AFTER TAPS
The musical echo of Tattoo came from the bugle, and a hush fell upon
Tent Four. The campfire still smouldered in the field by the lake, but
the campers had passed to their tents at the Call to Quarters, and were
now making ready to turn in for the night.
Blackie squatted on his bunk and stared at the faces that were
half-illuminated by the solitary lantern that hung on the tent-pole.
Mindful of the pine-cones that were still in Ken Haviland’s bed, he was
lying low and watching for developments.
The aide had already stripped, and was climbing into a swathing suit of
pajamas. Above him jutted the head of Lefkowitz, already between
blankets but still full of interest in proceedings.
“I can’t find my nightgown,” wailed little Guppy at the other end of the
tent.
“It should be under your pillow,” said Wally. He stretched his broad
arms and yawned prodigiously, making a noise like an enraged walrus.
“You ought to have pajamas anyway.”
“I put it under the pillow, sir, as Ken told me to. I had an extra one,
but that’s gone too. And I promised Mother I wouldn’t sleep in my—my
underthings, sir.”
“Well, they’ll probably turn up. For to-night you can have an extra pair
of my pajamas. I think the pants would be enough for you, though—you’re
not exactly a giant.” Wally produced a pair of outing-flannel pants,
stuffed the small Guppy into the legs of them, tied the cord about his
neck, and stowed him away between the blankets like a sack of potatoes.
Ken was turning down the covers. Blackie watched him feel the blankets
all over, and to the joker’s disappointment, the aide touched several
suspicious bumps and resuscitated the hidden pine-cones. He tossed them
into the night, and winked at Blackie.
“My camp experience has taught me to always feel my bed before I turn
in,” he grinned. “Some chaps have a funny sense of humor.” He hopped in
and sprawled out luxuriously.
Now that his trap had failed, Blackie bethought him of turning in also.
Slater, who had been outside gazing at the stars, stepped into the tent.
“Lots of meteorites falling to-night, sir,” he observed. “Venus is full,
too, I think; she’s especially bright in the west.” He set about his
preparations for bed.
Gallegher made a spring and landed in his bunk, just over Blackie’s
head. A creaking from another upper bunk across the way announced that
Fat Crampton had at last been able to climb to his lofty berth.
“Make it fast, Blackie,” warned the leader. “You don’t want to be the
last one in.”
Blackie was soon arrayed in the popular evening clothes for the
well-dressed camper, and looked longingly at his inviting bunk. He
slipped between the warm blankets, and stretched out. Umm—this was the
life!
But hold on! Something had him by the leg—something else was biting him
on the foot! Ouch! He yelled and rolled over the side, to come to the
floor in a whirling pile of boy, blankets, and—pine-cones!
Gallegher snickered above him.
“The oldest trick there is!” he chuckled. “These new guys will fall for
anything!”
The crestfallen Blackie struggled upright, and in the dull lamplight
began to make his bed anew.
“That will be all the demonstrations of playfulness for to-night,
gentlemen,” observed Wally, sitting on the edge of his bunk. “You are
all tired, and need your sleep—I, may it be observed, need mine also.
How anybody has the pep left to skylark around the first night of
camp—or any other night—is beyond me. As soon as Taps sounds, Tent Four
will be as still as the grave. The silence, as the book-writers always
have it, will be broken only by the measured breathing of the slumbering
woodsmen and the far call of a fillyloo bird across the waste. Key down,
now.”
He reached for his kit and drew out a book. “I’m talking seriously now.
We are all up here at Lenape to have the best time ever. It’s my job as
councilor to see that we do. And that’s what I want to make you fellows
understand. I’ll help you in any way I can to keep you good campers and
to make Lenape proud of you. If at any time you have anything on your
mind, bring it to me and we’ll talk it out. Now, I’m going to read you
one of the finest things that a camper ever listened to.”
He opened the Bible in his hand and read by the flickering light, in a
clear and sincere voice: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night
unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where
their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a
tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is
from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and
there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is
perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making
wise the simple.”
Softly and sweetly, as if from afar, came the first comforting notes of
Taps, the finest of music to a tired camper. Wally doused the lantern,
and the glory of the stars came into the quiet tent.
“Good-night, fellows,” said Wally quietly. “Happy dreams!”
Blackie lay quite still in his tumbled bed, thinking about the stars.
Firmament—that was a word that meant the same as heaven, but not so
nice-sounding. The stars were bright, all right.
Gallegher must have put those cones into his bed, when he had been
chasing bunk-stretchers—it must have been Gallegher, because he had
laughed so hard when Blackie fell out. Well, so much the worse for Mr.
Gallegher! He was sleeping right above Blackie, and in the morning, Mr.
Gallegher would be surprised. He reached up one foot, tentatively, to
see how the airplane method would work in helping Gallegher to rise. The
temptation came, and he pushed upward with both feet, hard.
Zoom! Gallegher flew into the air and came down to the floor with a wild
yell. The experiment was a success. Tent Four was instantly alert.
Lefkowitz snickered. Slater moaned dolefully. Little Guppy said, “What’s
that?”
Gallegher lay tumbled on the floor among his blankets. He had bruised
his elbow against a locker, and it made him mean-tempered.
“Damn you!” he cried. “I’ll get even——”
Through the dark came the calm voice of Wally. “You seem to have been
around a bunch of pretty foul-mouthed fellows, Gallegher. Gentlemen, and
especially Lenape gentlemen, don’t talk that way. Chain gang for you
Monday morning.”
“I don’t care!” shouted Gallegher. “I’d say it again if he did that to
me. If Blackie was a gentleman, he wouldn’t have given me that airplane
ride. It’s his fault as much as mine. Why don’t you give him the chain
gang, too?”
“Blackie!”
“Yes, sir.” Blackie, chuckling happily to himself at the thought of the
row he had raised, sat up and leaned on one arm.
“Didn’t I ask you and the other fellows to key down after Taps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Take your blankets and go sleep on the ground by the
flagpole to-night.”
“But why? I didn’t do a thing but get back at him for sticking
pine-cones in my bunk!”
“On your way. When you can behave decently, you can sleep with the rest
of us again.”
Sullenly, and making as much noise about it as he dared, Blackie put on
his slippers and gathered up his pillow and blankets over his arm. The
night air was cool, and he shivered slightly in his pajamas. A pine
tree’s branch brushed the canvas tent-roof above his head, and somewhere
off up the mountain a dog howled dismally. It didn’t look too inviting
out on the darkened campus by the flagpole; but he didn’t want to appear
a coward and whine to get out of going.
“Good-night, you guys,” he said with bravado and stalked out of the rear
of the tent. As he passed the bunk across from the leader’s, on his way
out, Slater stuffed something among Blackie’s blankets with a whispered
caution.
“Keep it out of sight—you’ve got the chance to get to the flagpole!”
Blackie nodded and went out on the path. The stars were like bright
candles against a blue-green silk dome, and somehow their twinkling was
not so pleasant now. He passed a line of tents, some quiet, one or two
filled with low snickers and cackles and the usual disturbance of the
first night under canvas. The white lodge showed pale and strange in the
starlight; the campus was somehow changed from what it had been in
bright day. He stumbled across to the base of the flagpole and began
spreading out his bed on the hard ground. He cleared away one or two
stones, and beat down the high grass as best he could, and tried to
rearrange his blankets into comfortable shape.
His next care was to examine the bundle that Slater had passed to him.
As he had guessed, it was the missing nightgown that Guppy had bewailed
at bedtime. He chuckled, thinking of the scheme that Slater had
suggested.
He looked around; the coast was clear. The flagpole was only a few steps
away. He jumped up, unfastened the halyards, and knotting a sleeve to
each end of the rope, hauled away. Then, almost too sleepy to care where
he lay, he crawled into his twisted bed and was dead to the world in
half a minute, smiling to think that when the morning sun rose over Camp
Lenape, it would reveal that the campers had slept under a fluttering
ensign that was nothing more than little Guppy’s pink nightgown.