Midshipman Merrill

The stepfather, Vance Vanloo, had treated the youth so cruelly, wishing to get rid of him so that his own son could get possession of his wife’s valuable estates, that the lad h...

He had not only won a badge for a gallant act at sea, but he had received “honorable mention” for his services as pilot under circumstances where only skill and nerve alone coul...

As for honors won the third year was but a repetition of the other two, and he entered upon the last year of his Naval School life with the goal of his ambition in sight, the ch...

From port to port went the cadet’s cruiser, saluting the flags, forts, and ships of other nations and receiving salutes in turn, while the young sailors were given a run ashore...

She was a large, roomy and stanch craft, as well as carrying the champion colors as a racer, won in showing a clean pair of heels to the fleet pleasure boats when a cup or purse...

The youth, accompanied by Jack Judson, the sailor, walked hastily up the main street of the little town, until he came to a fine residence, before which hung a sign bearing the...

Wondering how Mark had gotten his appointment, and angry because he had done so, he saw that he was made a hero of from the start, or else why this popular demonstration in his...

They were Mrs. Merrill, the mother of the gallant middy, old Peggy, and a beautiful young girl whom the reader will recall as Virgene Rich, the fair witness who had testified so...

No one yet knew whether the safety of his crew had caused the gallant cadet officer at the helm of the lifeboat to put back for the ship before the storm struck them, or he had...

At last the active days of preparation had passed, the stormy scenes of hope and despair for the graduates and those striving to stand at the head of their classes had gone, and...

Following the swimming races came rowing and sailing matches and the fourth class pair of sculls, and four and eight barges, had the temerity to offer a challenge, open to all.

Accompanied by Cadet Captain Byrd Bascomb, Herbert Nazro and Winslow Dillingham, who were there to vouch for the affair as stated, the officer of the day suggested that the youn...

Barney Breslin had just completed his walk on his hands around the track of the gymnasium, and the applause with which he had been greeted had ceased, when Scott Clemmons asked...

Leaving Mark Merrill facing the crowd of midshipmen who met him as he landed, I will ask my reader to return with me until I explain the fact of his arrival as helmsman of a sch...

“Well, Master Mark, I congratulate you with all my heart,” said Captain Jasper Crane, when the youth told him that he had stood the first test, and crossed the rubicon of his ho...

The humble fisher lad, “entered at large for gallant services rendered,” but coming from the rock-bound coast of Maine, the nursery of hero sailors, as is, in fact, the whole co...

“My God! can my son have gone out in the face of this terrible storm? It is the worst I have known upon the coast for years,” and Mrs. Merrill pressed her face against the windo...

“Some one” had said that one of the officers had said that there was to be a new cadet at the academy, appointed under peculiar circumstances; that is, he had no political statu...

The decision of the commandant, forwarded by special carrier to Washington, was promptly approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and Barney Breslin, awaiting at the hotel in Anna...

He had heard all that had passed, and suppressing a smile, politely saluted the midshipman, for he certainly wished no more trouble upon his _début_ as one of Uncle Sam’s middies.

There were maps, histories and all that he could wish, while the postmasters to whom he delivered mails were wont to give him each week papers which they had read and finished w...

Secrets often leak out of a country post office, just how no one knows, but still they do, and when Mark called upon Judge Miller after arriving in B----, and escorting Virgene...

He had been in so many scrapes since the one that disgraced him from the Naval Academy that he had forgotten his affair with Mark, more than to recall that he had some cause of...

From a hint given him by Commodore Lucien, Mark had devoted himself to certain studies, so that there should be no chance of his failure to enter the academy through ignorance.

As the breeze freshens a strong swell causes the ship to roll heavily, and the barometer steadily going down, causes the officer of the deck to keep his weather eye to windward...

The petty persecutions of Mark Merrill became so persistent, so annoying, and so frequent that those who knew how matters were going became confident that, as they all counted a...

It was several weeks after the attack on Mark Merrill, on his visit to the town of B---- after the doctor, and Mrs. Merrill had regained her health, old Peggy had returned to he...

So high is the standard of honor among Uncle Sam’s cadets that one’s word is as good as his bond in all things, and a man who would go wrong and do a despicable thing is despise...

“Owe him? I only wish I had what he owes me; but he came and asked me for a loan, and I guess he has gone to the bad utterly, for his father has cast him off, he told me.”

Each vessel had its crew on board in case there should be dragging of anchors, and they were compelled to get up sail, which all devoutly hoped would not be the case.

He had as a room mate a youth from South Carolina by the name of Bemis Perry, a quiet, unassuming youth, about Mark’s age, and who made a pleasant companion.

The wild applause which greeted Mark Merrill as the boat race ended with his shooting across the finish a length in advance of Bemis Perry, who was a quarter of his boat ahead o...

Captain De Long, the commander of the cruising ship Constellation, was seated in his cabin smoking his cigar before retiring, when Cadet Midshipman Mark Merrill requested an int...

He had sailed up to the academy from Norfolk to save money on the railroads, and then he saw that Shipper Crane and his sons had a lurking desire to see where he was going to an...

The day of work was at hand at the United States Naval Academy, situated in that quaint, sleepy old town of Annapolis, whose greatest attractions are its antiquity and its sea s...

The three youths of the group who had not taken a hand in the destruction of the toy ship had seemed at first to regret their inability to also fret the young sailor; but the mo...

He dared not come out in open rebellion, as he well knew what that would mean to him; but he treasured up for Nazro a bitter feeling and a hope of revenge in the future when the...

The quick retort made by Mark Merrill to Winslow Dillingham’s insulting words brought a general laugh, for the cadets were quick to appreciate wit and sarcasm, even if directed...

To Mark Merrill his salt-water bath with his clothes on was nothing to speak of. He had lived so much in his skiff, been overboard so often that he thought nothing of it, though...

“Me, too;” and all of a group of five lads joined in with their leader to set upon a youth who was just running for the shore in a trim little surf-skiff with a leg-of-mutton sail.

Now, as he saw her advance as a witness, his face paled and flushed by turns, for what would she, a girl, have to say of a quarrel among men, he wondered.

It may have been from the effects of his too liberal “treats” of himself the night before, and, perhaps, from a knowledge of the fact that he had yawed wide of his course in tel...

“Yes, I shall resign. I shall take my resignation over now to the commandant, for, after all I am tired of study, and I hardly think I am cut out to be a naval officer. The stan...

His nature was somewhat morose; it seemed to go against him to salute his superiors, and he had never won golden opinions for his studious habits and strict attention to duty.

His speaking to Bemis Perry and his rebuff, his cut by Decatur Knowles, and the fact that a score of middies took it into their heads to pass near him and make no acknowledgment...

Weeks passed away and the strange fact presented itself that the cadet midshipman, who was devotedly studious, thorough in every duty devolving upon him, perfect in drill and co...

If he had sought for an opportunity to show his popularity it could not have come to him any better, for at the telegraph office the operator who read his message said, pleasantly:

Having passed both his physical examination and the one to discover how far he had progressed in “book learning,” Mark Merrill felt happy at the thought that there was no other...