A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade. Charles King

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СКАЧАТЬ fain have consoled the tall, distinguished, dark-eyed trooper, so interesting in his depth of melancholy, so eligible as a catch, for Dwight, for an army man, was oddly well to do. Obstinately, however, he refused all consolation from even such a sympathetic source, and would for long brook no companion on his solitary walks or rides. All his talk now was of his boy. All his thoughts, plans, projects, seemed centering on little Jim, who, for the time being, had to be housed among his mother's people. He was still too young for the care of a soldier-father who any day might be compelled to take the field. But then came station at Fort Riley, with its big garrison, its school and its society, and then the yearning at his heart could no longer be denied. The Wellands nearly cried their eyes out when Oswald, toward the end of the third "leave" since Margaret's death, told them that the time for which he had scrupulously sought to prepare them had come at last: he must have his boy—he could not live without him.

      Then when Jimmy came it seemed as though an entire garrison had started in to spoil him. He was the merriest, sunniest, friendliest little chap, frank, brave and even beautiful, with all his mother's lovely coloring, with her deep, heavily-lashed, soulful, violet eyes, with her soft curling brown hair, with her sweet, sensitive mouth and pretty white teeth. No wonder big Oswald used to set him on his knee and look long into the smiling little face, so fond and trustful, yet filled with vague wonderment why daddy should so wistfully gaze at him; and then with relief, Jim knew not why, when the strong arms would suddenly draw the lithe, slender little body to that broad and heaving chest and hold it there, close strained, while bearded lips sought and kissed again and again the sunny curls. Dwight just lived for that boy, said Fort Riley, small blame to him! Dwight made little Jim his friend, his confidant, his companion. Jim had his own little pony as soon as he could safely bestride one. Jim had his own little camp bed in the room opening off his father's. Jim had his own shower bath rigged up in his own closet. Jim had his regular setting-up drill and calisthenics, with daddy himself for teacher, his rub-down and his soldier toilet, with daddy to teach him breathing exercises that took the oxygen deep down into his lungs and sent the red blood whirling through his sinewy little frame. Jimmy had his own racket for tennis, his own target rifle, his own kites, tops, marbles, soldiers of every conceivable size, costume and corps, his own railway tracks and trains, his own books and bookshelves, his own desk and study table—pretty much everything a boy could have except his own way, which he was the better without, and his own mother—without whom boy life can never be complete.

      Fort Riley could be censorious, Heaven knows, when cause existed, and sometimes when it didn't; but, save the cherished thought of certain sentimental women that little Jim should have a mother's care as well as a father's, Fort Riley had few critics so unwise as to question Dwight's methods with his boy. Jim did not lack for playfellows of his own age—the fort was full of them and they as full of mischief and merriment as even army boys are apt to be; but, though at school and in the "all-round" sports of boyhood Jim mingled with them unreservedly, the father had made it his business to know most of them well before he brought Jim to take his initiation among them. There were some few whose homes Jim was cautioned not to visit. There were some whom, even on rainy days when the railway was in successful operation all over the second story, Jim was not permitted to invite to join his fellow-operatives. A few carping critics there were who thought such indulgence would be sure to spoil any boy, but, under his father's eye and guided by his father's hand, Jim worked and studied quite as steadily as he played. The staff of the little army household was made up mainly of former trooper Hentzler and his buxom wife, Hentzler being butler, steward, and valet, Frau Hentzler cook and housemaid. Mrs. Feeny, of the troop, was their laundress, and Trooper Mehl "boots," striker and groom. But it was Dwight himself who roused his boy for his morning bath and exercise, who sat with him through his study hour, saw him off to school; walked, rode, drove, sometimes shot and fished with him, going for the purpose far up the Smoky Hill. It was Dwight who read with him after their evening tea and who finally knelt with him night after night before he tucked the little fellow into his white bed, imploring God's guidance for himself, God's blessing for his boy.

      And so never again had they been separated, Dwight and his boy, until the squadron sailed for Manila and little Jim, refusing to be comforted, had been left with his mother's kindred until matters should shape themselves in the Philippines. But the shaping process that might have been a matter only of months, had the army found no other enemy than the insurgents and their climate, proved long and costly in life, limb, and treasure, thanks to the aid and comfort given that enemy by our fellow-men at home. Dwight had led his squadron through a campaign fierce in its occasional fighting, but well-nigh fatal through hardship and heat prostration to many besides himself. Dwight had had to turn over his command to Captain Gridley, his next in rank, and go to the sea and Corregidor for rest and recuperation. What good effects might have been obtained were offset by the court-martial of an officer whose mind, it was believed, had been affected by sunstroke, yet Captain Dwight was compelled to appear and remain some time in Manila to testify against him. He returned to the field little benefited by the enforced separation from his fellows, and speedily showed symptoms of returning prostration that led the general commanding to order him again to the seashore and recommend his being sent on a sea voyage. It was during this voyage that, after four wonderful days at Nagasaki, he found himself daily, almost hourly, in the presence of Inez Farrell, as beautiful and graceful a girl as ever his eyes had seen. He was strong neither physically nor mentally. He was still an invalid when they met on the veranda of the old hotel overlooking that wonderful land-locked harbor. He had by no means forgotten the impression created by her beauty and her lissome grace when dancing at the club at Manila. He was invited by Major Farrell to be one of their little party on a rickshaw ride over the green hills to Mogi. It was an ideal day. It was an ideal night, with the moon nearing full as they sat later on the upper veranda, gazing out upon the riding lights of the shipping thick-clustered on the placid bosom of the bay. It was followed by other nights as beautiful both ashore and at sea. He was twenty years her senior, yet she seemed to look for him, wait for him, prefer him in every way to younger officers, also homeward bound, and these youngsters left him to his fate.

      What time he was not walking the deck, with her little hand resting on his arm, or flung in long, low steamer chair close to hers, where he could watch the wondrous beauty of her face and feel the spell of her soft, languorous, lovely eyes, Dwight found himself in converse with her father, a patriotic quartermaster, the owner of valuable properties in the Lone Star State, to which he must speedily return—his "boys," two nephews, were not trained to business, said he, and they, too, had been seeing service and unsettling their minds and habits with the volunteers that didn't get to Cuba. His daughter was his chief anxiety, he admitted. She had her mother's luxurious Spanish temperament; needed a guiding hand—a husband to whom she could look up with respect and honor, not a callow youngster with no ideas beyond scheming for promotion and better pay. Several of these young chaps had been buzzing about her at Manila, but she had "turned them all down," said Farrell. She had sense and power of observation with all her possibly romantic admiration for soldiers, but what she really admired was the real soldier—a man fit to command and lead, a man with a record behind him, not an uncertainty ahead. Dwight's seat, at the request of the veteran general officer going with them to the States, had been at the captain's table, but Dwight soon effected—at least Farrell effected and Dwight got the discredit of it—a transfer with the officer who had been seated at the side of Inez Farrell, and Dwight's mental condition can perhaps be judged of by the fact that he never noticed that General Hume thereafter not once addressed him on the voyage.

      Enough said. Oswald Dwight's many friends throughout the service read with much surprise, most of them with vague disquietude and some few with downright dismay, the announcement of the marriage at Los Angeles, by the Right Reverend the Bishop of the Diocese, assisted by the Very Reverend Fathers Moran and Finley, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, of Inez, only daughter of Major and Quartermaster James O'Donohue Farrell, U. S. V., of Santa Rosita, Texas, and Maria Mercedes de la Cruz y Mendoza y Fronteras, his wife, to Captain Oswald M. Dwight—th U. S. Cavalry.

      When the happy pair set forth upon their wedding journey some comment was created by the fact that, while they went to New Orleans, the parents of the bride did not go to Texas, as had been planned. СКАЧАТЬ