A SQUAD OF ONE
"It is necessary that we understand one another before we begin," said
the General. "Do you know what the position of the soldier is?"
"I don't know much about it," May answered, "but it must be an awfully
hard one—having to carry a gun, and go into battle and kill other
soldiers and stay out doors all night in the dark, and not see his
family and—oh, it must be a very hard position!"
"I didn't mean precisely that," the General said, "I meant this."
And he assumed the soldier's position, arms at a carry. "Now do you
understand?"
"Yes," said May. "It makes me think of a dog when you say 'Head up,
sir, and tail erect.'"
"I should not have described it in just those terms, but perhaps you
have caught the idea," said the General, whose sense of humor, as
it may have been observed, was not abnormally developed. "Take the
position yourself."
May laid the rifle on the barn floor, preparatory to obeying.
"Keep your piece," the General commanded.
"Piece—of what?" asked May, looking puzzled. "I haven't a piece of
anything."
"Piece, arm, rifle and musket are synonymous terms," explained the
General. "Do you know what synonymous means?"
"One just as bad as the other," May promptly replied.
The General smiled, but he was not to be diverted from his purpose by
absurd replies.
"You may leave your piece where it is for the present," said he, "and
you are to do as I bid you. Stand where you are. Now, heels well
together, feet out—yes, that is good—body erect, chest out—that is
excel——"
"Oh, I go to a gymnasium!" interrupted May, "and I know one mustn't
mistake one's stomach for one's chest, for they are not the same,
whatever some people may think."
This knowledge of one of the primary lessons in physical culture
impressed the General very favorably.
"Good!" said he. "I shall make a soldier of you yet. I shall have you
at West Point before you know it, my boy!"
"You'll have to get me there that way if you get me there at all!" said
May, with a wry face, which the General did not see. "I'll never go
there if I do know it," she added, under her breath.
"Shoulders square," resumed the General. "Arms at the side, elbows near
the body—no, not——"
"Don't you want me to dig my elbows into my ribs?" asked May. "They
stay better that way."
"No, there must be no stiffness or constraint in these positions," the
General said.
"I don't see what else you can get in them," May said. "I feel as if
there was a stick running right down my back, and I'm sure I shall
never be able to move my feet again."
"Yet I think I understood you to say you go to the gymnasium," said the
General.
"Yes, but the gymnasium is no more like this than—than a Christmas
party is like a Sunday-school," May replied.
"Attention!" commanded the General.
"All right, sir," May responded, cheerfully.
"You need not reply; the soldier says nothing; he obeys," said the
General.
"Oh, I suppose the officers do all the talking," said May, in direct
defiance of the General's last remark. "But can't the soldier answer
back at all?"
"No, not during drill," said the General.
"They must make it up when they're not drilling!" said May.
"Attention!" the General shouted. "Palms of the hands front, little
fingers behind the seam of the trousers, chin drawn in, eyes front—eyes
front, I say."
"Dear me, Uncle Harold, how can I keep my eyes front and see how my
hands and fingers and feet are at the same time?" grumbled May.
"By practise; we will try it again," said the General.
And try it again they did, without, and then with arms, until May was
ready to drop with fatigue. She was a plucky little recruit, but the
Springfield Cadet rifle; weight over eight pounds, with bayonet nearly
nine pounds, was not exactly a plaything. At length the General saw
that she was tired and commanded,
"Squad, rest!"
May knew what rest meant and sat down on the stable floor without
ceremony.
"Am I a squad?" she inquired. "What does it mean?"
"A squad is a number of armed men," the General replied. "The term
slipped out before I was aware of it—I have never drilled a single
recruit."
While they were at a rest the General deemed it wise to continue her
instructions by defining various terms, such as columns, rank, file,
front, rear, etc., and then he said,—
"There are three kinds of commands——"
"I think I know what they are," said May quickly.
"Indeed!" said the General.
"The command that you obey, the kind you don't obey and the kind you
half obey," said May.
The General laughed heartily at this. The recruit certainly had very
droll ideas of tactics, but the instructor saw fit to enlighten him
more precisely as to the meaning of military commands. After explaining
more motions than May could have mastered in a month, the General
cried,—
"Attention!"
"I'm looking," said May.
"Fall in," commanded the General.
"What shall I fall into?" demanded May, not offering to rise.
"Gay!" the General cried, dropping the military formality of a drill
master and speaking as an annoyed relative, "I explained that to you
only a moment ago! What do you think it means?"
"That you want me to get up, I suppose," May replied, rising and
assuming the soldier's position, with a smothered sigh.
"Couldn't you put it in better form than that?" asked the General,
patiently but reproachfully.
"I don't know," said May, rather listlessly. "You were just telling me
about 'fatigue' things—my answer was a 'fatigue' answer!"
But although the General laughed, thinking May vastly diverting,
he ignored her hint and began to instruct her in the mysteries of
Present arms, Right shoulder arms, Order arms, Parade rest—and nobody
knows what else, looking at the execution of her movements with the
enthusiasm of a veteran. He seemed to be animated with the spirit of
a dozen generals, and roared and thundered his commands as though he
had been drilling a large squad instead of one weary little girl in
borrowed uniform. They had just gone through for the sixth time, Left,
reverse—an exceedingly tiresome position as all cadets know—when,
without a word of warning to the General, May slipped to the ground and
lay there in a motionless heap.
"What is the matter? What is it?" cried the General. "Can't you speak,
my boy?"
May did not reply, and the General, now thoroughly alarmed, picked her
up and bore her in his arms to Sarah.
"What have you been doing to him?" Sarah demanded, as she took May in
her arms.
"I've been instructing him——" began the General.
"You'd better instruct yourself!" Sarah interrupted, indignantly.
"Drilling this poor boy till he faints! Phyllis, the smelling salts,
and some water."
When May recovered from her swoon the General asked,—
"Why didn't you tell me you were tired?"
"You said the good soldier obeyed without speaking," May said, with a
wan smile. "I was trying to learn how."
"Bless my heart, what a boy you are!" the General exclaimed, actually
kissing the "boy's" cheek. "This shall not happen again; you shall have
a fine light rifle for your own as soon as possible."
"Oh, thank you, but I really don't care for one!" said May, secretly
alarmed at the thought of having to harbor such a dangerous possession.
"Is there anything else that you can think of that you would like to
have?" questioned the General, anxiously, for he wanted to make amends
for his late thoughtlessness.
"Oh, yes!" cried May. "If I could have one of those big dolls with a
phonograph inside—almost a human inside, talk and a laugh all there, I
should be perfectly happy!"
"A doll!" said the General, with a frown.
"Yes, I know a girl that would like it!" May said quickly, fearing that
she had betrayed herself.
"A rifle will be a more appropriate gift," replied the General.
He gave May some silver, however, that burned so in her pocket that
as soon as she could she went to the village to spend it. She bought a
doll's hat, one admirably suited to Maud Madeleine's waxen features,
and on leaving the store she encountered Philip Guy Brentwood. He was
not alone; two boys, whether of the same species or not May could not
determine, were with him.
"I saw you buying a doll's bonnet," said Philip, disagreeably. "What a
sissy! Bah, you make me tired!"
"Are you sure you weren't born so?" May asked, good-humoredly.
"I'll have that hat to pay you for insulting me!" cried Philip.
He made a dash for the hat; May thrust out her foot suddenly and Philip
measured his length in the dust.
The boys shouted for more, but May, who was "no fighter," walked
quickly away.
"I'll be even with you, yet," Philip muttered angrily.
But it might have been observed that he made no effort to overtake May.