said Cherry,
+her eyes like two opals, showing their hidden fire. "'And they departed
+from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
+shame for his name.'"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, talk to me," he said. "I want all the talking to I can
+get. But I can tell you, Cerise&mdash;do you mind my calling you
+so?"&mdash;he broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no," the girl answered. "It does not sound quite natural."</p>
+
+<p>"Not like old times&mdash;no, of course not. Well, would you like
+Chérie better? I think I should," said Mr. Kindred, watching the
+pink tinges with a delightful sense of having the reins in his own
+hands again. "It is more closely descriptive, and just as good for my
+French."</p>
+
+<p>"You are without question the most absurd boy this side of West
+Point!" said Cherry. "Have you emptied your strawberry basket? I must
+put these things away."</p>
+
+<p>"We must, indeed," said Magnus, handling dishes and bearing them off
+into the house. "You know I have come to take you back with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you! It might have been wise&mdash;not to say civil&mdash;to
+state that before."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to go," said Magnus. "I'd rather have you all to
+myself here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, will you please stop practising your favourite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+wave motion, and keep out of my way?" said Cherry, much hindered in her
+progress by finding Magnus before her at every turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't studied it yet,&mdash;so there. Now, Cherry, you surely did
+not mind what I said about wave motion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I said about women's not needing to learn it."</p>
+
+<p>"If all the men understand it through and through, that might leave
+the women free for other work," said Cherry critically, as if she were
+weighing the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Magnus; "now you are beginning to talk like yourself. I
+haven't half known you since I came home. Tease away, ma Chérie."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, don't you want to run upstairs and get papa's tray? He must
+be done with it by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," said Cadet Kindred. "Only&mdash;this is the
+second time you have sent me to him,&mdash;and as I remarked the other
+night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I declare!" Cherry exclaimed, giving him a good sight of the fire
+sparks. But then she turned and darted away up some back staircase so
+fleetly and softly that he could not even tell by which way she had
+gone. And when the pursuer by ordinary routes had reached the room,
+Cherry was in calm conversation with her father.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was sitting by the window, and certainly looked rather
+surprised at the headlong style in which Magnus rushed in; but smiled
+and shook hands very cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry sent me to get your tray, sir," the young man explained;
+"and she was so high-strung over my seeming hesitation that, after
+that, I stumbled upstairs as fast as I could."</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;chaffing each other as usual," said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," Cherry put in, safely ensconced now behind her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+father and her work basket, "you must not believe one word these cadets
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"These cadets!" Magnus retorted. "Please to be more personal in your
+remarks. I stand up for the veracity of the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"And represent it, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who is wandering into fib-land now," said Magnus. "Mr.
+Erskine, if you take her at her word, and never believe anything I say,
+I shall live to see the day when, with tears in her eyes, she will
+assure you of my perfect truth and reliability."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you will not," said Cherry. "Unless you live to be a hundred
+and ten."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine laughed heartily. Just so had those two been sparring
+ever since they were in leading strings; perfect inseparables, but
+never together ten minutes without getting up a skirmish of some
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry this is one of your bad days, sir," Magnus went on;
+"but the sun is very bright, as you can see, sir, and the air is
+soft&mdash;you can <i>feel</i> that. I like to back up my words when I can.
+And perhaps you will kindly take hold of my arm, sir, and judge if it
+is likely to give way under the weight of your hand down the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"All which means," said Mr. Erskine, "that I am expected by the dear
+people down there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And I think mother will be disappointed if you don't
+come&mdash;but I'll scoot down and get a note from her to say so. And
+Rose will cry out, 'Oh, dear!' and Violet will exclaim, 'Dear me!' At
+least," said Magnus, correcting himself, "it will be something like
+that. Even warped surfaces cannot always help a man to know just what a
+woman will say."</p>
+
+<p>And Cadet Kindred stood back with the air of one who, having just
+sent a shell from the siege battery, and seen it hit the mark, feels
+that he deserves well of his country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+"Why 'warped surfaces'?" said Mr. Erskine, laughing up at the handsome
+young fellow, whom he loved next to his own daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncertain, sir. And incomprehensible. Greatest puzzle I know," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said his friend slowly, "you are a good persuader, Magnus.
+Cherry, you are going, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do, papa."</p>
+
+<p>"Not else? Then I must try. I know you want to see all you can of
+your old playmate. It is better than letters, isn't it, love? I can
+tell you, Magnus, there was no keeping her at home letter day, no
+matter what the weather was."</p>
+
+<p>If Cherry sighed inwardly, "Oh, papa!" she gave no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very happy to hear it, sir," said Magnus, in his stateliest
+tones. "It was beautiful filial devotion in Cherry. Of course she knew
+how anxious you were to know that, as yet, I was out of light prison. I
+hope she never took cold, or injured her health in any way, going out
+in all weathers to relieve your anxiety."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, it was not all for me," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you remember,
+love, the week when the track was snowed up? and the overdue letter
+that never came at all? Magnus, those were dark days. I believe Cherry
+went down to the other house six times between sunrise and sunset; and
+then when at last the mail-bag came, our letter did not."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very beautiful of her to take so much trouble to quiet
+your mind, sir," said Magnus, watching the swift, pulsating colour in
+Cherry's fair cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I took very little of it to myself," said Mr. Erskine, going
+calmly on, as men will, through they know not what. "My heart ached
+for her that day when she came back with her pale face, and said so
+patiently, 'We must wait till to-morrow, papa.' Then at night they all
+came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+up here; and I had to say over everything I had ever known or heard
+about trains, letters, and&mdash;boys. You ought to be a good fellow,
+Magnus, with four such women-hearts watching over you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Don't you think it might further the cause if they told
+me a little more about it?" said Magnus, with an innocent face.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa&mdash;he knows quite enough for his good," Cherry
+remonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he might not like to hear it all," Mr. Erskine went on, in
+the same unconscious fashion. "Poor little girl! How her voice shook
+when she began to read to me that morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did she read, sir?" Magnus questioned, with an odd change in
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we were in the Revelation just then. Were we not, love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, papa,"&mdash;very low.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember. 'The sea of glass,' and 'them that had gotten the
+victory.' Cherry read it as if she was ready to have the time come."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa!"&mdash;it was almost a cry. "Why will you go back and bring
+that all up again? Cannot you find pleasanter things to tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he cannot, and you know it very well," said Magnus decidedly.
+"Leave fib-land to me. I wish you would show me the very chapter,
+please, Mr. Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>"Hand me the book&mdash;there it is, love, on my table."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring you another, papa,&mdash;" and Cherry went swiftly to
+the next room.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, however, had his own private reasons for thwarting her
+whenever he could, if it was only in the choice of a book; and before
+she could get back he had brought the other volume to Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, this is better," Cherry said, coming in; but Magnus
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+shook his head at her, and she silently came down to her seat again.
+Then came a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had been so busy watching her that neither book had had
+much notice. Now, as Mr. Erskine turned the leaves, saying: "Here,
+this is the place," Magnus bent down over his friend's shoulder
+to look, and behold! he could not read one word. It might be the
+Revelation&mdash;but it was also Greek. At least, so he supposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, which was the book she was reading from that day?" he
+said, looking at Cherry, who now sat perfectly still, with the other
+Testament in her lap and her hands folded upon it. And if it had not
+been impossible, he would have thought she was biting her lips hard to
+keep back a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the very one," said Mr. Erskine, all unconscious. "She
+always reads in this&mdash;we both like it better. It is worn on the
+outside," he went on, turning the book over and giving the vellum
+affectionate touches, "but I like these old bindings, don't you? The
+time-stained cover for the things which time can neither stain nor wear
+out. This was the book and the place where she read that morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to hear her read it now," said Cadet Kindred, feeling
+considerably dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it to him, love," said Mr. Erskine, giving the old book to
+her; and without raising her eyes Cherry obeyed, but in tones so low,
+that but for their clearness, the eager listener could hardly have
+caught one word. Understand one word he did not.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnificent, are they not?" said Mr. Erskine. "But the English
+version holds its own," he added musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"'And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them
+that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and
+over his mark, and over the number<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that was it. You see, my boy, if you had indeed gotten the
+victory, and passed on into the exceeding glory and the joy, it did
+not so much matter if, for a little space, we broke our hearts down
+here."</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange, wholesome ten minutes for Cadet Kindred; and I
+think as he stood there looking down at Cherry, he took the measure of
+his smallest storm flag more accurately than he had ever done before.
+In fact he could hardly find it to measure, but seemed to hear the
+empty halyards whipping against the staff. And that girl had been
+staying her heart with the thought of his victory and crown!</p>
+
+<p>"That was the first hard day," said Mr. Erskine; "and the letters
+did not come for a week. What was our next reading, love? Magnus would
+like to hear them all."</p>
+
+<p>But now Cherry's answer burst forth:</p>
+
+<p>"Papa&mdash;I cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>The father's hand came tenderly on her head.</p>
+
+<p>"That is too much to ask," he said. "Those days are better out of
+sight. Go and get your hat, love, and we will try to reach our dear
+friends down the hill. Poor little girl!" he said, as Cherry sprang
+away; "it was a very hard time for her. And everybody looked to her for
+comfort. Violet would come up and cry on her shoulder, and Rose would
+beg her to go down and talk to your mother; and Cherry went and came,
+and reasoned and hunted up possible causes, and cheered everybody but
+herself. With a smile always ready, but pale as the winter sunshine.
+You see the lines were down, so that we could not telegraph, and when
+the first train broke through, even then there was no letter. She is a
+brave heart."</p>
+
+<p>"She is the very dearest girl in all the world!" Magnus said
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+"About that," her father answered&mdash;"well, love, here you are. Now
+we shall see what this brave young shoulder that is so ready to be
+useful, can do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, as you will not need me, papa, I will run on ahead," and
+Cherry slipped in among the trees, and was out of sight directly.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI<br />
+THE SUMMER GIRL</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>No man has complained that you have discoursed too long on any
+subject, for you leave us in an eagerness of hearing more.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20"><span class="smcap">&mdash;Dryden.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The other two walked slowly on. They had always been cronies, as a
+man and even a small boy can be; and now Magnus found his old friend
+full of the keenest interest in all the new life and varying work of
+which the young cadet had so much to tell. Slowly down the pretty hill
+they went; Mr. Erskine taking from Magnus what help he could for his
+lame side, and the cadet trying to make the regulation step know its
+place. And it was so pleasant to see, so like the dear old times, that
+the four at the cottage dropped everything to watch them as they came.
+Then Mrs. Kindred hurried out to welcome her guest, the two sisters
+got hold of Magnus, and Cherry went quietly back to finish setting the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt she was not minding her business too closely, smiling to
+herself over the words and laughter that came past the half-open door
+of the closet where she was sorting out spoons; for she never heard
+what stealthy steps drew near, and her first warning of danger was the
+sudden darkening of the closet by the shutting of the door. Cherry
+sprang towards it just in time to hear the bolt shot and the key
+withdrawn. Then came a struggle outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus, stop! Cherry is in there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Safe as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the key! She wants to be out here."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then why did she go in?"</p>
+
+<p>"She went for the spoons, you intolerable boy," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Do to talk of," said Magnus coolly. "No, my dear; she went because
+this intolerable boy was around. So you perceive it is very kind of me
+to keep her where she cannot see him. Come, chicks; let's get the old
+banjo, and I'll sing you the 'Song of the Summer Girl.'"</p>
+
+<p>"If you sing one single note when Cherry is not by to hear, we will
+stop our ears," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will not be able to tell her about it afterwards," said
+Magnus. "Come along."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you cannot have your dinner till we get the spoons," said
+Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"At West Point we eat with forks&mdash;when we have them," said
+Magnus. "When we do not, we take our fingers. Where is that banjo?"</p>
+
+<p>The girls followed him, talking and scolding and threatening to tell
+Mr. Erskine, but Cherry had no idea of waiting for outside help. She
+was a girl of resources, and the case in hand was not very hard. For
+this was an outside lock, simply screwed on; an old knife made a fair
+screwdriver; and, when Magnus had just reached the next room, a soft
+chink made him look round, and there was Cherry, calmly putting the
+spoons in place.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you come from?" he said, turning back.</p>
+
+<p>"The spoon drawer. Do I understand that West Point cadets scorn both
+spoons and forks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll teach you something about West Point cadets, before I go,"
+Magnus asserted, stepping towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"How good of you!" said Cherry mockingly, as she slipped round
+the table. "We're such an ignorant set out here. Magnus, if you
+would announce a lecture on warped surfaces, I really think it would
+draw."</p>
+
+<p>What Magnus would have said or done, and how Cherry
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+might have suffered for her temerity, does not appear. Rose came
+in, bearing a dish of such chicken pot-pie as Magnus declared never
+grew on a reservation; Violet followed with potatoes and peas and
+beets&mdash;the pretty red, white, and green of the summer garden; and
+they all sat down to dinner. Then Magnus found that he had neither
+spoon nor fork.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Violet, how careless," the mother said, as he made known the
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>"No, mamma, not I."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry, "Magnus said that West Point cadets
+could eat with their fingers, so I thought if he enjoyed it, we should
+like to see how it was done. And it would be one less to wash. And the
+chickens are cut up," she added gravely. Mrs. Kindred laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"If you two are having a fight, I'll keep out," she said. "Go and
+help yourself, Magnus." And this he would have done from Cherry's
+plate, if that young damsel had not laid fast hold of her property; so
+he took Violet's instead.</p>
+
+<p>But it was a delightful dinner: what though the courses were few
+and simple, and the trained waiters only the three girls. Then the two
+elders carried Magnus off to the porch for another talk while the girls
+cleared the table, and then they also came out, bringing the banjo.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the summer girl!" they cried, and Magnus left his place for
+one on the steps at Cherry's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She</i> has been called 'a summer girl,'" he said, "and I want to see
+how she likes her portrait. This lay is named: 'The Idle of the Summer
+Girl.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Your writing?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"If you admire it, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, child," said Mrs. Kindred, "do they waste your time out
+there writing poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better
+believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+time means if I didn't filch a little for my own use, now and then.
+This is: 'The Idle of the Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,'
+Cadet Rig being the other party. All the weak lines are his. There's
+another touching ditty on the same theme, much sung in camp at the time
+of full moon, but it takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from
+a specimen verse."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing
+voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in
+his own:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>1st Cadet</i>: "O the Summer Girl has come to town."</p>
+<p><i>2d Cadet</i>: "Alas, my heart!"</p>
+<p><i>1st Cadet</i>: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail&mdash;ing gown."</p>
+<p><i>2d Cadet</i>: "Alas, my heart!"</p>
+<p><i>3d Cadet</i>: "Steady on that, you haven't got any."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>At least four voices cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Go on! Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much the way."</p>
+
+<p>"And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?"
+inquired Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her
+justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork
+quilt:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I sing the song of the Summer Girl;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She feels for the lonely cadet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I seem to taste them yet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>("N. B.&mdash;The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station
+probably.")</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The peaches she threw at my head at drill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The apples she dropped at my feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little pound cake that she made me take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">First biting, to make it sweet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;she didn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose&mdash;she did!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you eat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on
+Chappy. Robins aren't fetched up particular, as I was.
+Why, that's nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of
+sugar between her teeth and comes round offering everybody
+a bite, that is rather steep."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And yet, long life to the Summer Girl!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Far be it from me to flout her.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But what could we do without her?<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There were two spoons and a single dish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two hearts that beat as one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we sat by the wall before recall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Eating ice cream in the sun."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who
+had grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row?
+Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted
+for one of the blackbirds?"</p>
+
+<p>"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out
+of anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally
+careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the
+partition wall grows thin."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got
+ice cream."</p>
+
+<p>"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets
+gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a
+summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature
+smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country
+store up in business."</p>
+
+<p>"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Contraband sweets of life, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would
+confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em.
+Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the
+hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I
+do not like to have you breaking rules."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not
+make 'em so fragile."</p>
+
+<p>"If they are fragile, keep off."</p>
+
+<p>"Just can't, mammy. Here we've had breakfast at half past six. Then
+we go head over heels into math. and heels over head into tan bark;
+and not another regulation mouthful to be had till one o'clock. Flesh
+and blood can't stand it, you know. We just <i>have</i> to have a barrel of
+apples handy, and a box of crackers; and any other trifles we can pick
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"A barrel of apples!" said Rose. "And 'smuggled' in! Wherever in the
+world do you keep them?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to be such a favourite with the Tacs next summer, I
+think I will not tell," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor starved boy!" said Rose. "And he has been home two whole days,
+and not even half a dish of ice cream, yet."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+"I have had all the ice I want, thank you," said Cadet Kindred, looking
+up at Cherry, who as I said, had been very silent while all these other
+girls filled the air. "<i>Cream</i> has been scarce. Perhaps if you two
+would stir up some sort of stuff to-morrow, Cherry would come down and
+freeze it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall freeze it yourself," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed&mdash;with her to help me." And laughing up at her with
+mischievous eyes, Magnus finished his song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But never you trust the Summer Girl,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or you will find to your sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That just as she smiled on Tubs to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She'll smile on Daddy to-morrow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII<br />
+LAYING FOUNDATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pronounce
+in any language, but which no man or nation that cannot
+utter, can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I
+was wrong.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The early tea was over, and long shadows were falling as the little
+party broke up. The three girls were still debating what sort of ice
+cream they should make, when just beyond the gate a neighbour, driving
+by, offered Mr. Erskine a seat in his buggy. Then Magnus turned to his
+sisters.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here, you girls," he said. "I have to speak to Cherry very
+seriously; and I doubt if she likes to be lectured before people. Run
+in."</p>
+
+<p>The girls laughed and obeyed; but perhaps Cherry did not choose to
+wait for lectures, nor mean to have them, for she spoke first. They
+were going slowly up the hill, Magnus falling into the West Point
+saunter, to which Cherry rather unwillingly conformed.</p>
+
+<p>"We are walking very slow," she ventured. "And you used to walk so
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point style. The very first day they impressed it upon my mind
+that fast walkers want to get somewhere. And, Cerise, just now I do
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said suddenly, "what did you really mean by a 'storm
+flag'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Cadet Kindred, in a tone of deep satisfaction, "now I
+have got it. I thought it could not be long before Cherry would take me
+in hand."</p>
+
+<p>"But whatever did you mean?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+"Come over here and sit down," he said, drawing her away from the path
+to a rock among the trees, and laying himself at her feet. "Now what
+was it I said in that unfortunate letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not unfortunate," said Cherry, "for we were very glad to get
+it; only that puzzled us. You said you kept some sort of a storm flag
+flying. And we did not know what a storm flag might be."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked down for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder," he said, "for the idea is something that never
+came into your true heart. You know what it means to strike your
+colours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;oh, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what it is to keep them flying,&mdash;for you do it every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"And I thought that must be what you meant," said Cherry. "You
+did not like to call your flag a big one, but it was always bravely
+flying."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant more than that&mdash;or less," said Magnus. "Cerise, a
+storm flag is a sort of between thing. It may blow pretty hard, you
+think, and so you haul down your beautiful fair-weather banner and run
+up another that costs less; a little, little strip of bunting that
+hardly shows it is there. You know it is; and once in a while, in a
+good light, you can see the colours; but that is about all. It does
+not encourage the world much, and tells of hard weather more than of
+victory and joy. Do you understand now, dear girl?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry was looking at him with the keenest attention; the pulsations
+of colour came and went.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus," she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Chérie. Say whatever comes into your heart to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is a little short time every now and then when the
+colours are really down?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+"Yes. And the harder the gale, the longer it takes to get them
+up again. It is often slow work, anyhow," said Magnus, with some
+bitterness at himself.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry sat silent, looking down.</p>
+
+<p>"What would happen to the other flag&mdash;the big one&mdash;if you
+left it flying?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"In a gale? Go to ribands, probably&mdash;the real one."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the real one. But that is just what the bullets do to it!"
+said Cherry, her eyes glowing and deepening. "And everybody only loves
+such a flag the better."</p>
+
+<p>"And you love me the less."</p>
+
+<p>The girl started slightly, with the sudden transfer of the subject
+to herself, but she made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak!" Magnus said, getting hold of her hand and giving it a
+little shake. "Cherry, you've <i>got</i> to speak. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered slowly; "you know that could not be. We have been
+friends too long. I was a little disappointed, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose there are few wholesomer views a man can get of himself
+than through the eyes of the right sort of woman; but the wholesome is
+not always the sweet. Cadet Kindred said to himself just then that it
+was extremely bitter. He had been disappointed in himself, of course,
+more than once, but that was another matter. One gives little softening
+touches to one's own private lectures; excusing and explaining. Now,
+this true heart, which he well believed would never flinch in the
+direst extremity, had counted the minutes when the colours were down,
+measured the storm flag, and been "disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>If she had said sharper things, he could have borne it better. Was
+this weak girl going to sail away from him on every tack? This morning
+she had read pages where he knew not a word; this afternoon she was
+ready for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+forefront of that life battle where he had at least <i>thought</i> of
+dodging behind a tree.</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking down, slowly swinging her hand back and forth,
+thinking of the days and times when he had trained with the wrong
+crowd, giving countenance to what at heart he disapproved. Nothing so
+dreadfully bad, perhaps, but very small work for him, a servant of the
+Great King; not loyal, not dauntless.</p>
+
+<p>True, he had afterwards called himself to order; had "braced
+up" spiritually, and even for a time won the title of "saint"; but
+"steadfast, immovable," he had not been. And in that swift way in
+which thoughts work, there flashed upon him the story of one of the
+battles of the Wilderness, when, as the young colour-bearer was shot
+down, another caught the banner from his hand&mdash;and another from
+his, until for a few minutes the colours just fell and rose, fell and
+rose&mdash;but never allowed to touch the ground; not once.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please to look up and speak?" The tone was deprecating,
+the dark eyes wistful and grave.</p>
+
+<p>"There does not anything please me just now, except holding your
+hand. No, you cannot get it away. You see, Cherry, this is how it is:
+there's a strong tide there, setting the way you shouldn't go."</p>
+
+<p>"Everywhere," put in Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"So mother says; but I speak of what I know. When you first get to
+the Academy, you are so homesick that you'd like to pray and read the
+Bible all the time; it seems more like home than anything else. Then
+you are plagued, and get provoked. Then upper classmen drive you to
+prayer-meeting, and of course you don't want to go. Then you get so
+tangled up in the work and the hazing that you'd give your own dog two
+cents to tell you who you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+are. You can't keep Sunday,&mdash;at least, you think you
+can't,&mdash;with guard-mounting in the morning and dress parade at
+night, and in barracks a lesson a mile long for eight o'clock Monday
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus, you do not study on Sunday?" Cherry said anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I did once&mdash;and maxed it straight through, had a splendid
+week, and saw visions of Willet's Point. So I thought I'd try it again.
+And that week I just went down; got the worst marks I ever had, and,
+instead of the doughty Engineer Corps, had the Immortals in full view.
+So I concluded to get back into the good old ways and stay there."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry laughed, but her eyes glistened. "That was one of the Lord's
+gentle rebukes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it lasted," said Magnus. "I haven't done that thing
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"And they make no allowance for the day before's being Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. Why, one of the instructors advised us to have our
+prayer-meeting early Sunday night, that there might be more hours for
+study."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you told them, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"They would just think I was shirking. You see we could not ask in
+numbers enough to be a power, for many of the men do not care. That's
+another thing in one's way; see a first classman as meek as Moses at
+prayer-meeting, and then in camp have him just as hateful as Pharaoh
+and all the Egyptians."</p>
+
+<p>"To you yourself, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was a pleb once, you know. And nothing was too bad to do to a
+pleb, for the best of men. No, I take that back; we had&mdash;and we
+have&mdash;some splendid upper classmen; men who dose you with good
+counsel. It is not always pleasant to take, Chérie, but it did me lots
+of good, for they lived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+up to it themselves. They help, too, in other ways. Get a pleb in out
+of the sun, and give him some play work in a tent, and so keep him away
+from the hazing parties and give him time to breathe. Mr. Upright was
+always doing such things."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think everyone would love him very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you mustn't," said Magnus, giving her hand a little swing.
+"You are not to love anybody but me. However, Upright isn't there now;
+graduated, and gone to make enlisted men good and happy, wherever he's
+stationed. Trueman is such another; and Starr, in our class. Ugliest
+little man you ever saw, and the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I do not believe he is the ugliest," said Cherry decidedly.
+"But it was not like that last year, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! Yearlings have leave to step out and show themselves. Get
+invited to picnics, some of them, and go to the hops, most of them, and
+are wild for fun, all of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Chérie, you see how it was. I have not been as bad as I
+might, nor anything like as good. They think me a pretty reliable
+fellow over there, but I'm not by any means what you would call
+a shining light. Six in studies, and one in discipline, and a
+double-first at all sorts of mischief."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"The very same boy you always were," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty much. Only this is mischief that tells. Chocolate parties in
+rooms after lights are out."</p>
+
+<p>"After lights are out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Supposed to be. Explosions on the area coming from nowhere and
+nothing; and post dogs, painted to admiration."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What, my lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> do not do such things?"</p>
+
+<p>"I drank the chocolate&mdash;should have got skinned for it, too,
+only I stood behind something when Towser came in. And I looked at
+the dog. And I did not go out of my wits with astonishment at the
+explosions. Queer, too; for when you get together a bell button, a
+match, a white feather, a little powder, and a second classman, they
+make more noise than you would suppose possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they kept such watch of you," Cherry said. "We have
+wasted a great deal of sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"No you haven't, and yes, they do; that's the fun. Some of the men
+will tell you that breaking regulations is all the fun they have."</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, Magnus?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not I exactly. I never can quite get rid of a certain respect
+for law and order. But you would laugh yourself; you couldn't help it,
+to see a solemn-looking Tac inspecting for apples, and know that they
+were within an inch of his nose, where he couldn't find them."</p>
+
+<p>"And you all kept grave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stood attention, like the sweet boys we were, till he was
+gone,&mdash;and stood on our heads afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry did laugh, but rather doubtfully. "I suppose it must be fun,"
+she said, "but I wish you would let the other boys have it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not the only sort, by any means," said Magnus. "One day
+Miss Flirt had brought Crinkem a basket of pears. Well, he stored them
+skilfully in parts unknown, till friendly darkness should come to help;
+had to go to drill, and told Carr (who hadn't) to keep an eye on the
+basket. Which Carr did. Wasn't a pear there when Crinkem got back."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Crinkem?"</p>
+
+<p>"First classman, then."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+"And who is Miss Flirt?"</p>
+
+<p>"A summer girl who stays all the time, and flirts with
+everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"With you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, because she can't. She jeered me when I was a poor candidate,
+and I vowed revenge."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say revenge lay in the other direction," remarked
+Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for her. She's been on tiptoe to rope me in, ever since I wore
+chevrons. I did half think I would teach her a lesson when I got to be
+first captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus, don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because she is a woman," said Cherry earnestly. "Oh, Magnus, help
+even the silly people, if you can. I've been thinking so much lately
+of the dear Lord's words: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Don't you
+know how salt gives strength and character to even things tasteless and
+ready to spoil?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he
+held.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if
+I can. But Cerise, I only said <i>thought</i>. And I have not thought it
+any more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the
+subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last."</p>
+
+<p>"It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some
+of the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that;
+I'd like to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest
+look which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched
+her for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been
+holding, and turned half away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+"You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you
+should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any
+shape, while they are at the Post?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote
+taken by each class,&mdash;'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall
+they have wine&mdash;or shall they not? I have heard of one class who
+fought it through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority
+protest; but so really a minority that the other was counted as the
+class vote; and their names should be gold-starred in every register.
+Our class had no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the
+usual results followed."</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to
+look at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so
+highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely.
+"They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get
+upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible
+persuasions to keep some of them down."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have
+gone to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus,
+what did the minority do?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus glanced up at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some
+did not. And of those last, Cherry, I was one."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that
+the young man felt as if he had been struck. Not another
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+word followed, but he could see that she was trembling from head to
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in
+any open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first,
+and for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help."</p>
+
+<p>And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's
+self-control. She exclaimed once more:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!"</p>
+
+<p>But then her head went down in her hands, and she cried as bitterly
+as only those women who rarely cry at all can do&mdash;silently,
+uncontrollably, shaken like a young willow by this sudden flood which
+had burst its bounds. Cherry could not stay the tears, could not look
+up nor speak.</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus on his part ventured neither word nor touch, and after
+a minute or two no look. The sight of the dear head, bowed so low in
+its distress, was more than he could bear. He turned away, with a sort
+of groan, thinking of that miserable night with unmeasured scorn of
+himself. Not that he had by any means gone the length of many another
+man; no one had been obliged to call him to order or see him home. But
+he knew that both dignity and manhood had been tampered with, and the
+scorn was deep. Not even a poor storm flag out that night!</p>
+
+<p>Would Cherry ever speak to him again?</p>
+
+<p>And now he turned towards her once more. One long curly brown tress
+had slipped from the comb, and lay waving down at his side. Magnus
+looked at it, touched it softly, then turned away again.</p>
+
+<p>There came a sound of steps and voices, and, too quick to be
+hindered, Cherry sprang to her feet and darted away; and Magnus was
+taken possession of by his two young sisters, one on either side.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing?" said Violet gaily. "Composing a sonnet to the
+summer girl's eyebrows?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+"They are not always her own. What are <i>you</i> about, chicks? wandering
+round at this time of night."</p>
+
+<p>"We came to help you get home," said Rose. "Or to find out if you
+were coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if you are not, one pint of flannel cakes for breakfast
+will be enough," said Violet. "Where is Cherry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you took her home, and got moonstruck on the way back," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Struck with something. It was more like Ithuriel's spear," said
+Magnus absently.</p>
+
+<p>"But what were you at, sure enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Getting photographs of myself in the moonlight."</p>
+
+<p>"Snap-shots?" Rose asked, laughing at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Just that. You are good little girls to look me up. Come, let us
+go."</p>
+
+<p>And with a sort of bitter-sweet sense of holding fast what he had,
+Magnus put his arm round each, and so led them down the hill, their
+young voices making merry, the girlish arms locked round him, fast and
+true.</p>
+
+<p>This did not lay his thoughts, however. Should <i>he</i> ever mar the joy
+of these gay tones? ever make the innocent eyes look down in shame, for
+him? Thoughts, questions, purposes, surged through the young cadet's
+head as he walked along, and Magnus would fain have gone straight to
+the silence of his own room. But they had waited prayers for him, and
+of course he must take his place.</p>
+
+<p>There are moods, however, in which no prayers but one's own will
+do; and though Magnus did hear his mother's voice, and the chapter she
+read, he could never have told a word of it afterwards. He got away as
+soon as he could, and went upstairs; went to his own room and locked
+the door, and fell on his knees; it seemed to him as if only so could
+he even think out anything clearly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+How had it all come about? The wild transport of the last few days
+had confused everything.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered now that one and another had counselled him not to go,
+to cut the class supper, and so save money, risk, and name. "I'll have
+nothing to do with the whole thing," Twinkle had said. And he could see
+the staunch, quiet face of some who were there and yet stood to their
+vote. Why had not he?</p>
+
+<p>It was not real cowardice, Magnus said to himself. He had thought
+the word, and yet the bravery called for had not been so much that of
+standing a taunt or refusing a persuasion; the men had not said so very
+much to him. Perhaps, indeed, more open attack might have roused more
+open resistance. But he had lacked that utterly "valiant for the truth"
+heart, which for love of the cause, and seeing the fight at hand,
+flings out the unpopular banner and stands beside it.</p>
+
+<p>As in those dreadful days of the New York riots, when all the
+servants in a certain house declared their sympathy with the rioters
+and against the flag. And the dear mistress of the house, alone there,
+and with no one to back her, ran out the biggest "Old Glory" she could
+find, from her very most conspicuous window, and kept it floating.</p>
+
+<p>Just there, Magnus felt, had been his fault, ever since he went to
+the Academy; his religion had been too little an open, positive thing;
+had not gone forth enough from its own intrenchments. He had rarely
+ever tried to make himself a power for good. There had been back and
+forth progress and impulses (if I may so put it), but not steady, daily
+growth; not joyful, burning zeal for Christ and his cause. So, in the
+wild excitement of that day and night, he had forgotten everything but
+that he was off on furlough. Now it had come to this.</p>
+
+<p>Had he lost Cherry? He could not tell. But he would be worthy of
+her, whether or not. If the joy of his life
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+was gone, and sometimes Magnus felt that it was, yet honour and truth
+remained. "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world
+and lose his own soul?"</p>
+
+<p>Nay, he would neither "lose himself," nor be "cast away." Thoughts
+passed into earnest, pleading prayer, into new consecration vows; and
+when the next fair dawn came stealing over the shadowed world, Cadet
+Charlemagne Kindred had folded away his storm flag, and nailed his
+noblest colours to the mast, and bid them fly!</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII<br />
+BUILDING THEREON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ever made by the Hand above?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A woman's heart and a woman's life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And a woman's wonderful love?<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">You have written my lesson of duty out;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Manlike have you questioned me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">While I shall question thee.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Browning.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew
+would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a
+restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst&mdash;if
+worst it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill
+after breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus
+went off with the most eager alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr.
+Erskine greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling
+hand, and no look at all.</p>
+
+<p>"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you
+sit down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if
+Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went
+straight on with her reading.</p>
+
+<p>But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+fell; more than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at
+last, midway in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a
+moment's brave struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head.
+"She is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a
+white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words
+and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg
+pardon. This was it,&mdash;a grand passage:</p>
+
+<p>"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the
+Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall
+see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But you should not break down there, love. <i>That</i> is all
+victory."</p>
+
+<p>"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do
+you be one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field.
+'As a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that
+girl needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with
+me, I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do
+you want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly
+displays your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus
+is right."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+"I wish I could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then
+you see she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old.
+'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine
+accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her
+this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I
+came in."</p>
+
+<p>A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment,
+as Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was
+too well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at
+it.</p>
+
+<p>So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid
+hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of
+the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on
+the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but
+notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of the
+tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor did
+she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted the
+deep quiet of his face&mdash;very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear
+steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's
+face now, a boy's no longer.</p>
+
+<p>Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching
+her, for he caught the look.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here
+is a good place for you."</p>
+
+<p>But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close
+at her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap
+down on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+your dear heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only
+do me good."</p>
+
+<p>Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for
+at first she could bring nothing out.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see
+what sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they may&mdash;and I have been looking at you. Cherry,
+have you been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might
+as well go and drown myself at once."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help
+matters.</p>
+
+<p>"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry,
+trying to speak lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus;
+"you don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it,
+Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation,
+and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry
+over <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at
+him with her eyes full.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came
+in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+deserve it, but that does not generally make things much easier."</p>
+
+<p>"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."</p>
+
+<p>"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a
+thing to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.</p>
+
+<p>"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like
+sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling
+what I may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at
+once, and have them off your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, I thought it was to cure my <i>head</i> you brought me here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out
+with you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave
+me your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling
+that detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.</p>
+
+<p>"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns
+don't go off."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"</p>
+
+<p>"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on
+by myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth
+straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night
+I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any
+woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the
+world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody
+else&mdash;and never shall. Never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+could, for that matter. And I've been a fool, and a poltroon, and
+anything else you like; and so she has thrown me off, and has no use
+for me any more. And it makes me just mad to sit here and think that
+I have lost her. And some day I shall get her wedding cards, with the
+name of some nice man who never tied his shoestrings in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other
+feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That."</p>
+
+<p>"What has come over you?"</p>
+
+<p>"This."</p>
+
+<p>"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching
+her breath a little.</p>
+
+<p>"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus.
+"We always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I
+knew I loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I
+saw you again, that first night, I knew that I never should&mdash;never
+could&mdash;love anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and
+ninety-nine, and you got in love with forty other men."</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer
+nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that would cure you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through
+all night."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said
+very low.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and
+never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you
+last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there
+was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+I didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very
+reason I wanted it so much."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that
+'could' is in the past."</p>
+
+<p>"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life
+and a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"</p>
+
+<p>"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus,
+I did not mean it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If
+there were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men.
+Why, half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat.
+Give it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't
+know what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty
+hard not to swallow it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse
+it altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they
+look, for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever
+happen to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know
+who it is."</p>
+
+<p>Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take
+heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there
+are men enough there now who never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+touch anything stronger than water. And I never did, till that unlucky
+night. But I've been in lately, somehow, with the other crowd."</p>
+
+<p>"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they
+began to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your
+mind, and bid me go? What do <i>you</i> want of such a Derelict?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you are very hard to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My
+beauty, and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all
+the world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything
+else. I, hard to <i>you</i>? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in
+her keeping. And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was
+anything but true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I
+did not care a red cent for the whole lot."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you
+were not true to yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you
+for a missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled
+specimen that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything
+about me except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I
+have told you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing
+to work it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and
+you brushing the mud off with your own little hands&mdash;you can say
+that, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."</p>
+
+<p>"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there
+was? We can't have the marriage service
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+made over just for us two, I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and
+better, every day I live&mdash;but you've got to <i>take</i> me 'for better,
+for worse.'"</p>
+
+<p>I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have
+her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals,
+unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection.
+To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked
+"human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A
+good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better;
+letting the woman down&mdash;or up&mdash;to her proper station of
+helpmeet. Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow,
+her eyes dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of
+dreams and imaginations.</p>
+
+<p>Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to
+the hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life
+lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in
+the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome&mdash;and
+the old words of the apostle confronted her:</p>
+
+<p>"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."</p>
+
+<p>Could she do that? For suppose&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even
+to herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted
+once&mdash;what if it happened again, or again?</p>
+
+<p>And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell
+out the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning,
+eager; a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he
+could do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again,
+and dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never
+cried before.</p>
+
+<p>"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+with himself. "You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho
+or the moon, as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could
+you want with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame
+you, Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to
+be killed two ways at once. Cherry&mdash;stop! Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up,
+pushing the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long
+clearing-wind breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A
+breath at once of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain,
+but telling of courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a
+time been followed by a shout of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes
+turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still,
+after all: the young head with its short, curling hair, already showing
+that West Point barbers were far away; the smooth cheek giving faint
+tokens of what soon would be. The very hands looked so young. They were
+not clasped nor folded, but lay absolutely still, with that air of
+intense waiting which the whole figure wore. Cherry gazed at them, one
+and another scene of her young life wherein those hands had played a
+part coming up before her. Played it so well and so kindly that she had
+every line of them by heart; sledding, strawberrying, nutting, riding;
+the broken toys they had mended, the strong help they had been in many
+a rough place. Always gentle and patient for her, always ready to do
+her bidding; the tenderest hands when she was hurt, the most untirable
+for her need.</p>
+
+<p>Cherry almost cried out aloud, for the sudden stricture of heart,
+but she kept herself in hand, and now her look went up to the face
+again, and she found that Magnus was watching her, with the intensest,
+hungry, longing eagerness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+He did not stir, but sat still in that attitude of waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do not you speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say, Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I have said all I can. I might promise never to grieve
+you again; might promise all sorts of beautiful things; but you
+know&mdash;and I know&mdash;that something stronger than mere love of
+you, dear, must do the work, and that the work must be done, whether
+you ever love me again or not. I believe I did not know I could be
+tempted&mdash;and I have been left to find it out. If I tell you that
+I have sworn unto the Lord and will not go back, it is not to plead my
+cause with you, Cherry; but because I know that just for old-time's
+sake, your dear heart will always care that your old playmate should
+grow into a man and not a beast."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, in that same sudden way.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is what it amounts to. That was what I called myself
+next morning. And then with the joy of getting home and among
+you all again&mdash;and the wonder of seeing what you had grown
+into&mdash;everything else went out of my head. I was so eager to have
+you that I took it for granted you would have me. Then I remembered
+that for two whole years you had seen nothing of me, and the more I
+loved you the more that thought kept coming up. So then I gave you the
+whole story, and lost all I care for in this world. But it had to be
+done&mdash;and I should do it again. You needn't look at me so, dear,
+and try to hide how you feel. You could not help being disgusted. I do
+not blame you in the least, Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus!" she cried again. "How can you use such words about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+"What words shall I use? You were disgusted, and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"What then? Choose your own words, and tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought my heart was breaking," the girl said, pressing both
+hands upon her breast. "That was all."</p>
+
+<p>"Was that all?" Magnus said, with a sort of quiet rage at himself.
+"Had I done nothing but that? Only broken the truest heart that ever
+beat? Nothing more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, please!" Cherry pleaded. "Magnus, I cannot talk to you if
+you say such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on then, you, and do the talking. Didn't I tell you I had
+nothing more to say?"</p>
+
+<p>Cherry hesitated a moment, and then she put out her hand and laid it
+softly on that other which had grown so brown with handling guns and
+pontoons. Magnus winced, as at the touch of sharp steel, but his own
+hand never stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he said rather shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus&mdash;does your mother know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, do not! There is no need," Cherry said earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much use, perhaps," he answered in a gloomy tone. "She's bound
+to be my mother, through thick and thin."</p>
+
+<p>"Promise!" Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got to do with it?" Magnus asked her, looking up.
+"What business is it of yours, anyhow? You have washed your hands of me
+and my concerns."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, you <i>know</i> that is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it will not take more tears to do the work," he went on in
+the same tone. "There have been enough shed now, to clear away fifteen
+years of memories."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think so, or you would not say it," poor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+Cherry protested. "You are just trying to make me contradict
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" said Magnus, with a half laugh. "Well, go ahead and do it,
+then. Say nothing could ever make you forget me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ever could."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you did love me with all your heart when I went away."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And all the time I was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"All the time."</p>
+
+<p>"And when I came home."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the girl answered in her grave, sweet tones.</p>
+
+<p>"So little while ago!" Magnus said, with a deep breath. "Cherry, you
+were very distant to me at first&mdash;have been, all along."</p>
+
+<p>"You were a little bit of a stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"And now you know me too well. So it goes. If I had not told
+you&mdash;but it is better so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are
+terrible things between people who&mdash;care for each other."</p>
+
+<p>"How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same
+hard way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, that is not true."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you stop to think what to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then."</p>
+
+<p>"People stop to think for different reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me
+why."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+"and as tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could,
+and hurt me the least."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry,
+her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is
+just what I said."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"No need to play it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am
+going home till you come back to your common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down
+and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while
+longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the
+world throw you off."</p>
+
+<p>She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face
+telling all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well
+read in girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl
+in the world'&mdash;but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not
+do that. Unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless what?" he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I knew you had <i>chosen</i> such ways," the girl said, growing
+very white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV<br />
+AMBUSHES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Soft silken hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Open suns, shady bowers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Crashaw.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Magnus was as good as his word, and stayed all day. What though
+Cherry was summarily sent off, after the early dinner, to sleep away
+the effects of her headache. Whether she slept or not I would not dare
+say; but certainly Magnus talked, and kept Mr. Erskine well amused,
+till she appeared again.</p>
+
+<p>But he gave not a hint of the morning's work; about that, both
+parties most interested held their peace. I think they both craved
+silence for a while, and so kept in hiding; not ready yet to hear
+common tongues discuss the new-found wonder of the world. Cherry had
+been too shaken and bruised&mdash;there were too many sharp details
+still vividly in sight&mdash;for her to go straight to her father, as
+perhaps at another time she might have done; she needed to steady her
+own thoughts first. And for Magnus, too, the morning had been a hard
+one, even with its culmination of joy. Besides, counting Cherry his own
+from that time forward, the small ceremony of asking for her could well
+wait. Probably Mr. Erskine needed no telling how things stood. And if
+it were indeed a secret, what fun to keep it such! He wanted no words
+on the subject, just now, save from Cherry herself. Not yet.</p>
+
+<p>All the family from the other house came up the hill to tea next
+day, but saw nothing new. If Cherry was more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+quiet than usual, that was not strange, after such a headache; and if
+Cadet Kindred, on the other hand, was as full of pranks as the veriest
+boy could be, it was not such an unheard-of thing as to draw any
+special attention. One thing they might have seen, that his mischief
+and frolic never came near Cherry; towards her his manner was a silent
+devotion of the most tender and serious sort, but he kept everyone else
+in such a breeze that no one gave heed.</p>
+
+<p>Speeding back from the post-office with a handful of letters, Magnus
+announced that Messrs. Twinkle and Rig&mdash;alias Cadets Starr and
+McLean&mdash;were coming to make him a visit in the course of their
+furlough wanderings, and everybody at once went into committee on the
+proper and possible means of delighting them.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus, indeed, turned off the matter very easily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done to your hand," he affirmed. "Mother's cake and pies and
+bread and butter&mdash;with two girls&mdash;would make the average
+cadet almost too happy to support life."</p>
+
+<p>"Two girls!" Rose commented. "You seem to leave Cherry out."</p>
+
+<p>"I did&mdash;that's a fact," Magnus said, with a queer gesture. "But
+then you also leave me out, and I am a third cadet; so it's all right.
+She'll not stand in the cold."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she will, if the others have any sense," said
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"The average cadet has not much, when there are girls around," said
+Magnus. "He has such hard rubs all day from the Profs and Tacs that
+their soft ways get the better of him."</p>
+
+<p>"We have no soft ways, here," said Rose decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me, I know; but wait till Twinkle comes along."</p>
+
+<p>"Twinkle&mdash;what a name!" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+"He couldn't miss it, being a small man called Starr," said Magnus.
+"And he's not a blazer, by any means; keeps down well near the horizon,
+and never even poses as a first-magnitude man. Sometimes when he fesses
+more than usually frigid, we sing him to sleep with:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Twinkle! Twinkle! little Starr!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How I wonder what you are."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I think that is perfectly mean!" said Rose indignantly. "Making
+sport of each other's misfortunes."</p>
+
+<p>"We should die if we didn't make sport of something," said Magnus.
+"And you laugh easier when you take another man's scalp, than when he
+takes yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the lingo that ever was heard, I think your cadet
+slang is the queerest," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad it meets your approval," Magnus said, with a bow. "Say,
+Cherry, just promise you'll walk with nobody but me, while those
+fellows are here. Have a previous every time. These girls are so
+keen-set for brotherly kindness that they'll be sacrificing themselves
+on me to let you have the strangers. You're too tall for Twinkle, and
+Rig will turn your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Or she will turn his," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that is it. But it wouldn't do for Rig to get rattled.
+The poor boy has got to go back and bone for dear life. Rose will
+keep him up to his duty; talk geometry to him, and make his life a
+burden."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose will?" said that young person, lifting her eyebrows. "Well, I
+wish Cherry would talk some sense into you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody can do it half so well," said Magnus, with a change of tone.
+"And she is going to try; she is to give me a special private lecture
+every day I am here. So that it is really quite providential to have
+Twinkle and Rig on hand, for they'll keep you two girls amused and out
+of the way."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+"Indeed! And who is to amuse mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry and I."</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus stooped down by his mother, with arms about her neck, and
+laid his face close to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry and I, mammy," he said softly. "Do you understand? Cherry
+and I?"</p>
+
+<p>Only Cherry saw the little start, the eager look at him, and the
+slight nod with which Magnus answered. But Mrs. Kindred was a wise
+woman, and said no word. Perhaps she prayed a little more for the two
+after that; though really I do not know whether she could. There sprang
+up an instant wish in Cherry's mind, however, that no word should be
+said to anybody else until the two strange cadets should have made
+their visit and gone. Magnus was quite wild enough, even with this
+slight check upon his proceedings. And an unconsciously deprecating
+look went over to him, which the young man caught, read, and answered
+with a profound bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, lady," he said; "your commands shall be obeyed. Even to the
+half of my fortune. Or, as I haven't any at all, perhaps the whole will
+not be too much."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Mr. Erskine, noting (and somehow resenting) the
+pink tints that came up in Cherry's cheeks; "what has become of that
+'very best sort of a girl' you talked so fast about last week?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of her?" Magnus repeated, standing involuntary
+"attention."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"At home, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not ask where that is, as I have not permission," said Mr.
+Erskine, smiling now; "but what does she say to your coming here first
+and staying so long?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has made no objection as yet, sir. So I do not think she
+will."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she ought, if she cares enough for you," said Mr.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+Erskine. "Boy, I'm afraid you have got yourself tangled up in a foolish
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What should you call 'enough,' sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;all she can," said Mr. Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"How much <i>could</i> any first-best girl care for me, sir?" said
+Magnus, moving a step or two for a better view of Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you need not try the modest game here," said Mr. Erskine,
+laughing at him. "It is too late in the day for that. If she only
+cares a little, let her go; and find one who will love all there is in
+you, and a good deal more that she thinks is there. I wouldn't give a
+counterfeit five cents for a tepid girl."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine spoke with such disgustful energy that everybody laughed
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"But what girl is this?" Rose demanded. "Someone you never told us
+of?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are fifty girls I never told you of."</p>
+
+<p>"And besides, Rose, he is only attitudinising," said Mr. Erskine. "I
+do not believe the girl is in existence that could get him away. He is
+just young man enough to like the part of an easy-minded lover."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus remarked with some energy that it was better than the part of
+an <i>un</i>easy-minded lover, every time. But now the fun of the thing got
+hold of him, and sealed his lips in earnest. No, if really people could
+not see, they could wait.</p>
+
+<p>Several other things came in to further and abet the silence.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, the neighbourhood waked up to the fact that a
+prospective brigadier was among them, and the inroads to see Magnus,
+and to hear him tell his experience, were many&mdash;and "a nuisance."
+So he himself declared, making wry faces over his popularity.</p>
+
+<p>Then, Mr. Erskine had one of his suffering weeks, when
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+troubling him with questions was not to be thought of. Magnus detailed
+himself as head nurse, taking all the night work, sending Cherry off
+to bed, and gathering up the reins generally in his own hands, proving
+himself most tender and efficient as well as strong. Of course, things
+must be talked over before he went back; but even Cherry herself could
+not think this a good time.</p>
+
+<p>On the back of all these hinderances, and just as Mr. Erskine began
+to be about again, came the other two cadets.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV<br />
+OF COURSE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Admire my daughter! Sir, you're very good.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Tales of the Hall.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>There followed such a round of teas on the hill and dinners at the
+cottage; of picnics, walks, drives, and berry-scouts, that the days
+gave up their ordinary rate of progress, and flew. June had long been
+out of sight; and now July was ending, and August close at hand. Magnus
+indeed closed his ears to the soft flutter, as the days winged by; but
+not so Mrs. Kindred, and not so Cherry. The girl began to look forward
+with absolute dismay to the drawing out from her daily life of this
+gold-twisted silken thread. What should she do, when Magnus was away
+again?</p>
+
+<p>If I say that she was getting bound to him in deeper and finer trust
+and love, with every new day's experience, it is no more than the
+truth; and no more, I think, than he deserved. Love for the right sort
+of woman puts a man at his best, and brings him out wonderfully. Count
+the minutes? Ah, yes! two hearts at least did that. In just so many
+days more Magnus must leave them all.</p>
+
+<p>Then suppose Mr. Erskine&mdash;no, it could not be; and yet, after
+every such decision, one always goes back to say the "suppose" over
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, I do wish you would have your talk with papa," Cherry
+ventured one day.</p>
+
+<p>"You recommended that at first&mdash;twice, if I recollect right,"
+remarked Cadet Kindred.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+"I did nothing of the sort. But I should think you might have
+commended it to yourself by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"It is such fun to puzzle him."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will not be fun to grieve him," Cherry said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he going to be grieved? Then it will all come upon your hands.
+You know you can wheedle any bird off any bush at any time."</p>
+
+<p>"'Wheedle' papa!" Cherry said with some energy. "Not I, I promise
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know you mean to keep all your promises to me," said
+Magnus. "But come along, and see me throw myself at his feet. Then he
+can save time, and give us his blessing together."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not going," Cherry said, pulling her hand away and trying
+not to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"You are worse than Lord Ullin's daughter," said Magnus. "She
+plunged into all the danger there was around. Chérie, will you send me
+a letter every single day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not talk about letters yet!" Cherry said, in such a pitiful
+tone that Magnus forgot all about Mr. Erskine, and gave himself up to
+the task of comforting her. And it was the father himself who at last,
+unawares, brought on the talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Only twenty days left," he said one morning, when Magnus came into
+his study and sat down, with an absent-minded air.</p>
+
+<p>"Nineteen, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you settle down to hard work again."</p>
+
+<p>"For two years, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I take my diploma and a three-months' leave, and come back
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Three months&mdash;till October."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+"That is better than nothing," said Mr. Erskine; "but we shall all
+think it very short."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot stay until quite October," said Magnus, "but towards
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I take Cherry and go to my post."</p>
+
+<p>But now Mr. Erskine sat straight up, grasping the arm of his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Take Cherry!" he repeated. "My baby! It is <i>Cherry</i> you want to
+take to San Carlos?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may not be San Carlos, sir. Of course, I must take her wherever
+I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you need not get up before gunfire to bone assurance," said
+Mr. Erskine. "My Cherry! And what do you suppose she will say to this
+brilliant plan for her happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she much cares where we go, sir," Magnus answered,
+with easy confidence.</p>
+
+<p>It was an indescribable pang that shot through the father's
+heart. His one treasure, his pearl of all the world, already did
+not "much care" where she went, so long as she could be with this
+youngster&mdash;put her hand in his, and go!</p>
+
+<p>"It may happen that I shall care," he said huskily. "What makes you
+think I will give her up to go anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you can go, too, you know, sir," Cadet Kindred answered,
+with that same calm tone which ignores the hard and cuts through the
+impossible. "We have talked about it a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"It strikes me that a little of the talking should have come to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; but then you are so seldom alone&mdash;always reading or
+something on hand&mdash;it was hard to find a chance. And then you were
+sick. And I thought you must see for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+yourself. And then, if you didn't, it was such fun to puzzle you,"
+Magnus said honestly.</p>
+
+<p>"So seldom alone," Mr. Erskine repeated rather bitterly. "I suppose
+it will be often enough in the future. No, do not say another word to
+me now. Take yourself off, young man, and get out of my sight, and give
+me a chance to draw my breath. My Cherry!"</p>
+
+<p>It was perhaps just as well for everybody that the two guests were
+still there, and the fun and frolic at high-water mark; the best
+intentions thereto, or even the justest cause, could not make anybody
+look grave or stiff or anxious. Therefore Mr. Erskine had time to study
+up his hard question unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>"Question," indeed, it hardly was. Mr. Erskine knew, without
+thinking, that he loved Magnus Kindred like his own son; and it took
+very little awakened observation to show him that, on Cherry's part,
+the old childish affection had passed into the deepest and strongest
+that a woman can know. Reserved and self-contained as she always was,
+her father could see a hundred little tokens which he marvelled he had
+never noticed before. He watched Magnus, too, with very keen-set eyes,
+studied him, weighed him in all sorts of scales, and, on the whole,
+was well content. Just about as much of a boy as ever, only more of
+a man; gay, saucy, absurd, and sensible; but through it all now, in
+whatever touched Cherry, there was an indescribable tone of reverence
+which became him well, as it does any man who has won for himself the
+priceless trust of a true woman's love. His own love and devotion were
+patent enough. Magnus had certainly "taken it hard," as people say.
+The father noted it well, and judged it all of a quality that would
+wear.</p>
+
+<p>Once making up his mind to the situation, it was amusing enough; and
+the two elders of the party had many a quiet laugh at the skill with
+which Messrs. Twinkle and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+Rig were headed off, and never allowed to improve their acquaintance
+with Cherry. It was always somebody else with whom they were fated
+to walk, and to whom they might make pretty speeches; and with all a
+man's recklessness about possible damage to other hearts, and lest his
+tactics should be found out, Magnus hunted up other girls&mdash;old
+acquaintances of the neighbourhood&mdash;to share the burden which at
+first Violet and Rose had borne alone.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus!" Mrs. Kindred protested one day, "you go on like
+crazy boys, you three. Girls about here aren't used to young fellows
+who say everything they do not mean. My dear, I fear you are sowing
+mischief. Jenny Mott went home last night with her head more than half
+turned."</p>
+
+<p>"Easy job for Rig to finish, then," said Magnus. "Never mind, mammy;
+keep up your spirits. We're not so unlike other boys as you seem to
+think. It <i>is</i> getting to be rather serious with Twinkle and Viola."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Kindred said, with her hand on his arm; "now,
+Magnus! you must not put any nonsense into that child's head!"</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't if I would," said Magnus; "not an inch of room. You
+couldn't get a grain in sideways after Twinkle's been talking to her.
+He's a right good fellow, mammy; don't drink, don't smoke, don't
+flirt&mdash;much; and if his light isn't of the very biggest, it's
+always there, which is better. She might do worse."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Magnus, Violet is hardly grown up."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you tell Twinkle so, and ask him to wait?" said Magnus,
+with a very grave face. But then he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mammy!" he said, "when cadets are about, it's 'all luggage at
+the risk of the owners.' I <i>had</i> picked out somebody else for Vio, if
+only he's not gone before she gets there. What a thing it is to have me
+well settled in life before your anxieties over the girls come on!" And
+then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+Magnus kissed her, and set his face towards the other
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"But Magnus!" said Mrs. Kindred, calling him back, "you have not
+told me what Mr. Erskine says. Do you know yourself? He knits his brows
+so sometimes, when he is looking at you, that I never dare ask him. Is
+he willing, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will be, before I get through with him," said Magnus
+confidently, and he went whistling up the hill, as though that small
+task were done to his hand.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI<br />
+SAN CARLOS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Mix up a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions
+and rattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat
+the stones red hot; and set the United States army loose over the
+place chasin' Apaches; and you've got San Carlos.</p>
+<p class="right">&mdash;<span class="smcap">U. S. Soldier</span>, <i>in Harper's Magazine</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And I suppose so it was; the task was really ended when the idea
+came in. A strong protector for his darling when his own care should
+fail, had been the longing in Mr. Erskine's heart for many a day, and
+Magnus Kindred had always been second only to Cherry in his heart. Yet
+to give her up before the time, and, instead of leaving her, to have
+her leave him, it was sharp enough. No wonder he knit his brows now and
+then in the midst of all the gaiety, and almost put out a hand between
+his child and this youngster who claimed such rights and took them with
+such assurance. No wonder if he frowned a little now, to-day, as Magnus
+came whistling up, and throwing himself down on a lower step of the
+porch, waited for the older man to speak.</p>
+
+<p>But for a while the silence was unbroken, as Mr. Erskine made a
+sort of final examination; obliged to come back to the judgment he had
+given weeks ago, that Charlemagne Kindred was "a splendid fellow." The
+critical eyes could find no fault.</p>
+
+<p>Very serious the face was now, as he sat there looking off,
+schooling himself to patient waiting, once in a while almost starting
+up at some sound of Cherry's voice or step within the house. I am
+afraid Mr. Erskine took a malign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+pleasure in keeping him where he was. The malignity was not deep,
+however, for once, when some scrap of a song floated down from an open
+upstairs window, there came a look over the face of Cadet Charlemagne
+Kindred&mdash;a sudden light and love and joy&mdash;to which the
+father's eyes gave such sympathetic answer that he was fain to screen
+them with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, young sir," he began at last, "I suppose you want to know
+what I have to say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Furlough ends next week," Magnus answered, without
+looking round.</p>
+
+<p>"Then back for two years more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Back for two years, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, what sort of an inner life have you lived at West Point?
+They have made a soldier of you outwardly; we can all see so much; but
+it is possible for a man to be that, and yet have no soldier's heart
+within."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus coloured deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he said. "I know it. And that has been true of me a few
+times, Mr. Erskine. Never but once in any great thing."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no little things in right and wrong, boy."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I should have said, in what people call great."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was silent with sudden pain; he had not looked for such
+an answer. Then Magnus turned round, and sat facing him, looking full
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"I have told Cherry the whole thing, straight through," he said;
+"and now I will tell you, sir, if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine drew a breath of relief. If he had told Cherry, it
+could be nothing very bad; and that he <i>had</i> told her half cleared it
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"No, do not tell me," he said. "If Cherry knows, that is enough.
+But, Magnus, I never expected <i>you</i> to lack the soldier heart!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+The boy's eyes flushed, and his lips were unsteady as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I, sir. You cannot possibly be half so disappointed in me as I
+was in myself."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause. What that bit of schooling was to Magnus it
+would be hard to describe; but he said not a word to shorten it. With
+head well up, and eyes looking gravely off at the fair landscape, of
+which they saw not a thing, so he sat; and Mr. Erskine watched him. His
+whole heart went out to the boy in tenderness and up for him in prayer.
+Not a hero in his own right, perhaps, but a better, stronger thing is
+the man whom God keeps, and who trusts the Lord for all power to keep
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The people that know their God, shall be strong and do
+exploits."</p>
+
+<p>"You told Cherry," the elder man began at length. "And what did
+Cherry say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Broke my heart into little pieces," said Magnus briefly.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Erskine's turn to have wet eyes, though he smiled too.</p>
+
+<p>"So!" he said. "My boy, did you ever realise that you might break
+<i>her</i> heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me to realise it any more than I do, sir," Magnus
+answered, with a troubled voice. "You see she minds things that some
+people call trifles."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a true woman," said Mr. Erskine. "I am glad she does."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I!" said Magnus, with hearty emphasis. "There is not a thing
+about her that I am not glad of. But I have told her everything, Mr.
+Erskine," he added, "and she forgives me."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a woman again," thought the father. "And she is ready to go
+with you to San Carlos?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why you will persist in sending me there, sir," Magnus
+said, with just a touch of impatience. "That
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+seems to be your favourite post. We have not spoken of
+San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose all your talk has been of Fortress Monroe, Governor's
+Island, and West Point," said Mr. Erskine, in a mocking tone. "Those
+are the usual first posts for young second lieutenants."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point!" Magnus repeated scornfully. "If you had the faintest
+idea, Mr. Erskine, what West Point is <i>without</i> Cherry, you would know
+that San Carlos will be the ranking post in the country when she gets
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>And the young man sprang to his feet, as if tenter hooks were
+restless things.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine held out his hand. "Forgive me, my boy," he said. "I
+will not tease you any more. Go and find my treasure&mdash;and take her
+for <i>your</i> treasure, and guard her with your life. I do not mean in
+the common sense of dying for her, but in the nobler, costlier way of
+living for her. Shield her from any touch of shame, from any sense of
+loss, from any shadow of pain or sorrow that is not Heaven-sent. Live
+so that she will be prouder of you every day. Magnus, my darling is a
+<i>trust</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was something very sweet and solemn too in the way Magnus took
+the extended hand, and dropping on his knee kissed it earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"As such I take her, sir. My most dear trust, for every hour I
+live."</p>
+
+<p>But then he sprang up again, threw his arms round Mr. Erskine with a
+hug like a young bear, and with a joyous shout of "Ho for San Carlos!"
+darted away into the house to find Cherry.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII<br />
+RUSHED INTO CAMP</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Whither I must, I must.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>King Henry IV.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>If love does sometimes contrive to do for itself what the poet
+wished, and "annihilate time," over the "space," alas! it has generally
+no power. Those last days at home were to Magnus only quarter-days;
+but once in the cars, and the miles drew out a lengthening chain that
+fairly seemed to clank in his hearing. Two years now, almost, away from
+those dear faces; two years more without Cherry.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, she was coming to first-class camp; that was something.
+She had not said she would, but she must; or he should simply die, and
+the authorities would have to send him home.</p>
+
+<p>As the train flew on, tossing everything behind its back, classmates
+began to straggle in, catching the express from one point or another;
+each State giving up its contingent of much-disgusted men, all equally
+gloomy and rebellious. What was the use of the old concern, anyhow? So
+they grumbled, keeping down each other's low spirits, and ever and anon
+launching forth upon the departed joys of the last eight weeks; opening
+their hearts less or more, according to the man. For in some coat
+pockets lay hid a little glove, carefully wrapped in rosy thoughts, and
+(I was going to say) here and there also a mitten, in different-hued
+tissue paper. But no, I take that back; nobody ever gets a mitten on
+furlough, which is perhaps the reason why so many engagements date back
+to just that point.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+They felt very small just now, with love and home behind them;
+speeding away towards drums, Tacs and the reveille gun. I think some
+of them would have liked to slide off on a railroad "Y," and so ride
+backwards all the rest of the way, as under protest.</p>
+
+<p>Through all the grumbling Charlemagne Kindred was profoundly silent,
+only jerking his words out when they must come, in a way that made the
+others pronounce him "a gingersnap." But snaps are sweet, and he was
+not.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think," Rig said lugubriously, as he dropped into the seat
+by Magnus, "this time to-morrow I shall not have even the show of a
+pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"That's square; you'll have nothing to put in it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got three confinements to serve out the first thing," said
+Crane, in front.</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;you went in for them," said Magnus, with a
+comfortable consciousness of his own clear score.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't; I went out."</p>
+
+<p>So the talk went on, and Magnus sat vaguely listening, seldom
+joining in, his whole self reaching back towards that beloved region
+whither he could not go. He longed to have the talk stop, the train
+stop, the world stop&mdash;almost: anything, to change the pitiless
+rush and roar with which he was speeded away from all he loved
+best.&mdash;Mile after mile, hour after hour; till he felt ready to
+start up and cuff somebody, if only so he could make a change. They
+talk of homesick plebs, and those fellows have it hard enough; but I
+doubt if it compares with the <i>mal de pays</i> of the furlough men when
+they come back.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred fought it, wrestled with it; then suddenly turned
+and began to fight himself. For was not this West Point life the very
+thing singled out just now for him? The surest, best, and quickest way
+in which he could win education, position, and the means to live? The
+shortest road to that fair home for Cherry which tinted even his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+dreams? Had it not been the Lord's appointment, far more than that
+which dated back to Congressman Ironwood? I do not think the ache died
+out, a bit; but the antagonism did. Ready for duty, ready for all that
+might come with duty; yes, that should be true of him. As clearly as
+to-morrow he would answer to his name at roll-call, so now in his heart
+Charlemagne Kindred said: "Yes, Lord, here!" What were they all praying
+for him at home? Not only, not chiefly, that he might win the honours;
+but that his daily life might <i>be</i> an honour to the cause of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The miles did not shorten after that; home still shone oh, how
+vividly! and shoulder-straps looked dim and hazy in the distance, and
+graduation but a myth; but the brave heart addressed itself to wait,
+and to work, and to endure.</p>
+
+<p>The great city was reached, and trunks and men conveyed across to
+where the swift steamer lay taking in her living freight. The whole
+class, gathered now from all sides of the great country, mustered in
+"cits" for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>As I think, it was a happy thing for these young schoolmen, that in
+the year of which I write, the "rush" was still in its glory; not yet
+found out to be unmilitary and dangerous. But now the first classman is
+supposed to forget that he ever was a boy.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I am glad to know this for a clear fallacy. No power
+on earth, not even time, can ever drive the mischief out of some men,
+or kill the frolic that lies hid behind those sober suits of grey. The
+most sedate bearing may belong to the plotter of the most consummate
+exploits; and the gravest men take your breath away telling what they
+have done. Ah, it is not the boy in them that needs watching, but the
+undisciplined man.</p>
+
+<p>But as I said, in those days the hopeless task was not begun. So
+when the boat reached the landing, and her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+signal went sounding up the hill, a rousing reception was ready.</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men had been watching with sober eyes, as one grey wall
+after another peered through the trees; and now they stepped wearily
+along the steep, winding road, bags in hand; a dusty, rebellious lot.
+Then paused at the top of the hill and clustered together in front of
+the Library.</p>
+
+<p>Before them lay the cavalry plain, brown and powdery with sun and
+riding; the black guns of the Light Battery; then the camp. Rank after
+rank, in their exact order, the white tents gleamed in the sunshine. A
+moment the travellers saw it all.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the nearer side there gathered a grey and white swarm of
+figures; the furlough men spread themselves in a long single line,
+and, joining hands, began to double-time it across the plain. The grey
+figures dashed out across what was afterwards the famous "Post No. 6,"
+swooped down upon the furlough men, and "rushed them into camp."</p>
+
+<p>There followed ten minutes of utter Babel-like confusion; hats,
+caps, handbags, and men were on the ground or in the air, as the case
+might be. I think Mr. Starr lost his foothold on firm earth several
+times, while Magnus Kindred made things just as lively for one or two
+small first classmen. Men hugged each other or shook hands, according
+to the various degrees of size and friendship. The ladies on the seats
+clapped hands; the yearlings, on their way to dancing, turned and gave
+a cheer. Then the hubbub was over. The furlough men dived into their
+tents, and came forth to dinner roll-call full blown cadets, with very
+sober faces. The rush helped them for the minute, but it could not
+last; they were a sorry-looking lot.</p>
+
+<p>Charlemagne Kindred came out too, after a while (anything but his
+own thoughts!), and was most effusively greeted by Miss Beguile and
+Miss Saucy. But being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+promptly bid to stand and deliver a full, true, and unvarnished account
+of the summer's work and play, he got off as soon as he could and
+took his sergeant's chevrons and his loneliness down Flirtation for a
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>How unbearable these average girls were to him after Cherry! Cherry,
+with her quaint, womanly ways, and low-toned voice, and earnest eyes; a
+hundred times fairer in her fresh print dress than they with all their
+silks and streamers! "A trust"&mdash;ah, she was one worth having. And
+it was with a very moved and joyful heart that Cadet Kindred realised
+how surely upon his keeping of that trust, hung all the joy and
+brightness of her sweet life. Hers&mdash;and theirs; four true women
+looking up to him.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, it was a very good bit of thinking the young sergeant
+did there, with the lovely river sweeping by at his feet, and the
+leaves in a glad rustle behind him. Yes, every new bit of honour that
+he could win, in any line, would be gilded anew for them. He must send
+them a correct drawing of even the new chevrons.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus again mounted the hill, but at the edge of the broken ground
+he faced about and took off his cap to the flag.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see you, old friend!" he said. "Henceforth, you and I are
+going to run things together. I'm enlisted now, for all the storms that
+blow."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII<br />
+HIGH GROUND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">But never sit we down and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"There's nothing left but sorrow."<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We walk the Wilderness to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The promised Land to-morrow.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gerald Massey.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was much wedging and crowding in the camp that night,
+lightened somewhat by the big hop which shortened the night for so
+many. Not for Magnus. He went to bed, thinking the night would be two
+nights long: quite sure he should not close his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But youth, and health, and the long journey, and even sorrow, quite
+upset his calculations. When the hop men turned in, Magnus hardly
+roused up enough to give a short answer to some details; and when the
+sharp voice of the reveille gun spoke in his ear, it was as clear a
+wake-up&mdash;and alas! as disgusted a one&mdash;as Cadet Kindred had
+ever known. But breaking camp at least would be welcome: hard work
+suited his mood just now much better than play.</p>
+
+<p>Yet before the hour drew on, he strolled out towards the visitors'
+seats; the exquisite morning, the dainty wreaths of mist, and the
+sweet, pure air, making him so homesick that he craved even a chatter
+of tongues that should stop his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The seats were a waving line of colour. Hats turned up, and
+hats turned down; bonnets too small to be seen, and hats like
+umbrellas; ribands, laces, streamers of every kind. Plenty of grey
+coats, too; first classmen and yearlings in their glory, with other
+disconsolate furlough men, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+searching the crowd for a friend, if possibly such a thing remained
+to them east of the Rockies, or north of Mason and Dixon's line.
+Everywhere a busy chatter, with introductions, greetings, inquiries,
+and much swinging of cadet caps. Sugar-plums abounded. On the grass a
+group of children sunned themselves in front of the grown-up people,
+sometimes aping their ways.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was taken possession of rapturously,&mdash;had to touch a
+half-dozen gloves in as many seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"And where have you been all summer, Mr. Kindred?" Miss Fashion
+inquired in gracious tones.</p>
+
+<p>"In a much better place than this old camp, Miss Fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"That goes without saying," chimed in Miss Saucy. "Any place where
+<i>you</i> were, would of course overtop the rest of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"It might," Magnus answered, thinking of the oak shadows where he
+had sat with Cherry. I am not so sure that he heard Miss Fashion's next
+words, looking over her head towards the Western sky. The West! The
+West!</p>
+
+<p>"And of course your desire for study is immense," the young lady
+went on, a little louder.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite insatiable!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're too good to be true!" said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you feel all out of training?" said another girl. "I
+should think it would come awfully hard at first."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I feel in better training than ever in my life
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is <i>awful</i>!" said the Kitten. "Back from furlough 'in
+training'? Why, Magnus, you'll come out blue."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it," said Magnus, with a bow. "That is what I am aiming
+for."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+"Now <i>that</i> I call mean," said the young lady; "taking one up so.
+How sharp you have grown all of a sudden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Best let him alone, Puss," said Miss Saucy, "or you'll cut your
+fingers. He's been at the seaside, eating razors."</p>
+
+<p>"Using 'em, too," said the Kitten, gazing at Magnus. "Didn't it go
+to your heart to cut off your moustache?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything goes to my heart. That is my weak point."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the last arrival?" demanded Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred
+touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of
+the colour line.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West
+Point season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her
+heart as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall,
+when that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go
+to spend the day!"</p>
+
+<p>"The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent,
+"but <i>they</i> can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes
+along and turns them out."</p>
+
+<p>"And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said
+Miss Saucy. "Do you know, I just <i>made</i> Clinch look at me the other
+night as he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest
+thing to break camp before cold weather. There it goes!&mdash;our
+camp!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums
+under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that
+nobody heard, and glances that no one saw.</p>
+
+<p>The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold
+fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and
+flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very
+special chums together.</p>
+
+<p>Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+He waited till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his
+loitering comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across
+the plain and took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the
+flag.</p>
+
+<p>Two whole years&mdash;two years and three months almost&mdash;since
+the first day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of
+brave allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to
+scan the two years' record.</p>
+
+<p>In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor
+fealty. But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this
+love as for the other he must <i>live</i>, as well as be ready to die. The
+honour of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American
+fought out his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields
+sometimes than Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No
+name on a tall column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps,
+while the fight lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall
+speak the "Well done," when he comes to survey the field.</p>
+
+<p>Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that
+devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country;
+winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain;
+keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained.</p>
+
+<p>"Winning victories"&mdash;he repeated to himself, looking up
+again at the lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as
+negative."</p>
+
+<p>Bible words are very positive.</p>
+
+<p>"He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He
+that gathereth not with me, scattereth."</p>
+
+<p>"But they don't leave us time for anything like that," Magnus
+thought, in half excuse. "It takes so long just to <i>be</i>; to look after
+your own prayers and reading. There isn't any chance to <i>do</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+And now he remembered the lovely, constant shining of Cherry's life in
+even the commonest, everyday things; the halo that was always about
+her. Set her at any sort of work, in any sort of company, and you could
+never doubt for a moment whose she was and whom she served. The King's
+seal was there. Such a life is positive, by its very nature.</p>
+
+<p>"But then she is like nobody else," Magnus went on, as his rapturous
+thoughts finished off with a long, heavy sigh. "And she has a little
+space to breathe in, too. But here&mdash;just math. and chem., study
+and drill, from dawn to dark." Then other words came up before his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily; as to the Lord, and not to
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
+Jesus."</p>
+
+<p>"Even those old lessons," commented Cadet Kindred. "I rather suspect
+I've been setting my study books at the wrong angle. I know Cherry says
+that drudgery fades out, if you write the name of Jesus on it. Wonder
+if it would work so with anybody but her?"</p>
+
+<p>And a long, dull procession of days rose up in sight; each one
+loaded down with hard, monotonous work. Not prettily varied, with one
+day this and next day that, but a steady, straight on pull in the same
+lines, for weeks together.</p>
+
+<p>"And we can't turn and twist about as you do, old flag," he said,
+"but have got to stand attention (or sit it) every time. It would feel
+sort o' good, if we could just choose our own positions for firing off
+blunders."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever in the world are <i>you</i> holding up the flagstaff for?" said
+Rig's astonished voice, as that young man came up from among the guns.
+"Beastly dull here, isn't it? I say, Kin, when's that awfully pretty
+sister of yours coming?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+"Which one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, both, then," corrected Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"After you graduate&mdash;if you ever do."</p>
+
+<p>"You may well say if. But you'll be gone yourself, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I shall not let them come at all. There are too many girls
+here now." And Magnus cast cynical eyes towards several free-and-easy
+damsels who were sauntering across the plain, well attended.</p>
+
+<p>"There they go," he said; "men and girls and parasols. And the
+parasols are the only things in the lot with a grain of sense. Just
+hear that pink girl laugh! She's got Duncy in tow, telling him: 'Oh,
+Mr. Duncy! you are <i>so</i> amusing!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't wonder if she wasn't. I think he is, sometimes, myself,"
+said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a consistent goose," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, now, Kin, you're out of humour," Rig said soothingly. "You'll
+feel better after dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"No I shall not," Magnus answered crossly. "Last Thursday I had
+chicken pie and apple fritters."</p>
+
+<p>Rig gave a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "it can't be helped, so eat all you can. And there
+goes the drum."</p>
+
+<p>The two set off for barracks, but if Magnus had eased his mind, he
+had certainly given his heart an extra load.</p>
+
+<p>"Kindred's as glum as a post," remarked a smart first classman.
+"Easy to see his girl's gone back on him."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus caught the words, but then came a thrill of joy. No, <i>that</i>
+could never be true; and his girl was the very best in all the world.
+The sights and sounds about him grew indistinct; and with thoughts two
+thousand miles away, Cadet Kindred finished his dinner and never knew
+what it was. Only "Company A, rise!" awaked him from his dream.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX<br />
+MORE GIRLS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">Pray to God, but continue to row to the shore.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i20">&mdash;<i>Russian Proverb.</i></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But work did come hard! The reveille gun was such an impertinence
+after the lazy summer mornings at home. Every officer figured as an
+enemy, every drill was an unmitigated bore. And despite what people
+say about changed seasons, it rained Saturday afternoon then, as it
+always does now; while if it rained other days too, yet it was sure to
+clear up in time for drill&mdash;or the cadets thought so, which did as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Such meals, too, three times a day! Fair enough in ordinary, and
+easily disposed of by the healthy young appetites, whetted with hard
+work and open air; but thrown into utter disgrace just now by the
+background of "mother's" dainties and "home" cream. They were sober
+enough, these furlough men. But it is hard for even quiet steeds to
+go calmly back from pasture into the traces; some other fiery young
+coursers were simply rampant. A good deal of mischief went on in those
+first weeks in barracks.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus Kindred kept out of it, partly because he had Cherry's image
+before his eyes; but also because he liked his freedom better than
+anything else, and had never learned to confound license with liberty.
+No amount of fun on Monday, would pay him for spending the next
+Saturday afternoon on the area.</p>
+
+<p>So while other men "ran it" to the Hotel or to Highland Falls,
+paying that unpleasant penalty, Cadet Kindred <span class="pagenum"><a
+name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> kept his playtime
+free, taking long, long walks over the mountain or in other leafy
+regions where the squirrels and woodpeckers had it all to themselves.
+Studying the fanciful piebald of the autumn leaves, gathering the
+quaint yellow witch-hazel blooms, and the white ladies' tresses; and
+bringing back to barracks such a clear head for study that he went
+up hand over hand. Men said he was in love&mdash;which was certainly
+true; and some, that he was trying to "bootlick the Supe," which was as
+certainly false. And again others, that he was "boning Willet's Point."
+But no; he was doing better, and simply "boning" the highest stand he
+could reach.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, to grace the lovely fall weather, several new
+flowers&mdash;or birds&mdash;might be seen at parade and on the
+sidewalk. And Magnus had been duly presented, and had done his first
+devoirs to the fair strangers. But after that he thought he might
+please himself again, and muse and climb among the beloved old
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>"Where <i>does</i> Mr. Kindred go every Saturday?" Miss Berry demanded
+of Rig one day. "You know I'm visiting at the corner house, and can
+watch both ways. But while I'm running from one window to the other, he
+always contrives to vanish; and I never can tell into which house."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I cannot say, Miss Jo," Rig answered, "because you know
+I never get round the corner. The minute I see you watching for me, I
+stop and come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Watching for you! I think I see myself," said Miss Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see something very sweet, when you do," said Rig
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be something pretty sour, if you're not careful," retorted
+Miss Berry. "But say&mdash;I'm awfully curious to know. Where does he
+go most, Saturdays?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, nowhere, to visit, they say," said the hostess.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/300fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="354" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">CADET ROOM IN BARRACKS</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+"Isn't there someone he cares about out West, Mr. McLean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has two charming sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course!&mdash;all you cadets have charming sisters," said
+Miss Jo impatiently. "Anybody else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of girls there," Rig replied. "They haven't all come East by
+several."</p>
+
+<p>"What do Western girls look like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Angels, some of 'em," said Rig, thinking of Violet's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see Mr. Kindred's best girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather suspect I saw three of them," Rig answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Three! Why, the man's a Turk. Wasn't one better than the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," said Rig. "It's a matter of opinion, I suspect."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Miss Jo, with beautiful ease of manner. "It's no
+more possible to get the truth out of a cadet, than&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Than to get it without him," suggested Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get at it somehow, you'd better believe," said Miss Jo. "What
+were these three girls called?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of them seemed to have a sort of French title; the other two
+answered to plain English."</p>
+
+<p>"French&mdash;that's a likely story. What do you know about
+French?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," Rig confessed. "Don't be hard on me, Miss Jo. I expect
+to be found in January, but you might leave a fellow hopes till
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will <i>not</i> tell us a thing about Mr. Kindred," joined in
+another girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now"&mdash;said Rig,&mdash;"that's putting it rather strong.
+But here comes Kin himself; he ought to know. He's of age, ask him, as
+the Jews said in the Bible."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+And Mr. McLean stepped to the window and hailed his friend, who
+had not had the faintest intention of calling upon anybody that
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>However, so summoned, there was nothing else to do. So Magnus came
+in, hung up his cap in the hall, shook hands with his hostess and the
+other ladies, and then, after the manner of cadet chaff, asked Rig what
+he was fooling there for? wasting his own time as well as Miss Jo's?</p>
+
+<p>"She said she hadn't any to lose, so I'm safe there," answered Mr.
+McLean.</p>
+
+<p>"Make the most of it,&mdash;that won't carry you far," said Miss Jo.
+"What <i>do</i> you suppose he has been doing, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Could not guess&mdash;when it is Rig."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely quoted the Bible to me. I came so near fainting away
+that he called you in for a tonic."</p>
+
+<p>"Quoted it pertinently?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, impertinently. Oh, Mr. Kindred, will you let me have a walk
+after chapel on Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;but I cannot take you to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that passes for cadet wit," said Miss Jo, pouting. "Why
+cannot you, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something else to do: a previous."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't fool me so," said Miss Jo, shaking her flaxen head. "You
+<i>know</i> your best girl isn't here."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is nobody else you need walk with. I think you're very
+unkind, Mr. Kindred. And I've got such a box of candy as <i>you</i> never
+saw."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see it now," said Magnus, smiling. "Destroy ignorance
+wherever you find it."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I will! No, I'll give that walk to Mr. Clayton, and nobody
+else shall have a crumb."</p>
+
+<p>"Or a smile."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for Clayton," said Rig. "Then he won't have to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+dead-beat to the hospital Monday morning, but can go there for good and
+sufficient reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you ashamed!&mdash;as if my candy was poison," said Miss Jo
+indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred," said the hostess, "my curiosity is astir about this
+'best girl' of yours; I should like to know your taste. What is she
+like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like herself: I know nobody else," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"So then she really does exist somewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you asked about her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course I did; but then I didn't know but Mr. McLean had
+been fooling us."</p>
+
+<p>"Would he dare do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's my belief he fools about everything," said Miss Jo. "And you
+too. I don't think you cadets know how to be serious about a single
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Grinds <i>are</i> almost the staff of life here," said Magnus. "But you
+do Rig unjustice: he'll be serious enough when he gets zero in wave
+motion."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak of wave motion Saturday afternoon," pleaded Rig. "It's
+the only time in the week when anything stands still and right side up.
+The air waves, and the light waves; and not a thing is steady, from
+Saturday night to Saturday noonday."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you do not study wave motion on Sunday," said the hostess
+reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Only practises it in chapel, you know," said Magnus. "Rig goes
+to sleep systematically, and keeps up in wave motion by a series of
+graceful nods."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Rig. "Well, I sometimes do, that's a fact.
+Somebody stuck a pin into me last Sunday. Wasn't you, was it, Kin?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not my pin. Come away, Rig, you've got another visit to pay
+before retreat," and the two bowed themselves out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+"I don't believe I'll call on Miss Saucy to-day," said Rig, as they
+walked along. "I got thinking about your handsome sisters, and that
+takes the taste out of other girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, does it!" said Magnus mockingly. "If you say that again, I'll
+report you to the Com. for a cannibal. There&mdash;the Kitten is
+tapping on the window for you, and you can go to Miss Saucy later. Run
+in; there's a lot of girls staying there."</p>
+
+<p>And Rig ran in. But in the hall, while giving himself those
+finishing touches in which even men indulge, Rig found that Cadet
+Kindred had slipped away to parts unknown.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL<br />
+ON FORT PUT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Think truly, and thy thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shall the world's famine feed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Speak truly, and each word of thine<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shall be a fruitful seed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Live truly, and thy life shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A great and noble creed.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Dr. Bonar.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>No, Cadet Kindred was in no mood for "other girls" that day; had he
+not just been writing his heart out to Cherry? and was not her last
+letter lying <i>perdu</i> up his sleeve? You could not expect him to have
+any relish for common doings.</p>
+
+<p>So with the easy, steady gait which I wish all men might copy,
+Magnus went swiftly on to the west end of the officers' row. Past Miss
+Saucy, who signalled him from her friend's porch; past Miss Bee, who
+bowed from an open window; past the talk and the laughter, the scent
+of chocolate, the certainty of sugar plums. Then at the last house of
+the old "west limits" he turned sharply round the corner, and began
+to mount the hill. Small danger of "other girls" here, or of other
+men, unless a few homesick strollers like himself; and these were
+passed with only a nod. The real denizens of the roadway were wild and
+sweet as the day. Red squirrels and brown chipmunks darted across the
+path, whisked into holes, or chattered in the treetops; "the sound of
+dropping nuts," the rustle of leaves, the voice of a crow or a gull,
+only made the stillness more exquisite. The rocks were cushioned
+with mosses; the ferns and the early fallen leaves of chestnut and
+butternut <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg306]</a></span>
+made a lovely carpet all about; the clear air seemed strung and tuned
+to the last pitch of harmony. Far down, down, the winding river, in
+its varying shades of blue and grey, flowed silently among the hills,
+flecked with the white wings of two or three sloops and schooners; but
+all too distant for the murmur of the little waves, the creaking of
+cordage, to reach him.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred paused several times at points where the view opened;
+then addressing himself to the hill again, and choosing the old broken,
+steep-pitched track of a hundred years ago. The Revolutionary style
+suited his mood to-day; and he sped up the last steep incline with a
+will; passed through the old sallyport, sprang up the parapet, and sat
+down to gaze.</p>
+
+<p>At his feet the rough hillside went in tumbling, breaking fashion
+down to the little fringe of houses in the officers' row; and beyond
+them the green plain spread out its fair expanse, with Barracks and
+Academic Library and Chapel, walling it in on the south. Elsewhere the
+river, and beyond that again the hills. From above the trees on Trophy
+Point the fair, curling folds of the flag, with an action which would
+have been lazy had there been any call for haste, lifted and drooped
+at the top of the tall white staff. Magnus Kindred stood up again and
+saluted, with a flourish.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, old friend," he said, "we are sworn comrades now, whatever
+happens. One full summer more for me here, and then away to the ends of
+the earth: but that blessed old rag will fly just as well at San Carlos
+as at West Point, and be just as ready to read me a lesson."</p>
+
+<p>And with that, Magnus stretched himself out on the green slope,
+pulled forth Cherry's letter, and read it through twice.</p>
+
+<p>Then he studied the flag again; musing over things he
+had heard and read. Of the men who ran up the colours
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+when their ship was sinking in the deep, dark sea; of standards dyed
+with the life-blood of their defenders. Of the failures that yet were a
+triumphant success.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My half day's work is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And this is all my part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I give a patient God<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My patient heart:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And grasp his banner still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though all its blue be dim;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These stripes, no less than stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lead after him."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I wonder if that fellow loved anybody," Magnus questioned with
+himself, a stricture coming over his heart at thought of the young
+soldier under whose death-pillow the brave, pitiful lines were found.
+"And I wonder if I could have said it in his place? But that is
+what it means. That is just what I have to do for the old Stars and
+Stripes&mdash;and for the Lord's banner."</p>
+
+<p>And secure against the criticisms of chipmunks and chickadees,
+Magnus began at the old ballad of the "Star-Spangled Banner," and sang
+it straight through.</p>
+
+<p>"Well sung, and to the purpose," said a pleasant voice, and Magnus
+started up, to find a gentleman close behind him; and, as he saw at a
+glance, no less a person than his friend of the candidate journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain, however, that Mr. Wayne did not know him. How could he
+find in the close-cropped hair the wayward, curly locks of two years
+ago? or see, in this happy compound of uniform and drill, the homesick
+boy whom he had cheered and comforted?</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let me disturb you," said the newcomer, taking a seat near
+Magnus. "I was wandering round among the old walls, thinking how much
+had crumbled and how much grown up since their day, not knowing there
+was anyone up here but myself. And when suddenly the dear old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+song rang out, I could not help coming near to listen. Has
+it come into fashion again, in these latter days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not especially, that I know of," said Magnus. "But I was brought up
+on it."</p>
+
+<p>"So was I. And where were you brought up?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus named his State.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange!" said Mr. Wayne. "The first boy I ever spoke to who was
+coming to West Point was from that State; and now so is also the first
+full-fledged cadet I meet with here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we have a good representation from all our districts," said
+Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you men from the same State always hold together in any special
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against all the rest of the world, yes," said Magnus. "But we often
+choose our chums from the Antipodes."</p>
+
+<p>"For private and personal reasons, rather than public; I see. But
+then of course you know them all, more or less; and so you must know
+the man I am after."</p>
+
+<p>"A relation of yours, sir?" Magnus inquired gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not at all; only an acquaintance of a day and a night.
+But I should like to see him again very much; in fact that was why
+I stopped over a day here. I wonder if he is in the corps still?
+Must be, I think; he did not look like a fellow to be 'found' in
+anything,&mdash;unless caution and self-control."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bad showing," said Magnus. "I'd rather chance it in
+math."</p>
+
+<p>"You must know him, of course, if he is here," Mr. Wayne went on;
+"for he was from your State, I know. I had his name down&mdash;and I
+also had my pocket-book stolen! Can you tell over the list of your
+State delegation?"</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus began.</p>
+
+<p>"Smith, J., 2d; Jones, L.; Devius, E.; Smith, T. A.; Marston,
+Kindred&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+"That's the man!" broke in Mr. Wayne; "Charlemagne Kindred. And you
+say he is here still?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, he's here," said Magnus, with a half groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Doing well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doing all sorts of ways. He is just back from furlough, and as blue
+as a mouldy cheese."</p>
+
+<p>"Back from furlough! Ah, then he has seen his mother again. That
+ought to cure him of doing 'all sorts of ways.' Where does he stand in
+his class?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he keeps out of the Immortals," said Magnus with a shrug.
+"Might max it oftener, if he didn't read so many magazines and write so
+many letters."</p>
+
+<p>"Letters, hey? These 'left behind' girls have a good deal to answer
+for. And yet such a trust as a woman's life and happiness, ought to
+steady any man, and put him at his best."</p>
+
+<p>"He has four just such trusts," said Magnus. "I don't know that
+they'd all die if he went to the bad, but two of them would."</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;you seem to know him very well," said Mr. Wayne, turning
+to look more narrowly at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir: sometimes I think I do, sometimes not. He takes
+me all by surprise every now and then," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>But with that he turned his eyes full upon Mr. Wayne, and the
+recognition was instant.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is you!" said Mr. Wayne. "I see it now. Indeed I think I
+felt it all along. Sit over there, and let me look at you."</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus changed his seat for another, and went through a new sort
+of inspection; differing <i>in toto</i> from that of any member of the
+tactical department. For Mr. Wayne's eyes passed rapidly over grey
+cloth and bell buttons (Magnus feeling quite sure the while that any
+dulness <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+or disorder there would have been noted) and came to the young face,
+with a look so searching and wise that the sunburnt cheeks reddened,
+and the eyes went down. Only for a moment, however: then they met the
+search squarely, and with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Cadet Kindred, "that is just about what I am."</p>
+
+<p>Privately, Mr. Wayne had been thinking to himself that just what he
+saw was a remarkably fine-looking fellow, whom anybody might be proud
+to call son or brother. For the eyes were steady and true; and when the
+face broke in a smile or a laugh the mouth had the same utterly clean
+look which had marked it two years ago. Mr. Wayne noted it all, and
+drew a deep breath of rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>"I give most humble and hearty thanks," he said, reverently lifting
+his hat. Magnus sprang up and came back to his old seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you so doubtful of me, sir?" he said. "And what made you
+doubtful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not doubtful of you, my boy, but certain of the world. And the
+world&mdash;even this little world here&mdash;is a hard place."</p>
+
+<p>"This is an awful place!" said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so now, because you are just back from furlough. But
+you will find the world power in full force still, when you get to
+some far-off frontier post. Very few lives have a steady fair breeze
+straight into heaven. 'Ye must take the wind in your face if ye will
+fetch Christ,' said old Samuel Rutherford; and most of us find it so.
+But then, 'How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where
+Christ is.'"</p>
+
+<p>And Magnus remembered instantly that ever since he came to West
+Point, he had hailed the west wind, because it seemed to come from
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you always tell, sir, whence it comes?" he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+asked suddenly. "Being disagreeable doesn't prove a thing right."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly no. But you know what Christ himself is, Mr. Kindred; study
+him, his character, his will, his throne. It is not hard to match your
+colours, if you are really so minded. West Point is not so unlike
+everywhere else as you seem to think. I remember a young man who went
+from here to Texas, and wrote back that he was still fighting the
+world, the flesh, and the devil. Finding the world perhaps a little
+less down there, but the flesh and the devil about as usual. And so you
+will find it. 'The kingdom of God is within you'&mdash;not outside:
+whether at Governor's Island, or San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you speak of San Carlos, sir?" Magnus said, with almost
+a start.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the worst posts in the army, is it not?&mdash;or counted
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid of San Carlos," said Magnus decidedly. "The devil
+always has to clear out, when an angel comes in."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne turned and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"So!" he said; "that is all settled, is it? But no, my young sir:
+Satan held a dispute with an archangel once, long enough for some
+pretty strong words on both sides. And you are going to take an angel
+to San Carlos!"</p>
+
+<p>Almost just what Mr. Erskine had said.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever there, sir?" Magnus asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't the place need angels?"</p>
+
+<p>And now Mr. Wayne laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You have the best of me there," he said. "Yes, not a doubt of that,
+it does. And it is the very place that the white wings love to brighten
+if they can. But Mr. Kindred, if your particular angel is to live at
+San Carlos&mdash;or anywhere&mdash;and not break her heart; spread her
+white wings <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+and fly away from earth and you together; you have got to fight the
+devil yourself; hand to hand, and wherever you find him. These earthly
+angels are not quite so robust as the old painters make out the
+heavenly to be."</p>
+
+<p>"She is the very centre of my life!" cried Magnus. But Mr. Wayne
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened once," he said, "that a young graduate of West Point
+brought his three-months' bride not to San Carlos, but to Fortress
+Monroe. Of course, the 'pleasant fellows' of the garrison went to work
+to entertain him, and one of them told me this story:</p>
+
+<p>"'We had a little supper party,' he said. 'Not very large, but
+correct and choice; and we kept it up pretty late; and X. Y. got more
+than he could manage gracefully. So some of the stronger heads among us
+set out to get him home. Late, as I said; servants asleep, lights out,
+and I guess we knocked and rang more than once. Then X. Y.'s young wife
+came down, candle in hand, to let him in. Poor girl&mdash;I did feel
+sorry for her when I saw her white face, as the candle flared out upon
+him.'"</p>
+
+<p>There came up before Charlemagne Kindred, as his friend spoke, the
+vision of another face; so blanched, so stricken in its grief, and all
+for him. He bowed his head upon his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne asked never a word. He looked at the fine young man beside
+him, not knowing just what he might have touched, and then away over
+the fair hills and the soft flowing river. What a world! Peace written
+everywhere on the exquisite setting; and everywhere in the picture the
+sharp life and death conflict. Then the glad words in the Revelation
+made answer:</p>
+
+<p>"And I saw, and, behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a
+bow: and he went forth, conquering and to conquer."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen!" Mr. Wayne said aloud: adding half under his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+breath: "'Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest
+come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence!'"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus looked up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Only an old habit of mine," Mr. Wayne said, smiling at him. "I
+live so much alone, that I very often talk to myself for lack of a
+listener."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to see these mountains flow down?" Magnus asked, gazing
+in his turn at the fair hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Not these in themselves; only I long for all which the prophet's
+words imply. To see the crooked made straight, and the rough places
+plain; to hear the royal proclamation of the Prince of Peace sound
+out across this burdened earth; one could be willing to have 'every
+mountain and island' moved out of their places. To have that trumpet
+blast fill all the air:</p>
+
+<p>"'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and
+of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No more miserable captives to the power of evil; no more strong men
+'whom Satan hath bound at his own will."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"No midnight shades, no clouded sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But sacred, high, eternal noons."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"How naturally the words follow:</p>
+
+<p>"'We give thee thanks, O Lord, because thou hast taken to thee thy
+great power, and hast reigned.'"</p>
+
+<p>Then Magnus began and told him the whole story; pouring out details,
+and not sparing himself in the least. And Mr. Wayne listened in deepest
+silence, with a grave, tender face which drew on confidence. Magnus did
+not once name Cherry, only at the end he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I told her everything. And if I thought I should ever again make
+her look as she did then, I think I would shoot myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+"Powder is very cheap," Mr. Wayne said slowly. "It is the meanest,
+smallest, silliest back door through which a man ever shirked his
+difficulties. But to live a strong life, to have one's self in hand
+and keep a tight rein, that costs, and costs tremendously; demands
+a man's whole will-power, and the mighty grace of God. There is no
+promise whatever to the one who runs away; they are all: 'To him that
+overcometh.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir, I know," Magnus answered him. "But instead of costing, it
+seems to me the only life that pays."</p>
+
+<p>"And where do you get dividends, but from investments?" said Mr.
+Wayne quickly. "You gain from what you put in: knowledge from study,
+health from exercise, advance from toil. You bone discipline, and you
+stand one; you bone mathematics, and you max it every time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't," said Magnus. "Not some of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you do. Not all just alike, perhaps; one man puts in more
+brains than another, and so maybe gets larger returns; but the slower
+fellow maxes it <i>for him</i>; the dividends are as large as the stock will
+warrant. And to my mind, that is the only ambition worth a copper. I've
+no patience with this trying to get ahead of somebody else in any line.
+Get ahead of yourself; break your own record."</p>
+
+<p>"Not making other men your measure," Magnus said.</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's the way Paul puts it: 'I press toward the mark for the
+prize'; not to get ahead of Peter or James or John. The colour markers
+always in advance, flagging out new ground."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you count a man's colour markers, sir?" Magnus said,
+looking amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps clean purpose of heart and loyalty to God would come near
+it. The Great Captain has thrown open to you&mdash;to every young
+man&mdash;a wondrous Promised Land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+He says: 'Go in and possess it. Ye are well able to overcome.' The land
+is not all 'fish and cucumbers and melons,' with a good deal of garlic,
+like the Egypt degradation and bondage; but 'a goodly land of springs
+and fountains, of oil olive and honey; whose stones are iron, and out
+of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.' I do not believe you cadets are
+half aggressive enough."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every way. Suppose your colour markers had been up to their duty
+on that sad night, and you pressing forward for the Lord's 'Well
+done.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Magnus answered, with a thrill of pain that somehow got into
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Or suppose," Mr. Wayne went on, laying a tender hand on the young
+man's shoulder, "suppose you had been praying for those other men whose
+ways you knew; working with them, persuading them into the service of
+Christ?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that could not be," Mr. Kindred said decidedly. "At least, I
+might pray for them, of course, but I could not say much."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against cadet code, sir. We let each other pretty well alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Cadet code!" Mr. Wayne repeated. "You tease each other now and
+then, I fancy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always!"</p>
+
+<p>"And laugh at each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without stint."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps introduce each other occasionally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, sir!" Magnus answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And probably the cadet code would permit you to pull a man out of
+the river, or tell him the barracks were ablaze? It is framed only
+against the important things, hey?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+"Don't you call it important to pull a man out of the river?" Magnus
+asked, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather. Nothing like pulling him into the kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>The clouds sailed silently by, river and hill darkening and
+brightening as the shadows fell and passed; the leaves rustled softly
+among the oak branches and stirred with a different music among the
+pines. Then from far down below sounded a drum&mdash;Magnus started
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Wayne!" he said earnestly. "Come to the guard-house
+before call to quarters. I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"I will walk down with you," said his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must run!"</p>
+
+<p>And away he went, springing down the hill through every short cut
+that could be found; the grey and white showing, and hiding, and coming
+out again further on.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne watched him with great interest, taking his own pace the
+while down the hill; and now, as he went, from every other quarter came
+just such flying figures. From the woods, from Flirtation, from the
+river; from lingering last words on doorsteps, and girls and bonbons in
+the houses. Hastening along with the graceful ease of long practice,
+hurrying to lose themselves behind the grim grey walls of barracks.</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Wayne watched and laughed; but then his eyes grew grave.
+Will they make such haste at every call of duty, these gay youngsters?
+on hand and "ready" at each noble muster? Alas, no! Even now some are
+getting an "absence," and some a "late," and of others the guns are
+not cleaned and the bell buttons will be tarnished. Ready! it is a
+short word; but it means a man's whole ceaseless purpose, self-denial,
+and care. How little those speeding figures on the green guessed that
+anybody on the old hillside was praying for them; but I believe the
+very skill and swiftness with which they darted along, gave stringency
+to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+the prayer; such power for good, such forces for evil; such ease in
+doing the right thing, such recklessness, sometimes, whether it was
+done or not. Through his glass, Mr. Wayne could study it all out.</p>
+
+<p>See that one now; a tall fellow, going over the ground at a rate to
+take common people's breath away. It is not altogether his fault that
+he has to run for it; his best girl is on hand to-day, and this was a
+critical walk round Flirtation. Drum-calls were scarcely heard, and
+minutes flew unheeded. No carelessness of orders kept him back, and no
+contempt for them make him linger now. He does not mean to have even
+a late; and so dashes on and wins. There is some jeering and clapping
+as the tall figure comes up; "Two-forty" being his affectionate
+soubriquet; but all the same he is there, in ranks, with about ten
+seconds or less to spare.</p>
+
+<p>Another&mdash;Oh, yes, he set out to run; anathematising the
+drum, the parade, and the regulations, and so soon stops; runs
+again&mdash;and stops, with a sort of what's-the-use air. "How much
+time?" he asks another, who is walking calmly on.</p>
+
+<p>"None at all."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon he quickens his steps; but not so the second. The
+drum-beats come thicker and faster&mdash;that makes no odds. It is only
+a "skin" more or less, he says to himself; and he's sure to get it some
+other way, if not this; and he has lost his Christmas leave already.
+So, while the rest fall in, and answer to roll-call, he comes leisurely
+up to barracks, some minutes after the last man has shouted "Here!"</p>
+
+<p>That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll
+"fess cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may
+get and still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of
+meaning there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it
+here and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times,
+and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post.
+He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured
+glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and
+unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's
+counsels and his father's rules.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>You see he is such a pleasant fellow,&mdash;handsome, rich,
+plausible; a great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about
+equally divided between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all
+thrown away; and worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks
+for other men. But he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much
+more courage to do wrong than he has to do right.</p>
+
+<p>It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the
+Post, a day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth
+is swelled, his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine
+proportions. But he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his
+side gazes up into the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the
+first defenders of the country, newly risen from the shadows of old
+Fort Clinton.</p>
+
+<p>To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of
+Mr. Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried
+to win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite
+privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do
+<i>that</i>, every time.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every
+minute that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out
+of doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it
+most.</p>
+
+<p>"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on
+earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+the afternoon they walked up from Battery Knox, and paused in the
+little clearing where "Dade and his Command" will be thought of for
+many a long day. "Such wonders of beauty on every side, in mountains
+and sky and river; and whichever way you turn, such reminders of men
+who have 'fought a good fight' on the field of honour. Look at the
+old flag, and think how it has been shot at and insulted; defied and
+threatened; yet how splendidly it floats off to-day! And the guns that
+lie sleeping beneath its shadow were captured by men who knew no such
+words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And the great iron links once stretched
+across the river tell of other chains triumphantly broken, in the face
+of fearful odds. On all sides you find written: 'Faithful unto death.'
+Life purpose, life and death effort, life-blood, have done it all; the
+blood of men who 'counted not their life dear unto themselves' when the
+country had need. And the one traitor among them&mdash;why, you will
+not have his name even in sight! His tablet is a blank."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to
+himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?
+for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for
+the name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when
+we parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends
+with the flag; <i>now</i> I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think
+you Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If you cannot reach the nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gather in the men you know:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teach your friend the way to glory&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Draw your comrade where you go."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cadet Kindred stopped short and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Mr. Wayne said, answering the look; "I know
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+all about it. But the Lord said: 'He that gathereth not
+with me, scattereth'. And if you think it will be easier to
+take positive ground and begin positive work for Christ
+among a lot of strange officers at your first post, <i>I</i> think
+you are mistaken."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI<br />
+UP CROWNEST</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Crowds of larks in their matins hang over,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.</span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Jean Ingelow.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If Cadet Kindred rose up next morning with the very spirit of the
+Crusades astir in his heart; ready to charge down upon the Saracens,
+lance in rest; he said to himself as the day went on, that if Mr. Wayne
+had ever been a West Point cadet, that gentleman would know some things
+he did not know now.</p>
+
+<p>Here had Magnus been dreaming all night how he knocked a bumper
+out of Randolph's hand; how he had run Rig up to the first section in
+French; and how he had pitched Clinker back over the Commissary wall,
+just in time to prevent his being missed and "skinned." Also how he
+himself had been publicly thanked for these exploits by the Academic
+Board in full session. But, alas! "the stuff that dreams are made of"
+fades in the morning sun, and from these pleasing nocturnal visions Mr.
+Kindred passed to a particularly tough recitation, with corresponding
+low marks, and thence to the stubbornest horse in the hall, that would
+not take the hurdles, and made him instead take the tan. And now, as
+he sat in his room, tired and growly, the mail brought him nothing but
+a desperately perfumed pink note. Magnus said "Phew!" and moved to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Sent the whole shop, hasn't she?" said Rig. "That's Mrs. Newcomb, a
+mile off."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+"Just listen, will you?" said Magnus. "She wants to give a picnic
+on Crownest, and tells me to bring men enough for five girls! How many
+apiece, do you suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unknown quantity; all depends on the girls. Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't tell. Miss Pretty, of course, for one; she is a niece or
+something. Then there's another girl, 'just from abroad,'&mdash;'and
+the rest you know.' Well, I'll take the new girl, at a venture."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll not have to think up any new grinds," said Rig. "Lucky
+man. And I'll take Miss Pretty. If she's heard all mine before, she
+won't say so. So we are two."</p>
+
+<p>"And Clinker's three&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you have him for?" said Rig. "He's in every single
+thing&mdash;when he isn't on the area."</p>
+
+<p>"She wants him. By name," said Magnus. "Hopes 'dear Mr. Clinker will
+be at leisure.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a neat way of hoping he's out of Con." said Rig. "Say,
+didn't she have a granddaughter or something, getting rubbed up in
+Paris? That's the new girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Granddaughter!" said Magnus. "Just let Mrs. Newcomb hear you say
+that! But I'll take the rubbed-up girl, whoever she is, my risk. And
+Miss Frisk will take <i>you</i>. She's sure to be along."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure to get Clinker, if she is," said Rig. "Wonder if the little
+Busy Bee will come? Kin, you're hard on that girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't want me to be soft, do you?" said Magnus, with the drum
+cutting him short.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the names of the party were all out before Saturday; the
+girls could not talk of much else. And as for cadets, each girl might
+have had five, had the limits of the lunch basket agreed thereto. The
+day was perfect, the dresses faultless, and Mr. Clinker happily "at
+leisure," for once.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+Not everybody knows&mdash;but few <i>try</i> to know&mdash;how witching
+that climb up Crownest is, if you take the old "Cadet Trail." The way
+goes along for a while at the level of the plain, but then betakes
+itself to the air; presently mounting up and up with a straight pitch
+before you. There come turns, of course, winding round some unscaleable
+rock; and gentler going over a small knoll or two, and quite a level
+stretch around the shoulder, in the "Nest." But very often it is just
+a steep ladder of a path, to be climbed as best you can. A wilderness
+of grey rock and green woods; feathery hemlocks, sombre oaks, ash
+trees, maples, and hickory. Below these, dogwood and other "cornels,"
+with ironwood, shad blossom, witch hazel, and laurel. Lower still
+ferns&mdash;unlike those in the valley; with orchids of a new type,
+yellow gerardias, purple gerardias, partridge berry, and wintergreen.
+Then the brown leaves of last year, half covering the mosses, and
+thickly sprinkled in turn with the red and yellow of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The rarest scents are in the air: the balsam breath of the sweet
+brier, and from the new-fallen and falling leaves that special
+fragrance of the autumn woods&mdash;sweet, racy, heart-piercing, a waft
+from days gone by and withered, their work all done.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the birds have already gone South; but robins are here, and
+chickadees, and the cry of the gulls is in perfect keeping with the
+cool air and the white caps on the river.</p>
+
+<p>Up through this wilderness of wild and fragrant things, the little
+party went joyously along; or if not quite that on Mrs. Newcomb's
+part, yet it is painful to relate that her trips and stumbles did but
+heighten the fun for all the rest. In many a place it took two men to
+get her on at all. Magnus would leave his pretty companion safe on some
+high standpoint, jump down again himself, and with Crane on the other
+side carefully engineer Mrs. Newcomb to a place
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+beside her niece. It might also be noticed that Mr. Clinker and his
+convoy generally lagged behind at such crises, or got into some tangle
+themselves, from which they came out, safe and suddenly, as soon as
+Mrs. Newcomb was disposed of. And by and by Cadet Kindred, being quite
+alive to the situation, quickened his pace, and passed on too far ahead
+for any new service to be required of him.</p>
+
+<p>On and up the two flitted along&mdash;like grey and red squirrels,
+averred the toiling Mrs. Newcomb; but even for themselves there were
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Here, for instance, stands an immense rock that stops the way. And
+as Miss Lane measures it with her eyes, behold! there is Magnus on top
+of it, reaching down his hand to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect me to climb up there?" Cadet gives a little gesture
+of the head which Dickens would have said meant, "He rather thought
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get there yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Came."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any snakes up there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so many as where you are."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the
+rock, then looked down complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did.
+Oh&mdash;what was that&mdash;a rattle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must
+people always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."</p>
+
+<p>Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder
+self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came
+out upon the mountain's lovely head, and,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+after a shout of victory, sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how
+wonderfully fair earth is from the top of Crownest!</p>
+
+<p>On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in
+seven shades of green&mdash;slope beyond slope&mdash;till it touched
+the soft horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range
+rose, shoulder to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely
+pile. Then on the south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay
+shimmering in the sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the
+river on its eastern shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart,
+and you could see the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like
+grim ribs, running eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river
+itself was decked with various craft; over all there wandered a faint,
+fitful north breeze.</p>
+
+<p>From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the
+toiling party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special
+charm just then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the
+next time she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest;
+the girls might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly
+chafing against the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally,
+sometimes, when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig
+was laughing to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally;
+and aloud at the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the
+party fumed a little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How
+came those two to get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the
+grey and the red.</p>
+
+<p>"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you ladies are."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not talking of the whole human race," said Miss Lane: "it
+is cadets that are so odd, so unlike other people."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>
+"That is good," said Magnus. "One would not wish to be like
+everybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"How you chop one up. I mean other students. Do you try to be unlike
+all other cadets?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I get the credit sometimes, without trying."</p>
+
+<p>"And I can see you deserve it, too," said the girl. "You would have
+tugged Aunt Newcomb all the way up here, if you hadn't thought Mr.
+Clinker meant you should."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call that being odd?" he said. "It is just even."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, instead of standing off like a shirk, you did the
+polite thing and ran away. Do you always run from difficulties, Mr.
+Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bad for me if I do," said Magnus. "A foe in the rear is worth two
+in front."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you generally fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"People, or things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as to the people," Magnus answered, "I have not been much
+tried. It depends on yourself somewhat, I fancy; and I have never been
+challenged since I entered the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do if you were?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I would, is one thing," Magnus said rather slowly. "By my good
+leave, I should say no."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you&mdash;and be pointed at?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure to be pointed at for something," Magnus answered
+lightly. "It's a choice of cases."</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot imagine a man like you saying no!" said the girl
+eagerly. "Not fight, if you were challenged? You are brave, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know? If I am, I shall never fight for fear of being
+pointed at."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+"But why?" Miss Lane repeated, her bright eyes searching his face.
+"Tell me quick, Mr. Kindred. They'll all be up here directly, and I
+cannot possibly wait to know till to-morrow. Why wouldn't you fight? I
+believe you could whip any man in the Corps."</p>
+
+<p>"There is one rule," said Magnus, meeting her look, "which I have
+sworn to keep. It is an old rule, and a short one, but it covers a
+great deal of ground. 'Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in
+the name of the Lord Jesus.' I could not so endorse my acceptance of a
+challenge."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him with wide open eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find those old rules of yours terribly in the way,
+sometimes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure sign that I am off the track, then," said her companion,
+smiling. "Fences don't matter when you mean to keep the road. But
+doubtless most good things have their inconvenient side."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Newcomb, for instance," said Miss Lane, changing her tone. "I
+think I should count both sides 'inconvenient,' if I had to pull her up
+the hill. By the way, Mr. Kindred, why didn't your rule oblige you to
+take the brunt of the burden to the last?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might in some cases," said Magnus; "not in this. Clinker had to
+earn his lunch, and there was no other way for him to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there they come," said Miss Lane, rising up, "to cut short
+our talk; I am quite sorry. You interest me, Mr. Kindred; cadets with
+'views' are a novelty. But I rather wish you would fight!"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say I could get a broken head in the riding-hall some day,
+when I'm on Dangerfield&mdash;would that do?" said Magnus, laughing
+back at her as he went forward to give Mrs. Newcomb a hand, which was
+gratefully taken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+"Oh, Mr. Kindred&mdash;thank you! This has been certainly&mdash;the
+most awfully grand&mdash;walk I ever experienced."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a
+clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my
+best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five
+walks on hand for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into
+the sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at
+once, and save what is left of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me
+to have two."</p>
+
+<p>"Much you care for regulations, up here."</p>
+
+<p>"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the
+baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"</p>
+
+<p>Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all
+around them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and
+here and there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and
+chips, dry and bleached and just ready to burn.</p>
+
+<p>Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily
+spread, a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee
+put under&mdash;or over&mdash;its care. Then busy hands unpacked or
+uncovered the baskets. Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late
+peaches filled a third. Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat
+luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut
+cakes, and sweet chocolate; and the wind kept still, and did not blow
+even a napkin away.</p>
+
+<p>But the last time Magnus Kindred had been at a picnic,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+it was in the far-away home region, and with just the home group around
+him; and now it all came back to him in a moment; with the tones of his
+mother's voice as she asked for a blessing on their day's pleasure. And
+I suppose it was this that made him pause unconsciously, after he had
+taken his stand by the fire to pour out the steaming coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" said Mrs. Newcomb, in her plaintive voice. "Not hot
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Freak laughed out, and Miss Newcomb looked at her, and
+Miss Lane watched this cadet who had "views."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aunty!" cried Miss Freak, "don't you know he's one of the
+too-good-for-this-earth boys? Why, coffee out of an ice box would scald
+his throat, if somebody didn't pray over it first. He's waiting for you
+to say grace, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting for me!" Mrs. Newcomb repeated helplessly. "But your uncle
+always does it, you know, Freaky."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he isn't here," said Miss Freak. "Come, aunty!" The girls
+were choking themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs; the cadets,
+better used to endurance, kept their gravity intact. Charlemagne
+Kindred stood absolutely still; but his thoughts went flying back to
+the honeysuckle-wreathed porch, and Cherry, and how she had waited for
+him. Blessings on her! she never came near him but to do him good.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't the man pour out his coffee?" Miss Lane was saying
+impatiently to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred," said Mrs. Newcomb in a sort of appeal&mdash;"girls,
+be quiet&mdash;I am ashamed of you. Mr. Kindred, will you be kind
+enough to say grace yourself? Of course, it is quite proper to have it
+done, and a man can do it so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"Not this man!" So shot the feeling through Cadet Charlemagne. This
+man, who had never even come near such a thing in public. But quick as
+Nehemiah got his orders, so on the instant the young cadet had his. Was
+he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+not pledged to shun no point of witness-bearing? And, with again one
+swift thought of Cherry, Magnus obeyed; standing there by the little
+fire, while good Mrs. Newcomb bowed her head, and the others watched
+him from their mossy seats. And the words were Cherry's own, as she had
+said them on that well-remembered morning.</p>
+
+<p>"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in
+much." This was a very small thing to do, but I think nobody ever
+guessed what it cost Magnus Kindred. And as little did he imagine,
+how that small bit of open confession broadened out and took its full
+proportions to other eyes. There was something in the serious face,
+something in the reverent voice, something about it all, indeed, that
+everybody felt. As Mr. Kindred came forward now with Mrs. Newcomb's
+coffee cup, Clinker looked at him curiously, McLean with a sort of
+wondering veneration, while Miss Lane said to herself: "Fight! Of
+course he could!" But then Magnus threw himself into the fun, and in
+two minutes had fanned the frolic to a point that quite outshone the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"So nice to have a private chaplain along," Miss Freak had said
+airily, trying to throw off her thoughts. But the other girls frowned
+down all attempts at fun in that direction, and harmony reigned. Or, to
+speak more correctly, the lunch baskets reigned in a very harmonious
+atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting about on moss or stones, after the good cheer had vanished,
+the cadets got off so many "grinds" that poor Mrs. Newcomb declared
+she should have no strength left to help her down the hill. Then they
+sang songs, and gave out conundrums. The girls made chains of the pine
+needles, and the men in grey put them on, and declared them emblematic
+and imperishable.</p>
+
+<p>On her part, Miss Lane went on with her study of Magnus Kindred,
+watching him keenly. She noticed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+though he took the frail green links from her hands, putting them round
+his cap, twining them about his arm, he said no word of their being
+"fetters"&mdash;called them garlands, instead. She felt that in all the
+light play, the cavalier-like deference, there was no sham devotion,
+no hint of deeper things. Yet he wore his class ring. And she knew she
+was pretty, and felt certain she was well dressed. It piqued her; she
+would have liked to see those green chains press hard, with a permanent
+sensation. And then, when she went off to look at some side view which
+Mr. Clinker recommended, what did Mr. Kindred do but seat himself by
+Mrs. Newcomb and talk to her! It was extremely trying.</p>
+
+<p>I think, to me, the way down Crownest is more difficult than the way
+up; taking hold perhaps upon a set of less-used muscles; but the party
+all came safe and sound to the lower level and easier going of the
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you must be sure and come to us at Christmas," Mrs. Newcomb was
+saying, as they parted. "We shall expect you all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't come, sorry to say," Mr. Clinker answered with a
+laugh. "I've got a previous with the Com. Awfully hard lines for
+me&mdash;but it's just my luck."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>XLII<br />
+CHRISTMAS LEAVE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they were men that stood
+alone.  &mdash;<span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Cold weather came early. Mrs. Newcomb's picnic was the last of the
+season, and most of the human birds of passage grew chilly, and took
+their bright plumage back to city streets. A few visitors lingered on;
+people with no children to put to school, or with some son or brother
+in the Corps.</p>
+
+<p>Only the steadfast old hills flung out their hardy colours&mdash;and
+flung them off; decking themselves with an occasional white cap
+instead. The blue river rolled by in deep foamy wrinkles; the distant
+Catskills had donned their snow.</p>
+
+<p>No parades now, but noisy drills, with light battery, siege battery,
+and sea-coast guns, making the hills roar out in countless echoes. Only
+Battery Knox lay quiet, unmoved in all the commotion, keeping silent
+watch near the white shaft of "Dade and his Command." While far away
+beyond the hubbub, a small army of white and grey and brown stones told
+of other soldiers, who had fought their last battle, and answered to
+the last command. Very little told there, indeed, but of the <i>soldier</i>;
+the <i>man</i> almost left out. But on one old, old stone are words to make
+one's heart leap up for joy:</p>
+
+<p>"He that doeth the will of God, abideth forever."</p>
+
+<p>October ran its bright course, and the shorter, darker days of
+November came softly in, but very fair, even yet. The hills set
+forth their rocky heights and fastnesses, <span class="pagenum"><a
+name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> stripped now of the
+softening leaves, and still the cold grey of the stone was warmed and
+clouded with the wilderness of brown tree stems. And every here and
+there rose up a tall hemlock or cedar or pine, in its dark, dauntless
+green, while not a few red oaks still sported the tatters of their
+autumn flags. Along the river on the lower ground, black alder bushes
+showed a wealth of "winter berries," beautiful as coral beads, and a
+close match in colour.</p>
+
+<p>Drills ceased, and dress parade began; and in the dusky time between
+gunfire and supper the men had chance for a good constitutional upon
+the well-swept sidewalk of the officers' row. Wrapped in long grey
+
+fearnaughts, with steady, swinging step, they went up and down, in ones
+and twos and threes, almost like an open procession; talking, talking,
+and discussing. Now the last blunder of the "Com.," now the latest whim
+of the "Supe"; then the marks of the day. Here, consigning all tactical
+officers to the prompt dealing of a drumhead court-martial, and here
+busy with the charms of some fair new girl. Oftenest of all, perhaps,
+dwelling on Graduation, Furlough, and First-class camp.</p>
+
+<p>But you never saw them walk arm in arm, like other
+students,&mdash;this would strike any stranger. Close together, but
+both hands free. Perhaps the regulation salute, with its frequent,
+instant, and exact demands, may be partly the cause of this.</p>
+
+<p>A fellow once hastening over to the hop with a girl on one arm, and
+her shoes and fan laying claim to the other, passed a certain dignitary
+with only a bow of the head, and was of course reported.</p>
+
+<p>Going next day to explain and get the report off, he was told:</p>
+
+<p>"Drop the girl! Drop the shoes! Salute, salute!"</p>
+
+<p>Another feature of West Point life which I think would strike
+unwonted eyes, is the universal opening of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>
+front doors at four o'clock. Up to that time, after the midday
+refection of whatever name, West Point on the plain might be a city
+asleep, with slow pacing sentries guarding its slumbers. But when
+the sweet four o'clock bugle sounds out, waking the echoes and the
+antagonistic dogs, the houses wake up too. Bonnets go on, gloves slide
+into place, and the fair wearers come forth with a delightful sense
+of expecting or being expected (for both things are in place), and
+the thinnest veil of unconcern to hide it all. It is a very pretty
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>Officers and professors come hastening back from the section room,
+gay turnouts wheel hither and thither, and the cadets are presently
+out in force. For drill, for parade, for walks, according to the time
+of year and the state of the weather. Football was not yet the rage,
+in Magnus Kindred's time, nor bicycles; and so every man you met was
+practising the noble art of walking, or showing how splendidly West
+Point can ride.</p>
+
+<p>As November speeded away, Christmas leave began to rise up in the
+distance, and to claim many thoughts. Men who had lost it were down on
+their "luck" (the cadet spelling for carelessness), men who had won it
+debated in what way the few dear hours of freedom should be spent; and
+many a fellow from some far-down or far-off corner of the land stood
+pledged to go with his happier friend whose home was nearer by.</p>
+
+<p>In all these joys, as usual, the poor fourth classmen had no share.
+They walked, indeed, like the rest; one must do something; but they
+talked gloomy things. No Christmas leave for them&mdash;and not much of
+anything else but hard work. They were not supposed to need anything
+else. No damsels on the sidewalk proffered them sugar plums, very few
+people even knew them by sight.</p>
+
+<p>I will do Magnus Kindred the justice to say that the keen memory of
+some of his own early days at the Post
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+made him a little bit thoughtful of these forlorn young strangers. It
+was no great credit to him, perhaps, if he now and then passed on to
+fourth class hands a box of Miss Flirt's best candy, but he did better
+than that. He gave words of encouragement and counsel, cheered up the
+faint hearts, and would smile and speak to a pleb on the sidewalk, just
+as if he himself had not been first sergeant, and a prime favourite
+with the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Some people will say he could have had no time to look after anyone
+but himself, but you never know how much you have, till you divide
+it up with needy people. And I doubt if helping takes more time than
+hazing. It is rather a question of which word you will say, what look
+you will give. And there had come to Cadet Kindred the wholesome
+perception that he could be a power for good or for evil, with all
+these younger boys. Consciously or unconsciously, they were watching
+the upper classmen, and taking tone from them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is in the way of your living just as earnest Christian lives
+here, as at home?" he had said one day to some plebs who were gradually
+sliding back from all their good home habits. And one answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Because we are so far from home, sir, and can't go to church so
+often, and can't keep Sunday as we have been taught."</p>
+
+<p>But another said boldly:</p>
+
+<p>"Because the first classmen are so different in camp from what they
+are in prayer-meeting."</p>
+
+<p>And it set Magnus to thinking. His own pleb days were not so long
+past that he could forget how he used to watch Mr. Upright, to see what
+all his brave words in the prayer meeting came to in the week; finding
+the first captain's straight everyday walk a constant help. And just
+such service he himself was called upon to render to these new men.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+It had been a doubt with Mr. Kindred, as the holidays drew on,
+whether after all he would use his Christmas leave. He had it, easy
+enough, but what should he do with it? Home was too far away to be even
+thought of, and short of home, what was there he cared for? Magnus
+rather thought he would stay at the Post.</p>
+
+<p>However, as the time drew near, and Mrs. Newcomb renewed her
+invitation, and Mrs. Beguile sent up hers, Magnus yielded to the
+prospective charms of the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, and New
+York harbour; and joined the gay party that were going to town. Five
+days' escape from the reveille gun was, after all, worth something.</p>
+
+<p>Busy, gay days! In their quiet "cit" dress the cadets roamed about
+all day, and then at night, in correct cadet costume, went to dinner
+here and supper there, until Magnus thought he must have been presented
+to all the pretty girls in town. Rooms were full of floating sashes and
+falling lace and skirts that could "stand alone": and the men in grey
+moved about among the airiest kind of clouds and billows; a maze of
+bewildering scents and sounds and visions, with old friends and new on
+every hand.</p>
+
+<p>The last night of all there was a large gathering of young people at
+the house of Mrs. Beguile, and of course the West Pointers were petted
+and wondered over to their hearts' content. In fact Magnus had more of
+it than he wanted; he grew tired of being asked for bell buttons, and
+telling how often he had his hair cut. McLean enjoyed it, and Randolph
+could never have too many girls around, even if the fair creatures
+had to stand on tiptoe and peep over each other's shoulders. But Mr.
+Kindred was in a very critical mood, thinking of Cherry; and found
+himself comparing necks and shoulders on every hand. He was saying
+stringent things to himself anent one of the prodigal owners, when Mrs.
+Beguile touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+"I do not wonder you are lost in admiration," she said, following
+his eyes, which were just then fixed on the youngest Miss Fashion; an
+extremely handsome young lady, too much of whose dress seemed to have
+slid down to the floor in a mass of curling frills and furbelows.</p>
+
+<p>"Like Venus rising from the sea, is she not, Mr. Kindred, with her
+white foamy draperies?"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus considered this rendering.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did Venus rise from the sea?" he asked abruptly. But now Mrs.
+Beguile looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she repeated. "Dear me! how should I know? I'm not the
+least bit classical. Because she liked to, I suppose. But my dear
+Mr. Kindred, as our great poet has beautifully remarked, 'Life is a
+business, not good cheer.' Will you come with me and make yourself
+useful?"</p>
+
+<p>"What an opening&mdash;to a man who has been totally useless for
+the last four days!" Magnus answered, as he followed his hostess
+to the supper room. "But if your poet had seen that table, Mrs.
+Beguile, he would have written down life to be good cheer and not
+business&mdash;couldn't help it, you know; it would have confused his
+mind to that extent."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beguile took this as a great joke, and went about repeating
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Cadets have such pretty ways of saying things," she remarked. "Oh,
+Busy, here's Mr. Kindred. You used to see him at West Point, you know,
+and he's just as nice as ever."</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Miss Bee! Did she need to be assured of that? But she
+bore herself gallantly, was just glad enough and not too glad to see
+him, gave one thought to her dress&mdash;so unfashionably high and
+plain&mdash;and never found out with what deep approval Cadet Kindred
+noticed its modest cut and simple trimmings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+"Cherry might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids," he thought.
+Poor little Mabel!</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Kin," Rig confided to him as he went by with Miss Flirt's
+empty plate; "just two things not here, cast-iron pancakes, and
+'Sammy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And the first captain," added Randolph, "yelling out 'Battalion,
+rise!' before we're half through."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of this, for Commissary beef?" quoth Twinkle,
+devouring a sandwich in blissful ignorance of its component parts.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred! Mr. Kindred!" called out Miss Freak from a window seat
+behind him; "do please get me a glass of punch. I'm just dying with
+thirst."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus stepped over to a side table and brought the young lady a
+glass of sparkling cold water. Miss Freak promptly handed it back.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you bring that for?" she asked. "I didn't say water, man
+alive!"</p>
+
+<p>"Best thing I know, when you are thirsty," said Magnus. "Try it
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"Try it once," the girl repeated mockingly. "Do you suppose I never
+have?"</p>
+
+<p>"She wants punch," remarked Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks she does."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>knows</i> she does," said Miss Freak, with a stamp of her little
+foot. "You'd better believe she knows what she wants."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard that ladies could not be mistaken, did you?" said
+Magnus provokingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Beguile! Mrs. Beguile!" called out Miss Freak, "here's one of
+your guests very rude to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Freaky?" asked the good lady, bustling up. "Rude to
+you? Oh, I guess not. Mr. Kindred will take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>"If she will let me."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+"Why, he's the very man!" said Miss Freak. "I want some punch, and
+he'll not get it for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not get it for you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doused me with cold water," said the young lady, pouting.</p>
+
+<p>"Doused you!" Mrs. Beguile looked at the pink draperies, which gave
+no sign of such heroic treatment; then she turned to Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to take care of her, Mrs. Beguile," Magnus said.</p>
+
+<p>The good lady looked at him,&mdash;the clean, clear face, the
+bright eyes; looked across to the great punch bowl, where the ladling
+and quaffing went ceaselessly on, her own boys among the crowd, and a
+shadow fell on her placid face.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you drink nothing but water yourself, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even punch?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Another look went across the room, and then Mrs. Beguile said with a
+half sigh:</p>
+
+<p>"Freaky, if I were you, I'd let him take care of me as he thinks
+best; and of himself, too. You are a brave man, Mr. Kindred."</p>
+
+<p>"'The Lord cover his head in the day of battle,'" said a low voice
+behind Magnus. He turned quickly, but perhaps the speaker had turned
+too, for he saw no sign.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you wouldn't fight?" said Miss Lane, laughing up at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>As for Miss Freak, she pouted, and made believe cry; and Randolph
+darted over to the great bowl, coming back with a glass of punch in
+each hand, one for his own companion and one for Miss Freak.</p>
+
+<p>"Such airs!" commented portly Mrs. Chose, sailing by. "Setting
+himself up above the rest of the world. Just
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+the way with those West Pointers. I told you so, Miranda; more strut
+than sense. I'll never take you to West Point again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes you will," said Miss Miranda cheerfully, "because I'm
+going. Give me the strut, every time."</p>
+
+<p>"I admire your courage, Mr. Kindred," said another lady; "it is
+quite touching in so young a man. But I am always sorry to see a fine
+thing wasted, thrown away: misdirected zeal, you know, for instance.
+You cannot think for a moment that one of those small glasses of punch
+could affect a person in any way?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might make him want another, Mrs. Bright," Magnus answered
+respectfully. She was a very pleasant, sensible woman, and had always
+been very kind to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Want another? Well, let him have it. Two such glasses of simple
+punch? Why, the head that wouldn't stand that isn't worth the
+purchase."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine would be worth more before than it would after," Magnus
+answered gaily, but not without a twinge.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are you particularly susceptible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if you are," the lady went on, "you do right to let it
+alone. But you might grant others the pleasure. Really, I think it is
+rather narrow of you, Mr. Kindred, and so I don't like it. You know you
+have always been my model cadet."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Fences have a narrow look, I do suppose," he said, "but they are
+good things, in spots. And I'd rather disappoint you so, than in some
+other ways, Mrs. Bright."</p>
+
+<p>The two stood silent for a moment, looking off towards the punch
+bowl. Men came and went, and went and came, with other people's
+glasses; and then stood still and emptied their own. Young men, old
+men, with women on the outskirts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+"And you will not get <i>me</i> a glass?" said Mrs. Bright; looking up at
+her favourite.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, if you please," Magnus said, with very winning
+deference. "You will not ask me, Mrs. Bright?"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot think there is any risk for <i>me</i>? Would it be against
+West Point regulations? But they are not in force here."</p>
+
+<p>"No; although West Point honour is mine to guard, wherever I am,"
+answered Magnus. "But I have said it to myself, that I will never take
+nor give the stuff in any form. For a regulation older than West Point,
+Mrs. Bright."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the
+world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'"</p>
+
+<p>Very hilarious voices from the region of the punch bowl emphasised
+the clear, brave words.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it," said the lady frankly. "You upset all my
+ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"But why do you keep him mewed up here in the corner, Mrs. Bright?"
+said Miss Saucy, who had been listening intently behind backs. "I
+don't believe he's had one scrap of supper. Have a cup of tea; do,
+Magnus. You can't live upon air, man, even in the plural. Here's some I
+brought you myself. Taste it and see how good it is. You like lemon, I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus took the cup from the glittering fingers, expressed his
+thanks, and tasted as he was bid. Then instantly turned and set the
+full cup down on the table, coming back to his place without a word.</p>
+
+<p>A great burst of laughter greeted him. Miss Saucy fairly sank down
+into a chair, and Miss Newcomb and a half-dozen more clapped hands with
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>"What is all this?" said Mrs. Bright sternly; the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+screaming style was not to her taste, and she had caught the sudden
+flush and gleam on the face of Charlemagne Kindred. "What is all this,
+girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rum," Magnus said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't!" cried Miss Saucy; "it was good, honest tea, Mrs.
+Bright."</p>
+
+<p>"With dishonest seasoning."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a very unladylike trick," said Mrs. Bright. "Girls, I am
+extremely astonished at you. Rum in tea? Why, I never heard of such a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aunty," cried Miss Freak, with her hands on her sides, "there's
+lots of things you never heard of!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am glad I have heard of <i>you</i>!" said Mrs. Bright, giving
+Magnus a good grip of her hand. "Glad I have heard you, too. And now I
+must go."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lane, who had been a keen looker-on at all this, came up a
+little closer.</p>
+
+<p>"How does it work?" she said softly. "You know I warned you those
+old rules would get in your way."</p>
+
+<p>"They have not yet," said Magnus. "I am all standing, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see; straighter than ever. It's a great thing to have 'views,'"
+said Miss Lane, with a laugh. "When they materialise like yours."</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes the air was full of "See you at the New Year's
+Hop"&mdash;"Take you to the Hundredth Night"&mdash;"Come for
+first-class camp." Then the company separated, the lights went out, and
+the punch bowl was left to its own reflections.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>XLIII<br />
+THE HUNDREDTH NIGHT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will leave West Point retreats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will walk the city streets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will wear their suits of cits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, who will boast of spooning fits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who'll lose their cents but not their wits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred days to come?<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<i>West Point Howitzer of '93.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The January examination that year came on and went off, bearing
+with it but few wrecks. One or two hard-working men who were cut out
+for lines of life where mathematics counted less; with two or three
+careless ones who coveted lines where there was no work at all. And now
+in everybody's mind the cold days and hard studies ranged themselves
+in a shortening vista, with June at the end. June! the short word
+for first-class camp, furlough, yearling camp, and graduation. While
+to Charlemagne Kindred and many another, was added in the thought of
+friends at home who had promised to grace June with their presence.
+Some men talked about this, but he never did&mdash;at least, not in
+full. To his roommate he did sometimes speak of his mother and her
+coming, but not of his sisters; never of Cherry. No one knew that she
+existed, except the men who had been there, and they had been very much
+thrown off to the other girls even then. And as Magnus was extremely
+popular at West Point, there were always girls at hand to suggest
+unlimited chaffing, without crossing the continent to find occasion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+thereto. Letters came and went in troops, of course, but so they did
+for other men. Three girls he never heard of wrote to Magnus, desiring
+a correspondence, and he turned the letters over to Mr. Trent, who had
+quite a lively time. Thus, one way and another, the weeks swung on,
+and Washington's birthday was close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter
+morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm
+exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the fourth classman
+detailed to announce the date might have been chaired and borne back to
+barracks on the shoulders of the crowd, had such doings been allowed
+at the Academy. As things were, however, all that could be given him
+was the further privilege of announcing next morning, that the days had
+dwindled to ninety nine.</p>
+
+<p>But just in here came the Hundredth Night extravaganza; like
+Hallowe'en, or the Carnival, or any other special occasion when wits
+run wild.</p>
+
+<p>If I should try to give you the details of any one particular
+Hundredth Night frolic, I might either make anomalous blunders or else
+mark out and specify some one special year, and so date my story. Let
+me rather, then, give a chance medley from many celebrations, of things
+that were done&mdash;or might have been done&mdash;only vouching for
+the general truth of its details.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Magnus Kindred was in the forefront of everything, with
+his untiring energy, fine voice, and ready wit; and no beavers could
+have worked harder over a winter house, than these men over one winter
+frolic. Plans, dresses, scenery, jokes, and poems, with here and there
+an elaborate mock-machine; what patience, what perseverance, what
+endless fertile wits, they did display. Every Saturday afternoon, every
+minute of release from quarters, went into the work. Ladies were called
+upon for hints<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+and materials; good-natured officers gave their accoutrements and their
+advice. The very professors lent their coats to the wicked boys who
+were preparing to "skin" their benefactors, in the only way possible to
+cadets.</p>
+
+<p>For the men in grey may not argue, remonstrate, or petition; may
+not even ask why. "Theirs but to do and die," as they themselves would
+put it; until the Colour Line comes round, or the Hundredth Night.
+Then, twice in the year, they are allowed to state their opinions,
+grievances, and desires, though still within certain limits. Woe be to
+the man who ventures to disagree with his instructor in the section
+room; but at the Hundredth night he may make what fun of him he
+can&mdash;within limits.</p>
+
+<p>Of late, however, the censorship over these frolics has been so
+strict that they are shorn of their old glory. The wild garden effect
+has changed into more "correct" growths, well trained and trimmed: less
+distinctive, less individual. Wits will not play without space to play
+in. But in those times of which I write, it seems to have been thought
+that steam pent up was more dangerous than the same blown off; and that
+the quips and jibes and flings, so dear to cadet hearts, were most
+innocuous when well shaken up and aired twice a year.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet rebukes rarely miss the mark through being wrapped in too much
+cotton. But if a few cuts and scratches follow they are not deep, and
+the surrounding fun half heals them. I defy anybody to look grave, when
+that grey house "comes down" in a roar of merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, many of the jokes are so local and technical that a
+stranger would be puzzled. West Point affairs, personal hits at cadets,
+or memories of the section room, figure largely. But whether you
+understand or not, you have to laugh, just for the rollicking joy that
+goes on behind you.
+
+The jolly storm of applause sweeps you helplessly along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+There are years when you go to the Hundredth Night between snowbanks
+as high as yourself, and along slippery white paths; there are others
+when the hills are clouded, and the mist hangs low, and the gas lights
+twinkle and peer through a grey veil. There are still others when air
+and hills and sky are at the brightest and bonniest, with a clear,
+hard, brown earth; and you cross the plain amid a glory of contesting
+lights:&mdash;gas round the quarters; a young moon dipping her lovely
+crescent behind the hill; Newburgh's electric lights winking and
+blinking like live things, from ten miles away; and close before you,
+the whole front of barracks in a blaze of lit-up rooms. It is so fair,
+so weird, that you can only look and look, back and forth, from side to
+side.</p>
+
+<p>As you gaze and loiter, small parties pass you on the way: people
+intent upon other effects than those of light and shadow. Generally a
+cadet with a girl&mdash;or two girls; with sometimes a chaperon, and
+sometimes not. But remember that every West Point cadet is held to be a
+knight <i>par excellence</i>; a gentleman all through; and so, by long usage
+and experience, judged to be a fit and sufficient escort on every such
+occasion. It is the regular thing.</p>
+
+<p>And then when the figures flit by you side by side or arm in arm;
+pink and grey, or grey and yellow, or, as now, furs and cadet cloth,
+all your comment is for the pretty combination. And when some solitary
+greatcoat goes speeding along to meet an appointment at the Hotel
+or the houses, you instantly hope that the girl will not keep him
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>For the minutes are running on; and whoever wants a good
+seat&mdash;or a seat at all&mdash;had better not delay.</p>
+
+<p>There is a grey throng about the steps of the old Mess Hall, and
+girls in quantity.</p>
+
+<p>They press up the stone steps, and pour into the hall, pretty and
+flushed, proud and sufficient. Officers with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+their families join in, and now and then a distinguished stranger;
+and these fill up the front seats. Then come civilians, visitors, and
+their escorts. Behind the curtain mysterious sounds of tools at work
+tell of preparations not quite complete. There is music, a pause, and
+more music; and then from behind the curtain a tall, grey figure steps
+gravely forth, bows low to the audience, and begins the regulation
+Hundredth Night address. It is the president of the first class.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever makes the speech, and whatever else he puts in it, the
+refrain is always:</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>I think I never knew but one exception; and I missed the old words
+then; but this night they were in full force. Yet the speech was in
+some ways as unlike most others as he himself was different from many
+men. Strong, tall, square shouldered, both mentally and physically,
+Cadet Trueman no more thought of turning a stone wall, or dodging a
+river, than if they had been pebbles and rivulets. Which way he ought
+to go, that way he went; the only sort of a steeplechase in which no
+man comes to grief. Not a brilliant man, but a diligent; "hard work and
+hard praying" had brought him nobly through. Trueman stood high, wore
+high chevrons, and knew less (experimentally) of the area of barracks
+than any man in his class. No ladies' man, as you might guess; although
+the chevrons, or something, won him many admiring looks. But if ever
+you met Mr. Trueman meandering round Flirtation with a girl, you might
+be sure it was a case of philanthropy, pure and simple, and that the
+damsel was on his hands by no volition of his own. And he never asked
+for the further favour of a walk after chapel, or on O. G. P. He always
+acquitted himself well on such occasions, but that was the last of it;
+and he joyfully slid back among the bachelors again. And now, as he
+came forward and bowed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+expectant throng, no thought of any&mdash;or all&mdash;the bright eyes
+in the room made his pulse one throb the quicker. He had stir enough,
+in the mere heading of his speech:</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" whispered a stylish new girl for whom Magnus Kindred
+played cavalier.</p>
+
+<p>"Fort Put. In moments of deepest affection, 'Old Put.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd you cadets always are! Wherefore do you call him
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only thing in the neighbourhood like him. Crownest is a trifle
+large for even his inches."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked indignant, as if she thought Magnus was fooling her;
+but then the speech began.</p>
+
+<p>Happy for you, perhaps, that no complete copy has come to my hands;
+you are spared the danger of being even asked to read it. But the
+last sentences so fixed themselves in Magnus Kindred's mind that he
+sent them off to Cherry next day, word for word. And of course I have
+unlimited control of the correspondence. "Ladies and Gentlemen" figured
+politely in the opening words, but Cadet True soon forgot them; looking
+clean across the gay flower garden in front to the grey mass behind:
+the vivid, eager, forceful lives hid away beneath those trim dress
+coats.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred days to June! To freedom, to power, to Life! Men
+of 18&mdash;, shall your freedom be liberty or license? your power
+sworn in for good, or for evil? Shall life be a failure&mdash;or a
+success? The names that rank highest to-day, will they keep their proud
+position? The names that stand lower, will they show the world what
+they could have done here, but for Wave Motion and Spanish?"</p>
+
+<p>And now Mr. Trueman had to pause, for this mention of their dire
+enemies brought the grey house down.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be&mdash;it can be, if you will," he went on. "Every
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+man has it in him to do royal work. 'The people that know their God
+shall be strong, and do exploits.'</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fight the fight, Christian!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Jesus is o'er thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Run the race, Christian!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heaven is before thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee from the love of Christ<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nothing shall sever:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mount when thy work is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Praise him forever."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The grey figure bowed and disappeared behind the curtain amid great
+cheering.</p>
+
+<p>"Good for you, Old Put!" cried Magnus heartily. "You see," he
+explained to his companion, "True's just the same (or a trifle better)
+in barracks than he is at prayer-meeting. That's how he won his name.
+Nothing but treachery could have put the old fort in the hands of the
+enemy,&mdash;and that failed. I believe," said Mr. Kindred, turning
+bright eyes on his companion, "that if Arnold had carried out his plan,
+the rocks on the hillside would have risen up and fought back the
+invaders."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cray looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very patriotic, aren't you, Mr. Kindred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," Magnus answered with dry emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been abroad so long," said the pretty girl, "I get puzzled. I
+do know about Arnold. There's his tablet in the chapel, you know. But
+who were Grant and Sherman, anyway? Didn't they figure in the last war,
+somehow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some people thought they did," said Cadet Kindred, with a face that
+had no expression whatever. And then, happily, the curtain drew up.</p>
+
+<p>But how shall I give any idea of the performance to one who has
+never seen the like? Hits at officers, burlesques of unpopular orders,
+take-offs of the girls, with jibes and chaff at each other that would
+have made anybody but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>
+cadets just savage. Being cadets, they caught the fun, stood the jeers,
+and laughed&mdash;roared&mdash;till the Mess Hall rang.</p>
+
+<p>With all this, songs&mdash;often very good; or a charming bit of
+"silent manual"; and scenes and situations sometimes true, always
+possible, and very droll. Then some mock machinery that one wondered
+how they ever found time to make; unheard-of problems and discoveries
+worked out in most ingenious ways, with just enough flavour of this or
+that instructor's style to "adorn the tale"&mdash;whether any moral
+came in or not.</p>
+
+<p>Enter a donkey, carefully compounded of four plebs within&mdash;and
+I cannot guess what without. Ears and tail of the proper length,
+hide of the proper colour. He is slightly jerky and uncertain about
+his first coming in; but that is all in keeping for a descendant of
+the donkey "what wouldn't go"; and there is no hitch whatever in the
+performance. I believe one of the legs fainted as time went on; but the
+little beast (I mean the donkey), being skilfully pulled by the tail,
+beat a masterly retreat upon the other three.</p>
+
+<p>A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon
+sketches of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams,
+and first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the
+other, with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of
+glowing praise and liking&mdash;and lo! there stands before you the
+life-size "counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly
+enlarged by the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the
+men cheer! They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes,
+but they love him none the less.</p>
+
+<p>Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming
+daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come
+flirting and fanning, bridling and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+prinking, in a way to instruct some <i>bona fide</i> girls. The butterfly
+poise of these airy damsels is quite admirable, and could only have
+been won by long and careful study of the originals.</p>
+
+<p>A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a
+tail&mdash;longer than the donkey's.</p>
+
+<p>There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post;
+whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith
+not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner
+away, the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands
+unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to
+the old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in
+place at West Point,&mdash;and no one was caught. It was told, <i>sub
+rosa</i>, and with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The
+dog has been painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the
+chief culprit first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all
+this had passed, and the dog was himself again.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and
+helmeted, went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when
+suddenly from behind the scenes slid in the dog&mdash;the paint stripes
+in order as they had been before, and the medallion on its side with
+the number of its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded
+little body gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin.</p>
+
+<p>Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the
+cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly
+saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical
+department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog
+was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons.
+But words cannot give the utter drollery of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>
+the thing, nor tell the perfect way in which it was carried
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Then came more music, and the reading of the <i>Howitzer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A cadet <i>Howitzer</i> is a small, wholly original newspaper, full of
+everything in general; grinds, burlesques, sharp hints and comments,
+with bits of ridiculous fact as well; free as air, and sometimes as
+breezy. Verses to the cadet girl, verses <i>at</i> her, as well as touching
+the stringent professor, and the unpopular drill. Grievances painted in
+high colours, and jokes about cadets that are as merciless as they are
+many.</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Riding hall.</p>
+
+<p>Lieut. B.: "Mr. H., let go that horse's mane, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Cadet H. "I&mdash;I&mdash;I'm afraid he'll fall down if I do,
+Lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is T. like necessity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he knows no Law."</p>
+
+<p>"A first-class horse&mdash;the Spanish pony."</p>
+
+<p>"Mabel, what became of that West Pointer you were engaged to?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, he turned out to be a disappointer."</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Section room.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet L.: "Stucco is made by mixing gypsum with a large
+solution."</p>
+
+<p>Instructor: "Large solution of what?"</p>
+
+<p>Cadet: "The text does not state, sir. It just says it is mixed with
+a solution of size."</p>
+
+<p>Scene: Section room.</p>
+
+<p>Professor: "Now, gentlemen, the Indians made signs of natural
+and living objects their language. For instance, if they wished to
+represent the Little Horn River they drew a little horn; and if they
+wished to represent the Big Horn River, they drew a big horn."</p>
+
+<p>Cadet C.: "Professor, how did they represent the Little Big
+Horn?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+Such, and such like, keen-worded trifles; a line, or a page long;
+often very bright, seldom complimentary, but always most impartial in
+their bestowal of hits.</p>
+
+<p>Miranda: "I think Mr. W. is the most absent-minded cadet I know."</p>
+
+<p>Jenny: "How so, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were
+just sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"</p>
+
+<p>"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of
+Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on
+'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"</p>
+
+<p>So goes the <i>Howitzer</i>; and the audience are kindly told that at the
+end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass
+in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a
+day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."</p>
+
+<p>I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the
+saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold
+black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one
+laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the
+local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much
+explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his
+boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe
+urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last
+letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess
+what sort of hands will open the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well
+made-up damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed
+presently by a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering
+anxiously from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too
+disappears.</p>
+
+<p>The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+the scene. He also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this
+way."</p>
+
+<p>Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly
+assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written
+all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as
+he dives in among the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy
+amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old
+Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents
+pertaining thereto, laughable enough.</p>
+
+<p>But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is
+Saturday night.</p>
+
+<p>The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the
+gay company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is
+over.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>XLIV<br />
+PRESSING ON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I work with fury and delight, because I must get on, and I do get
+on. &mdash;<span class="smcap">Baron Bunsen.</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Morning by morning now the shortening roll of
+days makes part of the cadet breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-nine days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-eight days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-seven days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>And all listen, and every heart takes a lighter bound. Ask any man,
+from now on, what is the news, and the odds are that you will get for
+answer:</p>
+
+<p>"Ninety-six days to June!"&mdash;or forty-six, as the case may be. I
+had a note once from a cadet, dated:</p>
+
+<p>"Barracks. Sixty-four days to June!"</p>
+
+<p>But then he forgot to sign his name. That did not matter.
+<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>It is a strong pull, each man for himself, for the next three
+months; a sort of individual "tug of war." I think Magnus had never
+worked so hard in all the time he had been at West Point. Perhaps
+chemistry and wave motion had something to do with this, for our hero
+was no genius. Nothing but honest work carried him on. Higher thoughts
+than of rank lit up the musty pages, and made music for the dull
+company drills. Truly he was not unmindful of the charms of an engineer
+post for Cherry; but several born mathematicians stood between him and
+any hope of that. Yet all he <i>could</i> do, he would. The honour of the
+Christian name, no less than Cherry's sweet life, was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
+in his trust, to dim or to brighten; and no man should ever adorn the
+tale with the name of Charlemagne Kindred, when saying that religion
+spoiled men, and should be left to women and children.</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus had his own secret joy over every high mark. Never had he
+enjoyed "maxing it," as he did that winter, and never had he done it so
+often.</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago, when the graduating class received their Bibles,
+and Dr. Wm. M. Taylor made the presentation address, he bade every man
+cull from his morning reading&mdash;no matter how brief it was&mdash;a
+sort of rose-in-the-buttonhole word for the day. Something like that
+our young cadet had learned to do. Nothing had hindered his daily
+reading since furlough, hard as it seemed to spare the minutes, some
+days, when work was unusually pressing. But perhaps that very pressure
+taught him to dive right into the meaning of what he read; catch up
+a message, and bear it away. Now a promise, now a precept, now a
+prayer; a breath of joyous hope, a gleam of unearthly glory. That real
+rose-in-the-buttonhole which dress coats and blouses may never wear,
+would have drooped in the drill, fainted in the section room, and been
+lost in the tan bark. But it seemed to Magnus as if his invisible
+blooms grew only fairer as the day went on. The fragrance was royal, as
+it came and went in such variety.</p>
+
+<p>"Hopeth all things, endureth all things."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto
+men."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me."&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Nobody knew all this; few people read the signs; though they did
+note the high marks, and could say that "Kindred" (in his own way) was
+the gayest man in barracks. But I fear they deemed him a crank, all the
+same. Rig would look up at the clatter caused by "Analytical Mechanics,"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+as it struck the corner of the room; and then see Magnus with
+an odd smile on his face make a rush for the obnoxious volume, and
+plunge into it again with all his might. "Studying like mad," as his
+easy-going comrade phrased it; but Magnus only called it "heartily."</p>
+
+<p>Or in the section room, with his wits gone a wool gathering, and his
+ideas in May-day confusion; every thought he had, tangled up with those
+last letters from home; desperately tempted to "bugle it," and let some
+other man bear the brunt; then the sweet "royal law" he was wearing
+that day gave its counsel, and braced him at once to do the right
+thing. He would answer, ready or unready, when his turn came. No man
+stumbled or doubted the truth of religion, because of any section-room
+meanness or selfishness on the part of Charlemagne Kindred.</p>
+
+<p>And so an unwelcome order, from perhaps a disagreeable man, turned
+round in the wind and came first (for him) as the Lord's command. "Obey
+them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." You will
+easily guess that Cadet Kindred remained high in discipline.</p>
+
+<p>And later on, first in studies also? No, by no means. Willet's Point
+never showed its head on the horizon; the leaders in the class were not
+men to be dislodged. And some studies came hard. Then (and now perhaps
+it is well I am far away from some of my friends) Cadet Kindred would
+have nothing to do with "ponies." Those seductive little frauds looked
+just as enticing, maybe, to him as to other men; but common sense and
+loyalty made him let them alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Common sense&mdash;for what am I here for," he answered Rig one
+day, "but to tread the paths of learning? And that does not mean going
+pony-back."</p>
+
+<p>"You can sort of line out the ground, you know," Rig said; "and then
+wear out your shoes all you want to at San Carlos."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+San Carlos! What visions came with the name. For a moment Rig's face
+showed through a golden haze.</p>
+
+<p>"But besides," Magnus went on, bringing his thoughts back, "it's not
+doing things 'heartily.' The Lord gave me this appointment to make just
+the most out of it I could. I cannot look up to Him from a 'pony,' and
+say I have learned my lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Bible says, He always helps those that help themselves,"
+remarked Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it doesn't; not the first word. You have borrowed some man's
+'pony' for that. It says 'Fear not, for I will help thee,'&mdash;"
+and Magnus plunged into his lesson again. The Divine strength that
+is trusted in, is a wonderful power; and Cadet Kindred pushed on and
+pushed up, every now and then took some other man's scalp, and never
+lost his own.</p>
+
+<p>And he found the Sunday rest a great thing. Broken in upon, indeed,
+by a guard-mounting and parade; by police calls, inspection, and now
+and then guard duty; but between whiles full of quiet time to think.</p>
+
+<p>It was such a pleasure to pile up the study books Saturday night,
+and leave the dark mass untouched till Monday morning. It took
+faith&mdash;a good deal&mdash;in some crises of work, but it paid well.
+The free time was so good. Not hours snatched unlawfully, but taken of
+right, according to that most wise and blessed law of the Lord: "In it
+thou shalt not do any work."</p>
+
+<p>In fine weather Magnus kept himself much out of doors, letting the
+dust of the week clear all away from eyes and heart and brain, till the
+balance of things, so often confused in the weekday rush, swung steady
+and true once more.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you do it, Kin," said Randolph one day. "Do you run
+a light after taps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," said Magnus. "I study all I can Saturday, and as early as I
+can Monday morning."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>
+"Always ready for eight o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not say the details are always just as clear as
+they were on Saturday, but then my head is so much
+clearer. I get along, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should say you did!" commented Rig. "Maxing
+it every blessed day last week."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>XLV<br />
+NOTHING SERIOUS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Conversed as they sat on the green.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alonzo the brave was the name of this knight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The damsel, the fair Imogene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lewis.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>One of the mild amusements of this spring for Magnus was watching
+Rig. For Mr. McLean had fallen in love. Not deeply, for that implies
+certain other depths&mdash;or hopelessly, for there was every
+likelihood that he would get out again all safe; but unmanageably.
+Unutterably, Rig called it, and Magnus unendurably.</p>
+
+<p>So the young man mooned over photographs, sported (in his room) an
+end of pink riband; tumbled his hair all he could, and went down in
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rig!" Magnus admonished him one night, "keep out of the
+'immortals,' whatever else you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot do much of anything," Rig answered mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd try, if I died in the effort," said Magnus. "Bone
+chevrons; your charmer has a quick eye for them."</p>
+
+<p>"She has a quick eye for everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Wearing bell buttons." But Rig did not heed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Confess, Kin, you never saw such eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Only about five hundred and forty times, when I used to go
+cat-fishing. Ever notice catfish eyes, Rig?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're so blue!" said Cadet McLean. "So deeply,
+darkly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't shut up," Magnus shouted at him, "I'll
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+try if I can't shake some sense into you. Quit sighing like a furnace.
+You nearly blew the gas out."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can't expect you to understand," said Rig. "You live
+only in books, far away from all this sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, this sort," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, my heart is larger than my head," said Mr. McLean. "Always
+was."</p>
+
+<p>But now Magnus threw down his book, and pitched into his friend
+very literally; pounding him, hustling him, getting him into a real
+fisticuff fight to protect himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel better, don't you?" said Mr. Kindred, when the two faced each
+other, flushed and panting. "Balance of power restored?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how I feel!" said McLean. "I've lost all my ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't advertise them at any high figure," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let 'em alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And they will come home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With their little tails behind 'em.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Sit down and study, like a reasonable being. If I were a woman, I
+wouldn't <i>look</i> at a man who couldn't hold his head up when my back was
+turned."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite impossible for me to look at a book," said Rig.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good; sit still and sigh, and I'll write your explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom? What about?" Rig sat up now and gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Prof. To-morrow. As follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'Sir: I have the honour to state that I have fallen into a six-inch
+mud puddle, and cannot get out in time for recitation. So wave motion
+must wait.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" McLean said rather angrily.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+"Stuff, and nothing but stuff. Rig, when you get fired in June,
+your dear devoted will not turn her head to see which way you go to
+take the train. Not much!" said Magnus, relieving his feelings with a
+bit of slang, and then diving into his own problems for the next day.
+And Rig could get neither word nor look more that night. But whatever
+traditions may say, unlimited chocolate creams do not help a man with
+his tactics; nor does plum cake after taps provide him a clear head for
+next day's wave motion.</p>
+
+<p>"You could make better marks, Mr. McLean," said the Superintendent
+one day, meeting Rig. "Why don't you, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>And if Rig had been openly honest, he would have answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Love&mdash;and mince pie, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus scolded his friend, fought him, jeered him; then tried other
+measures.</p>
+
+<p>The days were softening and lengthening, with grass and flowers on
+the jump. Visitors were arriving in numbers; and for Magnus had come,
+from away across the continent, a bunch of snowdrops in Cherry's last
+letter. Somehow his own great happiness made the young cadet anxious
+for his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Trent," he said one day to another classmate, "can't you
+pitch in and spoon that Curry girl? Rig will be ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"Spoon her yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't time. One more will make no difference to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. Rig will put a bullet in my head, if he suspects."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your brain always did need fresh air," said Magnus, "so that
+will fit. Why, to-day, in the section room, Hammer asked him the colour
+of old red sandstone,&mdash;and Rig answered:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>
+"'Blue, Lieutenant.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Trent. "But isn't this rather a queer
+business to be talked up by our high and mighty magnate of the tender
+conscience? The man who keels over at the mere sight of a 'pony.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! if it was some girls," said Magnus. "But it will
+make no difference to her either. You've both worn your hearts
+out&mdash;supposing you ever had any."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks&mdash;awfully! And you think Miss Curry might be induced
+to hand over 'those fossil remains that she terms her affections' to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"To your temporary care. You wear chevrons," said Magnus. "And your
+affections are as fossilised as hers, allowing for the argument's sake
+that such things ever existed. Just stroll up on the other side, when
+Rig's around. She'll be delighted. And as neither of you could possibly
+fall in love with anybody, there'll be nobody hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"Except Rig."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig!" Magnus said impatiently. "Rig ought to be cut in little
+pieces and sewed up some other way."</p>
+
+<p>"Kin," said Mr. Trent, striking an easy attitude across the back of
+a chair, "you amuse me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, clear out and amuse yourself," said Magnus. "I've got a
+previous with this old book. And if Catkins finds you here, you'll be
+skinned for all he is worth."</p>
+
+<p>Which warning Mr. Trent saw fit to heed.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI"></a>XLVI<br />
+TRYING LETTERS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Though there's always enough to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">There is always something to do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We have never to seek for care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When we have the world to get through.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Charles Swain.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But whoever succeeded in driving the moth away from the candle?
+Magnus was fain to content himself with remembering that on most singed
+human moths, wings grow anew very fast.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Curry welcomed Mr. Trent's advances with a gracious smile, but
+she by no means let go her hold of Rig; and Rig had perfectly lost
+his head. The girl might flout him five times a day, and these cool
+applications did but heighten the fever.</p>
+
+<p>From the middle of April on, there was pretty steady "cadet
+weather." Whatever the dawn may threaten, it always clears off in time
+for drill, except on Saturdays, when the order is reversed, and the
+rain sets in with double force just as the hours of freedom begin.</p>
+
+<p>Rain did not hinder some men. Magnus rather enjoyed wrapping himself
+in his long grey coat and stalking off into the gloom and the fog.
+The hills were so lovely in their misty caps, the air so laden with
+spring sweets: spice bush and trillium, black birch and dogwood and
+azalia, and all the leaf buds just bursting their varnished sheath. How
+fragrant the pines were! and the cedars and hemlocks: how dainty the
+small clouds of wayfaring birds just come to spend the night. And in
+another month <i>his</i> birds of passage would be here, and the air full of
+their voices.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+Sometimes when Magnus thought of it, the excitement half made him
+wild; and he would set off for a sharp run up the hill, or a one-sided
+leap-frog among the rocks. Then he would throw himself down on the moss
+and hold his head and think. Or he took a squirrel track to the top of
+a tall tree and shouted (not too loud) and waved his cap to the passing
+trains, and saluted the old flag.</p>
+
+<p>The Point filled up fast with candidates; and as Magnus looked at
+them, he did not much wonder at the glances which had once been cast on
+him. He found a slight touch of contempt the easiest thing in the world
+to creep in. A host of these sombre drones seeking something to do, a
+swarm of gay butterflies demanding only honey; what a motley crowd it
+made.</p>
+
+<p>Even Magnus was drawn in by the honey-seekers; and took Miss Freak
+a walk after trailing arbutus, because she asked him so sweetly;
+and indeed himself asked some other girls to go here or there. And,
+of course, being a cadet, he said pretty things and made himself
+agreeable, though never beyond certain limits (N. B. I do not mean
+cadet limits, this time). As Miss Freak said, with her charming
+frankness:</p>
+
+<p>"He never gives you anything to think of at night, when you get your
+back hair down."</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of that small drawback, Mr. Kindred had his full share
+of what Mr. Clinker facetiously termed "drilling the Light Battery."</p>
+
+<p>Some very pleasant and sensible girls came to the Point that spring;
+and in the great longing for sweeter tones than those of the average
+cadet, Magnus was ready enough to make acquaintance and take walks. And
+the girl generally declared: "It has been most delightful." Only when
+one gauzy creature looked up at him and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it strange? You know I've always wanted to live at an army
+post&mdash;but I'm not engaged yet,"&mdash;then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+Cadet Kindred grew silent, and as soon as possible resigned in favour
+of Mr. Clinker.</p>
+
+<p>So the hope-gilded days flew on: but with the end of May came a
+check.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus got back from a long walk, to find two letters on his table.
+I know it is the correct thing for hero and heroine to "tear open"
+their letters, but Magnus cut his as carefully as if the very envelope
+might hold its quota of words.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Magnus," so the clear handwriting began, "I am
+afraid&mdash;no, I suppose I hope&mdash;that you will be very sorry.
+For I cannot go East with Mrs. Kindred and the girls."</p>
+
+<p>And here, truth compels me to say, Cadet Kindred threw down
+the letter, and stamped about the room in a small tempest of
+displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" queried Rig, who had noted the postmark. "Hasn't gone
+back on you, has she?"</p>
+
+<p>For which harmless suggestion, Magnus promptly tumbled the offender
+out of his chair, and left him to pick himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"I say! Steady on that, you know," commented Mr. McLean. "Girls are
+plenty; but where will you find a friend like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was a beastly insinuation!" said Magnus in hot wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it? Girls are all alike, old boy." And Rig heaved a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"They're not! And this isn't what you mean by a girl. It's
+a&mdash;a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An angel, perhaps," said Rig. "Then allow me to inquire what
+business you have to be rattled, with anything an angel sees fit to
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"Rig," said Magnus seriously, pausing before him, "do you know
+whereabouts we are in barracks?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+"Second floor, first div.," Rig answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can have a chance to measure the breadth of the window,
+and the depth to the ground, just as soon as you want it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, I'm sure," said Mr. McLean. "At this moment, I am hard at
+work on the problem of your temper, minus your common sense. What does
+the letter say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know yet," said Magnus. "I've only read three lines."</p>
+
+<p>Rig looked at him, and then gathering up his own books, he carried
+them over to the cold steam pipes, laid them down, and perched himself
+at one end.</p>
+
+<p>"You must excuse me," he said; "you are so plainly insane, that a
+due regard to my personal safety brings about this temporary coolness.
+'Distance lends enchantment'&mdash;but you are more irresistible near
+by."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus flung back into his chair again, with a half groan, and took
+up the letter. If it had been release from quarters he would have gone
+to Fort Put for the reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of
+reading on? She will not&mdash;and that's just where it is." And yet he
+read.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey;
+and I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'&mdash;but I cannot, Magnus.
+Not this year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the
+girls are to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all
+to me; and maybe when you graduate we can all be there."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk
+of anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are
+fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each
+other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought
+over and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always pick you out
+from all the three hundred. Good-bye.&mdash;Your Cherry."</p>
+
+<p>It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his
+disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board
+of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.</p>
+
+<p>"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one
+day. "Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say
+that when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes
+must find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly
+be.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush
+at everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his
+scholarship.</p>
+
+<p>So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on
+the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him;
+won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.</p>
+
+<p>But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after
+Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition
+to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay
+with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I live
+till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,&mdash;and two such
+journeys cost."</p>
+
+<p>Magnus sat back in great gloom, and declared that June was "fizzling
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the next word will be that Viola and Rose have some sort
+of a previous at the North Pole," he said.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII"></a>XLVII<br />
+MRS. CONGRESSMAN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Pure was her mind and simple her intent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Good all she sought and kindness all she meant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Crabbe.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But no such climax followed. The girls wrote that they were to leave
+home on such a day, in charge of the wife of that very Congressman who
+had given Magnus his appointment. A true woman of the world in some
+things, but kindly, and not wanting in sense and tact. People said she
+liked uniforms herself, and was glad of a train of girls because it
+drew on a train of cadets. But neither thing was so very exceptional
+and unheard of that people needed to be hard on her. And she chose her
+girls well; always, if she could, some hid-away damsel whose one chance
+of getting to the Point this might be. And now, when the boy owed his
+place to her husband's good offices, it was her delight to take his
+sisters. The one stipulation was that she should have her own way about
+the bills.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have a clear mind," she said, "and stop when I choose, and
+where I choose, or the trip won't be a speck of good. It's nobody's
+business how I manage my affairs, and you chits needn't strike in to be
+the first."</p>
+
+<p>So in this lady's ample care Rose and Violet made the long journey,
+and enjoyed every scrap of it. The meals in the dining car, and (I'm
+afraid) the bunks in the so-called sleeper; even the small delays, for
+then they could look out to better advantage; and Mrs. Congressman
+voted them the two best girls she had ever taken anywhere. "Always
+ready for breakfast," she said, "and always willing to wait. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+was as good as music to hear them laugh when we had to switch off on
+the side track, or when folks jammed past them to dinner; it sweetened
+the whole car; curled everybody's feathers...."</p>
+
+<p>It was true, and I think would have been, even on a journey not into
+"Fairyland," though of course that helped. But the two were very quiet
+in their eager looking; the laugh and the exclamation were low-toned
+and well-bred. They asked sensible questions, and not too many even
+of them. Only when they got talking of Magnus, then indeed, the
+words came, with such sparkles and dimples and exultation, that Mrs.
+Congressman began to think her husband had done a bright thing for the
+country, when he gave that young soldier his place. But no one else in
+the car found out that they had a brother at West Point, and were on
+their way to see him; nor that their escort was the wife of an Hon. M.
+C.; such cheap fame our two girls had not learned to seek.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it was a delightful little party that after some hours of
+rest, and a late breakfast, bestowed themselves in a palace car of the
+11.30 train, and went swaying and swinging up the river.</p>
+
+<p>People may say they have seen the Hudson, but never before as it
+is to-day, or as it will be to-morrow. The tide, the wind, the time
+of year, the temperature, the magnetic conditions, join hands in an
+endless chain of new effects. With a blue sky it is one thing, and will
+change its complexion on the instant, with the shadow of a passing
+cloud. To-day, in a frolic of white caps racing down before the north
+wind, and to-morrow rolling up in dull leaden surges, with a southern
+Banshee at its back. Now lapping the shore with sweetest whispers, now
+decked with a fringe of winter ice. Then frozen over from shore to
+shore, fitting in among the hills like an accurately cut sheet of white
+paper. But living, even then, with mysterious cracks and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+reports, with little plashes, where the tide breaks out along the
+edge.</p>
+
+<p>It was May yet, with the lilac storm just past, and the river
+in full flood, tossed and heaving from the strain of the east
+wind. The green of the hills&mdash;the endless shades of the young
+leafage&mdash;seemed almost to change while you looked. The girls grew
+too breathless to talk even about Magnus, and to the hackneyed eyes
+of Mrs. Congressman, there was positive refreshment in the way those
+two arm-chairs whirled on their pivots, for last glimpses and new
+effects.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girls, I wish my neck had the untirable quality of yours,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired&mdash;how could one be tired?" said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just
+see that vessel with her sails swung out each side. That must be what
+Cooper means by 'wing and wing.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the wind is stirring up," said Mrs. Congressman; "I'm sure I
+wish it would;" and she plied her fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me fan you!" Rose cried, turning her chair away from the
+entrancing view.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Look out and see all you can. I may be an old goose, but I
+know a little."</p>
+
+<p>"You are just as kind as you can be, Mrs. Ironwood," said Rose
+gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"But allow me to remark, young ladies," said their friend, looking
+amused, "that at West Point there are also some things, and people,
+to look at. So don't get your necks stiff. You must not gaze in one
+direction all the time, there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am. O, Violet, did you hear? The next stop is Garrisons!"
+And the two girls took hold of hands, as if to keep each other
+still.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we're fairly in the Highlands now," said Mrs. Congressman,
+tying her bonnet strings. "Well, children,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+I'm glad you're so happy, and it's a real pleasure to have you along.
+Some girls are just a nuisance at West Point."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope we shall not be a nuisance," Violet said, but looking
+out all the while.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid we shall make a great many mistakes," said Rose,
+studying the rocky green Dunderberg with her heart in her eyes. "You
+know we have just lived at home. Couldn't you tell us now, before we
+get there, how to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bridges for rivers you'll not have to cross," quoth Mrs.
+Congressman, who had imbibed a little of her husband's manner, which
+now and then came out. "No use, child; you never do what you think you
+will. The chief thing at West Point, as everywhere, is to be a lady as
+much as a girl, and that you both are, always."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, ma'am!" Rose said warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one other thing," Mrs. Congressman went on, "that I might
+just remark. No manner of use, but it'll not do any harm. It is only,
+girls, that you must never believe anything cadets tell you."</p>
+
+<p>This brought both chairs round on a sharp pirouette.</p>
+
+<p>"Not anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, you do not mean Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Magnus is all the knights of the round table rolled into one;
+of course he takes in truth among his smaller virtues. The rest do
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought Magnus said truth was one of the very first things
+there!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Official truth. No cadet is allowed to fib officially. So they take
+it out socially."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker kept a perfectly grave face, and the two girls looked
+aghast, felt so, all through the tunnel. But as they ran out in sight
+of Fort Montgomery and the tall outlines that rose up beyond, cadets
+(except Magnus) sunk down into very sublunary things.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, Magnus isn't so," Rose said contentedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+"And we are not likely to see much of other cadets," Violet said,
+pressing close to her window.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congressman watched them for a minute; the graceful heads,
+the fair, well-bred faces; but then she seemed to find something very
+amusing out of her own window, for she smiled to herself till they
+reached Garrisons. There might be several cadets, she thought, who
+would have a word to say to that statement.</p>
+
+<p>If Magnus had scanned the way over and up, because there was nobody
+there, for him, with what a difference the two young sisters watched
+every point where possibly he might be. Silently they followed their
+leader into the old omnibus, and noted every stone, stick, and leaf,
+that decked the road up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>Passing the Mess Hall came a new sensation; for the day was so warm
+that windows and doors stood wide open, and there was not only the
+usual tumult of voices, but also a tangle of heads, arms, and grey
+cloth in view from the omnibus.</p>
+
+<p>"The boys are at dinner," said Mrs. Ironwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, and is Magnus there, too?" cried the girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless he's in the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"In the hospital!"</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to be, if he's not eating his dinner. Might have sprained
+his ankle, dismounting too fast. Might have swallowed too much of Miss
+Somebody's cake."</p>
+
+<p>But both these ideas were summarily dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>"He is in there, of course," Rose said, her eyes full, and her heart
+wafting a blessing to the unseen brother; and with one consent the
+girls kissed their hands to the old grey building.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, children," said Mrs. Congressman as they jolted on, "I must
+tell you one thing. This is all very well, tucked away in the 'bus with
+me; but never do you kiss hands to anybody at West Point, under other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>
+circumstances. There are always cadets lurking round in the bushes, and
+they'll think you mean <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>How the girls laughed! Whether because they had just been so near
+Magnus, or at this image of an ambush of other cadets, or the faint
+spice of danger in the air, or the general culmination; but even the
+quiet Rose came down from her dignity, and the omnibus rattled up to
+the hotel with a chorus of fun inside.</p>
+
+<p>The needs of life are helpful and calming. Washing the dust off
+quiets one down, and prosaic dinner brings back one's sober senses. It
+was an extremely demure pair of girls that followed Mrs. Congressman
+into the dining-room, and gave earnest heed while she ordered dinner,
+surveyed the guests, scolded the waiter, and praised the soup.</p>
+
+<p>"You must eat, girls," she said. "Build yourselves up for what's
+before you. I suppose this is the last quiet minute we shall have to
+ourselves till we go away."</p>
+
+<p>"What is to happen to us?" said Violet merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Walks," said Mrs. Ironwood. "And talks. And stands. I hope you've
+both brought plenty of shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed the stones, as we came along," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Stones! It's the soft going that tells on the shoes, child.
+I brought Mary Gates here one rainy spring, and she finished her
+overshoes in a week, and I had to send her home."</p>
+
+<p>"In a week! Did she dance instead of walking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Danced attendance," said Mrs. Congressman. "I didn't mean to pun,
+girls, but that was the fact. Now I should take you straight off to the
+guard-house to see Magnus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The guard-house?"</p>
+
+<p>"The visitors' room, there, silly! but work begins at two o'clock,
+and we shouldn't find him. So I'll go and get a snooze, and you'd best
+do the same."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+"We could not possibly sleep," said Violet. "We'll sit out on the
+piazza and look."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fine view, whichever way," said Mrs. Ironwood; "but the Land
+of Nod is more to my mind just now. Sit out here, then, or do what you
+like, only don't go off hotel limits. There's no town crier here. And
+call me at a quarter past three. And girls"&mdash;she put her head
+inside the door again&mdash;"whatever you do, don't go down and stand
+at the hotel fence."</p>
+
+<p>The girls listened to the retreating footsteps, but then they looked
+at each other and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"West Point must be an odd place," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"And she is the oddest woman! What ails the hotel fence, any more
+than all other fences?" said Violet. "It looks pretty strong."</p>
+
+<p>However, they obeyed orders, and wandering about a little, as all
+doors stood open, came presently out upon the north piazza and the
+north view.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII"></a>XLVIII<br />
+THE GUARD-HOUSE IN JUNE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">The little birds sang as if it were<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The one day of summer in all the year.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lowell.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I do not know when Mrs. Congressman would have been roused from
+her nap, if the clock on the old tower had not told its tale of the
+passage of time. But when three sonorous notes had sounded, after that
+the girls kept close watch, for soon Magnus would be but a half hour
+away.</p>
+
+<p>They passed round to the west side, and sat watching the hills and
+the plain and the clock, by turns; and it wanted two minutes of the
+quarter when they went in. And Mrs. Ironwood was prompt. She waked up
+at once, donned a fresh gown and an astonishing bonnet; looked her
+girls over critically, to make sure their simple preparations had come
+out all right, then sailed away down the steps and across the plain,
+with her pretty convoy close following.</p>
+
+<p>Late spring everywhere, blue sky and hot sun; a ravishing green
+carpet, and just a stir of such air as breathes nowhere but in the
+Highlands. Gaily dressed women spotted the green, dark-blue officers
+came and went; the bugler at the sallyport handled and toned his
+bugle.</p>
+
+<p>Straight through the sallyport the Western dame led her two
+girls, passing grey coats on the way across the area, and meeting
+others at the guard-house; nodding to one, hailing another, but
+giving no introductions; until after making known her wishes to the
+magnificent officer of the day, she turned to her girls, and presented
+Cadet-Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>
+Trueman. Then panted up the narrow staircase to the visitors' room,
+which was hot, and not magnificent.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/377fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="348" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">PARADE REST IN CAMP</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood and her fan at once absorbed the window, the two girls
+stood shyly behind her; and back and forth before their eyes went the
+slim grey figures in the area. Some who knew Mrs. Ironwood and doffed
+their caps to her gave just a swift second glance at the two new faces.
+For a cadet never stares, or does it so surreptitiously from under his
+visor that nobody knows.</p>
+
+<p>But the minutes seemed long. Mrs. Ironwood's fan plied back and
+forth, the girls stood watching.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes them all look just alike?" said Violet. "I should say
+that man has been across six times already." Mrs. Ironwood laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he has," she said. "You'll bring the chaos to order in a day
+or two. Look very monotonous, don't they? I suppose you'll not even
+know Magnus when he comes."</p>
+
+<p>But a little cry from both the girls answered that. Another grey
+figure came hurrying across the open space, swung his cap high in air
+beneath the window, and came tearing up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>After the first words, Mrs. Ironwood went back to her seat, and left
+them to themselves, interviewing at more length some of her friends
+below; but then she made a move.</p>
+
+<p>"We must get out of here," she said. "There come more bonnets, and
+there'll be more cadets, and we shan't have standing room."</p>
+
+<p>"When the bugle blows," said Magnus. "I can't leave here till four
+o'clock. But it's close on that now."</p>
+
+<p>"And then we can have you all the rest of the afternoon," said
+Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"No, little peach blossom, you cannot. There's a review on hand.
+I'll take you down to the seats. There it goes&mdash;" And the sweet
+four o'clock call rang out in front of barracks,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+repeated then at different points, and answered by soft echoes from the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>The little party made their way out, and down among the old trees
+by the officers' row, where already the seats were filling up. But
+Magnus found them a good place, and himself stood in front; mounting
+guard over his treasures with a joy and pride it was pleasant to see.
+He quite ignored the suggestive looks that came from other men in grey.
+Just now, he wanted his sisters all to himself. And the way they gazed
+at him could not be told.</p>
+
+<p>To see how he knew by instinct when an officer came by; instantly
+whirling around to salute, to note how very often that cap came off to
+some embodiment of fashion and finery, was a great study. For Magnus
+was on tiptoe, and put in all the flourishes the law allowed. Only at
+the sound of the first drum did his exalted state come down.</p>
+
+<p>"That drummer ought to be hung at the sallyport," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is all so pretty," said Rose. "And so in keeping,
+Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know drums," he said. "That call means: 'Charlemagne
+Kindred&mdash;and every other cadet out for a breath of fresh
+air&mdash;walk straight off to barracks.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it?" said Violet. "Then why don't you go? We'll walk over with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit still! Why don't I go?" and Mr. Kindred gave fresh utterance to
+his disdain.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it sounds again," said Rose. "Is that a second invitation to
+'walk'?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; this one says: 'Magnus Kindred&mdash;and every other man who is
+enjoying himself&mdash;run!'"</p>
+
+<p>"O, then, do go, dear!" pleaded the girls. "O, Magnus! <i>do</i> not be
+late. See, those men are running."</p>
+
+<p>But Magnus gave no sort of heed. He bowed to Miss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>
+Newcomb, looked after the speeding grey coats, and remarked calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"Let them run. They want practice." But when the next call sounded,
+Magnus turned.</p>
+
+<p>"That spells," he said: "'Magnus Kindred&mdash;and every other poor
+fellow who doesn't mean to be skinned&mdash;scamper!'" and scamper he
+certainly did. The two girls watched him, breathless and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"There are three ladies right in his way," said Violet. "Oh, I hope
+they'll not stop him!"</p>
+
+<p>But no, indeed; a cadet dodging a "late" is not so easily stopped.
+Magnus knew them, took off his cap to them, spoke some words of
+greeting, but never stayed his pace; and his sisters had the pleasure
+of seeing him dive in through the sallyport before the drum said
+another word. Then they looked at each other and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a boy!" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"But how he did run," said Violet. Then they both were silent with
+intensest interest. For the old grey barracks presently took to itself
+the well-known likeness of a beehive in swarming time, and ignorant
+eyes could as little tell what was going on as the uninitiated can
+guess that the bees are searching for their queen. Hanging round the
+doorways, clustering in front, with new forms all the time pouring out,
+until, like the tin pan of the farmer's wife, that mysterious drum
+brought order, and they settled down in a long, long line upon the
+sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this point, with all the dangerous element in safe bonds,
+Mrs. Ironwood left her girls for a while and went for a chat on one
+of the hospitable porches behind her. Several other people also moved
+away, for a walk or a talk; and the vacant seats were taken by a
+handful of girls just come on the ground, and who, noting the new
+faces, were now in the keen pursuit of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>At first, however, they seemed more eager to give it, talking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>
+fast and loud, and sometimes across the two young
+strangers who were watching every movement on the plain.
+But when the march down from barracks ended in another
+motionless line upon the green, and each girl began to
+pick out her friends and favourites, despite the confusing
+chin-straps, then it was impossible not to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at Mr. True," said one; "he's a mere mathematical line."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd be adorable, if he wasn't such a poke," said another.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd give more to see that man brought to terms!"</p>
+
+<p>"What terms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unconditional surrender. Down on his knees."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Randolph is just behind him," said the first. "And Mr. Crane is
+fourth from the end in B Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Which is Mr. Kindred?" said Rose, turning to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Second man with the cross-belt. Do you know him?" said the young
+lady, much surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I have met him several times."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anybody who knows Magnus Kindred after meeting him 'several
+times,' may go up head," said Miss Saucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a poke, too?" asked Violet, with a grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he's too wicked for that," said Miss Cray.</p>
+
+<p>"Wicked?" said little Miss Wren. "Why, he's one in discipline all
+the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he'd better be two, and have a few grains of civility," said
+Miss Cray. "Absolutely he left me all standing in the middle of the
+plain yesterday, just because that ridiculous drum chose to beat!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that was a very good way to be left," said Rose merrily.
+"Perhaps if you had been all falling, he would have stayed."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine idea to work up!" said another girl, laughing, but Miss Cray
+tossed her head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+"Nobody cared, either way," she said. "How do <i>you</i> know what
+'perhaps' he would have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are both his sisters," said Violet. And for once in her
+life Miss Cray was taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy it!" she said. "Where are you staying?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"We are at Cranston's. Who is your chaperon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ironwood."</p>
+
+<p>Which was better care than Miss Cray herself could boast, and so the
+force of circumstances dealt another blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't serve me out too large a slice of humble pie," she
+said. "I'm awfully fond of Mr. Kindred, myself. The trouble is, he's
+not so awfully fond of me. And wounded hearts, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. McLean were here, he'd say: 'Steady!'" remarked Miss Wren.
+"Do you know Mr. McLean, too?" she said, turning to Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Met <i>him</i> 'several times'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must come from the West?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are quite a number of people out there," said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"And one can visit, even on a prairie," said Miss Cray politely.
+"But it seems so odd."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps for a freer discussion of the oddity of things, that party
+moved away, and Mrs. Ironwood came back to her charge. But social
+duties still claimed her to such a degree that she hardly looked at the
+review, and not at all at the girls, for a good while. Then in some
+moment of silence, a soft, long-drawn breath made her turn her head.</p>
+
+<p>The cadets were just passing, double-timing round the square, and
+the good lady saw that her two girls had hold of hands, and that the
+eyes of both were full. What about? Only for one particular dress coat
+with a white cross-belt,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>
+one particular pair of shoes that darted past; the owner whereof was
+so far from feeling himself a hero that he was just pronouncing under
+breath the whole review a mean contrivance to keep men out in the sun.
+Ah, young brothers! have you any faint vision of what your sisters see
+in you?</p>
+
+<p>"Pull up your wraps, girls," said Mrs. Congressman. "It turns cool
+here, the minute the sun drops behind the hill. And I suppose wild
+horses wouldn't get you away before parade. Well, they'll have dealings
+with that man."</p>
+
+<p>The end of the battalion was just passing, one single cadet officer
+bringing up the rear; and this man's sash had come untied. And as he
+darted on, one long red streamer trailed gracefully behind him; too
+heavy to float, unless with more wind astir.</p>
+
+<p>The girls were in fits of merriment; only our two girls looked
+grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Just think!" whispered Rose; "it might have been Magnus."</p>
+
+<p>"But why doesn't he stop and tie it up?" said Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop and tie it up?" said Mrs. Congressman, who caught the words.
+"Why, if his head was off, he couldn't stop to put it on. Not in a
+review."</p>
+
+<p>Between review and parade there was a charming bit of free time when
+Magnus came down to see his sisters. Miss Cray and her party took for
+granted he was coming also to see them, and there was some bridling and
+handling of sugar-plum boxes. And it was quite a shock, when Magnus,
+after bowing to them, turned away, and found himself a seat between
+"those two Western girls," whom he could see any time.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet brief minutes; I wonder if unlimited free hours can ever have
+the subtle charm that used to hang over the now-and-then release from
+quarters?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Starr came up to claim acquaintance, and presently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>
+coaxed Rose away to introduce her to the sidewalk, as he said;
+Cadet-Captain Trueman appeared, preferring the same claim, though of so
+much later date. And Miss Cray looked on.</p>
+
+<p>As for my two girls, they were more than content; Violet finding
+the grave, dark-browed Mr. True a very interesting person indeed; and
+Rose so taken up with Mr. Starr's sallies of fun and comment, that she
+missed all the admiring glances bestowed upon her own sweet eyes and
+laughing mouth. The first drum came all too soon.</p>
+
+<p>Starr went on to just the point where they had turned before, came
+slowly back and led Rose to her seat; then standing before her and
+going on with his talk. And Miss Cray listened.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Trueman," she said presently, putting in her word, "we had a
+wager about you last night."</p>
+
+<p>"About me? That certainly speaks you all ladies of much leisure."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't begin to preach," said Miss Freak. "Be good for once,
+and tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"And what, if you please?"</p>
+
+<p>"The point was this," said Miss Saucy. "Kate said that before you
+will go down on your knees to a woman, you must have a cushion a mile
+high. The rest of us thought that perhaps a yard might do."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me!" said Mr. Trueman, with some energy; "if ever I kneel to
+a woman, I shall want no cushion!"</p>
+
+<p>And the tall cadet captain bowed gravely to Violet, touched his cap
+to the others, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>A quick clearance of grey coats from about the seats followed. Over
+by the innocent-looking reveille gun stood two soldiers in blue, at the
+foot of the flagstaff were two more. The flag showed off its beauties,
+lifting, falling, floating away in circling folds upon the fitful air;
+then drooping, a mere line of colour against the staff. Then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>
+came a series of wild yells from the front of barracks, answering the
+roll-call, and then parade.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the dignitaries who generally "assist" at a review,
+adding all that position or plumage can give, they never get off
+anything at West Point that is quite so good as an old-time dress
+parade. I use my adjective wittingly, for&mdash;no disrespect to the
+new tactics, they hurt the effect. To-night everything was perfect,
+even the music. The band struck up "Money Musk," or some other
+time-honoured quick-step, known in those happy days before "Boulanger"
+was heard of; the grey files came down the green in absolute order, and
+drew up in a long, unbroken, glancing line, before the seats.</p>
+
+<p>The hills across the river were in a glory of sunshine, the higher
+heads that sentinel the north entrance to the Highlands showed sunlight
+and shadow, too. The river went silently along, you could just hear the
+paddles of the <i>Mary Powell</i>, as she speeded round Gee's Point on her
+northward course. All this, while the adjutant dressed the line, and
+brought it to parade rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Sound off!"</p>
+
+<p>It matters little what they played then, for as the drum major
+raised his baton and struck his attitude, and the throng of bandsmen
+went nimbly after him, our two Western girls were absolutely and wholly
+bewitched. To see the black plumes slanting off as one before the
+breeze, with the stir of a red sash here and there, and the glinting of
+breast-plates and bayonets and bell buttons in that long moveless line.
+Then to behold the band of musicians getting tangled up in a maze at
+the turn, but coming out all right, and playing for dear life through
+it all,&mdash;they were so wrapped and lost, no wonder the gun made
+them jump.</p>
+
+<p>Then the wonder of the manual, to unwonted eyes; the comical
+different voices in which the sergeants reported, with hand on heart
+(supposedly), and the amused guesses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
+as to how in Company D there should be two privates absent and
+unaccounted for. Even the jumble of the orders was delightful.</p>
+
+<p>"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., May 10,
+18&mdash;" so much was generally plain. As also "Special Order. No.
+forty three-e-e!" But whether it gave Cadet Nameless leave of absence
+for two weeks, or said he was to be shot in two days, only the nature
+of the case made clear. To their ears, it might as well have been the
+one as the other.</p>
+
+<p>The reading ends, the adjutant tucks the folded paper into the
+breast of his dress coat, comes neatly round on one heel, and waves his
+sword to the officer in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, the orders are published."</p>
+
+<p>"Dismiss the parade, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Another skilful pirouette, and the adjutant faces the line and
+sheathes his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Parade dismissed!"</p>
+
+<p>The swords of all the cadet officers rattle down into the scabbard,
+the adjutant steps loftily back to his old place by the line.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward! Guide centre! March!"</p>
+
+<p>And with another gay burst of music, the cadet officers come
+forward, salute the officer in charge, and disperse (in these days
+draw up behind him); the long, grey line breaks into companies, the
+music changes its measure, and away they all go to barracks, to the
+sweet strains of "Pop Goes the Weasel!" Every right arm swings just so,
+every black shoe sole displays its regulation state, in most regulation
+order. But how many furtive blessings brushed the head of Cadet Kindred
+as he went by, that obtuse young fellow never guessed.</p>
+
+<p>Tea at the hotel, after all this, was prosaic enough, but doubtless
+the most soaring bird comes down to rest, and finds the lower lands
+quite bearable, with further flight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
+in prospect. So the two girls relished their bread and butter and
+strawberries with no alloy, for was not Magnus coming after supper for
+a walk? Magnus, and perhaps two more.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is so unusual," Rose said; "it makes one feel quite
+distinguished. Think of walking 'till call to quarters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, think of it," said Mrs. Congressman, carefully creaming her
+black tea. "Then you've been in the cars night and day since Monday.
+You must excuse me, young ladies. I know girls are untirable where
+cadets are concerned, but I am too old a bird for that sort of chaff,
+and I am going straight to my bed, as soon as I see you off. With your
+brother along, you'll not need me."</p>
+
+<p>"May we sit on the piazza after we come back? Or must we go to bed,
+too?" asked Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit there? Yes. Must you go to bed? No. Sit there and gaze at the
+barracks till shutting up time comes, and then go upstairs and carry it
+on from your window. You're not obliged to go to bed at all, while you
+are at West Point. Who's coming to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Magnus, of course, and Mr. Trueman. And Mr. McLean said he would,
+if he could."</p>
+
+<p>"Three for two girls; you begin well. There, they are coming out,
+and you can go stand at the fence, and I can go to my bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we stand at the fence?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Mahomet and the mountain,'" said Mrs. Congressman. "Bell buttons
+cannot come any nearer, without a special permit."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not like that," said Violet, drawing back. "You know you
+bade us not. It looks as if we were waiting for somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Silly girl! That is just what you are doing: now isn't then. Come,
+I'll see you safe to the fence."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
+So under that broad, protecting shadow the girls went down the walk;
+shy, and glad, and expectant, and just a trifle afraid; for were there
+not <i>four</i> dark figures coming rapidly across the plain? It was all so
+strange and entrancing; the straight shadows, the measured step.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, here you are!" cried Magnus. "Good-evening, Mrs. Ironwood."</p>
+
+<p>"How d'ye do again," said that lady. "How d'ye do, Mr. Trueman, and
+Mr. McLean&mdash;and, as I'm alive!&mdash;Mr. Bouché! I suppose two
+of you have come for me. I'm so broad, you think one wouldn't hear
+what the other was saying, and you could both fool me to your heart's
+content."</p>
+
+<p>There was a laugh and a protest (very honest, so far as the coming
+for <i>her</i> was concerned), and then the young people turned away, and
+Mrs. Congressman went to her much coveted repose.</p>
+
+<p>"She fulfils her destiny," said Mr. Bouché, as he placed himself by
+Rose. "The only possible use of a chaperon is to go to sleep."</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="XLIX" id="XLIX"></a>XLIX<br />
+FLIRTATION AND OTHER PLACES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">When feelings were young, and the world was new.</p>
+<div class="poem"><span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pringle.</span></span></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>There is no need to describe that walk, nor the many that followed
+it. Anybody who has been a girl&mdash;or had care of a girl&mdash;at
+West Point, knows without telling; though doubtless the walks vary
+according to the girl. But hither and thither, then as now, went Peace
+and War, in endless new combinations. Down among the grey rocks and
+green mosses of Flirtation, where the tide flowed by as softly as the
+minutes, and all the pretty whispers sounded true. Or up on the old
+fort; green enough once, but in these days pathetic as well as lovely
+in its helpless decline, and where much history might have been talked,
+and was not. Kosciusko's garden, Fort Clinton, even the Officer's
+Row&mdash;what tales they might tell, and are silent.</p>
+
+<p>I must do Mrs. Ironwood the justice to say, that she did not fulfil
+her destiny after that night, so far as it involved going to sleep
+when she should be on duty. And she did the duty well, as befits long
+habit. Always accidentally on hand; keen-eyed, though taking no notice;
+interfering when she must, in a way that was wholly pleasant&mdash;and
+unmanageable. The two girls, so unlearned in the world, could not have
+had a more wisely careful friend. Violet never guessed how it was that
+she was generally free to walk with Mr. Trueman, nor why Mr. Clinker
+always fell to the lot of Mrs. Ironwood herself. "She must be very fond
+of him," thought the girls. And Magnus was careful,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
+too, in a way, and would by no means present everybody he knew to his
+two young sisters.</p>
+
+<p>So within that twofold invisible fence Violet and Rose moved
+joyously on, and had&mdash;as they wrote home&mdash;"the very loveliest
+time that girls could."</p>
+
+<p>And it became plain to lynx-eyed Mrs. Congressman, that Magnus soon
+ceased to be the only grey figure on the horizon. His walks with other
+girls were borne meekly; and the days when he was on guard called forth
+less lamentation. In short (in the prettiest sort of way) the cadet
+fever had claimed our two young Westerners. As how should it not, when
+they were in such demand? Men did not stand round them to see "what
+those girls would do next," the poorest sort of a compliment; but came
+for the real liking and appreciation of the fair womanliness, of which
+even faulty men have an idea&mdash;or an ideal. Then fresh common sense
+is very pleasant when you find it; and if Rose was thought too sensible
+by some&mdash;or too sedate, Violet was as full of fun and frolic as
+any young, unspoiled nature ought to be; so they set each other off.
+But the fun was not pointed with slang, nor did the frolic show out in
+shrieks of laughter, or in familiar ways. It never occurred to either
+of them that it was witty to say "Get out!" or ladylike to beg for
+buttons and buckles. Or interesting, to give a kiss to some man who was
+unmannerly enough to ask it. But nobody dared that of them.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood's "sleepy" eyes saw all these things; saw also,
+by degrees, some others. She could tell, to a time, how often
+Cadet-Captain Trueman had walked with Violet, as also that Violet
+seemed quite unconscious that he came oftener than other men.</p>
+
+<p>"Great pity!" said Mrs. Ironwood in her heart, waving her fan there
+on the hotel piazza. "He's the best fellow living&mdash;and she's the
+girl of girls for him. But she hasn't
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+a sou&mdash;and <i>he</i> hasn't; it would never do. I did try to keep Rose
+in the way&mdash;but my! he'd get round a standing army. Study, drills,
+examination, don't head him off one bit. A fine piece of three weeks'
+work! And in ten days more he graduates, and there's an end."</p>
+
+<p>And just at that very time, this is what was going on among the
+casemates at Fort Putnam.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you could live on a second lieutenant's pay?" Trueman
+was saying. "It is not much, you know&mdash;but then at first we should
+probably be stationed at some small one-company post, where it would
+not be needful to make a show."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never lived where it was needful, or possible, to make
+a show," said Violet, with a bit of a laugh at the idea of being
+"stationed" anywhere. "But you know I have had no chance to think of
+anything yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," said Trueman; "it's all very sudden to you. But
+the first minute I saw you I knew I had met my fate, and I have done
+nothing but think, ever since. Thinking out the fairest story that ever
+came into any man's heart. And I am going so soon. Write home to-night,
+will you, Miss Violet, and get <i>leave</i> to promise?"</p>
+
+<p>And then with the sound of coming footsteps, the two drew apart a
+little, and walked decorously down the hill; Trueman screening himself
+carefully with Violet's blue parasol from the sun without, and she
+conscious only of a strange new sunlight within.</p>
+
+<p>Rose, meanwhile, was having a different sort of talk with Mr.
+Bouché; an American, despite his French name.</p>
+
+<p>He was a handsome fellow, stood well up in his class, and was
+proficient in more than West Point learning; but as much adrift as any
+unpiloted boat in all matters of faith, and some of practice. Why he
+sought out Rose Kindred (as he had done persistently from the day she
+came) it <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
+would be hard to tell, unless from that peculiar masculine contrariness
+which, as Mrs. Ironwood phrased it, "makes Arctic men always swear by
+the South Pole."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Bouché's special delight to get Rose away from everyone
+else, find her a splendid seat in some leafy nook, throw himself down
+on the grass where he must needs look up and so could properly gaze
+into her face, and then draw her into an argument. I do not know that
+Rose was more wedded to her opinions than other women, but she knew
+what she believed, which they do not all. And when the point was of
+importance she could fight, and fight well; zeal and love of the truth
+holding their own fearlessly against more polished weapons. Even as
+did the old "Queen's Arm" in the hand of one of her ancestors at
+Concord.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular afternoon, every place seemed taken. Gee's
+Point, of course, but also the seat by the river edge, and the almost
+unscalable rocks, and the grey stones that lie about the way to Battery
+Knox.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," Rose said. "I am not tired. I would just as leave
+walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Tired! You? No," said Mr. Bouché; "you are the most rested creature
+that ever lived. But I am a lazy fellow, and I want a comfortable
+place, where you can lecture me."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon your laziness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon what you will. I need it all round."</p>
+
+<p>"There will not be time for an all-round lecture before parade."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother parade!" said Mr. Bouché. "Why need you remind a fellow
+of parade, just when he's happy? Here&mdash;come this way. Now we
+can dive through these bushes&mdash;look out for your dress, Miss
+Rose!&mdash;and we can sit on the rock and be out of the way of all the
+spoons. And Catkins himself couldn't find us."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+Laughing at him, guarding her dress, following through the tangle
+like a true fresh-air girl, Rose presently forgot everything in the
+loveliness that was all about. Behind them, trees and bushes were both
+shade and screen; but in front there was only rock, river, and hill.
+The grey ledge on which they stood took a sudden dip almost at their
+feet, and went down, down, sheer and smooth, with little to break the
+line till it ended in a low fringe of riverside bushes. And the stream
+itself, curling rapidly round Gee's Point, went in full flow through
+the broadening channel towards Anthony's Nose and the "Race." One or
+two sailing vessels beat up against the breeze; from under the fringe
+of bushes came the measured dip of oars. The east-side hills, with
+their wavy outline, caught the full glory of the sinking sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how beautiful!" Rose cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said Mr. Bouché, who had been eyeing the girl much as she
+studied the landscape; "just what I was thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"It is like nothing I ever saw anywhere else," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," assented her companion.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I have never been just here before," said Rose, turning at
+the somewhat peculiar tone of voice. "Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure&mdash;that I have," said Mr. Bouché, considering with
+himself whether certain sensations in the region of his heart could
+possibly (in a cadet of such wide experience) mean something new. "It
+rather seems to me not. What are you going to lecture me about, Miss
+Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you are!" cried Bouché, rousing up. "That's not fair. It
+is in the bond that you are to lecture."</p>
+
+<p>"Who signed the bond?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;for self and partner," said Bouché audaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'Himself and he,'" said Rose, quoting Cowper.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/392fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="351" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">FLIRTATION</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
+"Now, that is truly unkind," said Mr. Bouché, with an injured air;
+"and therefore not like you, Miss Rose. And people should always speak
+in character. I am surprised at you. Do you believe that I never think
+of anybody but myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose when you are speaking to me, you must be thinking of
+me a little," said Rose, a faint tinge coming into her cheeks as she
+made the admission. "Look at that eagle flying across the river."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him fly&mdash;" said Bouché. "You really suppose I think of
+you 'a little,' then? When it's week days and Sundays, Saturdays
+and common days. When the reveille gun has grown sweet to my ear,
+because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now hush!" Rose interrupted him. "That is a good place to stop.
+Nothing ever yet made the reveille gun sound sweet to a cadet."</p>
+
+<p>"Other cadets."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are just another cadet," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Bouché burst into a laugh, in spite of his efforts to look
+tragic.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said; "she's making fun of me. It's all up. I am only
+'just another cadet.' One more in her train. Only so many additional
+bell buttons, and a pair of chevrons thrown in."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the professor of nonsense here?" Rose demanded. "I never saw
+such proficients as you cadets are, in all my life. Have you had forty
+pages to learn? and are you trying them off on me? Very well recited,
+Mr. Bouché."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't at all. You are getting off grinds on me the whole time,
+and that's not fair. I should think conscientious scruples would hinder
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Conscientious scruples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Bouché. "The way you throw away opportunities tries even
+my conscience. You see, Miss Rose, <i>I</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+never had folks to stand round me and keep me straight. I've been a
+Topsy boy, all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Topsy-turvy?" suggested Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Bouché drew a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"There it goes again," he said; "I shall have to take it, I suppose.
+But I guess it's true. And now, when somebody has a chance to set me
+right, she don't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What could she do?" Rose asked, seriously now.</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, she could take a long, long walk with me on Sunday.
+Keep me out of mischief the whole afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistake, Mr. Bouché," said Rose, turning her clear, grave eyes
+upon him. "Getting into mischief one's self, never helps anybody else
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"How would you get in?" Bouché said eagerly. "I'd max it on care of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, I do not doubt. But&mdash;I was not brought up so," Rose
+said, hesitating over her words. "At home, Sunday is such a special,
+set-apart, happy day. We never take it for common things."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a very special and happy day for me, if you would take
+the walk," said Bouché. "Of course <i>you</i> would count it 'common' doings
+to go with me, any day."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not fair to twist my words," said Rose, looking troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if it would be <i>un</i>common, you can go. You are throwing down
+opportunities, Miss Rose. I'll take you to some remote, far-wilderness
+corner, and you shall preach to me till the drum beats. I'm as meek as
+skim-milk on Sunday. Why, if you only tell me to take my cap and go to
+chapel, I shall do it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better believe I wouldn't be there else," said Bouché. "But
+I'll listen to you a quarter longer than we give the chaplain."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+"I do not think you will&mdash;for I shall not speak, on Sunday,"
+said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Not speak! Turning into 'a sweet, silent Carthusian,' and thinking
+up hard things to say to me on Monday."</p>
+
+<p>Rose did not at once answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché," she said, "I think you make a great mistake about the
+chapel."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the biggest-sized mistake to make me go there."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you went willingly, you would forget all about being made to
+go," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>How Bouché laughed! Rose coloured a little, but stood her ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," she said, "the bonds you strive against are the ones that
+press hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Good beginning," said the cadet, controlling himself. "Go on, Miss
+Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "then you need not have laughed at me quite so
+much. But somebody says, there are two ends to a sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"Only one here," said Bouché, "and that's at the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"Two ends," Rose went on steadily; "the human and the Divine, the
+text and the preacher. If you begin with the preacher, one man may not
+like him, and another one may&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That man hasn't reported yet," Bouché interrupted her.</p>
+
+<p>"And it would be just the same," Rose said, "if an angel came and
+preached to you. Some men would be sure to criticise him, and study the
+length of his wings."</p>
+
+<p>"Wishing he'd use 'em to fly away with; that would be me, every
+time&mdash;unless he wore your bonnet."</p>
+
+<p>"So the best speaker would not please you all," Rose concluded. "But
+if you would begin with the text, you could not dispute that authority,
+nor question that style.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+You would not <i>dare</i> to criticise it. And if you were studying the text
+all the way through, no sermon could seem dull, because it would have
+such living light upon it, from the Lord's own living words."</p>
+
+<p>There was such a light and glow on the girl's own face, that Mr.
+Bouché gazed at her with evident admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"All depends," he said. "Give me my particular angel for the
+preacher, and the text may go."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché," said Rose, rising up, "I am sure I heard a drum."</p>
+
+<p>"You can always hear a drum here, any time of day or night."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that drum; listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy drum to be listened to."</p>
+
+<p>"But seriously, we must walk on; you will be late."</p>
+
+<p>"'One private absent.' Hard on the Com. But it's not imminent yet,
+Miss Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you do not look!" said Rose. "See how the shadow lies on the
+river. Please go! Just run on; never mind me."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind you!" said Bouché, taking leisurely steps at her side.
+"Not if I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bouché, you will be late."</p>
+
+<p>"Like enough. The first sergeant of D Company will tell it with
+his hand on his heart, regretfully adding: ''Tis true, 'tis pity;
+pity 'tis, 'tis true.' And old Powder Flask will jump for joy in his
+regulation shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chance of skinning me for the ninety-ninth time this week."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll not be responsible for his joy," said Rose. "Good-bye!"
+And as they came to one of the many cross-paths that led towards the
+plain, Rose suddenly turned up the ascent, running so lightly and
+easily that it was almost as pretty to see as the regular double-time.
+Bouché stood <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+open-eyed for a second, and then came up with her, fuming.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this is atrocious, preposterous, unheard of!" he said. "I don't
+care a button for a 'late.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you should," said Rose, laughing round at him, keeping
+her pace and her breath admirably. "And this might turn into a cold
+absence. You ought to care. Magnus says discipline counts. There's a
+different sort of text for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I vow!" said Bouché. "Don't you give me any of <i>his</i> wise sayings,
+or I'll punch his head when I get back to barracks, the first
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the <i>first</i>," said Rose with a gay laugh, as they reached the
+edge of the open, "Look! there goes the band. Run, Mr. Bouché!"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I hadn't been running!" said Bouché, much aggrieved. "Miss
+Rose, I'll owe you one better for this."</p>
+
+<p>And then, run he did.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="L" id="L"></a>L<br />
+FAIRYLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their banners and their crests waving in a row.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Frere.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I
+had best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather,
+the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail
+delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out
+and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited
+taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave
+the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and
+frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than
+they.</p>
+
+<p>The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have
+grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary
+chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost
+graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels
+repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But
+alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere&mdash;with you!" That might
+have been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are
+down; and Choice opens its eyes and waits.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the
+looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or San
+Carlos: comes also the question
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+of comforts and climates. These delicate creatures can walk all day
+and dance all night in West Point air. But what will their high heels
+do at Huachuca? and how will their fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle
+Pass? Are they brave to be left with only soldier attendants when the
+young lieutenant is ordered off on a scout after Indians? Can they
+make bread, where the baker does not come round? and keep their sweet
+patience when some "ranking" new arrival swoops down upon their pretty
+quarters, and bids them move? Or again, what if the modest pay of a
+second-lieutenant should not comport with twenty-dollar bonnets?</p>
+
+<p>Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known
+for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's
+acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And
+no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for
+just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which
+the men have won their shoulder-straps.</p>
+
+<p>Among all the unwonted eyes that ever saw June come over West
+Point, none could get more delight than did Cadet Kindred's two young
+sisters. The mere shining out of the whole post in white trousers was
+an event. And the guns that greeted the Board of Visitors were, to the
+full, as imposing, as the various "planks" in that respected body. The
+girls watched every point of the welcoming review, and then studied
+the chosen guests as they trooped into the "big house" reception. But
+better than chicken salad indoors, was the music discoursed by the band
+in the pretty grounds outside. It may be said, however, that Violet did
+not fail to see Mr. Trueman, in sash and plume, go up the steps with
+the rest of the graduating class, and to think for one brief moment
+that it might be pleasant to go there too.</p>
+
+<p>Only parade that night, but a wonderful walk after supper;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
+and next day, and every day for ten more, a series of varied pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>The examinations in the library were positively awe-inspiring; such
+battle plans, such hieroglyphics. There was some trembling of heart
+the first time they saw Magnus under fire; but he so plainly knew
+what he was about, that fear soon passed into rejoicing. And when Mr.
+Clinker was set to read Spanish, and the story (as translated) sounded
+unutterably ridiculous, Mrs. Ironwood declared that her two girls
+behaved better than she did.</p>
+
+<p>Something of this in the morning; at night a concert; in the
+afternoon a drill. Perhaps on the cavalry plain with the ear-tearing
+racket of the Light Battery; where the guns were sometimes pointed at
+the ladies, and the ladies cried out, and stopped their ears, and ran
+away; and the hills sent back the thunder, and the descending sun half
+glorified the clouds of dust. Or maybe they went down by the river, and
+saw Mr. Trueman and a throng of unknown men build the pontoon bridge,
+themselves sitting on the grass in a blaze of sunshine, which the north
+wind softened down. With gay dresses on every side, and grey-and-white
+men standing behind them, or down on the grass too. Sugar-plums
+
+in many hands, the perfume of flirtation in all the air; and certainly
+their own attendant cavaliers were well disposed for both these soft
+delectations. But if Rose looked round, it was generally to put some
+intelligent question, which Bouché could only answer in kind; and
+Violet's bright eyes were too eagerly watching what Mr. True did with
+his boat, to heed what Randolph whispered about <i>them</i>.</p>
+
+<p>How skilfully those huge grey pontoons swung into line; how stirring
+was the sounding tramp of the plank-bearers; how curiously they locked
+arms going back, and how very charming was the walk over that strange
+bridge when it was done.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/401fp_600.jpg" width="600" height="361" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">CADET BOAT AND CREW</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
+Another day came skirmish drill, with the grey files in all sorts of
+varied action; the men scattered over the plain as a sower casts his
+seed. Speeding down in the hollow, dashing up the ridge, disappearing
+behind the trees, and firing straight at the pretty spectators. In
+those days, the short midway rest was all right for visiting; and so,
+when the other men dropped down on the grass, Magnus and Mr. Trueman
+and quite a little crowd came over to the seats, cap in hand. Smoky,
+and dusty, and hot&mdash;and charming&mdash;for a few minutes of lively
+talk. To the begrimed warriors every girl looked perfectly resplendent,
+in her fresh summer dress.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee
+to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers
+standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the
+chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each
+straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass.
+Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground&mdash;but for these!
+It was all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the
+ground sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched
+up with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and
+fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the
+guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark
+figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass
+which the crimson fire caught in its red glow.</p>
+
+<p>Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry
+drill on the plain and the grand charge.</p>
+
+<p>In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in
+watchful waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent,
+and caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There
+was one lady in particular,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody, whose son was in the
+drill, and whose fears were many and public. In the midst of the most
+harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it, "on thorns"; and she
+danced about as if it were true.</p>
+
+<p>Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see
+at all; with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or
+expostulation&mdash;it was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch
+her when the charge really came,&mdash;and forgot her as July forgets
+December.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by
+the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining
+his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them
+looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a
+better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then
+quicker, till the word was given:</p>
+
+<p>"Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas
+cyclone upon the resounding road.</p>
+
+<p>In some of the quieter moments before the charge, Rose and Violet
+had picked out two or three men they knew, noting their horses (they
+were not all dark then); and now, even in that dusty whirlwind,
+the grey and the black could be seen and followed. And&mdash;yes,
+certainly&mdash;Mr. Trueman's horse has leaped the Hotel fence, and the
+plucky rider puts him at it again, and comes bounding back. And Mr.
+Clinker's steed has swerved at the crossroad and gone dashing along
+towards Trophy Point, for freedom and Highland Falls. However, he
+missed in both, and everything came out right, and nobody was hurt; and
+the drill was pronounced in every way first-class. But for days after,
+when Violet shut her eyes, she seemed to see the flashing sabres, and
+hear again the ringing shout; and to watch that particular grey horse
+as he leaped the hedge.</p>
+
+<p>Then came graduation; and Violet had the first sight of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+Mr. Trueman's diploma, as soon as he could step aside and show it. And
+Magnus was made first captain, and Mr. Bouché shone forth as adjutant;
+and even Mr. McLean found his arm adorned with three bright bars, to
+his own astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"All owing to Kin," he confided to the two sisters. "If he hadn't
+pinched me black and blue every day since Christmas, I should be on my
+way back to Kansas, to hoe potatoes for the rest of my life."</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Trueman lingered at the post
+for a few days in "cits," and finally departed with a permit to show
+himself in the Western home, and plead his own cause there.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ironwood lingered, too, even longer, to let her charge have a
+taste of the pretty concerts and guard-mounting in camp; and then the
+girls packed their trunk, and saw the hills fade away in a mist that
+was all in their own eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LI" id="LI"></a>LI<br />
+THE HOME-STRETCH</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A gold fringe on the purpling hem<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of hills the river runs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As down its long green valley falls<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The last of summer suns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Along its tawny gravel bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Broad-flowing, swift, and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if its meadow-levels felt<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The hurry of the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Noiseless between its banks of green<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From curve to curve it slips;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The drowsy maple shadows rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Like fingers on its lips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Whittier.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To come down from two girls of your own to none, is a long step; and
+I think if ever Cadet Charlemagne was ready to put the full value on
+the many fair and gay women at the Point, it was just then, when his
+sisters had gone. Not another sight of his own to be hoped for till a
+whole long year should roll away. First-class camp though it was, I
+think he would have liked the busy term-time better.</p>
+
+<p>But he talked with Miss Lane, he walked with Miss Newcomb; and did
+the civil thing to a handful of new visitors; went to picnics, teas,
+and such like merrymakings; and through it all found himself pining for
+Cherry, and wondering what they were all about at home. In the very
+midst of the frolic, with bright eyes and soft hands on every side, the
+refrain of the old song would keep coming up:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O this is no' my ain lassie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fair though the lassie be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such a mood works differently with different men; with Magnus it
+wrought in a very becoming fashion. For the high mark put upon the
+three girls far away, set the standard for his behaviour to those
+near by. "Help them," Cherry had said. And so, over his ordinary good
+manners and winning ways, there had come that grave air of chivalry,
+that deference to women <i>because</i> they were women, which sets off a
+man's own manhood as nothing else can. His heart was elsewhere, but
+his best service was theirs to command. Now and then he ventured a
+reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not do that," he said one day to Miss Lane; receiving an
+instant "Thank you!" which spoke her good stuff. And even when he came
+between Miss Saucy and some lawless escapade with a firm: "You shall
+not do that!" the words were so courteous and earnest that the girl
+yielded with:</p>
+
+<p>"There, there&mdash;I won't. Hush up!"</p>
+
+<p>It was kind work to do, and the giving pleasure was always pleasant;
+but for his own delights Magnus fell back into his solitary woodside
+walks, with now and then a long pull upon the river. Up and down the
+shining current; fighting the wind, breasting the tide; tossed with
+mimic billows, or shivering a mirror of blue; so he went. Now coasting
+along at oar's length from the shore, where the hills rose up in
+castellated masses of rock and the cool shadow lay deep; then resting
+on his oars, and gazing through the peerless north gateway at the
+flood of sunset over Newburgh Bay. Sometimes showing it all to Cherry,
+"on their wedding trip"; or again, sent back here as Commandant, with
+Cherry the fair Frau Commander of the Post. And then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A faint strain of music broke in upon his dream; the oars hung
+motionless, dripping their bright drops.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
+A soldier's funeral was passing slowly up the winding Camptown road;
+the grave notes of the band coming clear and soft across the water;
+the flag drooped midway. Magnus reverently bared his head. Then he sat
+listening.</p>
+
+<p>There was so little tide that a dip of the oars now and then kept
+the boat in place; and Magnus sat there motionless, until the third
+volley rang out among the echoes, and to the usual lively racket the
+men came marching home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" he said to himself, as he began to pull down stream again.
+"When the time comes for Old Glory to wrap me up, let them bring me
+here and lay me there, to sleep among the hills."</p>
+
+<p>And with a shake of the head at his own musings, Cadet Charlemagne
+made the boat fairly spin till it reached the landing, and dashed into
+the sallyport with full five minutes to spare.</p>
+
+<p>The Fourth of July that year rose exceedingly hot. A misty haze
+veiled the mountains, the dew lay thick on every blade of grass; the
+silent black-mouthed guns were dripping with moisture.</p>
+
+<p>Being a holiday, even the reveille gun took an extra nap; and
+the camp lay in absolute stillness for a half hour beyond its usual
+time. Only the sentries paced up and down in the heightening glare;
+and far away in the Logtown regions you could hear the sputtering of
+fire-crackers and know that Independence Day was begun.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, by the same token, a lively ambush was preparing in the
+quiet camp&mdash;a thing not distinctly set down and forbidden in West
+Point rules, and with what we call constructive evidence cadets concern
+themselves but little. And so with happy unconcern, Magnus and Twinkle,
+and pretty much all the first class who were not on duty, arranged the
+frolic. And for once the plebs liked their orders.</p>
+
+<p>Up came the sun, touching Crownest, gilding Fort Put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>nam,
+peering into every bush and tree; and from the other side up came the
+band, their white helmets making a winding line of light across the
+plain. They took post at one corner of the camp; and then, as the Stars
+and Stripes swung slowly up to the head of the flagstaff, began their
+march and their music, saluting the colours.</p>
+
+<p>You have all heard how the piper of Hamelin played the rats out,
+where none were seen before; and something like that happened now. The
+camp was for all useful purposes asleep. But as soon as the inspiring
+notes of "The Red, White, and Blue" broke up the stillness, there came
+a stir.</p>
+
+<p>At quick step, and to a full-blast medley of national airs, the band
+passed through the camp; up A Company Street and down B Company Street;
+and as they went, out poured a chance-medley crowd to match. A crowd of
+plebs, wrapped in sheets, in blankets, in every sort of harum-scarum
+costume; with brooms for muskets, and the strict orders of upper
+classmen for regulations.</p>
+
+<p>With all other cadet eyes peering through tent curtains to watch,
+the crazy throng came after the band in full procession. And even when
+the officer in charge woke up to the state of things, these agile boys
+kept out of the way; slipped through between tents to the next Company
+street, and then re-forming and marching on joyously, until, as the
+band came round to its starting point, and "Yankee Doodle" filled all
+the air, the queer contingent drew up in order before them, solemnly
+presented arms (alias broom-sticks) scattered, dived, and disappeared.
+And only the most sedate and orderly faces could be seen at roll-call.</p>
+
+<p>That was great fun. Better than the Fourth of July dinner, Magnus
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>The usual festivities graced the morning. The muster, and the march
+across the plain to the old trees before the library. The band played,
+Magnus read the "Declaration,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+and Mr. Bouché made a speech which proved him, in theory,
+a model patriot.</p>
+
+<p>Then the midday salute of forty odd guns thundered out among the
+hills; returned by them in six times as many echoes; and the work of
+the day was done. Once upon a time, when powder was cheap, there used
+to be a salute at sunrise, too, and at sundown.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus strolled away to one of his haunts by the river, and sat
+himself down to watch the tide come in. It was almost full flood; the
+water creeping silently up, hiding every mud-stained rock, floating off
+the drift from every corner. One could see how it picked up its freight
+of chips and sticks and sawdust; but the current was so strong, the
+water so bright, that the dark streaks hardly counted. In fact, Magnus
+enjoyed the whole process, finding fair images for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," he thought, "would the June-tide set in, when:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Whatever of life has ebbed away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into every green inlet, and creek, and bay."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Bearing away then, of course, to parts unknown, all the
+disagreeables of life; studies, drills, and regulations. Wave motion
+giving place to Cherry. "It is so pleasant," said one of these
+pre-graduates to me, "to think of never again having to do anything I
+don't want to do!"</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was so deep in his dreams down there one day that a step
+close by made him start. This was no gauze-winged vision, however, but
+a poor, homesick pleb. In the gray, baggy suit of first initiation,
+with clouded brow and an air of general forlornness, he looked as
+little like flood tide as a fellow could do.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the trim first classman down among the bushes, went a
+few steps on, turned, hesitated, and finally came up behind Magnus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>
+"Shall I disturb you, sir?" he said deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No; come on. Rocks are Government property. You're Mr. Renwick,
+aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The boy sat himself down at the water's edge, and looked gloomily
+off. He was a slight fellow, just touching the regulation age;
+fair-skinned, soft-haired, with an unmistakable air of love and petting
+about him. "A mother's boy" all over. There were hearts aching for a
+sight of him somewhere, without a doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus eyed him a while from a first-class standpoint; then his look
+softened. What wretched, desperate hours he himself had spent in that
+very dress among those very rocks. And then of a sudden Cadet Kindred
+fell to wondering what the Lord would say to this poor heart, were he
+there himself in bodily presence? And the reply was instant:</p>
+
+<p>"Be pitiful, be courteous."</p>
+
+<p>"You were in the pleb formation on the Fourth?" he said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Liked it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. At least I liked it well enough, but I didn't
+enjoy it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last Fourth was better."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, was it!" said Magnus ironically. "Did you think to bring
+home-doings in your pocket when you came to West Point?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," said Renwick, with a sigh. "I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"If you had all you wanted at home, why didn't you stay there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had <i>not</i> all I wanted," said the boy, rousing up. "I wanted an
+education, and we were too poor for me to get it anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
+"My case precisely. And to-day you think home is worth all the
+education that ever was heard of. So have I, a thousand times. But it
+isn't, for all."</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>you</i> ever feel so, Mr. Kindred?" said the boy, changing his
+seat for one a little nearer. "Everybody says you've had a clear run of
+luck, straight through."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!" Magnus answered him. "Are you a Christian, Mr. Renwick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Hope so! Well, are you an American?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I am."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know? You may be a Chinese."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know&mdash;whether I can tell how or not," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain sure where you belong in this world, and not sure at all
+where you belong in the next. Unsound business, Mr. Renwick."</p>
+
+<p>Renwick looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a queer man!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"My one distinction. Found I couldn't lead off in anything else,
+here. What are <i>you</i> going to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"A success&mdash;if I can, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the only way to success is, to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I know as much as that myself, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Practise it then. You might as well try to take that hill at one
+jump, as think to be a success in January and June, and a failure all
+the rest of the time. Unless you're a fine mixture of laziness and
+mathematics. I am not myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Very little mathematics about me," said Renwick; "and they speak as
+if that was everything here. So I don't see what I am to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do?" Magnus said. "Why, dig like a prairie dog! Things are not so
+deep down that they <i>can't</i> be routed out. And get all the help you
+can, and take all you can get."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
+"Do you mean 'ponies'?" said Renwick with a doubtful look.</p>
+
+<p>"I do <i>not</i> mean 'ponies'!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they say <i>you</i> are always so busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, I'm busy enough; have to look out for my own scalp, you
+know. My advice is always at your service, but my time most generally
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I don't see what you mean, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a Bible, Mr. Renwick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Read it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at one of those rare intervals," said Magnus, "put three
+marks in it. A red one here:</p>
+
+<p>"'Call upon me here in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>The boy drew a long sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother's verse," he said. "But that will not bring me home."</p>
+
+<p>"No, and you don't want to go. Then a long blue one here:</p>
+
+<p>"'What time I am afraid I will trust in thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on there," said Renwick. "I'm not afraid, sir, and I don't
+expect to be."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be, quite unexpectedly, some day, when you get into the
+section room and find you have left your wits in barracks. But put a
+broad white mark here, and <i>keep</i> it white:</p>
+
+<p>"'Walk in the light.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep out of all dark ways, Mr. Renwick. You can have the Lord's
+help every time and all the time, on those terms."</p>
+
+<p>Renwick looked at him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of getting through West
+Point <i>so</i>," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiptop way, you'll find," said Magnus.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is your whole list of directions?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>
+"Finished up with the first one: dig! You must work like all the
+beavers between whiles, or you'll never have the face to pray such
+prayers."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you were odd," was Renwick's comment.</p>
+
+<p>"And now you think the half wasn't told you. Sound doctrine,
+nevertheless."</p>
+
+<p>"But mathematics!" said the boy; "and natural philosophy! and
+Spanish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Know them all through now, don't you?" said Magnus; "and so want no
+help."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, sir! of course not. But I mean&mdash;Mr. Kindred, do all
+the head men get to the top of the class your way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you lay it out for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only sure way I know."</p>
+
+<p>"To push me up head?"</p>
+
+<p>"To put you somewhere where it's worth while for a man to stand,"
+said Magnus. "You might come out head&mdash;and be a disgrace to
+the service. You might go down before French twistifications, get
+dropped&mdash;and live to bless the country some other way."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you meant I should be sure to graduate," said Renwick,
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"There's but one thing sure." And rising to his feet, Cadet Kindred
+chanted out a scrap of an old hymn.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Looking off unto Jesus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I go not astray:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My eyes are on him<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he shows me the way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The path may seem dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As he leads me along;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But following Jesus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I cannot go wrong."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Does it ever seem dark to you, sir?" Renwick said wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of times."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>
+"It is so hateful here," the boy burst forth; "the place, and the
+drills, and the cadets, and everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, isn't it!" said Magnus heartily. "I have felt just so. Why,
+there are days when I should like to shoot the cadets, burn down the
+barracks, pitch all those old study books into the blaze, and tie the
+Tacs within roasting distance."</p>
+
+<p>The two looked at each other, and then both broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid old place, isn't it?" said Mr. Kindred. "And the drills
+are as good as the rack for stretching a man. And the cadets aren't
+much worse than the rest of the world. You and I are two of them. Come
+on! Let's go take a look at the flag. That always puts me to rights
+when I turn sour. 'Hail, Columbia, happy land!' and West Point is part
+of it."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The sweet red, white, and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The brave red, white and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has done so much for me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And done so much for you."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LII" id="LII"></a>LII<br />
+THE BIG RECEPTION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">When shall I come to the top of that same hill?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">&mdash;&mdash;You do climb up it now; look how we labour.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A very busy six months followed first-class camp; the autumn full
+of drills and study, the winter of examination, hard work, and the
+Hundredth Night. With the opening spring poured in the usual flood of
+tradesmen and their wares; company drills began, early visitors came,
+and June was coming. The lower classmen, as usual, were on tiptoe with
+glee and excitement; and, also as usual, were the ballasting thoughts
+in many a first-class head. Questions of regiments, of posts, and of
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>But for Charlemagne Kindred all that was settled. If he were ordered
+to the North Pole, and stationed on the tip end of it, he should still
+take Cherry. And if he could not keep the wind from roughening her
+soft hair, Lieutenant Kindred would be a much more incompetent person
+than Cadet Charlemagne thought possible. Cherry was just the girl for
+Arctic regions; she would sketch the icebergs, sing to the seals, and
+teach them Greek. And in the long evenings by their driftwood fire,
+they could plan out where to live when he wore three stars on his
+shoulder, and was retired on full pay for special services as yet
+unknown. A little soon for that, to be sure; but there is no harm in
+being beforehand, even "quite some," as they say in New Jersey. They
+could draw plans for the house, and so save on architects when the time
+came.</p>
+
+<p>Other big questions came up for other men. Should this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+one assume at once the debt which the dear home people shouldered so
+patiently to send him to West Point? And how much can this other save
+from his slender pay, to help educate his young brothers and sisters?
+It touches one's heart to see the dainty articles of dress that are
+bought for the girls at home, whose life has been chiefly homespun.</p>
+
+<p>Then what work will they find to do at the strange, far-away posts?
+Work in that other army to which, as boys, they were mustered in? For
+there are many church members in the corps; and I doubt if there is
+one to whom the old vows do not come up in mind before graduation.
+Sometimes, perhaps, with a never-so-keen perception of what Paul meant
+when he said: "I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." Paul
+could have claimed the lower honours too; learned, skilled, an acute
+theologian, a matchless writer. But no earthly plaudits were in his
+thoughts; only the Lord's "Well done"; the crown which those Royal
+hands would give him "at that day."</p>
+
+<p>The spring flew on, tossing off its freight of snowdrops, violets,
+columbine, and apple blossoms. Twenty-three days to June, twenty-two
+days; then came more tidings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine was failing, so the mother wrote; failing steadily and
+fast. It was doubtful if Magnus would see his friend again; and the
+young cadet's heart went out with a great yearning to the lonely girl
+of whom he would so soon be the chief earthly protector. And once again
+Magnus gave thanks for that grace which had brought him through the
+fire, and made him fit to take such a charge. But none of them could
+come for graduation.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we cannot leave Cherry," so Violet wrote; "one of us
+is up there all the time. Cherry looks like a white wind-flower. O,
+Magnus, I wish you were here!" And Magnus gave a groan and turned to
+his tally: twenty-one days to June.</p>
+
+<p>But he did what he could. He wrote Cherry a letter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+every day, saying everything he could to beguile her thoughts. He sent
+the last picture of himself, and the class picture, and a photograph
+of the up-river view. In every letter went his marks for the day,
+with what bits of mischief or of news the Post could furnish. He told
+what girls he had walked with, and of his rambles alone; giving her
+much to read and to talk of. With all this he studied untiringly,
+refused invitations, went up in his marks, and was often fagged enough
+when tattoo beat; but less with the work than with excitement and
+tension.</p>
+
+<p>He had applied for a regiment not then near San Carlos; but so much
+depended upon how many men went to Willet's Point that he could guess
+little as to his own placing. One thing was sure, he was learning
+fast. Lessons of patience, of self-control, of trust; so winning true
+promotion, day by day. Finding out also, with new understanding,
+the exceeding helpfulness of prayer; learning to lay down cares and
+questions at the feet of that blessed Lord Jesus who "doeth all things
+well." Rank and post, life and death, could safely be left with Him! A
+great peace and a great strength were in the face of Magnus Kindred in
+those days.</p>
+
+<p>If he seemed graver than usual, it was that with every chance his
+thoughts flew away. Or, rather, were some of them always in that
+far-off sick-room. For whoever else might be with her, Magnus knew,
+unerringly, how Cherry's heart reached out for him. How, in every hard
+moment, with every new token of the coming sorrow, the longing for him
+leaped up and grew. Sometimes it made him almost desperate enough to
+go, at all risks.</p>
+
+<p>As a last comfort to himself and to her, Magnus took off his class
+ring and expressed it on, bidding her wear it till he came to put
+another in its place. She would not take it last summer, but she must
+<i>now</i>. And there was no telling
+
+what that ring was to the girl, and to her father as well,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
+making the bond so tangible and real. Cherry studied it in her lonely
+night watches, and Mr. Erskine's heart gave thanks at every gleam of
+the stone as her hands' sweet ministry came about him. While far away,
+Magnus, on his part, was verifying and honouring all their trust.</p>
+
+<p>So came on June, with her rose-trimmed slippers; and it seemed
+that first summer afternoon as if the whole countryside poured down
+upon West Point. Long before four o'clock the seats were full, then
+crowded; the wagon-load of campstools vanished as they came; and soon
+even standing-room was at a premium. And when the Board of Visitors
+had reviewed the Corps, and the Corps the Board, everybody who had the
+right crowded in to the reception, while the left-out throng whirled
+round with one accord, and sat staring with all its eyes at the open
+door and solid front of the Superintendent's quarters. If only X-rays
+had been on hand! The interest grew to a keen point when the first
+class (all together then, though now they go scattering in) passed
+through the gate, doffed their plumed hats, and vanished within the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Magnus was claimed by old friends and presented to new, had a great
+grip of Mr. Wayne's hand, and brought little Miss Bee a plate of
+lobster salad deeply bordered with sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>I think Cadet Charlemagne had learned a little more about girls
+than he once knew; and the light and colour that came into this
+particular shy face at sight of him, smote him with a sense of at least
+possible past mistakes. She had no need to think so much of his small
+civilities. And Mr. Kindred bowed himself away, and made merry in a
+gauzy circle of colours near by. And then, when Miss Bee looked so
+left out in the cold, Magnus rushed up again, took her plate, brought
+her an ice, and made things worse than ever. Manlike, he thought the
+fast-and-loose plan worked to admiration.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
+Now privately, Miss Bee cared nothing for lobster and very little
+for ice; but it felt so good to be noticed and to have something to
+do, that I think she hardly knew what she had. And had not Mr. Kindred
+said the ice would "refresh" her? So she ate a little, played with it a
+little, and heard, nolens-volens, a good deal of talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here is Mr. Kindred!" said one of his Christmas friends. "All
+on tiptoe for shoulder-straps."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kindred has small occasion to stand on 'tiptoe' for anything,"
+said Miss Lane. "But what have you done with your beautiful class ring?
+Not lost it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly, since I know where it is. Lost things are said to keep cool
+company in the moon."</p>
+
+<p>"What is keeping company with your ring?" said Miss Saucy. "Your
+heart, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she be here for the hop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since when were hearts feminine? No, I do not think 'she' will,"
+said Magnus. "Hearts are best at home, hop nights."</p>
+
+<p>The talk went on, the crowd drifted; and little Miss Bee in her
+corner held her plate and ate her ice, and tasted nothing. Of course,
+she had seen that the ring was missing; but then no girl had boasted
+its possession. And men took whims.</p>
+
+<p>What tales dark corners could tell; of hard-pressed fights, of
+struggles, of victory! The band played, the throng increased&mdash;then
+began to thin out. Presently Magnus came and took the plate from the
+weary fingers, asking if she would have anything more.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the
+smile and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch
+a handful of the gayest bonbons and mottoes, and bestow them in Miss
+Bee's own hands. A man's blunder, again! And yet perhaps not.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>
+Of course the sweets were not eaten; they were conveyed away and stored
+among Miss Bee's few chiefest treasures; but I think in time they
+became a comfort, too; shining tokens of what a friend she had had in
+one of the foremost men of the Corps. It could not be helped that this
+put other men at a discount.</p>
+
+<p>For the ten days that followed no one saw much of Cadet Kindred,
+in any of those between-times that he could call his own. West Point
+outlines had cast their lovely spell about him; and with every chance
+he was down by the river, up among the rocks; climbing the leafy ways;
+saying good-bye, and then coming back to say it again.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="LIII" id="LIII"></a>LIII<br />
+THE FIRST POST</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">A ravelled rainbow overhead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lets down to life its varying thread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love's blue,&mdash;joy's gold,&mdash;and fair between<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hope's shifting light of emerald green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With either side, in deep relief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A crimson pain, a violet grief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Whitney.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I never understand how people can chatter all through the graduating
+parade. Standing before other people who fain would see, but with their
+own backs to the show; gabbling on about trains and stages, weather and
+wraps, to the utter discomfiture of the quiet souls who are straining
+their ears to catch the "standing," just then read out by the cadet
+adjutant; and finally pausing long enough to wonder "Whatever is he
+talking so long about, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Headquarters Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. Special order, No.
+fifty-nine!" So much with the knowledge that comes by iteration, you
+make out; but the human wall shuts off the rest. Such people should
+stay at home.</p>
+
+<p>If you are a stranger and unwarned, you may easily miss some special
+points in the show to-night. You will not know that, when the battalion
+comes marching down to the tune of "The Dashing White Sergeant," it
+means that from fifty to seventy of its men are on dress parade for the
+last time. And as they come nearer and wheel into line, you will hardly
+notice, that among those orderly grey figures, there is every here and
+there one who carries only side-arms, his musket left behind. And when
+these come out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>
+and form a quiet line in front of the rest, you will not guess that
+they are never again to go through the manual or be mingled with the
+other men. Also for this night, the Commandant himself steps out upon
+the ground, instead of the usual officer in charge.</p>
+
+<p>The line is dressed, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Parade rest!" and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sound off!"</p>
+
+<p>And with sweet, clear rendering, the band begins to play:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In cottage or palace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherever I roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be it ever so humble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There's no place like home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Home! Home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet, sweet home!"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>O what does it mean, to those men who (except for the short
+furlough) have been four years in exile! They give no sign; motionless
+as so many statues; the black chin straps merging faces, and hiding
+what may be there. The June air stirs the soft edges of the black
+plumes, floating them off as one; the sunset glitters on buckle and
+bayonet; the great garrison flag curls and uncurls its mighty folds.
+"It may be for years and it may be for ever," before the men of
+that front rank will look upon the scene again. They have hated it,
+sometimes, and longed to get away, but now they know how well they love
+it. What things those old hills and they have gone through together!
+from the forlorn pleb days until now. And even with that thought, the
+band lapses softly into another mood:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never brought to mind?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and every heart answers to the pleading of "Auld Lang Syne."</p>
+
+<p>For these classmates, after to-morrow, will be scattered to the four
+winds. Some, not to meet again till they are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+grey-haired men; never <i>all</i> to stand together, until the day when
+before the King "in his glory," "shall be gathered all nations."
+Believers or unbelievers, they think of it now. They may not speak nor
+touch each other, nor turn the head, but they think.</p>
+
+<p>It is as well, perhaps, that "The girl I left behind me" puts in her
+word just here, and you have to laugh, partly because you were so near
+crying. But Lang Syne and Sweet Home have the last saying, as the band
+comes back to its place.</p>
+
+<p>Parade goes on, and for once everybody is "present or accounted
+for." The orders are published, the standing read (not always, in these
+days), and then the graduating class come forward, and with dress hats
+off and held at the correct angle, shake hands with the Commandant and
+have a short address from him. And while the little company pass down
+and stand in line before the trees (not that either, now), the old
+Commandant turns hastily away from the show, and seeks his own front
+door. It is a long ago "Lang Syne" that he remembers, and far better
+than these youngsters, he knows what all this means.</p>
+
+<p>But the music begins again, with another change. "I see them on
+their winding way" fills all the air. The lines break up; and buckle
+and bayonet, sash and plume, come gaily past the seats, and then as
+they pass the waiting graduates, again the plumed hats come off, while
+cheers ring out in eager greeting from their comrades marching by.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I shall cry when it comes to that!" said a gay young first
+classman to me. And I have no doubt he did. But there are no lookers-on
+in front of them, and the old plain tells no tales.</p>
+
+<p>The next ten or twelve waking hours are little but hurry and rush.
+The big hop on hand for society men: with farewell visits, last ends of
+packing, and countless bits of red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>
+tape to be tied in regulation knots. Then last looks at the river, and
+hands laid lovingly and for the last time upon some of the old grey
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the library a platform is raised, and draped with the
+star-spangled banner, and a canvas canopy stretches across from tree
+to tree. Strong ropes wall in the space below, where stand the chairs,
+rank after rank, and as the morning hours run on, sentinels guard
+the ropes against all intruders. The seats, of course, are, first of
+all, for cadets and people of the Post, but just there does the dear
+general public wish to sit, and for whom the chairs are placed affects
+them not at all. So, for an hour or more, there is a sort of running
+fight&mdash;a skirmish line&mdash;all round the lines of rope, and the
+sentries well nigh meet their match. Demands, complaints, exclamations,
+are loud-voiced and many, and neither orders nor fixed bayonets win
+much respect.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the orders, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not responsible, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, no one allowed inside the ropes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit there? Those seats are reserved for the mothers, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>we</i> are the mothers," cried one good dame to the stony
+official. And as the guard turned to ward off some new intruder, one
+could but laugh at the adroitness with which she slipped in behind
+his back, to be again ordered out. At last come dignitaries in such
+very full feather that the crowd stands back and becomes a trifle more
+modest. The hands on the clock move on, cadets who were wandering about
+with mothers and friends leave them and go off to barracks. Men for
+the platform come leisurely along, sure of a good place; the upper
+ten for the seats below make more speed, seeking the best. Then the
+superintendent, the adjutant, and all the glittering people in train of
+the Board of Visitors, mount the platform, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>
+make it a study of sheen and colour. Drums sound in the distance, then
+nearer, and the whole battalion comes marching down. They halt at the
+back of the crowd, stack arms, and the graduating class file in and
+take their seats.</p>
+
+<p>There is a short prayer from the chaplain, "Hail, Columbia!" from
+the band, and then the address&mdash;or, maybe two. From the president
+of the board generally, followed often by words from some high ranking
+officer, or some notability in civil life. Addresses sometimes wise,
+sometimes more&mdash;otherwise&mdash;than one could wish; very seldom
+vivid and instinct with fire. The country figures, of course, and "this
+Institution," and the flag, with the service, in a mild sort of way.
+All eyes are fixed upon this particular class, and the army welcomes
+it with open arms. And the cadets have done well, and the professors
+have done their best. On the whole, the sort of speeches to which you
+would like to apply a match and bring them to either a blaze or to
+ashes. How rarely&mdash;Oh, how rarely!&mdash;have these veterans in
+camp or council one word of real cheer, wisdom, and fire, for these
+"youngsters," these smooth-faced new recruits.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it makes less difference than I think to the grave young men
+waiting there, bare-headed and absorbed; they have been at such high
+pressure, and have so much else to think of. They listen, and applaud,
+from time to time, and generally in the right place. Once in a while
+you may notice that just <i>there</i> the Southern hands are silent.</p>
+
+<p>More music follows, and then the adjutant with his stack of diplomas
+comes to the front and stands behind the Superintendent, or whoever is
+to give them out: in the old days, it was often General Sherman. One by
+one he takes the parchment from the adjutant, and the names are called
+off in order of standing.</p>
+
+<p>"Harvey Linton!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
+A tall, dark-haired young fellow rises from the grey mass, comes to
+the foot of the platform, and with a low bow takes the credentials for
+which he has toiled so bravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you, sir," says the donor; "not so much for being
+at the head as for the hard work which has put you there,"&mdash;and
+Linton bows again, and goes back to his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he has done very well&mdash;ve&mdash;ry well," so his father
+in the crowd answers friendly words, trying hard to seem unconscious
+that his son has carried off first honours.</p>
+
+<p>"Anson Dent!" and this time it is a broad shouldered Wisconsiner,
+followed by a Virginian, a fair haired Hoosier, and all the rest. But
+you notice other differences among the men. For while some smile and
+bow gratefully, others give the briefest sort of nod, and some none at
+all. Some flush, and some grow pale, and some hands almost grab the
+diploma as if a right had been long withheld. And one casts furtive
+glances towards a certain bewitching bonnet in the crowd, as he goes
+to his seat, and the next sends a deeper gaze across the gay lines,
+seeking a face and dress the plainest there, but the best beloved in
+all the world; while many see only the friends a thousand miles away.
+One man unrolls his diploma and studies it with all his eyes, his
+neighbour plays with his, as if it were the veriest trifle&mdash;a mere
+bagatelle.</p>
+
+<p>"Charlemagne Kindred!"</p>
+
+<p>And I am bound to own that this man went forward in a dream. With
+one swift glance at Mr. Wayne, he did catch the loving interest in that
+face, but the rest of the people might as well have been a fog bank. He
+was feeling so much that he seemed not to feel at all, until when they
+broke up, and Twinkle pressed through the crowd, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my mother! I want my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>And then Magnus could have shaken him, for daring to put his own
+heart-cry in words.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+Indiscriminate cheering was not the fashion in those days. A
+specially popular man, or one who had done his work against special
+odds, might have some hearty plaudits. But generally the applause was
+kept for "the last man," who by brilliant carelessness or industrious
+breaking of regulations, footed "the immortals." Of course, they
+all cheered <i>him</i>. Had he not kept someone else from being "last
+man?"&mdash;even now and then (it is whispered) closing up the class
+end so that no one else <i>could</i> fall through. But after all, <i>somebody</i>
+must be last, so cheer him on. He may outrank you yet, in life.</p>
+
+<p>The scene changes. Everyone rises to the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
+there is the benediction, the cadets march away to the "Left Behind
+Girl" once more; and then girls present, who will not accept the
+situation, tear along to the front of barracks to hear the new
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>The companies are drawn up in line, never again to stand together
+there, and the adjutant publishes the orders for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long reading. Lists of the men who graduate, of the men who
+go on furlough, and of the new cadet officers; and again the friendly
+chin-straps do the part of words, and "conceal thought." But if you are
+near enough, and know the faces, you can see a gleam in the eyes of the
+men who are to wear chevrons, or gloom on the faces of some who are
+left in ranks, while the furlough men are almost dancing. But not even
+a half-inch stir, anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>When the reading is done, and they break ranks, then indeed frolic
+breaks loose, and every sort of thing is on hand. Graduates rush
+to their rooms, clasping a hand here and there as they go, to put
+off the grey once more and forever. Furlough men also "scoot" away,
+eager to come out in "cits" for the journey; while the others hug and
+congratulate each other in a threefold tangle, sometimes; the new
+officers hurry to put on their chevrons; and (lest the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+fun should be one-sided) are now and then caught and borne away and put
+under the hydrant by the zealous yearlings.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the sallyport fills up with girls, matrons, friends, old
+graduates, and people in general. The gay overflow pours out into the
+area of barracks, all waiting to see the young lieutenants and the
+furlough men shine out in "cits." And they are about as different from
+each other, when they come, as they were in the old candidate days. One
+tall man in an extra tall hat, the next neat and harmonious down to
+his small handbag, and this one just a trifle loud and mixed. Twos and
+threes and one alone, hardly to be known at first, with their canes and
+neckties. The furlough men shine all over with joy, the young graduates
+have thoughts. So this face grows grave over a handshake, and this
+other stalwart fellow breaks down in his words of farewell, and leaves
+them unsaid.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wayne stood there with the rest, watching for Magnus, and then
+having a word with him from time to time, until that matter-of-fact
+regulation drum beat the call for dinner, and the new cadet officers
+marched the men away.</p>
+
+<p>The air is still full of hurry, for most of those who are going want
+to take the down boat, and there are a few last calls to pay, and some
+unfinished business with the commissary or the "Com." But one way and
+another the area is cleared, the men slip out of sight, and graduation
+is over. Few words may tell the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Erskine had passed away from this earthly life, during that
+very week in June; and it was a very pale and grief-stricken girl,
+much needing him, that Magnus took in his arms when he reached home.
+And later on in the summer there was a quiet wedding, with just a few
+classmates in full-dress uniform to light up the room, and Mr. Wayne to
+join the two hands in a bond which should never be broken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>
+And their first post? What does that matter? However, it was one
+with plenty to do, and some things to bear; a good place wherein to
+shine as the Lord's true servants, and an excellent one from which to
+look up to Him.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, it stood on high ground, with a fine outlook, and a
+fair climate. It was called Fort Content.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h2>Transcriber's Note</h2>
+
+<p>Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Blank pages have been removed.</p>
+
+<p>There are inconsistencies in the display of attributions in the poetry and
+quotes following chapter headings. These have been retained.</p>
+
+<p>In the body of the text closing quotes have been omitted before poetry,
+after a colon and in correspondence. The text reproduced here is true
+to the original.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pgx" />
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