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.