BACK IN THE HOME TOWN
Back in the old, well-known streets of their home town, Gridley!
Dave and Dan, enjoying every minute of their month's leave, had already
greeted their parents, and had told them much of their life as
midshipmen.
What hurt was the fact that the skipper of the "Princess Irene" had
already told the marine reporters in New York the thrilling story of how
Dave and Dan had nearly come to their own deaths rescuing Midshipman
Hallam.
Everyone in Gridley, it seemed, had read that newspaper story. Darrin
and Dalzell, before they had been home twelve hours, were weary of
hearing their praises sung.
"There go two of the smartest, finest boys that old Gridley ever turned
out," citizens would say, pointing after Dave and Dan. "They're
midshipmen at Annapolis; going to be officers of the Navy one of these
days."
"But what's the matter with Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes? They're at
West Point."
"Oh, they're all right, too, of course. But Darrin and Dalzell----"
It was the old circumstance of being "the lions of the minute" and of
being on the spot.
On the first morning of his arrival home Dave Darrin went frankly and
openly to call on his old schoolgirl sweetheart, Belle Meade.
Dan, having no particular associations with the gentler sex, took a
stroll around town to meet any old friends who might care to see him
again.
Dave was shown into the parlor at the Meade home. Soon after Belle came
swiftly in, her face beaming with delight.
"Oh, but you're not in uniform!" was her first disappointed comment.
"No," smiled Dave. "I'm allowed every possible chance, for one month, to
forget every detail of the big grind which for a short time I've left
behind."
"But you're the same old Dave," cried Belle, "only bigger and manlier.
And that magnificent work you and Dan did in jumping over-bo----"
"Stop!" begged Dave. "You're a friend of mine, aren't you! Then don't
add to the pain that has been already inflicted on me. If I had had the
newspapers in mind I wouldn't have the nerve to---- But please let's not
talk about it anymore."
Then the two young people seated themselves and spent a delightful hour
in talking over all that had befallen them both since they had last met.
Belle, too, through Laura Bentley, had some much later news of the old
chums, Dick and Greg, now cadets at West Point.
This news, however, will be found in full in "DICK PRESCOTT'S SECOND
YEAR AT WEST POINT."
"What are your plans for this afternoon?" Belle asked at last.
"That's what I want your help in making," Dave answered.
"Can you get hold of Dan?"
"No trouble about that. But keeping hold of him may be more difficult,"
laughed Dave.
"I was going to propose that you get Dan, call here and then we'll all
go over to Laura Bentley's. I know she'll be anxious to see us."
"Nothing could be better in the way of a plan," assented Dave. "I'll pin
Danny boy down to that. It would really seem like a slight on good old
Dick if we didn't make Laura an early call."
"I'll go to the telephone, now, and tell her that we're coming," cried
Belle, rising quickly.
"Laura is delighted," she reported, on her return to the room. "But
Dave, didn't you at least bring along a uniform, so that we could see
what it looks like?"
"I didn't," replied Dave, soberly, then added, quizzically:
"You've seen the district messenger boys on the street, haven't you?"
"Yes, of course; but what--"
"Our uniforms look very much like theirs," declared Dave.
"I'm afraid I can't undertake to believe you," Belle pouted.
"Well, anyway, you girls will soon have a chance to see our uniforms.
Just as soon as our hops start, this fall, you and Laura will come down
and gladden our hearts by letting us drag you, won't you!"
"Drag us?" repeated Belle, much mystified.
"Oh, that's middies' slang for escorting a pretty girl to a midshipman
hop."
"You have a lot of slang, then, I suppose."
"Considerable," admitted Dave readily.
"What, then, is your slang for a pretty girl?"
"Oh, we call her a queen."
"And a girl who is--who isn't--pretty?"
"A gold brick," answered Dave unblushingly.
"A gold brick?" gasped Belle. "Dear me! 'Dragging a gold brick' to a hop
doesn't sound romantic, does it?"
"It isn't," Darrin admitted.
"Yet you have invited me--"
"Our class hasn't started in with its course of social compliments yet,"
laughed Dave. "Please go look in the glass. Or, if you won't believe the
glass, then just wait and see how proud Dan and I are if we can lead you
and Laura out on the dancing floor."
"But what horrid slang!" protested Belle. "The idea of calling a homely
girl a gold brick! And I thought you young men received more or less
training in being gracious to the weaker sex."
"We do," Dave answered, "as soon as we can find any use for the
accomplishment. Fourth classmen, you know, are considered too young to
associate with girls. It's only now, when we've made a start in the
third class, that we're to be allowed to attend the hops at all."
"But why must you have to have such horrid names for girls who have not
been greatly favored in the way of looks? It doesn't sound exactly
gallant."
"Oh, well, you know," laughed Dave, "we poor, despised, no-account
middies must have some sort of sincere language to talk after we get our
masks off for the day. I suppose we like the privilege, for a few
minutes in each day, of being fresh, like other young folks."
"What is your name for 'fresh' down at Annapolis!" Belle wanted to know.
"Touge."
"And for being a bit worse than touge?"
"Ratey."
"Which did they call you?" demanded Belle.
Dave started, then sat up straight, staring at Miss Meade.
"I see that your tongue hasn't lost its old incisiveness," he laughed.
"Not among my friends," Belle replied lightly. "But I can't get my mind
off that uniform of yours that you didn't bring home. What would have
happened to you if you had been bold enough to do it?"
"I guess I'd have 'frapped the pap,'" hazarded Dave.
"And what on earth is 'frapping the pap'?" gasped Belle.
"Oh, that's a brief way of telling about it when a midshipman gets stuck
on the conduct report."
"I'm going to buy a notebook," asserted Belle, "and write down and
classify some of this jargon. I'd hate to visit a strange country, like
Annapolis, and find I didn't know the language. And, Dave, what sort of
place is Annapolis, anyway?"
"Oh, it's a suburb of the Naval Academy," Dave answered.
"Is it dreadfully hard to keep one's place in his class there?" asked
Belle.
"Well, the average fellow is satisfied if he doesn't 'bust cold,'" Dave
informed her.
"Gracious! What sort of explosion is 'busting cold'?"
"Why, that means getting down pretty close to absolute zero in all
studies. When a fellow has the hard luck to bust cold the superintendent
allows him all his time, thereafter, to go home and look up a more
suitable job than one in the Navy. And when a fellow bilges----"
"Stop!" begged Belle. "Wait!"
She fled from the room, to return presently bearing the prettiest hat
that Dave ever remembered having seen on her shapely young head. In one
hand she carried a dainty parasol that she turned over to him.
"What's the cruise?" asked Darrin, rising.
"I'm going out to get that notebook, now. Please don't talk any more
'midshipman' to me until I get a chance to set the jargon down."
As she stood there, such a pretty and wholesome picture, David Darrin
thought he never before had seen such a pretty girl, nor one dressed in
such exquisite taste. Being a boy, it did not occur to him that Belle
Meade had been engaged for weeks in designing this gown and others that
she meant to wear during his brief stay at home.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Belle.
"What a pity it is that I am doomed to a short life," sighed Darrin.
"A short life? What do you mean?" Belle asked.
"Why, I'm going to be assassinated, the first hop that you attend at the
Naval Academy."
"So I'm a gold brick, am I?" frowned Belle.
"You--a--gold brick?" stammered Dave. "Why, you--oh, go look in the
glass!"
"Who will assassinate you?"
"A committee made up from among the fellows whose names I don't write
down on your dance card. And there are hundreds of them at Annapolis.
You can't dance with them all."
"I don't intend to," replied Belle, with a toss of her head. "I'll
accept, as partners, only those who appear to me the handsomest and most
distinguished looking of the midshipmen. No one else can write his name
on my card."
"Dear girl, I'm afraid you don't understand our way of making up dance
cards at Crabtown."
"Where?"
"Crabtown. That's our local name for Annapolis."
"Gracious! Let me get out quickly and get that notebook!"
"At midshipmen's hops the fellow who drags the----"
"Gold brick," supplied Belle, resignedly.
"No--not for worlds! You're no gold brick, Belle, and you know it, even
though you do refuse to go to the mirror. But the fellow who drags any
femme--"
"Please--?"
"'Femme' stands for girl. The fellow who drags any femme makes up her
dance card for her."
"And she hasn't a word to say about it?"
"Not as a rule."
"Oh!" cried Belle, dramatically.
She moved toward the door. Dave, who could not take his eyes from her
pretty face, managed, somehow, to delay her.
"Belle, there's something--" he began.
"Good gracious! Where? What?" she cried, looking about her keenly.
"It's something I want to say--must say," Dave went on with more of an
effort than anyone but himself could guess.
"Tell me, as we're going down the street," invited Belle.
"_Wha-a-at?_" choked Dave. "Well, I guess not!"
He faced her, resting both hands lightly on her shoulders.
"Belle, we were pretty near sweethearts in the High School, I think," he
went on, huskily, but looking her straight in the eyes. "At least, that
was my hope, and I hope, most earnestly, that it's going to continue.
Belle, I am a long way from my real career, yet. It will be five years,
yet, before I have any right to marry. But I want to look forward, all
the time, to the sweet belief that my schoolgirl sweetheart is going to
become my wife one of these days. I want that as a goal to work for,
along with my commission in the Navy. But to this much I agree: if you
say 'yes' now, and find later that you have made a mistake, you will
tell me so frankly."
"Poor boy!" murmured Belle, looking at him fully. "You've been a plebe
until lately, and you haven't been allowed to see any girls. I'm not
going to take advantage of you as heartlessly as that."
Yet something in her eyes gave the midshipman hope.
"Belle," he continued eagerly, "don't trifle with me. Tell me--will you
marry me some day?"
Then there was a little more talk and--well, it's no one's business.
"But we're not so formally engaged," Belle warned him, "that you can't
write me and draw out of the snare if you wish when you're older. And
I'm not going to wear any ring until you've graduated from the Naval
Academy. Do you understand that, Mr. David Darrin?"
"It shall be as you say, either way," Dave replied happily.
"And now, let us get started, or we shan't get out on the street
to-day," urged Belle.
Then they passed out on the street, and no ordinarily observant person
would have suspected them of being anything more than school friends.
Being very matter-of-fact in some respects, Belle's first move was to go
to a stationer's, where she bought a little notebook bound in red
leather.
Dave tried to pay for that purchase, but Belle forestalled him.
"Why didn't you allow me to make you that little gift?" he asked in a
low tone, when they had reached the street.
"Wait," replied Belle archly. "Some day you may find your hands full in
that line."
"One of my instructors at Annapolis complimented me on having very
capable hands," Dave told her dryly.
"The instructor in boxing?" asked Belle.
It was a wonderfully delightful stroll that the middy and his sweetheart
enjoyed that September forenoon.
Once Dave sighed, so pronouncedly that Belle shot a quick look of
questioning at him.
"Tired of our understanding already?" she demanded.
"No; I was thinking how sorry I am for Danny boy! He doesn't know the
happiness of having a real sweetheart."
"How do you know he doesn't?" asked Belle quickly. "Does he tell you
everything?"
"No; but I know Danny's sea-going lines pretty well. I'd suspect, at
least, if he had a sweetheart."
"Are you sure that you would?"
"Oh, yes! By gracious! There's Danny going around the corner above at
this very moment."
Belle had looked in the same instant.
"Yes; and a skirt swished around the corner with him," declared Belle
impressively. "It would be funny, wouldn't it, if you didn't happen to
know all about Dan Dalzell?"
In the early afternoon, however, the mystery was cleared up.
On the street Dalzell had encountered Laura Bentley. Both were full of
talk and questions concerning Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes, at West
Point, for which reason Dan had strolled home with Miss Bentley without
any other thought, on the midshipman's part, than playing substitute
gallant for his chum, Cadet Richard Prescott, U.S. Military Academy.
A most delightful afternoon the four young people spent together at the
Bentley home.
These were the forerunners of other afternoons.
Belle and Laura, however, were not able to keep their midshipmen to
themselves.
Other girls, former students at the High School, arranged a series of
affairs to which the four young people were invited.
Dave's happiest moments were when he had Belle to himself, for a stroll
or chat.
Dan's happiest moments, on the other hand, were when he was engaged in
hunting the old High School fellows, or such of them as were now at
home. For many of them had entered colleges or technical schools. Tom
Reade and Harry Hazelton, of the famous old Dick & Co., of High School
days, were now in the far southwest, under circumstances fully narrated
in "THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN ARIZONA," the second volume of "THE YOUNG
ENGINEERS' SERIES.'"
Day by day Belle jotted down in her notebook more specimens of
midshipman slang.
"I shall soon feel that I can reel off the language like a native of
Crabtown," she confided laughingly to Dare.
"It won't be very long before you have an opportunity to try," Dave
declared, "if you and Laura embrace your first opportunity to come to a
middy hop."
Dan had a happy enough time of it, even though Dave's suspicion was true
in that Dan had no sweetheart. That, however, was Dan's fault entirely,
as several of the former High School girls would have been willing to
assure him.
Since even the happiest times must all end so the latter part of
September drew near.
Then came the day when Dave and Dan met at the railway station. A host
of others were there to see them off, for the midshipmen still had
crowds of friends in the good old home town.
A ringing of bells, signaling brakesmen, a rolling of steel wheels and
the two young midshipmen swung aboard the train, to wave their hats from
the platform.
Gridley was gone--lost to sight for another year. Dan was exuberant
during the first hour of the journey, Dave unusually silent.
"You need a vast amount of cheering up, David, little giant!" exclaimed
Dalzell.
"Oh, I guess not," smiled Dave Darrin quietly, adding to himself, under
his breath:
"I carry my own good cheer with me, now."
Lightly his hand touched a breast pocket that carried the latest,
sweetest likeness of Miss Belle Meade.
One journey by rail is much like another to the traveler who pays little
heed to the scenery.
At the journey's end two well-rested midshipmen joined the throng of
others at Crabtown.