CHAPTER VIII

OFF TO CAMP

Now that the momentous step had been taken, the boys buckled down to work--work of the hardest and most strenuous kind.

They left their positions with Moore and Thomas the next day, with the hearty good wishes of the firm and the assurance that their places would be ready for them as soon as they returned.

The only gloomy member of the office force was Tom Bradford, who had also applied for enlistment but had been rejected on account of his teeth. Now he had on a grouch of the grouchiest kind.

"Hang the red tape!" he growled. "What have a fellow's teeth got to do with it? I don't want to bite the Germans, I want to shoot them."

"Never mind, old scout," comforted Bart. "Perhaps the dentist can fix that up. Anyway you can root for us if you can't go along."

"Not much nourishment in that," grunted Tom, refusing to be shaken from his attitude of settled gloom.

"It does seem mighty hard," remarked Bart, after Tom had left them. "I don't think the Government ought to be so particular. The time may come when they'll be glad enough to get such fine fellows as Tom, teeth or no teeth."

"Perhaps so," agreed Frank; "but just now they've got such a lot of material that they can afford to pick and choose. And after all, perhaps they're right. They've got to have a pretty high level of physical condition."

"I suppose you're right," said Bart, adding: "Suppose poor old Tom should get a toothache in the trenches. You can't expect to have dentists on tap."

"As far as that goes," Frank took him up quickly, grinning at the picture that rose before his mind, "I should think a good hard toothache would be an asset. You'd be so mad you could kill a dozen Germans. It would just be getting your mind off your agony."

Bart grinned.

"Yes and it would have another advantage. When you've got a toothache you don't care whether you live or die. Getting stabbed with a bayonet would be almost a relief."

"That's so," laughed Frank. "He'd be something like the seasick passenger who, for the first hour, was afraid he was going to die and after that was afraid he couldn't. I suppose Uncle Sam figures it this way," he went on, "if a chain has a single weak link in it the whole chain is weak.

"You know how it is in a crowd. A hundred people may be eager to get out of a place, but if two or three in front are slow it holds up the whole hundred. But I'm willing to bet that someway or somehow Tom will manage to get in."

"I hope so, anyway," said Bart. "I'd like to have the old scout along with us."

A day or two later the boys got their uniforms and then they began to feel like genuine soldiers. It set them apart from other men and emphasized the fact that from now on they had but one aim in life, to fight and, if need be, die for Uncle Sam.

The first sight of Frank in khaki was a stab at the mother heart of Mrs. Sheldon, although she could not avoid a thrill of admiration at the splendid figure that he made. To her it meant separation, a separation that was coming swiftly nearer with each passing day. And there might be no reunion!

But, although her lips were tremulous, her eyes were bright and she kept her forebodings bravely under cover. She was a thoroughbred, and it was easy to see where Frank had inherited his spirit.

"How proud your father would be if he could see you now," she said with a slight tremble in her voice, which she strove to conceal.

"Perhaps he does," said Frank reverently. "If he were here I know that he would approve of what I'm doing."

The days were all too short now for the work that was crowded into them. Government preparations were going on with feverish rapidity. Events followed one another as though on wings.

The order had gone forth for the draft and another order had decreed that the regiments of the national guard should be enrolled in and form part of the regular army.

This latter order was the subject of some regret with the members of the old Thirty-seventh, whose pride in their regiment was intense and who had hoped to have it remain intact under its old officers for the period of the war.

"We'll lose our identity now," mourned Billy Waldon. "We'll just be part of some big rainbow division, made up of fellows from all over the United States. For my part, I think it's a mistake. I think the regiment would fight better under its own colors and with its old traditions to inspire it."

"We mustn't criticize the Government, Billy," said Frank. "My theory all through this war is going to be that Uncle Sam is right. He's got good reasons for everything he does."

"'Them's my sentiments'," put in Bart. "Whether we have the regimental colors or not, we'll all be fighting under the one flag, Old Glory, and it's only the Stars and Stripes that counts, after all. To me there's an inspiration in the thought of the whole United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fighting as a unit."

"Well, perhaps you're right," said Billy, somewhat mollified. "At any rate, nothing can take away from us the fact that we're volunteers."

A few days passed, then orders came that the regiment should be assembled at the armory to be kept there day and night until they should be sent to Camp Boone--as we shall call the cantonment that had been prepared for them.

To Frank's mother the order sounded like the knell of doom. It was the final step of separation. The word had passed that the boys were to bring all their belongings to the armory as no leave would be given under any circumstances.

"Good-bye, dear boy!" she began bravely, and then all her courage gave way to a storm of tears.

Frank's own eyes were wet as he folded her closely to him and comforted her as best he could, though feeling very much in need of comfort himself.

"Bear up, Mother," he urged. "It will only be a little while before I come marching home again, and I'll be thinking of you all the time and write to you whenever I get a chance."

He forced himself to go at last with many a backward look and wave of his hand at the figure in the doorway. His heart was heavy as he reflected that in the chances of war he might never see her again.

The next few days were full of excitement, allowing him little time to brood. Both he and Bart took to a soldier's life as a duck takes to water. The martial spirit was there together with the quick intelligence that enables America to turn out finished soldiers more quickly than any other country in the world.

They had an advantage too in being sandwiched in, as it were, with the men who had just come back from the Mexican border and had had such recent experience in practical outdoor preparation for fighting.

Billy Waldon, especially, was a mine of information and suggestion, and as they threw themselves into the work with all their heart and soul it was not long before they could feel that they were graduating from the "rookie" class and becoming regular soldiers.

Their commanding officers looked on them with approval and secretly wished that all of their recruits might be of the same high-class type.

"You're going along like a house afire, fellows," said Billy, after drill had ended one morning. "The manual of arms is just pie for you. Kitchener used to think that it took a year to turn out a soldier. I'll bet if he'd been on this side of the water he'd have felt differently.

"I'm glad you think so," said Frank. "But after all, we're just going through the motions now. The test will come a little later on."

"I'd bet on you now or any time," answered Billy.

The looked-for orders came at last from Washington, and there was a great stir and bustle at the armory. Then the next morning the great doors swung open and the regiment marched forth, headed by its band.

Through the old familiar streets it marched, amid the cheers and tears of those who packed the sidewalks, past the commercial house of Moore and Thomas, where old Peterson waved his hand tremulously and Reddy, with Oliver Twist perched upon his shoulder, shouted himself hoarse and nearly fell out of the window in his enthusiasm, down to the railroad station where the long train waited for them.

There they broke ranks while friends and relatives, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, sweethearts and wives, crowded around them, pressing last gifts into their hands, caressing them, enthusing them, crying over them, until the warning whistle blew and they were forced to tear themselves away.

Those few moments had been precious ones to Frank and his mother, for in them they had compressed a world of affection, that fell from their lips and looked from their eyes.

"I won't say good-bye, little Mother," said Frank. "It's just _au revoir_."

"Yes, dear," agreed his mother tremulously. "_Au revoir_. What is that?" she interrupted herself with a start. "Ah, it is the whistle. My boy, my boy, I cannot let you go. Yes, I will be brave," Frank turned his head aside to hide his own emotion as his mother pathetically tried to smile. "There, go, dear, go,--before my resolution breaks entirely. _Au revoir_--my boy--my boy--"

With a little strangled sound in his throat Frank tore himself away and, without trusting himself to look back, climbed into the car with his jostling comrades. Then he leaned far out of the window, caught his mother to him and kissed her.

The whistle shrieked again, and amid a storm of cheers and waving of handkerchiefs the train moved out. The old Thirty-seventh had started on the road to victory!