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WEST POINT COLORS

THE FLAG

WEST POINT
COLORS

BY

ANNA B. WARNER

"My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country." Nathan Hale.

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1903, by

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

(October)

New York:158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 63 Washington Street
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION TO THIS TALE OF A
POSSIBLE CADET

Some of my friends in a certain cadet class beset me to write a West Point story; promising me incidents at will, a plot, a name, and a tactical officer for "the villain." Perhaps it was because I declined this last sensational detail that they backed out of all the rest, and having given my boat a shove into deep water, left me to row and pilot as best I might.

However, help came from other men, in other classes. I was cheered on in my work, and given story after story, with full leave to use them as I chose; and so it falls out that my book is quite true.

Not that all the happenings ever came to any one cadet, or within the bounds of any four years' course. But they have almost all, at some time, been part of somebody's cadet life at West Point. With what men, or in what years, it does not matter: the last decade of the nineteenth century nearly enough covers the whole.

I have tried hard to have the small technicalities quite correct. Yet as rules do vary now and then, even at West Point, everything may not always seem right, to this or that graduate. And, of course, I may have blundered here and there.

Certain points in cadet life I was especially asked to handle; and if once or twice I have told only what might have been, even there I had the warrant of cadet opinion.

As for the fancy names, it was so hard to find plain ones that were not down in some Army List or Visitors' Book, that I made up a few, choosing rather to give caps which nobody would put on than others quite sure to be appropriated. Truly, I did not name Miss Dangleum: a young officer did that, and Cadet Devlin was also dubbed by one who knew.

Since certain words of my story were written a few changes have come in. The cadet classes have pledged themselves to abolish hazing; the Hundredth Night (in its old wild glee) has been forbidden; the Cadet Howitzer is spiked. The shady nooks along "Flirtation" have been cleared up; Fort Clinton is a memory, the tents are brown, and Dade's white shaft now stands in the gayest and sunniest of all the thoroughfares. But human nature survives,—and "boodle"—and the girls, so that my book is declared to be still "absolutely true."

Sometimes when I watch that grey throng in the Chapel, I have a great wish that I could see the other little army with whom they are to join hands. So much depends on them. For womanhood sets the standard for the world of men.

"She's like the keystone to an arch,
That consummates all beauty;
She's like the music to a march,
That sheds a joy on duty."

Such she should be.

A. B. W.

Martlaer's Rock.

I
THE BOY

The lions, if they left not the forest, would capture no prey; and the arrow, if it quitted not the bow, would not strike the mark.

—Arabian Nights.

The precise date of my story does not matter: the world strikes a much more even average than we are apt to think; and still, as of old, "the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done."

Once upon a time, then, there was a boy whose name was Charlemagne Kindred.

"Magnus" was the home version. I think his two young sisters were perhaps rather proud of the royal-republican title, and would by no means let it come down to "Charley," and so lose itself in the crowd. Once in a while, when a longer lecture than usual was called for, Mrs. Kindred would say Charlemagne: but I doubt if it had much effect, unless to give Magnus some slighting thoughts of the ancestor who had first borne his name.

Mrs. Kindred was a widow of ten years' standing; and she and Magnus, and the two young sisters, made up the family. There is nothing on earth sweeter than girls can be; and these two filled out the fair pattern, with few breaks or flaws. But no history or inheritance of even a name had been wasted on them, and they set out in life as plain Rose and Violet, named for their father's favourite flowers.

Magnus had not at all, however, the same reverence for his sisters that they felt for him, which was a pity; for really I think they deserved it better.

But another drawback to the perfections of my hero,—a common one enough with heroes, and which after all proved him the real thing,—he had not five cents to his name. And failing this, the question came up very naturally, what else he could have "to his name," to make that worth the carrying.

"Mamma, he'd make a beautiful minister!" said Rose, who, enshrined in the very rosiest corner of her heart, had a faint, far-away picture of her father in the pulpit.

"He would make a beautiful anything," said the mother, her eyes shining at the mere thought of her boy. "But he cannot be a minister, Rose, at least not in his father's church, without going to college."

"And that takes money," said Violet. "Mamma, if I were Uncle Sam, I'd have free colleges. I can't see why not, just as well as free schools."

"I do not like to hear you say 'Uncle Sam,' Violet. It is not respectful to the Government."

"Magnus does."

Mrs. Kindred might have answered that the bump of reverence was not as yet developed in that young magnate's head to any alarming degree, but no such disloyal words came out. She sat thinking.

"The Government has one free college, you know, girls," she said; "at least, I suppose it may be called that. Two, in fact: the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and the Military Academy at West Point. I wonder it never occurred to me before."

"West Point!" exclaimed both the girls, open-eyed.

"Then he'd be a soldier, and wear a uniform," said Violet.

"Yes, and then there would be a war, and he would get killed," said Rose.

"No, he wouldn't," said Violet. "Catch Magnus letting anybody shoot him. He's a good deal too quick for that. Besides, people can get killed anywhere. Missionaries do, sometimes."

"I wonder I never thought of West Point," Mrs. Kindred repeated. "Hush, girls; don't say such things. There is no war now, and maybe there never will be again. Magnus would like it, too."

"He'd be splendid in uniform," said Rose, "he's so tall."

"Too tall," said the mother with a sigh. "Magnus grows altogether too fast. Perhaps West Point would be just the thing for him, and make him spread out a little. You know, girls, what big fellows some of those army men are, in papa's book of officers?"

"Yes," said Violet doubtfully, "big enough. But then Magnus never could be as broad as he is long, so we needn't worry."

A cheery whistle, strong and sweet and clear, pierced through the summer air outside; and with one consent the three talkers hurried to the window to look out. It was a back window, commanding easily a woodshed, a small garden, and a barn.

In the woodshed, hard at work upon a somewhat elaborate dog-house, stood the young future victim of mathematics and wave motion. Coat off, hat tossed down, hands busily chiselling out some bit of ornamentation; the head with its shock of brown curls bent low over his work. And very appropriately just then, for the thoughts that filled the air, Magnus was whistling "Yankee Doodle": his limber young tones going with great force and discernment into all the ups and downs of that delightful old melody. Do not mistake me and think the words ironical; I am extremely fond of "Yankee Doodle," myself.

"How queer he should be whistling that!" said Rose. "Oh, Magnus!"

"Hello!"

"Come up here. We were just talking about you."

"Talk away."

"But mother and all!"

"Good I am down here, then," said the boy, eyeing a bit of board along the edge to see if it was straight.

"Why?" cried Violet.

"You know she doesn't like to praise me to my face," said Magnus, carefully planing the aforesaid edge.

"Conceited boy!" said Rose.

Well, I suppose he was that, just a little; but what can happen to average masculine nature, with three such bits of the feminine to stand round and gaze at its perfections? Magnus brought his board to a nicety of straightness, tossed off the shavings, gave another toss to his brown hair—then looked up at the sweet cluster of faces in the window and laughed.

"All's safe up there, so long as I stay down here," he said.

The three were silent.

"He is such a beauty!" said Rose under her breath. "He grows better and handsomer every day."

"But we want to talk to you!" said Violet.

"I can wait."

"Suppose we cannot?"

"Front door's open," said Magnus, falling to work with his hammer, and once more lapsing into the sweets of "Yankee Doodle."

"Mother, may we tell him?" said Rose. "May we ask him how he'd like it?"

"Why, yes, dear; that can do no harm," said Mrs. Kindred.

So the girls went down to the woodshed, perching themselves on some hard places each side of their big brother.

"Magnus, how would you like to be a soldier?"

"When there's a war, you'll see."

That was beginning at the wrong end; the two young faces grew suddenly grave. But, after all, there was no war then, and probably never would be, as their mother had said.

"But we mean now," Rose went on. "How would you like to go to West Point?"

"What for?"

"Why, to learn to be a soldier!" said Violet impressively.

Magnus laughed in high derision.

"Soldiers!" he said—"Popinjays. Parrots and popinjays. There was one of those fellows at Clear Spring last summer, and he had airs enough to fly a kite with a tail a mile long."

Again the two young sisters were silent.

"But you would not, Magnus, when you came home," said Violet. "Oh, Rose! just think of his coming home on vacation!"

"And if all the rest are like that, you could be what mamma calls a 'beautiful example,'" said Rose. "I heard Cherry speak of that 'fellow,' as you call him. She said his uniform was very interesting."

"Cherry doesn't care a copper for such stuff!" said Magnus hotly.

"I suppose she can admire a uniform," said Rose.

But to that Magnus made no reply.

II
MEANS TO AN END

The nightingale flew away, and time flew also.

—Hans Andersen.

Charlemagne got his appointment. In a very commonplace way, after all, like most other boys; in spite of his long name and his longer list of qualifications. Some relative knew the Congressman of the district, had done business with him in the pre-official days, and in one of the intervals of home rest after Washington fatigues, young Kindred was taken over to the dignitary's whereabouts, and presented as one who was eager to serve his country in another line. There was nothing heroic about the whole proceeding, and the man was not an ideal Congressman; but he answered the purpose.

The interview would have made a fine subject for a picture. The boy, on his dignity every inch of him, making believe that he did not care a continental about the matter; but too unskilled in dissembling to prove the fact, and keep down the quick flashes of eye and flushes of cheek. The introducer, the childless uncle to whom his sister's son was the one boy of all the world. Opposite them the old Congressman, with chair at an uncertain angle and hat ditto; tilting back in the cool shady porch, and listening with a scarce hid smile to the tale of Charlemagne's attainments.

"Has he room in his head for anything more?" he demanded, when Mr. Thorn paused. "He'll want a little, over there."

"I am ready to learn all they teach, sir!" said young Magnus, firing up. "You think I don't know anything now—and maybe I don't."

"Maybe—" said the Congressman drily. "How about the outside of your head? You'll get it rough and ready, at West Point."

"I've got hands!" said Magnus with another flush.

"True," said the Honourable Miles Ironwood. "Well, take good care of them."

"And I have understood," put in Mr. Thorn, "that hazing is quite stamped out at West Point."

Mr. Ironwood skilfully rocked his chair upon its two hind legs, a mocking smile upon his lips.

"Ever see a bit of woodland that was half trees and two-thirds rocks?" he said.

"I was brought up on just such a place," said Mr. Thorn.

"Ever fight a fire there?"

"Many a time."

"H'm—I thought perhaps you hadn't," said the Congressman. "Well, Mr. Thorn, this district is not represented at West Point just now; last appointment resigned some months ago, and I suppose it had better be filled. And this young man doesn't look as if he would give the Tacs more trouble than common. And if they go for him, that is his lookout and not mine."

"Who are the Tacs, sir?" inquired Magnus.

"Men who come round every morning to see if you have washed your face," said Mr. Ironwood, without moving a muscle of his own. "And every night, to tuck you up and bring away the light."

Magnus coloured indignantly; but a certain twinkle in Mr. Ironwood's eye kept him silent.

"What do they teach there, chiefly?" said Mr. Thorn. "What had Magnus better learn before he goes?"

"Learn everything you can, when you are going anywhere," said Mr. Ironwood impressively. "They teach riding—a little—at West Point. And mathematics—some."

"Charlemagne can ride," said his uncle proudly.

"On his head?"

"Why no!" said Mr. Thorn. "Will that be required?"

"I've seen 'em on their heads, in that riding-hall," said the Congressman with an easy change of position.

"They teach the classics, of course?"

"He'll hear something about Achilles, like as not," said Mr. Ironwood. "Hector, too. Not so much of either as he will of Charlemagne."

Again the suggestive gleam of the eye acted upon the boy as both spur and check.

"And you have no general advice to give him, Mr. Ironwood, as to what he had best do to prepare himself?"

"Prepare himself?" Mr. Ironwood brought his chair down on all-fours with considerable force. "If that boy wants to get ready for West Point, let him do every blessed thing he don't want to do and not one that he does, between now and next June. Good-morning: I'll attend to it."

"He's an old buzzard!" said Magnus as they walked away.

"A little sudden, sometimes," said his mild uncle. "But he's a smart man—a very smart man. And now I think of it, he was there once himself, and didn't get through. That's what makes him so down on the place."

"Must have been a very smart man if he couldn't get through West Point," Magnus said, with a boy's easy contempt.

But smart or not, Mr. Ironwood was as good as his word. And so in due course it was set forth in the Army and Navy Journal, that among the candidates for the Military Academy the following June would be found one Charlemagne Kindred. And the local paper of Barren Heights (albeit not generally concerning itself with West Point) got hold of the item and copied it out in full. And so astonishing was it to see Charlemagne's name in print that the family copy of said paper would have been quite worn out with much study and handling, if Mrs. Kindred had not rescued it, and laid it safe away among the family archives.

As for Cherry, after first privately breaking her heart because Magnus was going away, she then plucked up courage and common sense, and became the proudest little maiden that could be found among all the patient readers of the Barren Heights View.

It is safe to say that Magnus reversed Mr. Ironwood's wise counsel at every point and every time. Having himself been a failure at West Point, the Congressman's opinion was counted a failure too; would have been, anyhow, I fancy; and Charlemagne Kindred got ready for West Point by doing every possible thing he wanted to do, and letting the things he did not want to do, alone. Even when the rainy days of May went weeping by, and the fateful June was close at hand, what that boy did—and was allowed to do—would not bear telling. "He is going away," hushed every reproof; and "when I am gone," forestalled criticism. Refuse him? scold him?—the three gentle hearts at home were quite beyond all that.

To be sure, he ought to have studied hard, the whole time; but then Magnus was so quick and bright it could not be really needful. And if Mrs. Kindred now and then sighed, and wondered what the end would be, if the beginning was so lawless, and what her husband the minister would have said to his only son becoming a soldier—the girls had the answer ready.

"Why mother, it is to defend the Country! My father went to the war once, himself."

"Yes, in time of need," said Mrs. Kindred.

"But Magnus says that when there is no danger is the time to prepare," said Rose.

"Yes," Mrs. Kindred said again with a smile and a sigh, pleased at such wisdom in her boy; although it was a principle of sound business which Magnus had never been known to act upon, in any one single case.

But even he sobered down a little, as the last home day drew on. When the new trunk was packed, and Magnus had said good-bye to all the neighbourhood, and taken his last walk with Cherry; cheering up her forebodings in various efficacious ways best known to himself and to her; when there was nothing left but the good-night, and the early breakfast, and the parting—then, indeed, things began to look serious, and the boy too.

He sat that evening, taking the clearest sort of mental photographs. He saw the grief that lay back of his mother's brave words and tender smiles: saw it, as it were, on that other background of the older and deeper sorrow which never left her face. He noticed the white lines that marked the brown hair above her temples. He studied her hands: slender, white, but with that unmistakable character of use and usefulness which some hands have.

He looked at his sisters: fair, innocent slips of girls as you could find, East or West: their tears coming and going, their smiles playing hide and seek. Who ever had three such blessed bits of womankind entrusted to him? and who would take care of them when he, tall Charlemagne Kindred, should be far away? Magnus registered in his heart some vows that night, which to his honour he kept.

Then his eyes went down again to his mother's hands. They were quietly folded in her lap; but as Magnus looked, he seemed to see them busy in a hundred different ways, and always for him. Steadying his baby steps, cooling his aching head; binding up scratches and cuts; sewing on buttons, knitting socks, mending gloves. Now laid tenderly on his shoulder in some time of persuasion or entreaty—and now held out, both of them, to receive the penitent.

But here Magnus jumped up and fled away, out of the room, out of the house; and poured forth his agony of tears in the old orchard, under the quiet stars.

At his age, however, such showers are brief, and often end in a highly exalted state of mind. Magnus came back to the house protector of his mother, defender of his sisters, and knight-errant for all womankind in general—especially Cherry.

Cherry would have given what coppers she had in the world, and some silver to boot, to spend that last evening and morning at the Kindred house, and the girls had entreated her to stay, but she was a very self-contained little damsel and said no. "Little" is not descriptive, however, for Cherry was growing up tall and straight as a plumed reed by the river side; with a wealth of dark brown hair, and large serious eyes, and delicate brows that, when they laughed, went into curves as lovely and mischievous as the proverbial bow of Cupid. The whole of the demure face laughed then, with dimples here and dimples there.

Brought up until six years old with a frail, invalid mother, and since then by a student father, the child had early learned to keep herself to herself with severe decision. And keep herself hid according to her own ideas, Cherry feared she could not, if she was at hand to see Magnus Kindred go. Besides—Magnus himself had not asked her!

"But why will you not stay, Cherry?" the girls persisted.

"It does not matter why, you know, so long as I am going," said wise Cherry, and so she put on her sun-bonnet, and went back with steady steps toward her own gate, so soon as tea was over. To be sure, Magnus did see her and come bounding after; and, to be sure, she found out then that she was not really in such haste as she had thought: but still Magnus would never have got the sort of farewell he did, if he had not been saucy and taken it. Though, alas! I am afraid his after-memory of the parting was for a time less tender and true than hers.

So there were only the three home faces about the boy that last morning, and only the three sore hearts to plan and prepare his breakfast and every other possible sort of ministration. And magnate as he was, Charlemagne found those three as much as he could bear.

III
THE NIGHT EXPRESS

Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,
There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"
—Longfellow.

I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down sentiment and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty and feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at the shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer a kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway" mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty." But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than wait.

Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and his setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not go with him to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so much faster alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him loiter.

So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother, and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why, the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West Point. Nevertheless, he went on—

"For men must work and women must weep."

Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their tears.

The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with a derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother, and the three girls.

As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed, there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving for seats.

Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new fact.

The first day and the first night went by wearily enough. Magnus had decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his anxious mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And so he could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that long first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were softer (as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of the night express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car! What gruff voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him. Disgust, fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands, until, as the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He wondered what was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be ill: and never guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly homesick.

The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a little country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been sitting far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had called forth no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and roar ceased for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes of the little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in the moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked down the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up the darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late fellow-passengers—then as the way opened, and the mother moved on, the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to that small, unknown world.

"Dood-night, folks!" she said—and was gone.

I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point to him? If indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should die by the way.

He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion, and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place, where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out. Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch them—look at them even—in his present mood, he could not.

The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors. It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest, and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place of others left behind at the station.

Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat, and only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of a different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build; close shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and in order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and not from that tailor to all the crowned heads, High Style. Over the whole man was that look of absolute cleanness—mental, moral, and physical—which a smooth face always sets off to the best advantage. Step firm and businesslike, eyes quick and kind. A man "at leisure from himself," for all the work his Master might set before him. Was there, perhaps, work here?

The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping off at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night drew on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there one by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car, and from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing that he would come and sit by him.

That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of the chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another, "Run, speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by young Charlemagne Kindred.

IV
READY FOR DUTY

The man that wants me is the man I want.

—Dr. Edward Payson.

"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the stranger said as he sat down.

"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the answer broader than the question.

"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on softly to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul, wait thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"

"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a minute or two.

"They had supper at Beaver Junction."

"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"

"No, sir. I didn't want any."

"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said Mr. Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They used to stop at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the road."

He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the conductor was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that another chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where they had to wait for the train from Combination.

"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.

"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.

"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a closer survey.

"No, indeed, sir."

"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"

"No, sir. It will not be near me for two years," said Magnus, trying to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his travels, and far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and him.

"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was almost a groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West Point?" he said the next minute in his quick way.

"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his surprise.

"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr. Wayne, smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get to West Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you will see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd better do a little at it before you get there."

If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the merry glance that went with them.

"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"

"Often."

"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up in his interest.

"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr. Wayne. "With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart to, and never get it back."

"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.

"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All sorts."

"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.

"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,

"Be it ever so homely,
There is no place like home."

"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember varieties?"

"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was waste time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get through."

"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"

"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.

Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But here is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my guest, and when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you don't want to go, and eat when you are not hungry."

And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.

And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when Magnus roused up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and the young head sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back of the seat, then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had vanished, and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.

"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the clear skin and pure colour, "and well brought up"—for unmistakable lines of truth and intelligence marked the face. "Warm-hearted—almost—as a woman, and wilful enough for two! What will he do at West Point? and what will West Point do to him?"

The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that longing petition of the Lord himself:

"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep, until the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside world.

"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two new-made friends went back to their car after breakfast.

"Ordered to report to-day?"

"No, sir, not until Friday."

"Where will you stay to-night?"

"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything at West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"

"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in town with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."

"Do you live in town, sir?"

"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."

Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred, and he entered into this plan with great alacrity; nor ever guessed, till he went home on furlough and put up at the same hotel, how large a part of his fare that night was paid by Mr. Wayne himself.

It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.

Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him sleep a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened again until broad daylight.

The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus, the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own. Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat, orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone, which was all that could be wished.

In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together. There their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road, while Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.

"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said Mr. Wayne, as they stepped along.

"Hard work, sir."

"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you expect to keep yourself at it?"

"My own will, sir."

"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to its duty?"

"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.

"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow up the whole concern."

"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy with some quickness.

"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the wrong things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to have the 'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working order."

"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be for four years."

"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at West Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the United States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether you like it or not, whether you understand it or not."

"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.

"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the least."

"That sounds hard," said Magnus.

"It is hard."

"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus with a boy's air of competent criticism.

"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If the authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I would have that written up over your door in gilt letters."

"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.

"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the absolute needs-be."

"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a wondering look at his new-found friend.

"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and a few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may come to."

Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.

"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been there?" he said.

"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad I am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as much in grey as you ever will in blue."

"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.

"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls is the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else, from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders—sworn in to obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"

"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.

"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must have forgotten. He never means to disobey.'"

"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring, too.

"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name, it is a West Point tactical officer."

"Who is he?" said Magnus.

"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue, specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."

"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see if you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that on me!"

Mr. Wayne laughed a little.

"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that you haven't got does not pay at West Point."

"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with growing distaste.

"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and that often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear to obey orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come out. From the time you get up till the time you go to bed,—and after."

"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive lift of the brows.

"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being asleep will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will come round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if you are not too tired, I think you had better get up.'"

It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that the boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.

"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"

"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."

"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that kind office for himself.

"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have another man detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.

Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house by his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was not all of enjoyment.

"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"

"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."

"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up the other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I am rather lazy."

"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I want you to make friends with the flag."

"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the time? That is glorious!"

"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm flag in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came by who did not like it?"

"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said Magnus.

"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to offend?"

"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.

"But Young America can suppose, for the argument's sake," said Mr. Wayne, smiling.

"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as you say. And I say, the man would come down, a long sight ahead of the Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending anybody, for the flag."

Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.

"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point. Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are open."

So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train moved slowly out of the Grand Central.

V
THE FLAG

What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam
Of the morning's first beam;
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream. —Francis Key.

It is not a particularly interesting bit of road at first, as you leave the great city, going north. The tunnel, the gleams and glooms in the long passage under ever-arching streets; and whatever the Harlem end of New York may have been, it is not delightsome to look upon now.

But the way to the turn is not long; and once round that corner, and racing along the river side, there is enough to see, well worth the seeing. And it was all new to Magnus. The wonderful rush of the mighty river, rolling its blue waves in endless curls and undulations; the stately Palisades, with their drapings of June green; the white-winged craft on the water, and the white-winged gulls in the air; all made the boy's heart leap. Here went a steamer, ploughing her crested furrows; now and then the train stopped for breath at some station with a strange name. It was all a wonderful new world.

With his face close to the window Magnus looked eagerly out; sending his gaze as far up the river as the headlands and bends would let him; and at last in the distance beyond the narrowing waters of Haverstraw Bay, and above the nearer hillsides, rose lovely mountain-heads. Not towering and stupendous, such as he might have seen many a time in the Western States, but soft, rounded, exquisite; just high enough, in fact, to claim the dignified name of mountains, as distinguished from mere hills. What they were, and where they belonged, Magnus could not tell. They rose up, and stretched out, and locked in, in an impassable sort of way; as if they might be miles off from the river. He did not know whether West Point was near them. And yet, by his time-table, there was but one station more before he must leave the train.

Now the engine rushed inland for a bit, losing sight of the river, and Magnus studied the time-table again, assuring himself for the twentieth time of the precise hour and minute when he was expected to reach Garrisons. Then as the train drew up at Peekskill, he gazed out at that dingy combination which gathers round a railway station. The engine got its quantum of water, darted on, and then—ah, what could be fairer! Magnus almost shouted with delight as they swept around the curve, with the full south view for a moment, past Anthony's Nose, and with the Dunderberg across the stream.

"What are these mountains called?" he asked of a Peekskill passenger who had taken the seat beside him.

"Highlands—Hudson Highlands," said the man. "You don't belong round here, likely?"

"I never was here before."

"You've come to the right place, then. Aint purtier mountings nowhere. Such a lot o' happenings, too. Now, right here,"—as the train rushed through a deep rock cut,—"just about here, was where Benedict Arnold sneaked off to find the Vulture. And earth nor water didn't nary one on 'em open and swaller him up."

"Then this is Teller's Point!" cried Magnus.

"Teller's Point it is. And up yonder, to your right, is where the scamp was livin', and gettin' his breakfast that mornin', when the Father of his country come, and all but cotched him. Tell you, these old hills has seen things! But now look this way a bit. See that crick over there, and the mill? Fort Montgomery's one side, to the north, and t'other side o' the crick is Fort Clinton; and down there, atween 'em, is where they fit the battle and killed my great grandfather. They do say, the Continentals was that mad they pitched all the Hessians into the crick. Tell you what, young man, it's fine to have one o' the family die in the service. I aint partic'lar about its bein' me, you understand, but some one on 'em."

"But you'd be ready to have it you?" said Magnus, eyeing his new acquaintance.