Cadet Days. Charles King

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ or infirmity which might in the faintest degree render them unfit for military service. They must be well versed in reading, in writing, including orthography, in arithmetic, and have a knowledge of the elements of English grammar, of descriptive geography, particularly of our own country, and of the history of the United States. That seemed simple enough. On all these points Geordie, as well as his father, had no doubt whatever. "Sound as a dollar" was the universal verdict, and the wisdom of his father's rigid system of training was all the more apparent. But when they came to look over the formidable list of specimens of the problems and questions which the candidates were required to solve and answer, the boy's heart failed him a little. Even McCrea shook his head over some of them.

      "It is ten years since I went up for my examination, just as you are to go, Pops—an army boy who had had precious little schooling; but I don't remember any problems as hard as this one." And the Quartermaster wrinkled his brows over a complicated example, while Captain Lane, poring over a big atlas, was hunting for a chain of mountains he could not remember ever before having heard of.

      "It seems a queer confession," said the latter, "but I don't believe I could begin to pass the entrance examination to the Academy, from which I was graduated so many years ago. I certainly couldn't without months of preparation."

      The Colonel suggested that perhaps these hard nuts were ladled out in order to stimulate the candidate to closer study. The questions really propounded would not be so difficult. But the doctor and McCrea were determined to take no chances.

      "There are only three months left for preparation," said Graham; "the question is how to employ the time to best advantage. George is willing to study hard, and you and I to teach, but what I'm thinking is that we may be wasting time on immaterial points and neglecting some that are essential. Would it not be best to send him on and have him study under some one who knows just exactly what is needed?"

      And McCrea said, "Yes," and wrote forthwith to an old friend, an officer whom severe wounds had incapacitated for active service, and who had opened a school of preparation at the Point adapted to the needs of candidates for admission. And so it resulted that early in April, for the first time in his life, Geordie Graham was to leave father, mother, and Bud, and, for the first time since he was a mere baby-boy, to set foot across the Missouri.

      Over that farewell we need not linger. How many big, salty tears were dropped into the depths of the trunk no one on earth but the loving mother who packed it could ever tell. Yet even now, face to face with the inevitable separation, not one word would she say that might cast a shadow over the hopes of her big boy, as she spoke of Geordie as a means of distinguishing him from Bud, her "little Benjamin." Fondly had she hoped that as he grew older Geordie's tastes would turn to some other profession, but she hoped in vain. First, last, and all the time, ever since the troopers at Verde decorated him with his Corporal's chevrons when he was a mite of a four-year-old, the longing of his heart was to be a soldier. For boys with that ambition there is no school like West Point; for boys without it, any other school would be better.

      "There isn't a man in all 'E' troop that isn't sorry to have you leave the fort, Geordie," said old Sergeant Nolan, as the boy went the rounds at afternoon stables, bidding his friends good-bye, and taking a farewell look at his favorite horses; "but what's more, sir," he added, with a respectful touch of the cap visor as Captain Lane appeared, "there isn't a man but that's glad he's going to West Point, and that wouldn't like to see him with us again as our Lieutenant."

      "But I'm not in yet, Sergeant," laughed Geordie. "There is Mr. Breifogle to be considered. If he passes, there'll be no room for me; and if he fails, why, I may too. In that event, I'll have to come back and 'list just as soon as I'm eighteen."

      And yet Geordie felt no such misgiving as he sat silently in the dark corner of the ambulance, choking down some troublesome lumps that had risen in his throat, and made his eyes blind as his mother's arms were unclasped about his neck. The principal of the school which young Breifogle had been attending for two years had told Mr. McCrea that the boy was neither apt nor studious, that he had twice failed in his examinations for promotion to higher grade, and that only after infinite pains and much help had he been able to answer the sample questions enclosed with his letter of appointment. When asked why old Mr. Breifogle did not withdraw his son from a race in which he had no chance, the master laughed.

      "Breifogle is like a great many of our people who have become suddenly rich," said he. "He thinks money and a political pull will do anything. He refuses to believe that West Point is governed by rules that even the President cannot violate. He is confident that all that is necessary is for him to go on with Fritz in June, and the examiners will not dare reject him, especially if Congressman Pierce is there, too."

      Now this was no exaggeration. Mr. Breifogle really thought it a very unjustifiable thing in an army officer, supporting a family on so small a salary, to undergo the expense of sending George all the way to West Point and back, for back he felt sure he would have to come. It was still worse to send him ahead of time and pay board and school bills. He and Fritz would not go until June.

      "I'm really sorry for the old fellow," said McCrea; "he's so thoroughly earnest and honest in his convictions. It isn't his fault, either. It is part of the stock in trade of many politicians to make their constituents believe that for the benefit of their special friends they have it in their power to set aside laws, rules, or regulations. I haven't a doubt that Pierce has made the old man believe he 'stands' in with the Secretary of War and the Superintendent of the Academy, and that Fritz will go through West Point with flying colors. It will cost Breifogle nearly a thousand dollars to find out his mistake."

      This was several years ago, it must be remembered, in the days when all candidates were required to present themselves for examination at the Point instead of appearing before boards of army officers at convenient garrisons throughout the country, as is the case to-day.

      "No, Geordie, my boy," said McCrea, in conclusion, "I don't like to take comfort in another man's misfortunes, but there is no chance whatever for young Breifogle and every chance for you. All you have to do is study and you'll win. I have said as much to the old man, for he stopped me at the bank the other day and asked what I thought of the case, and I told him frankly. For a moment he looked downcast; then he brightened up all of a sudden, laid his finger alongside his nose, and winked at me profoundly. 'Vell, you yust vait a leetle,' he said, and turned away. I've no doubt he thinks I'm only trying to bluff him out in your interest."

      Two days more, and George, standing on the rear platform of the Pullman, looking down with no little awe upon the swollen, turbid, ice-whirling waters of the Missouri, far beneath the splendid spans of the great railway bridge. Another day, and his train seemed to be rolling through miles of city streets and squares before it was finally brought to a stand under the grimy roof of the station at Chicago. Here from the windows of the rattling omnibus that bore him across the town to the depot of the Michigan Central he gazed in wonderment at the height of the buildings on every side. Early the next morning he was up and dressed, and just before sunrise stepped out on the wooden staging at Falls View, listening to the voice and seeing for the first time the beauty and grandeur of Niagara. A few minutes later, looking from the car window, he seemed to be sailing in mid-air over some tremendous gorge, in whose depths a broad torrent of deep green water, flecked with foam and tossing huge crunching masses of ice, went roaring away beneath him. Such a letter as he wrote to mother that morning, as hour after hour he sped along eastward over bands of glistening steel, flying like the wind, yet so smoothly that his pen hardly shook. Think what a revelation it must have been to that frontier-bred boy, whose whole life had been spent among the mountains or prairies of the Far West, to ride all the morning long through one great city after another, through the heart of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. The Mohawk Valley seemed one long village to him, so unaccustomed were his eyes to country thickly settled. The Hudson, still fettered with ice above the railway bridge and just opening below, set his heart to beating, for now West Point lay but a hundred СКАЧАТЬ