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.