A CADET SCAPEGRACE.
The evening that opened so clear and sunshiny has clouded rapidly over.
Even as the four gray companies come "trotting" in from parade, and,
with the ease of long habit, quickly forming line in the barrack area,
some heavy rain-drops begin to fall; the drum-major has hurried his band
away; the crowd of spectators, unusually large for so early in the
season, scatters for shelter; umbrellas pop up here and there under the
beautiful trees along the western roadway; the adjutant rushes through
"delinquency list" in a style distinguishable only to his stolid, silent
audience standing immovably before him,--a long perspective of gray
uniforms and glistening white belts. The fateful book is closed with a
snap, and the echoing walls ring to the quick commands of the first
sergeants, at which the bayonets are struck from the rifle-barrels, and
the long line bursts into a living torrent sweeping into the hall-ways
to escape the coming shower.
When the battalion reappears, a few moments later, every man is in his
overcoat, and here and there little knots of upper classmen gather, and
there is eager and excited talk.
A soldierly, dark-eyed young fellow, with the red sash of the officer of
the day over his shoulder, comes briskly out of the hall of the fourth
division. The chevrons of a cadet captain are glistening on his arm, and
he alone has not donned the gray overcoat, although he has discarded the
plumed shako in deference to the coming storm; yet he hardly seems to
notice the downpour of the rain; his face is grave and his lips set and
compressed as he rapidly makes his way through the groups awaiting the
signal to "fall in" for supper.
"Stanley! O Stanley!" is the hail from a knot of classmates, and he
halts and looks about as two or three of the party hasten after him.
"What does Billy say about it?" is the eager inquiry.
"Nothing--new."
"Well, that report as good as finds him on demerit, doesn't it?"
"The next thing to it; though he has been as close to the brink before."
"But--great Scott! He has two weeks yet to run; and Billy McKay can no
more live two weeks without demerit than Patsy, here, without
'spooning.'"
Mr. Stanley's eyes look tired as he glances up from under the visor of
his forage cap. He is not as tall by half a head as the young soldiers
by whom he is surrounded.
"We were talking of his chances at dinner-time," he says, gravely.
"Billy never mentioned this break of his yesterday, and was surprised to
hear the report read out to-night. I believe he had forgotten the whole
thing."
"Who 'skinned' him?--Lee? He was there."
"I don't know; McKay says so, but there were several officers over there
at the time. It is a report he cannot get off, and it comes at a most
unlucky moment."
With this remark Mr. Stanley turns away and goes striding through the
crowded area towards the guard-house. Another moment and there is sudden
drum-beat; the gray overcoats leap into ranks; the subject of the recent
discussion--a jaunty young fellow with laughing blue eyes--comes tearing
out of the fourth division just in time to avoid a "late," and the
clamor of tenscore voices gives place to silence broken only by the
rapid calling of the rolls and the prompt "here"--"here," in response.
If ever there was a pet in the corps of cadets he lived in the person of
Billy McKay. Bright as one of his own buttons; jovial, generous,
impulsive; he had only one enemy in the battalion,--and that one, as he
had been frequently told, was himself. This, however, was a matter which
he could not at all be induced to believe. Of the Academic Board in
general, of his instructors in large measure, but of the four or five
ill-starred soldiers known as "tactical officers" in particular, Mr.
McKay entertained very decided and most unflattering opinions. He had
won his cadetship through rigid competitive examination against all
comers; he was a natural mathematician of whom a professor had said that
he "_could_ stand in the fives and _wouldn't_ stand in the forties;"
years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the
colloquial forms of the court language of Europe, yet a dozen classmates
who had never seen a French verb before their admission stood above him
at the end of the first term. He had gone to the first section like a
rocket and settled to the bottom of it like a stick. No subject in the
course was really hard to him, his natural aptitude enabling him to
triumph over the toughest problems. Yet he hated work, and would often
face about with an empty black-board and take a zero and a report for
neglect of studies that half an hour's application would have rendered
impossible. Classmates who saw impending danger would frequently make
stolen visits to his room towards the close of the term and profess to
be baffled by the lesson for the morrow, and Billy would promptly knock
the ashes out of the pipe he was smoking contrary to regulations and lay
aside the guitar on which he had been softly strumming--also contrary to
regulations; would pick up the neglected calculus or mechanics; get
interested in the work of explanation, and end by having learned the
lesson in spite of himself. This was too good a joke to be kept a
secret, and by the time the last year came Billy had found it all out
and refused to be longer hoodwinked.
There was never the faintest danger of his being found deficient in
studies, but there was ever the glaring prospect of his being discharged
"on demerit." Mr. McKay and the regulations of the United States
Military Academy had been at loggerheads from the start.
And yet, frank, jolly, and generous as he was in all intercourse with
his comrades, there was never a time when this young gentleman could be
brought to see that in such matters he was the arbiter of his own
destiny. Like the Irishman whose first announcement on setting foot on
American soil was that he was "agin the government," Billy McKay
believed that regulations were made only to oppress; that the men who
drafted such a code were idiots, and that those whose duty it became to
enforce it were simply spies and tyrants, resistance to whom was innate
virtue. He was forever ignoring or violating some written or unwritten
law of the Academy; was frequently being caught in the act, and was
invariably ready to attribute the resultant report to ill luck which
pursued no one else, or to a deliberate persecution which followed him
forever. Every six months he had been on the verge of dismissal, and
now, a fortnight from the final examination, with a margin of only six
demerit to run on, Mr. Billy McKay had just been read out in the daily
list of culprits or victims as "Shouting from window of barracks to
cadets in area during study hours,--three forty-five and four P.M."
There was absolutely no excuse for this performance. The regulations
enjoined silence and order in barracks during "call to quarters." It had
been raining a little, and he was in hopes there would be no battalion
drill, in which event he would venture on throwing off his uniform and
spreading himself out on his bed with a pipe and a novel,--two things he
dearly loved. Ten minutes would have decided the question legitimately
for him, but, being of impatient temperament, he could not wait, and,
catching sight of the adjutant and the senior captain coming from the
guard-house, Mr. McKay sung out in tones familiar to every man within
ear-shot,--
"Hi, Jim! Is it battalion drill?"
The adjutant glanced quickly up,--a warning glance as he could have
seen,--merely shook his head, and went rapidly on, while his comrade,
the cadet first captain, clinched his fist at the window and growled
between his set teeth, "Be quiet, you idiot!"
But poor Billy persisted. Louder yet he called,--
"Well--say--Jimmy! Come up here after four o'clock. I'll be in
confinement, and can't come out. Want to see you."
And the windows over at the office of the commandant being wide open,
and that official being seated there in consultation with three or four
of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as
to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded"
the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to be
entered against him.
And now, as Mr. Stanley is betaking himself to his post at the
guard-house, his heart is heavy within him because of this new load on
his comrade's shoulders.
"How on earth could you have been so careless, Billy?" he had asked him
as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwing off his accoutrements in
his room on the second floor.
"How'd I know anybody was over there?" was the boyish reply. "It's just
a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me, nor could anybody
else. I stood way back by the clothes-press."
"There's no suspicion about it, Billy. There isn't a man that walks the
area that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's.
Confound it! You'll get over the limit yet, man, and break your--your
mother's heart."
"Oh, come now, Stan! You've been nagging me ever since last camp. Why'n
thunder can't you see I'm doing my best? Other men don't row me as you
do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses
a chance of skinning me: he _takes_ chances, by gad, and I'll make his
eyes pop out of his head when he reads what I've got to say about it."
"You're too hot for reason now, McKay," said Stanley, sadly. "Step out
or you'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that
note to the orderly, by the way, and he said he'd take it down to the
dock himself."
"Mother and Nan will probably come to the guard-house right after
supper. Look out for them for me, will you, Stan, until old Snipes gets
there and sends for me?"
And as Mr. Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the
iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter
beneath that snugly-buttoned coat.
It was noticed by more than one of the little coterie at his own table
that the officer of the day hurried through his supper and left the
mess-hall long before the command for the first company to rise. It was
a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost
from the day of her arrival during the encampment of the previous
summer, Phil Stanley had been a devoted admirer of Miss Nannie McKay. It
was not at all to be wondered at.
Without being what is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination
about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her
brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely
asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable
character of cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of
romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in
the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was
so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was
impossible to say which one, if any, she regarded in the light of a
lover. Whatever comfort her gentle mother may have derived from this
state of affairs, it was "hard lines on Stanley," as his classmates put
it, for there could be little doubt that the captain of the color
company was a sorely-smitten man.
He was not what is commonly called a "popular man" in the corps. The son
of a cavalry officer, reared on the wide frontier and educated only
imperfectly, he had not been able to enter the Academy until nearly
twenty years of age, and nothing but indomitable will and diligence had
carried him through the difficulties of the first half of the course. It
was not until the middle of the third year that the chevrons of a
sergeant were awarded him, and even then the battalion was taken by
surprise. There was no surprise a few months later, however, when he was
promoted over a score of classmates and made captain of his company. It
was an open secret that the commandant had said that if he had it all to
do over again, Mr. Stanley would be made "first captain,"--a rumor that
big John Burton, the actual incumbent of that office, did not at all
fancy. Stanley was "square" and impartial. His company was in admirable
discipline, though many of his classmates growled and wished he were not
"so confoundedly military." The second classmen, always the most
critical judges of the qualifications of their seniors, conceded that he
was more soldierly than any man of his year, but were unanimous in the
opinion that he should show more deference to men of their standing in
the corps. The "yearlings" swore by him in any discussion as to the
relative merits of the four captains; but with equal energy swore at him
when contemplating that fateful volume known as "the skin book." The
fourth classmen--the "plebes"--simply worshipped the ground he trod on,
and as between General Sherman and Philip Stanley, it is safe to say
these youngsters would have determined on the latter as the more
suitable candidate for the office of general-in-chief. Of course they
admired the adjutant,--the plebes always do that,--and not infrequently
to the exclusion of the other cadet officers; but there was something
grand, to them, about this dark-eyed, dark-faced, dignified captain who
never stooped to trifle with them; was always so precise and courteous,
and yet so immeasurably distant. They were ten times more afraid of him
than they had been of Lieutenant Rolfe, who was their "tack" during
camp, or of the great, handsome, kindly-voiced dragoon who succeeded
him, Lieutenant Lee, of the --th Cavalry. They approved of this latter
gentleman because he belonged to the regiment of which Mr. Stanley's
father was lieutenant-colonel, and to which it was understood Mr.
Stanley was to be assigned on his graduation. What they could not at all
understand was that, once graduated, Mr. Stanley could step down from
his high position in the battalion of cadets and become a mere
file-closer. Yes. Stanley was too strict and soldierly to command that
decidedly ephemeral tribute known as "popularity," but no man in the
corps of cadets was more thoroughly respected. If there were flaws in
the armor of his personal character they were not such as to be
vigorously prodded by his comrades. He had firm friends,--devoted
friends, who grew to honor and trust him more with every year; but,
strong though they knew him to be, he had found his conqueror. There was
a story in the first class that in Stanley's old leather writing-case
was a sort of secret compartment, and in this compartment was treasured
"a knot of ribbon blue" that had been worn last summer close under the
dimpled white chin of pretty Nannie McKay.
And now on this moist May evening as he hastens back to barracks, Mr.
Stanley spies a little group standing in front of the guard-house.
Lieutenant Lee is there,--in his uniform now,--and with him are the tall
girl in the simple travelling-dress, and the trim, wiry, gray-moustached
soldier whom we saw on the boat. The rain is falling steadily, which
accounts for and possibly excuses Mr. Lee's retention of the young
lady's arm in his as he holds the umbrella over both; but the colonel no
sooner catches sight of the officer of the day than his own umbrella is
cast aside, and with light, eager, buoyant steps, father and son hasten
to meet each other. In an instant their hands are clasped,--both
hands,--and through moistening eyes the veteran of years of service and
the boy in whom his hopes are centred gaze into each other's faces.
"Phil,--my son!"
"Father!"
No other words. It is the first meeting in two long years. The area is
deserted save by the smiling pair watching from under the dripping
umbrella with eyes nearly as moist as the skies. There is no one to
comment or to scoff. In the father's heart, mingling with the deep joy
at this reunion with his son, there wells up sudden, irrepressible
sorrow. "Ah, God!" he thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see
him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp
of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again.
There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that
many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is
utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the
tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that
inimitable page will ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and
gallant son in the grimy old railway car filled with the wounded from
Antietam, in Doctor Holmes's "My Search for the Captain?"
When Phil Stanley, still clinging to his father's hand, turns to greet
his sister and her handsome escort, he is suddenly aware of another
group that has entered the area. Two ladies, marshalled by his
classmate, Mr. Pennock, are almost at his side, and one of them is the
blue-eyed girl he loves.