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."