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.