Chapter 2

"I suppose I do," replied Frank, with some reluctance. "He enlisted three days ago. He wanted me to go with him then; but I----"

"You what?" said neighbor Winch.

"I couldn't, without first getting permission from my father and mother," explained Frank.

"O, if my John had only acted as noble a part!" said the neighbor. "It's a bad beginning for a boy to run away. He has nearly broken his mother's heart."

"Well, well, neighbor," observed Mr. Manly, consolingly, "reflect that it's in a good cause. Jack might have done worse, you know."

"Yes, yes. He never was a steady boy, as you know. He has set out to learn three different trades, and got sick of them all. I couldn't keep him at school, neither. Of late nothing would do but he must be a soldier. If I thought he'd stick to it, and do his duty, I wouldn't say a word. But he'll get tired of carrying a gun, too, before he has seen hard service. Where is he? Do you know, Frank?"

"He is in camp, in the Jackson Blues," mid Frank. "I am going as drummer in the same company."

"I'm glad of that," replied Mr. Winch. "For, though he is so much older than you, I think you always have had an influence over him, Frank--a good influence, too." And the neighbor took the young volunteer's hand.

Frank's eyes glistened--he felt so touched by this compliment, and so proud that his father had heard it, and could go home and tell it to his mother and sisters.

Neighbor Winch went on: "I want you to see John, as soon as you can, Frank, and talk with him, and try to make him feel how wrongly he has acted----"

Here the poor man's voice failed him; and Frank, sympathizing with his sorrow, was filled with gratitude to think that he had never been tempted to grieve his parents in the same way.

Mr. Manly accompanied his son to the railroad depot, and saw him safely in the cars that were to convey him to camp, and then took leave of him. The young volunteer would have forgotten his manhood, and cried, if the eyes of strangers had not been upon him; even as it was, his voice broke when he said his last good-by, and sent back his love to his mother and sisters and little Willie.

III.

UNDER CANVAS.

The cars were soon off; and the heart of Frank swelled within him as he felt himself now fairly embarked in his new adventure.

Soon enough the white tents of the camp rose in sight. The Stars and Stripes floating under the blue sky, the soldiers in their blue uniforms, the sentinels with their glittering bayoneted guns pacing up and down, and above all, the sound of a drum, which he considered now to be a part of his life, made him feel himself already a hero.

Several other recruits had come down in the train with him, accompanied by an officer. Frank was a stranger to them all. But he was not long without acquaintances, for he had scarcely alighted at the depot when he saw coming towards him his neighbor and chum, Jack Winch, in soldier clothes--a good-looking young fellow, a head taller and some two years older than himself.

"Hello, Jack! how are you?"

"Tip-top!" said Jack, looking happy as a prince.

The officer who had brought down the recruits went with them to the quartermaster's department, and gave orders for their outfit. When Frank's turn came, his measure was taken, and an astonishing quantity of army clothing issued to him. He had two pairs of drawers, two shirts, two pairs of stockings, a blouse, a dress coat, an overcoat, a cap, a pair of shoes, a pair of pantaloons, and a towel. Besides these he received a knapsack, with two blankets; a haversack, with a tin plate, knife and fork, and spoon; and a tin cup and canteen. He had also been told that he should get his drum and drumsticks; but in this he was disappointed. The department was out of drums.

"Never mind!" said Jack, consolingly. "You may consider yourself lucky to draw your clothes so soon. I had to wait for mine till I was examined and sworn in. The surgeons are so lazy, or have so much to do, or something, it may be a week before you'll be examined."

Frank was soon surrounded by acquaintances whom he scarcely recognized at first, they looked so changed and strange to him in their uniforms.

"How funny it seems," said he, "to be shaking hands with soldiers!"

"These are our tents," said Jack. "They all have their names, you see."

Which fact Frank had already noticed with no little astonishment.

The names were lettered on the canvas of the tents in characters far more grotesque than elegant One was called the "Crystal Palace;" another, the "Mammoth Cave;" a third bore the mystical title of "Owl House;" while a fourth displayed the sign of the "Arab's Home;" etc.

"My traps are in the 'Young Volunteer,'" said Jack. "We give it that name, because we are all of us young fellows in there. You can tie up here too,"--entering the tent,--"if you want to."

Frank gladly accepted the proposition. "How odd it must seem," he said, "to live and sleep under canvas!"

"You'll like it tip-top, when you get used to it," remarked Jack, with an air of old experience.

Frank made haste to take off his civil suit and put on his soldier clothes. Jack pronounced the uniform a splendid fit, and declared that his friend looked "stunning."

"But you must have your hair cut, Frank. Look here; this is the fighting trim!" and Jack Winch, pulling off his cap, made Frank laugh till the tears came into his eyes, at the ludicrous sight. Jack's hair had been clipped so close to his head that it was no longer than mouse's hair, giving him a peculiarly grim and antique appearance.

"You look like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea!" exclaimed Frank. "I won't have my hair cut that way!"--feeling of his own soft brown curls, which his mother was so fond of, and which he meant to preserve, if only for her sake.

"Pshaw! you look like a girl! Come, Frank, there's a fellow in the 'Owl House' that cuts all the hair for our company."

But here an end was put to the discussion by some of the boys without crying, "Dinner!"

"Dinner!" repeated Jack. "Hurrah! let's go and draw our rations."

Three or four young volunteers now came into the tent, and, opening their haversacks, drew forth their tin plates, knives and forks. Frank did the same, and observing that they all took their tin cups, he took his also, and followed them, with quite as much curiosity as appetite, to the cook-shop, where a large piece of bread and a thick slice of boiled beef was dealt out to each, together with a cup of coffee.

"How droll it seems to eat rations!" said Frank, on their return, seating himself on his bed,--a tick filled with straw,--and using his lap for a table.

The bread was sweet; but the beef was of not quite so fine a quality as Frank had been used to at home and the coffee was not exactly like his mother's.

"Here, have some milk," said Jack. "I've an account open with this woman"--a wrinkled old creature, who came into the tent with a little girl, bearing baskets of cakes and fruits, and a can of milk.

"No, I thank you," said Frank. "I may as well begin with the fare I shall have to get used to some time, for I mean to send all my pay home to my folks except what I'm actually obliged to use myself."

"You'll be a goose if you do!" retorted Jack. "I shan't send home any of mine. I'm my own man now, ye see, and what I earn of Uncle Sam I'm going to have a gallus old time with, you may bet your life on that!"

Frank drew a long breath, for he felt that the time had now come to have the talk with his friend which Mr. Winch had requested.

"I saw your father, this morning, Jack."

"Did ye though? What did the old sinner have to say?"

"I don't like to hear you call your father such names," said Frank, seriously. "And if you had seen how bad he felt, when he spoke of your enlisting----"

"Pshaw, now, Frank! don't be green! don't get into a pious strain, I beg of ye! You'll be the laughing-stock of all the boys, if ye do."

Frank blushed to the eyes, not knowing what reply to make. He had felt no little pride in Mr. Winch's responsible charge to him, and had intended to preach to his more reckless companion a good, sound, moral discourse on this occasion. But to have his overtures received in this manner was discouraging.

"Come," continued Jack, taking something from the straw, "we are soldiers now, and must do as soldiers do. Have a drink, Frank?"--presenting a small bottle.

"What is it?" Frank asked, and when told, "Brandy," he quickly withdrew the hand he had extended. "No, I thank you, Jack, I am not going to drink any thing of that sort, unless I need it as a medicine. And I am sorry to see you getting into such habits so soon."

"Habits? what habits?" retorted Jack, blushing in his turn. "A little liquor don't hurt a fellow. _I_ take it only as a medicine. You mustn't go to being squeamish down here, I tell you." And Jack drank a swallow or two, smacking his lips afterwards, as he returned the cork to the bottle.

By this time Frank's courage was up--his moral courage, I mean, which is more rare, as it is far more noble, than any merely physical bravery in the face of danger.

"I don't mean to be squeamish," he said; "but right is right, and wrong is wrong, Jack. And what was wrong for us at home isn't going to be right for us here. I, for one, believe we can go through this war without doing any thing that will make our parents ashamed of us when we return."

"My eye!" jeered his companion; "and do you fancy a little swallow of brandy is going to make my folks ashamed of me?"

"It isn't the single swallow I object to, Jack; it's the habit of drinking. That's a foolish thing, to say the least, for young fellows, like you and me, to get into; and we all know what it leads to. Who wants to become a tobacco-spitting, rum-drinking, filthy old man?"

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Jack; rather feebly, however, for he could not help feeling that Frank was as much in the right as he was in the wrong. "You look a long ways ahead, it seems to me. I haven't thought of being an old man yet."

"If we live, we shall be men, and old men, too, some day," said Frank, without minding his sneers. "And you know we are laying the foundations of our future characters now."

"That's what your mother, or your Sunday school teacher, has been saying to you."

"No matter who has said it. I know it's true, and I hope I never shall forget it. I mean to become a true, honest man if I live; and now, I believe, is the time to begin."

"O, no doubt you'll be great things," grinned Jack.

The tone in which he said this was highly offensive; and Frank was provoked to retort,--

"You don't seem even to have thought what you are going to be. You try first one thing, then another, and stick to nothing. That's what your father said this morning, with tears in his eyes."

Jack turned red as fire, either with anger or shame, or both, and seemed meditating a passionate reply, when some of his companions, who had been eating their rations outside, entered the tent.

"Come in, boys," cried Jack, "and hear Frank preach. You didn't know we had a chaplain in our company--did ye? That's the parson, there, with the girl's hair. He can reel you off sermons like any thing. Fire away, Frank, and show the boys."

"Yes, steam up, parson," said Joe Harris, "and give us a specimen."

"Play away, seven," cried Ned Ellis, as if Frank had been a fire-engine of that number.

These, together with other facetious remarks, made Frank so ashamed and confused that he could not say a word. For experience had not yet taught him that even the most reckless and depraved, however they may laugh at honest seriousness in a companion, cannot help respecting him for it in their hearts.

"You needn't blush so, young chap," said tall Abram Atwater, a stalwart, square-shouldered, square-featured young man of twenty, who alone had not joined in the derisive merriment. "It won't hurt any of these fellows to preach to them, and they know it."

Frank cast a grateful look at the tall soldier, who, though almost a stranger to him, had thus generously taken his part against some who professed to be his friends. He tried to speak, but could not articulate a word, he was still feeling so hurt by Jack's ingratitude. Perhaps his pride was as much wounded as his friendship; for, as we have hinted, he had been a good deal puffed up with the idea of his influence over Jack. This incident, as we shall see, had a bad effect upon Frank himself; for, instead of persevering in the good work he had undertaken, he was inclined to give up all hope of exerting an influence upon any body.

In the mean time Jack was washing down the sermon, as he said, with more brandy.

"'Twas such an awful dry discourse, boys;" and he passed the bottle around to the others, who all drank, except Abram Atwater. That stalwart young soldier stood in the midst of the tent, straight and tall, with his arms calmly folded under his blue cape (a favorite attitude of his), and merely shook his head, with a mild and tolerant smile, when the liquor was passed to him.

Such was the beginning of Frank's camp life. It was not long before he had recovered from his confusion, and was apparently on good terms with his messmates. He spent the afternoon in walking about the camp; watching some raw recruits at their drill; watching others playing cards, or checkers, or backgammon; getting acquainted, and learning the ways of the camp generally.

So the day passed; and that night Frank lay for the first time soldier-fashion, under canvas. He went to bed with his clothes on, and drew his blanket over him. It was not like going to bed in his nice little room at home, with Willie snuggled warmly beside him; yet there was a novelty in this rude and simple mode of life that was charming. His companions, who lay upon the ground around him, kept him awake with their stories long after the lights were out; but at length, weary with the day's excitement, he fell asleep.

There,--a dweller now in the picturesque white city of tents gleaming in the moonlight, ruggedly pillowed on his soldier's couch, those soft brown curls tossed over the arm beneath his head,--the drummer boy dreamed of home. The last night's consultation and the morning's farewells were lived over again in the visions of his brain; and once more his mother visited his bedside; and again his father accompanied him to the recruiting office. But now the recruiting office was changed into a barber's shop, which seemed to be a tent supported by a striped pole; where, at John Winch's suggestion, he was to have his hair trimmed to the fighting-cut. The barber was a stiff-looking officer in epaulets, who heated a sword red-hot in an oven, while Frank preached to him a neat little sermon over his ration. Then the epaulets changed to a pair of roosters with flaming red combs, that flapped their wings and crowed. And the barber, approaching Frank with his red-hot sword, made him lie on his back to be shaved. Then followed an excruciating sense of having his hair pulled and his face scraped and burnt, which made him move and murmur in his sleep; until, a ruthless attempt being made to thrust the sword up his nostrils, he awoke.

Shouts of laughter greeted him. His companions had got up at midnight, lighted a candle, and burnt a cork, with which they had been giving him an artificial mustache and whiskers. He must have been a ludicrous sight, with his countenance thus ornamented, sitting up on his bed, rubbing his eyes open, and staring about him, while Winch and Harris shrieked with mirth, and Ned Ellis flapped his arms and crowed.

Frank put up his hand to his head. O grief! his curls had been mangled by dull shears in the unskilful hands of John Winch. The depredator was still brandishing the miserable instrument, which he had borrowed for the occasion of the fellow who cut the company's hair in the "Owl House."

Frank's sudden awaking, astonishment, and chagrin were almost too much for him. He could have cried to think of a friend playing him such a trick; and to think of his lost curls! But he had made up his mind to endure every thing that might befall him with unflinching fortitude. He must not seem weak on an occasion like this. His future standing with his comrades might depend upon what he should say and do next. So he summoned all his stoutness of heart, and accepted the joke as good-naturedly as was possible under the circumstances.

"I wish you'd tell me what the fun is," he said, "so that I can laugh too."

"Give him the looking-glass," cried Jack Winch, holding the candle, while Ellis stopped crowing, to bring a little three-cornered fragment of a broken mirror, by which Frank was shown the artistic burnt-cork work on his face. He could hardly help laughing himself at his own hideousness, now that the first disagreeable sense of being the sport of his friends had passed.

"I hope you have had fun enough to pay for waking me up out of the queerest dream any body ever had," he said. And he told all about the barber, and the epaulets that became roosters, and the red-hot sword for a razor, etc. Then, looking at himself again in the piece of glass, he called out, "Give me those shears;" and taking them, he manfully cut off his mutilated curls. "There, that isn't exactly the fighting-cut, Jack, but 'twill do. Now, boys, tell some more of those dull stories, and I guess I can go to sleep again."

And he lay down once more, declining to accept an urgent invitation to preach.

"There, boys," said stout Abram Atwater, who had sat all the time cross-legged, a silent, gravely-smiling spectator of the scene, "you shan't fool him any more. He has got pluck; he has shown it. And now let him alone."

IV.

THE OLD DRUMMER AND THE NEW DRUM.

As yet, Frank had no drum. Neither had he any scientific knowledge of the instrument. He was ambitious of entering upon his novel occupation, and was elated to learn, the next morning, that he was to begin his acquaintance with the noble art of drumming that very day.

"The sergeant is inquiring for you," said Abram Atwater, with his mild, pleasant smile, calling him out of the tent.

Frank, who was writing a letter to his mother, on his knapsack, jumped up with alacrity, hid his paper, and ran out to see what was wanted.

"This way, Manly," said the sergeant. "Here's the man that's to give you lessons. Go with him."

The teacher was a veteran drummer, with a twinkling gray eye, a long, thick, gray mustache, and a rather cynical way of showing his teeth under it. He had some drumsticks thrust into his pocket, but no drum.

"I suppose," thought Frank, "we shall find our drums in the woods;" into which his instructor straightway conducted him in order to be away from the diversions and noises of the camp.

Frank was disappointed. The veteran gave him his first exercise--on a board!

"I thought I was to learn on a drum," he ventured to suggest, looking up, not without awe, at the bushy mustache.

"You don't want a drum till you know how to drum," said the veteran.

"But I should think it would be better----"

"Wait!" lifting his drumstick. "Do you understand what we are here for?"

"To learn to drum," replied Frank, in some astonishment.

"To learn to drum," repeated the veteran, a curious smile just raising the corners of that grizzled mustache. "You understand correctly. Now, am I your teacher, or are you mine?"

"You are mine, sir," answered the boy, still more amazed.

"Right again!" exclaimed the professor. "That's the way I understood it; but I might be wrong, you know. We are all liable to be wrong--are we not?"

"Yes, sir."

Frank stared.

"Good again! But now it is understood correctly; I am your instructor, and you are not mine; that is it."

Frank assented.

"Very well! Now listen. Since I am to give you lessons, and you are not to give me lessons, you will follow the method I propose, and excuse me if I decline to follow your method. That is reasonable,--isn't it?"

"Certainly, sir," murmured the abashed pupil.

"The point settled, then, we will proceed," said the veteran, with the same incomprehensible, half-sarcastic, half-humorous, but now quite good-natured smile lighting up his grim visage.

"But before we proceed," said Frank, "may I just say what I was going to?"

The old drummer lifted both his sticks, and his eyebrows too (not to speak of his shaggy mustache), in surprise at the lad's audacity.

"Do you want me to report you as insubordinate?" he asked, after a pause, during which the two regarded each other somewhat after the fashion of two dogs making acquaintance--a tall, leering old mastiff looking surlily down at the advances of an anxious yet stout and unflinching young spaniel.

"No, sir," answered Frank. "But I thought----"

"You thought! What business have you to think?"

"No business, perhaps," Frank admitted, confronting the weather-beaten old drummer with his truthful, undaunted, fine young face. "But I can't help thinking sir, for all that."

"You can help expressing your thoughts out of season, though," said the veteran.

"I will try to in future, sir," answered Frank, laughing.

At the same time a smile of genuine benevolence softened the tough, ancient visage of the veteran; and they proceeded with the lesson.

After it was over, the teacher said to the pupil,--

"Now, my young friend, I will hear that observation or question of yours, whatever it is."

"I think I have answered it for myself," said Frank. "I was going to say, I should think it would be better to learn to drum on a drum; but I see now, if I get to roll the sticks on a board, which is hard, I can roll them so much the better on a drumhead, which is elastic."

"Right, my young friend," replied the veteran, approvingly. "And in the mean time, we avoid a good deal of unpleasant noise, as you see." For he had other pupils practising under his eye in the woods, not far from Frank.

"And I should like to ask--if I could have permission," began Frank, archly.

"Ask me any thing you please, out of lesson-hours." And the old drummer patted the young drummer's shoulder.

Frank felt encouraged. He was beginning to like his teacher, notwithstanding his odd ways; and he hoped the old man was beginning to like him.

"I want to know, then, if you think I will make a drummer?"

"And what if you will not?"

"Then I shall think I ought to give up the idea of it at once; for I don't want to be second-rate in any thing I once undertake."

"And you have been just a little discouraged over your first lesson? and would be willing now to give up?"

"No, sir. I should feel very bad to be obliged to give up the drum."

"Very well. Then I can say something to comfort you. Stick to it, as you have begun, and you will make a drummer."

"A first-rate one?" Frank asked, eagerly.

"First-rate, or else I am no judge."

"I am glad!" and the delighted pupil fairly jumped for joy.

From that time the two got on capitally together. Frank soon become accustomed to the veteran's eccentric manners, and made great proficiency in his exercises. And it was not long before the hard-featured old drummer began to manifest, in his way, a great deal of friendly interest in his young pupil.

"Now, my boy," said he one day, after Frank had been practising successfully the "seven-stroke roll," greatly to the satisfaction of his instructor,--"now, my boy, I think you can be safely intrusted with your comrade."

"My comrade?" queried the pupil.

"I mean, your better half."

"My better half?"

Frank was mystified.

"Yes, your wife." And the grizzly mustache curled with quiet humor.

"I must be a married man without knowing it!" laughed Frank.

"Your ship, then," said the veteran, dryly. "Come with me."

And conducting Frank to his tent, he took from one side an object covered with a blanket.

"My ship!" cried Frank, joyfully, already guessing what treasure was now to be his.