YANKEES.
For several days I saw nothing of Preston. He was hardly
missed.
I found that such a parade as that which pleased me the first
morning, came off twice daily; and other military displays,
more extended and more interesting, were to be looked for
every day at irregular times. I failed not of one. So surely
as the roll of the drum or a strain of music announced that
something of the sort was on hand, I caught up my hat and was
ready. And so was Dr. Sandford. Mrs. Sandford would often not
go; but the doctor's hat was as easily put on as mine, and as
readily; and he attended me, I used to think, as patiently as
a great Newfoundland dog. As patient, and as supreme. The
evolutions of soldiers and clangour of martial music were
nothing to _him;_ but he must wait upon his little mistress. I
mean of course the Newfoundland dog; not Dr. Sandford.
"Will you go for a walk, Daisy?" he said, the morning of the
third or fourth day. "There is nothing doing on the plain, I
find."
"A walk? Oh, yes!" I said. "Where shall we go?"
"To look for wonderful things," he said.
"Only don't take the child among the rattlesnakes," said Mrs.
Sandford. "_They_ are wonderful, I suppose, but not pleasant.
You will get her all tanned, Grant!"
But I took these hints of danger as coolly as the doctor
himself did; and another of my West-Point delights began.
We went beyond the limits of the post, passed out at one of
the gates which shut it in from the common world, and forgot
for the moment drums and fifes. Up the mountain side, under
the shadow of the trees most of the time, though along a good
road; with the wild hill at one hand rising sharp above us.
Turning round that, we finally plunged down into a grand dell
of the hills, leaving all roads behind and all civilisation,
and having a whole mountain between us and the West-Point
plain. I suppose it might have been a region for rattlesnakes,
but I never thought of them. I had never seen such a place in
my life. From the bottom of the gorge where we were, the
opposite mountain side sloped up to a great height; wild,
lonely, green with a wealth of wood, stupendous, as it seemed
to me, in its towering expanse. At our backs, a rocky and
green precipice rose up more steeply yet, though to a lesser
elevation, topped with the grey walls of the old fort, the
other face of which I had seen from our hotel. A wilderness of
nature it was; wild and stern. I feasted on it. Dr. Sandford
was moving about, looking for something; he helped me over
rocks, and jumped me across morasses, and kept watchful guard
of me; but else he let me alone; he did lot talk; and I had
quite enough without. The strong delight of the novelty, the
freedom, the delicious wild things around, the bracing air,
the wonderful lofty beauty, made me as happy as I thought I
could be. I feasted on the rocks and wild verdure, the mosses
and ferns and lichen, the scrub forest and tangled
undergrowth, among which we plunged and scrambled; above all,
on those vast leafy walls which shut in the glen, and almost
took away my breath with their towering lonely grandeur. All
this time Dr. Sandford was as busy as a bee, in quest of
something. He was a great geologist and mineralogist; a lover
of all natural science, but particularly of chemistry and
geology. When I stopped to look at him, I thought he must have
put his own tastes in his pocket for several days past, that
he might gratify mine. I was standing on a rock, high and dry
and grey with lichen; he was poking about in some swampy
ground.
"Are you tired, Daisy?" he said, looking up.
"My feet are tired," I said.
"That is all of you that can be tired. Sit down where you are
I will come to you directly."
So I sat down, and watched him, and looked off between whiles
to the wonderful green walls of the glen. The summer blue was
very clear overhead; the stillness of the place very deep;
insects, birds, a flutter of leaves, and the grating of Dr.
Sandford's boot upon a stone, all the sound that could be
heard.
"Why, you are warm, as well as tired, Daisy," he said, coming
up to my rock at last.
"It is warm," I answered.
"Warm?" said he. "Look here, Daisy!"
"Well, what in the world is that?" I said laughing. "A little
mud or earth is all that I can see."
"Ah, your eyes are not good for much, Daisy except to look
at."
"Not good for much for _that_," I said, amused; for his eyes
were bent upon the earth in his hand.
"I don't know" said he, getting up on the rock beside me and
sitting down. "I used to find strange things in them once. But
this is something you will like, Daisy."
"Is it?"
"If you like wonderful things as well as ever."
"Oh, I do!" I said. "What is it, Dr. Sandford?"
He carefully wrapped up his treasure in a bit of paper and put
it in his pocket; then he cut down a small hickory branch and
began to fan me with it; and while he sat there fanning me he
entered upon a lecture such as I had never listened to in my
life. I had studied a little geology of course, as well as a
little of everything else; but no lesson like this had come in
the course of my experience. Taking his text from the very
wild glen where we were sitting and the mountain sides upon
which I had been gazing, Dr. Sandford spread a clear page of
nature before me and interpreted it. He answered unspoken
questions; he filled great vacancies of my ignorance; into
what had been abysms of thought he poured a whole treasury of
intelligence and brought floods of light. All so quietly, so
luminously, with such a wealth of knowledge and facility of
giving it, that it is a simple thing to say no story of
Eastern magic was ever given into more charmed ears around an
Arabian desert fire. I listened, and he talked and fanned me.
He talked like one occupied with his subject and not with me;
but he met every half uttered doubt or question, and before he
had done he satisfied it fully. I had always liked Dr.
Sandford; I had never liked him so much. I had never, since
the old childish times, had such a free talk with him. And
now, he did not talk to me as a child or a very young girl,
except in bending himself to my ignorance; but as one who
loves knowledge likes to give it to others, so he gave it to
me. Only I do not remember seeing him like to give it in such
manner to anybody else. I think the novelty added to the zest
when I thought about: it; at the moment I had no time for side
thoughts. At the moment my ears could but receive the pearls
and diamonds of knowledge which came from the speaker's lips,
set in silver of the simplest clear English. I notice that the
people who have the most thorough grasp of a subject make ever
least difficulty of words about it.
The sun was high and hot when we returned, but I cared nothing
for that. I was more than ever sure that West Point was
fairyland. The old spring of childish glee seemed to have come
back to my nerves.
"Dinner is just ready," said Mrs. Sandford, meeting us in the
hall. "Why, where _have_ you been? And look at the colour of
Daisy's face! Oh, Grant, what have you done with her?"
"Very good colour " said the doctor, peering under my hat.
"She's all flushed and sunburnt, and overheated."
"Daisy is never anything but cool;" he said, "unless when she
gets hold of a principle, and somebody else gets hold of the
other end. We'll look at these things after dinner, Daisy."
"Principles?" half exclaimed Mrs. Sandford, with so dismayed
an expression that the doctor and I both laughed.
"Not exactly," said the doctor, putting his hand in his
pocket. "Look here."
"I see nothing but a little dirt."
"You shall see something else by and by if you will."
"You have never brought your microscope here, Grant? Where in
the world will you set it up?"
"In your room after dinner if you permit."
Mrs. Sandford permitted; and though she did not care much
about the investigations that followed, the doctor and I did.
As delightful as the morning had been, the long afternoon
stretched its bright hours along; till Mrs. Sandford insisted
I must be dressed, and pushed the microscope into a corner and
ordered the doctor away.
That was the beginning of the pleasantest course of lessons I
ever had in my life. From that time Dr. Sandford and I spent a
large part of every day in the hills; and often another large
part over the microscope. No palace and gardens in the Arabian
nights were ever more enchanting, than the glories of nature
through which he led me; nor half so wonderful. "A little
dirt," as it seemed to ordinary eyes, was the hidden entrance
way ofttimes to halls of knowledge more magnificent and more
rich than my fancy had ever dreamed of.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sandford found a great many officers to talk
to.
It was not till the evening of the next day following my first
walk into the mountains, that I saw Preston. It was parade
time; and I was sitting as usual on one of the iron settees
which are placed for the convenience of spectators. I was
almost always there at parade and guard-mounting. The picture
had a continual fascination for me, whether under the morning
sun, or the evening sunset; and the music was charming. This
time I was alone, Dr. and Mrs. Sandford being engaged in
conversation with friends at a little distance. Following with
my ear the variations of the air the band were playing, my
mind was at the same time dwelling on the riches it had just
gained in the natural history researches of the day, and also
taking in half consciously the colours of the hills and the
light that spread over the plain; musing, in short, in a kind
of dream of delight; when a grey figure came between me and my
picture. Finding that it did not move, I raised my eyes.
"The same Daisy as ever!" said Preston, his eyes all alight
with fun and pleasure. "The same as ever! And how came you
here? and when did you come? and how did you come?"
"We have been here ever since Friday. Why haven't you been to
see me? Dr. Sandford sent word to you."
"Dr. Sandford!" said Preston, taking the place by my side.
"How did you come here, Daisy?"
"I came by the boat, last Friday. How should I come?"
"Who are you with?"
"Dr. Sandford and Mrs. Sandford."
"_Mrs_. Sandford, and Dr. Sandford," said Preston, pointedly.
"You are not with the doctor, I suppose."
"Why, yes, I am," I answered. "He is my guardian don't you
know, Preston? He brought me. How tall you have grown!"
"A parcel of Yankees," said Preston. "Poor little Daisy."
"What do you mean by 'Yankees'?" I said. "You do not mean just
people at the North, for you speak as if it was something
bad."
"It is. So I do," said Preston. "They are a mean set fit for
nothing but to eat codfish and scrape. I wish you had nothing
to do with Yankees."
I thought how all the South lived upon stolen earnings. It was
a disagreeable turn to my meditations for a moment.
"Where have you hid yourself since you have come here?"
Preston went on. "I have been to the hotel time and again to
find you."
"Have you!" I said. "Oh, I suppose I was out walking."
"With whom were you walking?"
"I don't know anybody here, but those I came with. But
Preston, why are you not over yonder with the others?"
I was looking at the long grey line formed in front of us on
the plain.
"I got leave of absence, to come and see you, Daisy. And _you_
have grown, and improved. You're wonderfully improved. Are you
the very same Daisy? and what are you going to do here?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying myself. Now, Preston, why does that man
stand so?"
"What man?"
"That officer here in front, standing all alone, with the
sash and sword. Why does he stand so?"
"Hush. That is Captain Percival. He is the officer in charge."
"What is that?"
"Oh, he looks after the parade, and things."
"But why does he stand so, Preston?"
"Stand how?" said Preston, unsympathisingly. "That is good
standing."
"Why, with his shoulders up to his ears," I said; "and his
arms lifted up as if he was trying to put his elbows upon a
high shelf. It is _very_ awkward."
"They all stand so," said Preston. "That's right enough."
"It is ungraceful."
"It is military."
"Must one be ungraceful in order to be military?"
"_He_ isn't ungraceful. That is Percival of South Carolina."
"The officer yesterday stood a great deal better," I went on.
"Yesterday? That was Blunt. He's a Yankee."
"Well, what then, Preston?" I said, laughing.
"I despise them!"
"Aren't there Yankees among the cadets?"
"Of course; but they are no count only here and there
there's one of good family. Don't you have anything to do with
them, Daisy mind; not with one of them, unless I tell you
who he is."
"With one of whom? what are you speaking of?"
"The cadets."
"Why, I have nothing to do with them," I said. "How should I?"
Preston looked at me curiously.
"Nor at the hotel, neither, Daisy more than you can help.
Have nothing to say to the Yankees."
I thought Preston had taken a strange fancy. I was silent.
"It is not fitting," he went on. "We are going to change all
that. I want to have nothing to do with Yankees."
"What are you going to change?" I asked. "I don't see how you
can help having to do with them. They are among the cadets,
and they are among the officers."
"We have our own set," said Preston. "I have nothing to do
with them in the corps."
"Now, Preston, look; what are they about? All the red sashes
are getting together."
"Parade is dismissed. They are coming up to salute the officer
in charge."
"It is so pretty!" I said, as the music burst out again, and
the measured steps of the advancing line of "red sashes"
marked it. "And now Captain Percival will unbend his stiff
elbows. Why could not all that be done easily, Preston?"
"Nonsense, Daisy! it is military."
"Is it? But Mr. Blunt did it a great deal better. Now they are
going. Must you go?"
"Yes. What are you going to do to-morrow?"
"I don't know I suppose, we shall go into the woods again."
"When the examination is over, I can attend to you. I haven't
much time just now. But there is really nothing to be done
here, since one can't get on horseback out of the hours."
"I don't want anything better than I can get on my own feet,"
I said joyously. "I find plenty to do."
"Look here, Daisy," said Preston "don't you turn into a
masculine, muscular woman, that can walk her twenty miles and
wear hob-nailed shoes like the Yankees you are among. Don't
forget that you are the daughter of a Southern gentleman "
He touched his cap hastily and turned away walking with
those measured steps towards the barracks; whither now all the
companies of grey figures were in full retreat. I stood
wondering, and then slowly returned with my friends to the
hotel; much puzzled to account for Preston's discomposure and
strange injunctions. The sunlight had left the tops of the
hills; the river slept in the gathering grey shadows, soft,
tranquil, reposeful. Before I got to the hotel, I had quite
made up my mind that my cousin's eccentricities were of no
consequence.
They recurred to me, however, and were as puzzling as ever. I
had no key at the time.
The next afternoon was given to a very lively show: the light
artillery drill before the Board of Visitors. We sat out under
the trees to behold it; and I found out now the meaning of the
broad strip of plain between the hotel and the library, which
was brown and dusty in the midst of the universal green. Over
this strip, round and round, back and forth and across, the
light artillery wagons rushed, as if to show what they could
do in time of need. It was a beautiful sight, exciting and
stirring; with the beat of horses' hoofs, the clatter of
harness, the rumble of wheels tearing along over the ground,
the flash of a sabre now and then, the ringing words of
command, and the soft shrill echoing bugle which repeated
them. I only wanted to understand it all; and in the evening I
plied Preston with questions. He explained things to me
patiently.
"I understand," I said, at last, "I understand what it would
do in war time. But we are not at war, Preston."
"No."
"Nor in the least likely to be."
"We can't tell. It is good to be ready."
"But what do you mean?" I remember saying. "You speak as if we
might be at war. Who is there for us to fight?"
"Anybody that wants putting in order," said Preston. "The
Indians."
"O Preston, Preston!" I exclaimed. "The Indians! when we have
been doing them wrong ever since the white men came here; and
you want to do them more wrong!"
"I want to hinder them from doing us wrong. But I don't care
about the Indians, little Daisy. I would just as lief fight
the Yankees."
"Preston, I think you are very wrong."
"You think all the world is," he said.
We were silent, and I felt very dissatisfied. What was all
this military schooling a preparation for, perhaps? How could
we know. Maybe these heads and hands, so gay to-day in their
mock fight, would be grimly and sadly at work by and by, in
real encounter with some real enemy.
"Do you see that man, Daisy?" whispered Preston suddenly in my
ear. "That one talking to a lady in blue "
We were on the parade ground, among a crowd of spectators, for
the hotels were very full, and the Point very gay now. I said
I saw him.
"That is a great man."
"Is he?" I said, looking and wondering if a great man could
hide behind such a physiognomy.
"Other people think so, I can tell you," said Preston. "Nobody
knows what that man can do. That is Davis of Mississippi."
The name meant nothing to me then. I looked at him as I would
have looked at another man. And I did not like what I saw.
Something of sinister, nothing noble, about the countenance;
power there might be Preston said there was but the power
of the fox and the vulture it seemed to me; sly, crafty,
false, selfish, cruel.
"If nobody knows what he can do, how is it so certain that he
is a great man?" I asked. Preston did not answer. "I hope
there are not many great men that look like him," I went on.
"Nonsense, Daisy!" said Preston, in an energetic whisper.
"That is Davis of Mississippi."
"Well?" said I. "That is no more to me than if he were Jones
of New York."
"Daisy!" said Preston. "If you are not a true Southerner, I
will never love you any more."
"What do you mean by a true Southerner? I do not understand."
"Yes, you do. A true Southerner is always a Southerner, and
takes the part of a Southerner in every dispute, right or
wrong."
"What makes you dislike Northerners so much?"
"Cowardly Yankees!" was Preston's reply.
"You must have an uncomfortable time among them, if you feel
so," I said.
"There are plenty of the true sort here. I wish you were in
Paris, Daisy; or somewhere else."
"Why?" I said, laughing.
"Safe with my mother, or your mother. Yon want teaching. You
are too latitudinarian. And you are too thick with the
Yankees, by half."
I let this opinion alone, as I could do nothing with it; and
our conversation broke off with Preston in a very bad humour.
The next day, when we were deep in the woods, I asked Dr.
Sandford if he knew Mr. Davis of Mississippi. He answered yes,
rather drily. I knew the doctor knew everybody.
I asked, why Preston called him a great man.
"Does he call him a great man?" Dr. Sandford asked.
"Do you?"
"No, not I, Daisy. But that may not hinder the fact. And I may
not have Mr. Gary's means of judging."
"What means can he have?" I said.
"Daisy," said Dr. Sandford suddenly, when I had forgotten the
question in plunging through a thicket of brushwood, "if the
North and the South should split on the subject of slavery,
what side would you take?"
"What do you mean by a 'split'?" I asked slowly, in my
wonderment.
"The States are not precisely like a perfect crystal, Daisy;
and there is an incipient cleavage somewhere about Mason and
Dixon's line."
"I do not know what line that is."
"No. Well, for practical purposes, you may take it as the line
between the slave States and the free."
"But how could there be a split?" I asked.
"There is a wedge applied even now, Daisy the question
whether the new States forming out of our Western territories,
shall have slavery in them or shall be free States."
I was silent upon this; and we walked and climbed for a little
distance, without my remembering our geological or
mineralogical, or any other objects in view.
"The North say," Dr. Sandford then went on, "that these States
shall be free. The South or some men at the South threaten
that if they be, the South will split from the North, have
nothing to do with us, and set up for themselves."
"Who is to decide it?" I asked.
"The people. This fall the election will be held for the next
President; and that will show. If a slavery man is chosen, we
shall know that a majority of the nation go with the Southern
view."
"If not?"
"Then there may be trouble, Daisy."
"What sort of trouble?" I asked hastily.
Dr. Sandford hesitated, and then said, "I do not know how far
people will go."
I mused, and forgot the sweet flutter of green leaves, and
smell of moss and of hemlock, and golden bursts of sunshine,
amongst which we were pursuing our way. Preston's strange heat
and sudden Southernism, Mr. Davis's wile and greatness, a
coming disputed election, quarrels between the people where I
was born and the people where I was brought up, divisions and
jealousies, floated before my mind in unlovely and confused
visions. Then, remembering my father and my mother and Gary Mc
Farlane, and others whom I had known, I spoke again.
"Whatever the Southern people say, they will do, Dr.
Sandford."
"_Provided_ " said the doctor.
"What, if you please?"
"Provided the North will let them, Daisy."
I thought privately they could not hinder. I thought they
could not. Would there be a trial? Could it be possible there
would be a trial?
"But you have not answered my question," said the doctor.
"Aren't you going to answer it?"
"What question?"
"As to the side you would take."
"I do not want any more slave States, Dr. Sandford."
"I thought so. Then you would be with the North."
"But people will never be so foolish as to come to what you
call a 'split,' Dr. Sandford."
"Upon my word, Daisy, as the world is at present, the folly of
a thing is no presumptive argument against its coming into
existence. Look here we shall get a nice piece of quartz for
your collection."
I came back to the primary rocks, and for the present
dismissed the subject of the confusions existing on the
surface of the earth; hoping sincerely that there would be no
occasion for calling it up again.
For some time I saw very little of Preston. He was busy, he
said. My days flowed on like the summer sunshine, and were as
beneficent. I was gaining strength every day. Dr. Sandford
decreed that I must stay as long as possible. Then Mr.
Sandford came, the doctor's brother, and added his social
weight to ours party. Hardly needed, for I perceived that we
were very much sought after; at least my companions. The
doctor in especial was a very great favourite, both with men
and women; who I notice are most ready to bestow their favour
where it is least cared for. I don't know but Dr. Sandford
cared for it; only he did not show that he did. The claims of
society however began to interfere with my geological and
other lessons.
A few days after his brother's arrival, the doctor had been
carried off by a party of gentlemen who were going back in the
mountains to fish in the White Lakes. I was left to the usual
summer delights of the place; which indeed to me were
numberless; began with the echo of the morning gun, (or
before) and ended not till the three taps of the drum at
night. The cadets had gone into camp by this time; and the
taps of the drum were quite near, as well as the shrill sweet
notes of the fife at reveille and tattoo. The camp itself was
a great pleasure to me; and at guard-mounting or parade I
never failed to be in my place. Only to sit in the rear of the
guard tents and watch the morning sunlight on the turf, and on
the hills over the river, and shining down the camp alleys,
was a rich satisfaction. Mrs. Sandford laughed at me; her
husband said it was "natural," though I am sure he did not
understand it a bit; but the end of all was, that I was left
very often to go alone down the little path to the guard-tents
among the crowd that twice a day poured out there from our
hotel and met the crowd that came up from Cozzens's hotel
below.
So it was, one morning that I remember. Guard-mounting was
always late enough to let one feel the sun's power; and it was
a sultry morning, this. We were in July now, and misty,
vapourous clouds moved slowly over the blue sky, seeming to
intensify the heat of the unclouded intervals. But wonderful
sweet it was; and I under the shade of my flat hat, with a
little help from the foliage of a young tree, did not mind it
at all. Every bit of the scene was a pleasure to me; I missed
none of the details. The files of cadets in the camp alleys
getting their arms inspected; the white tents themselves,
with curtains tightly done up; here and there an officer
crossing the camp ground and stopping to speak to an orderly;
then the coming up of the band, the music, the marching out of
the companies; the leisurely walk from the camp of the officer
in charge, drawing on his white gloves; his stand and his
attitude; and then the pretty business of the parade. All
under that July sky; all under that flicker of cloud and sun,
and the soft, sweet breath of air that sometimes stole to us
to relieve the hot stillness; and all with that setting and
background of cedars and young foliage and bordering hills
over which the cloud shadows swept. Then came the mounting
guard business. By and by Preston came to me.
"Awfully hot, Daisy!" he said.
"Yes, you are out in it," I said, compassionately.
"What are _you_ out in it for?"
"Why, I like it," I said. "How come you to be one of the red
sashes this morning?"
"I have been an officer of the guard this last twenty-four
hours."
"Since yesterday morning?"
"Yes."
"Do you like it, Preston?"
"_Like_ it!" he said. "Like guard duty! Why, Daisy, when a
fellow has left his shoe-string untied, or something or other
like that, they put him on extra guard duty to punish him."
"Did you ever do so, Preston?"
"Did I ever do so?" he repeated savagely. "Do you think I have
been raised like a Yankee, to take care of my shoes? That
Blunt is just fit to stand behind a counter and measure
inches!"
I was very near laughing, but Preston's mood would not bear
that.
"I don't think it is beneath a gentleman to keep his shoe-
strings tied," I said.
"A gentleman can't always think of everything!" was Preston's
answer.
"Then you are glad you have only one year more at the
Academy?"
"Of course I am glad! I'll never be under Yankee rule again;
not if I know it."
"Suppose they elect a Yankee President?" I said; but Preston's
look was so eager and so sharp at me that I was glad to cover
my rash suggestion under another subject as soon as possible.
"Are you going to be busy this afternoon?" I asked him.
"No, I reckon not."
"Suppose you come and go up to the Fort with me?"
"What fort?"
"Fort Putnam. I have never been there yet."
"There is nothing on earth to go there for," said Preston
shrugging his shoulders. "Just broil yourself in the sun, and
get nothing for it. It's an awful pull up hill; rough, and all
that; and nothing at the top but an old stone wall."
"But there is the view!" I said.
"You have got it down here just as good. Just climb up the
hotel stairs fifty times without stopping, and then look out
of the thing at top and you have been to Fort Putnam."
"Why, I want to go to the top of Crow's Nest," I said.
"Yes! I was ass enough to try that once," said Preston, "when
I was just come, and thought I must do everything; but if
anybody wants to insult me, let him just ask me to do it
again!"
Preston's mood was unmanageable. I had never seen him so in
old times. I thought West Point did not agree with him. I
listened to the bland, just then playing a fine air, and
lamented privately to myself that brass instruments should be
so much more harmonious than human tempers. Then the music
ceased and the military movements drew my attention again.
"They all walk like you," I observed carelessly, as I noticed
a measured step crossing the camp ground.
"Do they?" said Preston sneeringly. "I flatter myself I do not
walk like all of them. If you notice more closely, Daisy, you
will see a difference. You can tell a Southerner, on foot or
on horseback, from the sons of tailors and farmers strange
if you couldn't!"
"I think you are unjust, Preston," I said. "You should not
talk so. Major Blunt walks as well and stands much better than
any officer I have seen; and he is from Vermont; and Captain
Percival is from South Carolina, and Mr. Hunter is from
Virginia, and Colonel Forsyth is from Georgia. They are all of
them less graceful than Major Blunt."
"What do you think of Dr. Sandford?" said Preston in the same
tone; but before I could answer I heard a call of "Gary!
Gary!" I looked round. In the midst of the ranks of spectators
to our left stood a cadet, my friend of the omnibus. He was
looking impatiently our way, and again exclaimed in a sort of
suppressed shout "Gary!" Preston heard him that time;
started from my side, and placed himself immediately beside
his summoner, in front of the guard tents and spectators. The
two were in line, two or three yards separating them, and both
facing towards a party drawn up at some little distance on the
camp ground, which I believe were the relieving guard. I moved
my own position to a place immediately behind them, where I
spied an empty camp stool, and watched the two with curious
eyes. Uniforms, and military conformities generally, are queer
things, if you take the right point of view. Here were these
two, a pair, and not a pair. The grey coat, and the white
pantaloons, (they had all gone into white now) the little
soldier's cap, were a counterpart in each of the other; the
two even stood on the ground as if they were bound to be
patterns each of the other; and when my acquaintance raised
his arms and folded them after the approved fashion, to my
great amusement Preston's arms copied the movement; and they
stood like two brother statues, still from their heels to
their cap rims. Except when once the right arm of my unknown
friend was unbent to give a military sign, in answer to some
demand or address from somebody, in front of him, which I did
not hear. Yet as I watched, I began to discern how individual
my two statues really were. I could not see faces, of course.
But the grey coat on the one looked as if its shoulders had
been more carefully brushed than had been the case with the
other; the spotless pantaloons, which seemed to be just out of
the laundress's basket, as I suppose they were, sat with a
trimmer perfection in one case than in the other. Preston's
pocket gaped, and was, I noticed, a little bit ripped; and
when my eye got down to the shoes, his had not the black gloss
of his companion's. With that one there was not, I think, a
thread awry. And then, there was a certain relaxation in the
lines of Preston's figure impossible to describe, stiff and
motionless though he was; something which prepared one for a
lax and careless movement when he moved. Perhaps this was
fancy and only arose from my knowledge of the fact; but with
the other no such fancy was possible. Still, but alert;
motionless, but full of vigour; I expected what came; firm,
quick, and easy action, as soon as he should cease to be a
statue.
So much for a back view of character; which engrossed me till
my two statues went away.
A little while after Preston came to me. "Are you here yet?"
he said.
"Don't you like to have me here?"
"It's hot. And it is very stupid for you, I should think.
Where is Mrs. Sandford?"
"She thinks as you do, that it is stupid."
"You ought not to be here without some one."
"Why not? What cadet was that who called you, Preston?"
"Called me? Nobody called me."
"Yes he did. When you were sitting with me. Who was it?"
"I don't know!" said Preston. "Goodbye. I shall be busy for a
day or two."
"Then you cannot go to Fort Putnam this afternoon?"
"Fort Putnam! I should think not. It is going to be broiling
to-day."
And he left me. Things had gone wrong with Preston lately, I
thought. But before I had made up my mind to move, two other
cadets came before me. One of them Mrs. Sandford knew, and I
slightly.
"Miss Randolph, my friend Mr. Thorold has begged me to
introduce him to you."
It was _my_ friend of the omnibus. I think we liked each other
at this very first moment. I looked up at a manly, well-
featured face, just then lighted with a little smile of
deference and recognition; but permanently lighted with the
brightest and quickest hazel eyes that I ever saw. Something
about the face pleased me on the instant. I believe it was the
frankness.
"I have to apologise for my rudeness, in calling a gentleman
away from you, Miss Randolph, in a very unceremonious manner,
a little while ago."
"Oh, I know," I said. "I saw what you did with him."
"Did I do anything with him?"
"Only called him to his duty, I suppose."
"Precisely. He was very excusable for forgetting it; but it
might have been inconvenient."
"Do you think it is ever excusable to forget duty?" I asked;
and I was rewarded with a swift flash of fun in the hazel
eyes, that came and went like forked lightning.
"It is not easily pardoned here," he answered.
"People don't make allowances?"
"Not officers," he said, with a smile. "Soldiers lose the
character of men, when they are on duty; they are only
reckoned machines."
"You do not mean that exactly, I suppose."
"Indeed I do!" he said, with another slighter corruscation.
"Intelligent machines, of course, but with no more latitude of
action. You would not like that life?"
"I should think you would not."
"Ah, but we hope to rise to the management of the machines,
some day."
I thought I saw in his face that he did. I remarked that I
should not think the management of mere machines could be very
pleasant.
"Why not?"
"It is degrading to the machines, and so, I should think, it
would not be very elevating to those who make them machines."
"That is exactly the use they propose them to serve, though,"
he said, looking amused; "the elevation of themselves."
"I know" I said, thinking that the end was ignoble too.
"You do not approve it?" he said.
I felt those brilliant eyes dancing all over me, and, I
fancied, over my thoughts too. I felt a little shy of going on
to explain myself to one whom I knew so little. He turned the
conversation, by asking me if I had seen all the lions yet?
I said, I supposed not.
"Have you been up to the old fort?"
"I want to go there," I said; "but somebody told me to-day,
there was nothing worth going for."
"Has his report taken away your desire to make the trial?"
"No, for I do not believe he is right."
"Might I offer myself as a guide? I can be disengaged this
afternoon; and I know all the ways to the fort. It would give
me great pleasure."
I felt it would give me great pleasure too, and so I told him.
We arranged for the hour, and Mr. Thorold hastened away.