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[Illustration: CAPTAIN JINKS, HERO
"SAM WAS TAKEN STRADDLING A CHAIR" [_Page 124_]]
Captain Jinks
Hero
BY
ERNEST CROSBY
_Author of
"Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable"_
_Illustrations by_
DAN BEARD
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
_Registered at Stationers' Hall, London_
_Printed in the United States_
_Published February, 1902_
_TO_
F. C.
CONTENTS AND CARTOONS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A BOMBSHELL, 1
II. EAST POINT, 14
III. LOVE AND COMBAT, 34
IV. WAR AND BUSINESS, 60
V. SLOWBURGH, 89
VI. OFF FOR THE CUBAPINES, 117
VII. THE BATTLE OF SAN DIEGO, 151
VIII. AMONG THE MORITOS, 185
IX. ON DUTY AT HAVILLA, 216
X. A GREAT MILITARY EXPLOIT, 240
XI. A DINNER PARTY AT GIN-SIN, 250
XII. THE GREAT WHITE TEMPLE, 277
XIII. THE WAR-LORD, 310
XIV. HOME AGAIN, 338
XV. POLITICS, 365
XVI. THE END, 374
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CAPTAIN JINKS, HERO, _Frontispiece_
_"Sam was taken straddling a chair."_
WAR'S DEMAND, 6
_"But what did he want of soldiers?"_
THE MANLY SPORT AT EAST POINT, 56
_"Starkey stood off and gave him his 'coup de grace.'"_
A BLOOD BROTHERHOOD, 120
_"A big company to grab everything.... The
Benevolent Assimilation Company, Limited."_
TWO OF A KIND, 206
_"There are four marks."_
CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED, 238
_"What business have these people to talk about
equal rights?"_
WINNERS OF THE CROSS, 266
_"He got the Victorious Cross in South Africa."_
THE PERFECT SOLDIER, 324
_"The Emperor gave an exclamation of surprise
and delight."_
HARMLESS, 392
_"He sits like that for hours."_
CHAPTER I
A Bombshell
[Illustration]
"Bless my soul! I nearly forgot," exclaimed Colonel Jinks, as he came
back into the store. "To-morrow is Sam's birthday and I promised Ma to
bring him home something for a present. Have you got anything for a boy
six years old?"
"Let me see," answered the young woman behind the counter, turning
round and looking at an upper shelf. "Why, yes; there's just the thing.
It's a box of lead soldiers. I've never seen anything like them
before"--and she reached up and pulled down a large cardboard box.
"Just see," she added as she opened it. "The officers have swords that
come off, and the guns come off the men's shoulders; and look at
the----"
"Never mind," interrupted the colonel. "I'm in a hurry. That'll do very
well. How much is it?"
And two minutes later he went out of the store with the box in his hand
and got into his buggy, and was soon driving through the streets of
Homeville on his way to his farm.
No one had ever asked Colonel Jinks where he had obtained his title. In
fact, he had never put the question to himself. It was an integral part
of his person, and as little open to challenge as his hand or his foot.
There are favored regions of the world's surface where colonels, like
poets, are born, not made, and good fortune had placed the colonel's
birthplace in one of them. For the benefit of those of my readers who
may be prejudiced against war, and in justice to the colonel, it should
be stated that the only military thing about him was his title. He was
a mild-mannered man with a long thin black beard and a slight stoop,
and his experience with fire-arms was confined to the occasional
shooting of depredatory crows, squirrels, and rats with an ancient
fowling-piece. Still there is magic in a name. And who knows but that
the subtle influence of the title of colonel may have unconsciously
guided the searching eyes of the young saleswoman among the Noah's arks
and farmyards to the box of lead soldiers?
The lad for whom the present was intended was a happy farmer's boy, an
only child, for whom the farm was the whole world and who looked upon
the horses and cows as his fellows. His little red head was constantly
to be seen bobbing about in the barnyard among the sheep and calves, or
almost under the horses' feet. The chickens and sparrows and swallows
were his playmates, and they seemed to have no fear of him. The black
colt with its thick legs and ruffled mane ran behind its gray dam to
hide from every one else, but it let Sam pat it without flinching. The
first new-hatched chicken which had been given to him for his very own
turned out to be a rooster, and when he found that it had to be taken
from him and beheaded he was quite inconsolable and refused absolutely
to feast upon his former friend. But with this tenderness of
disposition Sam had inherited another still stronger trait, and this
was a deep respect for authority, and such elements of revolt as
revealed themselves in his grief over his rooster were soon stifled in
his little heart. He bowed submissively before the powers that be. From
the time when he first lisped he had called his parents "Colonel Jinks"
and "Mrs. Jinks." His mother had succeeded with great difficulty in
substituting the term "Ma" for herself, but she could not make him
address his father as anything but "Colonel," and after a time his
father grew to like it. No one knew how Sam had acquired the habit; it
was simply the expression of an inherently respectful nature. He
reverenced his father and loved his father's profession of farmer. His
earliest pleasure was to hold the reins and drive "like Colonel Jinks,"
and his earliest ambition was to become a teamster, that part of the
farm work having peculiar attractions for him.
In the afternoon on which we were introduced to the Colonel, Sam was
watching on the veranda for his father's return, and was quick to spy
the parcel under his arm, and many were the wild guesses he made as to
its contents. The Colonel left it carelessly upon the hall table, and
Sam could easily have peeped into it, but he would as soon have thought
of cutting off his hand.
"What's in that box in the hall, Colonel Jinks?" he asked in an
embarrassed voice at supper, as he fingered the edge of the tablecloth
and looked blushingly at his plate.
"Oh, that?" replied his father with a wink--"that's a bombshell." And a
bombshell indeed it proved to be for the Jinks family.
The box was put upon a table in the room in which little Sam slept with
his parents, and he was told that he could have it in the morning. He
was a long time going to sleep that night, trying to imagine the
contents of the mysterious box. Not until he had quite made up his
mind that it was a farmyard did he finally drop off. At the first break
of day Sam was out of bed. With bare feet he walked on tiptoe across
the cold bare floor and seized the precious box. He lifted the lid at
one corner and put in his hand and felt what was there, and tried to
guess what it could be. Perhaps it was a Noah's Ark; but no, if those
were people there were too many of them. He would have to give it up.
He took off the cover and looked in. It was not a farmyard, at any
rate, and the corners of his mouth became tremulous from
disappointment. No, they were soldiers. But what did he want of
soldiers? He had heard of such things, but they had never been anything
in his life. He had never seen a real soldier nor heard of a
toy-soldier before, and he did not quite know what they were for. He
crept back to bed crestfallen, his present in his arms. Sitting up in
bed he began to investigate the contents of the box. It was a complete
infantry battalion, and beautiful soldiers they were. Their coats were
red, their trousers blue, and they wore white helmets and carried
muskets with bayonets fixed. Sam began to feel reconciled. He turned
the box upside-down and emptied the soldiers upon the counterpane. Then
he noticed that they were not all alike. There were some officers, who
carried swords instead of rifles. He began to look for them and single
them out, when his eye was caught by a magnificent white leaden plume
issuing from the helmet of one of them. He picked up this soldier, and
the sight of him filled him with delight. He was taller and broader
than the rest, his air was more martial--there was something inspiring
in the way in which he held his sword. His golden epaulets were a
miracle of splendor, but it was the plume, the great white plume, that
held the boy enthralled. A ray of light from the morning sun, reflected
by the window of the stable, found its way through a chink in the blind
and fell just upon this plume. The effect was electric. Sam was
fascinated, and he continued to hold the lead soldier so that the
dazzling light should fall on it, gazing upon it in an ecstasy.
[Illustration: WAR'S DEMAND
"BUT WHAT DID HE WANT OF SOLDIERS?"]
Sam spent that entire day in the company of his new soldiers,--nothing
could drag him away from them. He made his father show him how they
should march and form themselves and fight. He drew them up in hollow
squares facing outward and in hollow squares facing inward, in column
of fours and in line of battle, in double rank and single rank.
"What are the bayonets for, Colonel Jinks?"
"To stick into bad people, Sam."
"And have the bad people bayonets, too?"
"Yes, Sam."
"Do they stick their bayonets into good people?"
"Oh, I suppose so. Do stop bothering me. If I'd known you'd ask so many
questions, I'd never have got you the soldiers."
His parents thought that a few days would exhaust the boy's devotion to
his new toys, but it was not so. He deserted the barnyard for the lead
soldiers. They were placed on a chair by his bed at night, and he could
not sleep unless his right hand grasped the white-plumed colonel. The
smell of the fresh paint as it peeled off on his little fingers clung
to his memory through life as the most delicious of odors. He would
tease his father to play with the soldiers with him. He would divide
the force in two, and one side would defend a fort of blocks and books
while the other assaulted. In these games Sam always insisted in having
the plumed colonel on his side. Once when Sam's colonel had succeeded
in capturing a particularly impregnable fortress on top of an
unabridged dictionary his father remarked casually:
"He's quite a hero, isn't he, Sam?"
"A what?" said Sam.
"A hero."
"What is a hero, Colonel Jinks?" And his father explained to him what a
hero was, giving several examples from history and fiction. The word
took the boy's fancy at once. From that day forward the officer was
colonel no longer, he was a "hero," or rather, "the hero." Sam now
began to save his pennies for other soldiers, and to beg for more and
more as successive birthdays and Christmases came round. He played at
soldiers himself, too, coaxing the less warlike children of the
neighborhood to join him. But his enthusiasm always left them behind,
and they tired much sooner than he did of the sport. He persuaded his
mother to make him a uniform something like that of the lead soldiers,
and the stores of Homeville were ransacked for drums, swords, and belts
and toy-guns. He would stand on guard for hours at the barnyard gate,
saluting in the most solemn manner whoever passed, even if it was only
a sparrow. The only interest in animals which survived his change of
heart was that which he now took in horses as chargers. He would ride
the farm-horses bare-back to the trough, holding the halter in one hand
and a tin sword in the other with the air of a field-marshal. When
strangers tapped him on the cheek and asked him--as is the wont of
strangers--"What are you going to be, my boy, when you grow up?" he
answered no longer, as he used to do, "A driver, sir," but now
invariably, "A hero."
It so happened some two or three years after Sam's mind had begun to
follow the paths of warfare that his father and mother took him one day
to an anniversary celebration of the Methodist Church at Homeville, and
a special parade of the newly organized "John Wesley Boys' Brigade" of
the church was one of the features of the occasion. If Mrs. Jinks had
anticipated this, she would doubtless have left Sam at home, for she
knew that he was already quite sufficiently inclined toward things
military; but even she could not help enjoying the boy's unmeasured
delight at this, his first experience of militarism in the flesh. The
parade was indeed a pretty sight. There were perhaps fifty boys in
line, ranging from six to eighteen years of age. Their gray uniforms
were quite new and the gilt letters "J.W.B.B." on their caps shone
brightly. They marched along with their miniature muskets and fixed
bayonets, their chubby, kissable faces all a-smile, as they sang
"Onward, Christian Soldiers," with words adapted by their pastor:
"Onward, Christian soldiers,
'Gainst the heathen crew!
In the name of Jesus
Let us run them through."
By a curious coincidence their captain had a white feather in his cap,
suggesting at a considerable distance the plume of the leaden "hero."
Sam was overcome with joy. He pulled the "hero" from his pocket (he
always carried it about with him) and compared the two warriors. The
"hero" was still unique, incomparable, but Sam realized that he was an
ideal which might be lived up to, not an impossible dream, not the
denizen of an inaccessible heaven. From that day he bent his little
energies to the task of removing his family to Homeville.
It is not so much strength as perseverance which moves the world.
Colonel Jinks had laid up a competence and had always intended to
retire, when he could afford it, to the market town. Among other
things, the school facilities would be much better in town than in the
country. Mrs. Jinks in a moment of folly took the side of the boy,
and, whatever may have been the controlling and predominating cause,
the fact is that, when Sam had attained the age of twelve, the Colonel
sold the farm and bought one of the best houses in Homeville. Sam at
once became a member of the John Wesley Brigade and showed an aptitude
for soldiering truly amazing. Before he was fourteen he was captain,
and wore, himself, the coveted white feather, and his military duties
became the absorbing interest of his life. He thought and spoke of
nothing else, and he was universally known in the town as "Captain
Jinks," which was often abbreviated to "Cap." No one ever passed
boyhood and youth in such congenial surroundings and with such complete
satisfaction as "Cap" Jinks of the John Wesley Boys' Brigade.