Cadet Days. Charles King

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СКАЧАТЬ Beef of Old England" at noon. No wonder they learned to welcome that call. Then they had their frugal luncheon. The doctor was a stanch Scotchman, who believed that boyish brawn and brain throve better on "parritch" and milk than on any other pabulum. Think of boys who never knew the taste of candy until after they were twelve—to whom hot biscuit was forbidden, and tea and coffee tabooed! They grew up ruddy-cheeked, freckle-faced, clear-eyed, sturdy-limbed, burly young "Hielanders," with marvellous capacity for solid food, sound sleep, and active sports. They were better taught than most of the other children around the garrisons, for what they knew they knew well. The three years' difference in their ages gave "Pops," of course, too much advantage in their boyish tiffs and scuffles; for boys will romp and wrestle, just as puppies play and kittens frolic, and these, starting in fun, close sometimes in fury; but they forget the feud as quickly as it was begun. Pops learned at an early age the lesson of self-restraint, the law of forbearance towards the younger and weaker brother. It was not learned intuitively, perhaps, but rather the reverse. The doctor was of a famous old Scotch Presbyterian clan, with a wholesome faith in Calvin and the doctrine of original sin. His gentle wife had thought to convert her eldest hope by appeals to his finer nature, but the doctor held that there was just so much of the "thrawn deevil" in every boy that had to be trounced out of him. It was all very well for Pops to tussle with his Apache playmate, and come home covered with dirt and bumps and glory, and explosive with tremendous tales of his personal valor—Pops would brag when he was young, and many another boy would have done the same under like conditions—but he was too big and strong for "Buddie;" and so when Bud came roaring in one day to tell how "Pops fwowed me down and hit me," Pops owned up that it was true. Bud would meddle with what he and Dick were trying to make, and he "just pushed him away." Mamma gravely admonished; but papa gave warning. It happened again before very long, and this time the doctor took Pops into his den, and presently poor Mrs. Graham ran to the dining-room and covered her ears, and Buddie howled in sudden revulsion of feeling. The doctor seldom punished, but what his right hand found to do he did with all his might.

      "I want you to remember this, George," said he, half an hour later, "a manly boy must be merciful. It isn't enough that you should make allowances for Buddie's blunders, you must be lenient to his faults. When he is older he will be wiser. Meantime, the blows you strike must be for, not against him."

      He needn't have said that. Pops was far readier to fight for his younger brother than he was to worry him in the least, and he took his flogging sorely to heart. He was only ten at the time. Bud had tried him severely. He had begged the little fellow to desist, and finally, losing all patience, had violated orders and thumped him—not very hard, perhaps, but still hard enough to warrant half at least of the pitiful tale the smaller boy ran to tell at once and at home. Geordie felt very much aggrieved at Bud when sent forth finally to go to his room and meditate on his sins and nurse his many sore spots; but when he saw the misery in the little fellow's face, when Bud, with fresh outburst of tears, threw himself into his brother's arms, clung to him sobbing, and could not say for the very violence of his grief how he hated himself for telling, the reconciliation was complete, and the three—mother and boys—stole away up-stairs and had a hug and cry together all by themselves, and came down again an hour later much happier after all, and quite ready to make it up with papa. But the doctor wasn't there. He had slipped out, despite the fact of its being his study hour, and was found at tea-time miserably promenading the bank of the stream half a mile from the post, and quite unconscious that the evening gun had fired. He never whipped Pops again; indeed, the boy gave him no cause to; and he never thrashed Buddie, even when that unrepentant little sinner well deserved it. He even declined to reprimand Pops at the excited appeal of Mrs. Captain Vaughan, whose twelve-year-old son came home from the swimming-pool, five days after, with a battered countenance, and a complaint that he had been beaten without cause by Pops Graham. Investigation of the case resulted in the fact that young Vaughan was trying to duck Buddie, when the latter's big brother happened upon the scene. Between the doctor and his boys there grew up a sort of tacit understanding, a firmly grounded trust and affection, that seldom found vent in caress of any kind, and was rarely apparent in word. George shot up from sturdy boyhood into athletic youth with thorough faith in his father, who, he believed, was the best friend he had or could expect to have. With all his heart he honored him, and with all his soul he loved his mother.

      And now they were stationed at Fort Reynolds, with a thriving Western mining metropolis just six miles away to the east, with hunting and fishing in the lofty mountains to the west, and a great tumbling sea of grassy prairie stretching away to the east and south. Geordie's pony had been turned over to Bud long months ago, for the bigger boy could back and ride and control the liveliest bucker among all the bronchos in the cavalry stables. Officers and troopers alike declared that Pops was cut out for the cavalry. He loved a horse. He had broken and trained his last possession, a "cayuse" colt from the herd of old Two Moons, chief of the northern Cheyennes. He had ridden and hunted by himself, or with a single trooper for a companion, all through the mountains that frowned across the western sky, rarely coming home without an abundant supply of venison or bear meat, and still faithfully kept up his studies, hoping that by some good-fortune he might succeed in getting an appointment to the great Military Academy of the nation—hoping almost against hope, yet never desponding. At last it came, and this was the way of it.

      Just as the wintry winds began to blow, and the soldiers, turning out for roll-call at the break of day, began to note how the mountains seemed to be wearing their fleecy nightcaps farther down about their ears until the bald peaks were covered with a glistening, spotless helmet, and the dark fringes of pine and fir down among the gorges and foot-hills looked all the blacker by contrast, there came a fresh battalion of cavalry marching into the post to relieve the——th just ordered away, and Pops had sadly bidden adieu to the departing troops, little dreaming what warm friends he was destined to find among the new. First to arrive, with a single orderly in attendance, was the regimental quartermaster, Lieutenant Ralph McCrea, and to him said the quartermaster whom McCrea was to relieve:

      "Mac, this young gentleman is Dr. Graham's son George, our candidate for West Point. He knows plainscraft, woodcraft, and mountain scouting as well as you do mathematics. He can ride as well as any man in my troop. Give him a lift in algebra and 'math.,' and he'll teach you all there is worth knowing about this part of the country."

      The kindly young West-Pointer seemed to take at once to the surgeon's blushing boy. In the wintry weather that speedily set in there was little opportunity for hunting or exploration in the mountains; but in the long evenings McCrea became a frequent visitor at Dr. Graham's fireside, and finding that Pops had a sound analytical sort of brain in his curly pate, the quartermaster took delight in giving him stiff problems to work out, and taught him the West Point system of deducing rules instead of blindly following without knowing why or wherefore; and the friendship between them waxed and multiplied, and McCrea became warmly enlisted in the effort to secure a vacant cadetship for his boy friend. But knowing there was no chance "at large," as the President had already named his two candidates, the boy had done his best with the local Congressman, who, as Pops had said, had been most gracious and encouraging, but had bestowed the plum upon the son of his rich and influential constituent, Mr. Breifogle, whose brewery gave employment to over fifty voters. As alternate he had named the son of Counsellor Murphy, a lively local politician, and Pop's hopes were dashed.

      Not so McCrea's. As quartermaster his duties called him frequently into town, where the First National Bank was the depository, and where he kept the large fund appropriated for rebuilding stables and quarters that had been destroyed by fire the previous year. "Neither of those young fellows," said he to Dr. Graham, "can pass the preliminary examination. It is by long odds too stiff for Breifogle mentally and for Murphy physically. Keep this to ourselves, and get Mr. Pierce to promise that George shall have the next vacancy. If we can get the Colonel to ask it, Pierce will say yes, perhaps; first because they served together in Virginia during the war, and second because he won't think he's promising anything at all. It's his first term, and he doesn't dream how hard that examination is, or how certain Breifogle is to fail. Now, if there were only some way we could 'get a pull' on him."

      The way came sooner than was looked СКАЧАТЬ