Part 10

"I really do wish they taught English here," said poor Mrs. Kindred. "You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."

"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.

"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"

"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."

"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."

"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"

"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."

"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously quoting Portia.

"You do know her then?"

"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she talks," said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the Kitten?"

"I am interested in anyone you know."

Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast into the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that did their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first one hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips. And Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap, softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.

"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out here, nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."

"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."

"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller already."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:

"It is not growing like a tree That makes man better be."

"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"

Magnus laughed.

"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a whole half-inch. Call it three-quarters."

"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.

"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory, and tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."

"You are a _very_ saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look grave.

"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last June. Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"

"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I think she could not be sweeter--and then the next day I think she is," said Mrs. Kindred warmly.

"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.

"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class, and for two hours every day they study together."

"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are extremely developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have grown enough."

"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred, taking her turn at the irony.

"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books are on hand, but the pocket is wanting."

"No pocket?"

"No'm. _Now_ you have an idea of desolate destitution." And Magnus raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white handkerchief from his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air, tucked it back again.

"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.

"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no Tacs up overhead,"--and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene blue.

"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no pockets--why, I never heard of such doings!--then where do you put anything?"

"Up my sleeve."

"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."

"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally _not_ spoken of. In winter we have a resource--a small one; but in summer we should be hard up if it wasn't for the girls."

"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred rather severely.

"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and empty them at our feet."

"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk in that way at home, and I do not like it now."

"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after me yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted the men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a man do? You must speak of people as you find them."

Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.

"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens aren't lions, mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail of an angel stayed by him,--and mine comes--and will go!" And Magnus brought the beloved hands up to his face again.

Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing and delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out, and the standing sure.

"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering in spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after you."

"He _has_," put in Magnus.

"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for loyalty to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew that was true of you."

How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows, the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else. Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down into her lap.

"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"

"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing off at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me. But mother, you don't know how hard it is."

"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places, nor is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had always at least a storm flag out?"

"Did you guess what I meant?"

"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your flag down, even on the stormiest days."

"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean--and what it _does_ mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The toughest wind that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from reveille to retreat. And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a touch of blue and a gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of the old pole."

"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said anxiously.

"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to fly my storm flag in fair weather."

There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to speak, and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her again, found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face was grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond him.

"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company Christians?"

"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."

"Or all your special associates?"

"Why, no! Not by several and many."

"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled with aliens, and not an American left but the one in charge of the colours. What should he do?"

"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.

Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.

"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."

XXI

ME ONLY

"Everything goes away," said the Dryad: "goes away as the clouds go, never to return."

--HANS ANDERSEN.

That was the last long talk they had together. A brief walk next morning before eight o'clock; another--ah, how short--to the brow of the hill where they had met that first day; and then Magnus pulled his cap over his eyes and strode away to his hidden nook, and the mother went quietly sobbing down the hill. Alas! how fast the minutes flew now that had seemed so loitering when she came.

As for Magnus, he watched the ferryboat every foot of the way over; waved his cap frantically to the cluster of dark spots that went up the sloping path to the station; then listened for the roar of the coming train with an intensity that made him start when he heard it. With a great pang he saw the pliant black line wind out from between the cloven rocks and swing along to the station, almost holding his breath in the minute's hush that came next. Hardly a minute; then puffs of black smoke curled up into the air, the engine gave its usual snort at such trifles as love and life and parting, and the train glided on into the tunnel, flew out across the bay, and past the Island; the trail of smoke fainted and faded away on the sweet summer air, and Cadet Kindred shook his fist at the whole thing.

What right had that black engine to carry his mother off before his very eyes? And what business had he to be lingering there behind her? If it could have been done suddenly and quietly, I believe Magnus would have resigned on the spot, and taken the next train home.

But red tape has its use. What letters and papers and statements such a step would involve; what answering of official questions; and Cadet Charlemagne Kindred did not feel prepared to state publicly that he, who had survived to be a yearling corporal, must now resign for homesickness. A drum-call in the distance also lent its persuasions. The usual is generally, after all, the easiest thing to do, so Magnus put his cap in position, and set his face towards camp and duty. But taking off the cap again, he first bowed very low towards the steadfast old hills through whose cuts and chasms his mother had just vanished, kissing his hand to her in mute farewell; then resolutely walked away.

There was a pleb drill that afternoon, and with the way one has of being good by proxy, Mr. Kindred kept his little set of men to their work most unflinchingly, with small allowance for mistakes, and none at all for inattention. Such zeal bestowed upon himself would have wrought wonders. To hear him, you would have thought a mathematical line the only easy position, and any sort of twist or bend that might be ordered merely a pleasing variety of the same. "Brace up"--the poor, distracted fourth classmen felt sure he must have done it in his cradle.

Miss Dangleum came by and paused to look--and Magnus was sublimely unconscious of her presence; the Kitten held out a box of bonbons--and he went by at the double-quick. Then Miss Saucy joined the group, with Miss Bessie Beguile, and finally, that young lady's mother came slowly on the scene.

"What's the matter here?" said the panting chaperon. "How you girls do run! What are you looking at? Who's fainted? These drills are positively barbarous!"

"Oh, don't you just wish he _would_ faint?" cried the Kitten. "Such fun! Then we'd all rush in with our smelling-bottles, while Mrs. Beguile ran for water!"

"While I--ran--for water!" quoth Mrs. Beguile, with a thought of her rather stout proportions.

"But you'd be the only one, you know, mamma," said Miss Bessie sweetly. "Because _we_ couldn't invade the guard tents alone."

"Nor in company, either," said Miss Saucy. "Nobody's going to faint, Mrs. Beguile, unless it's me, because we can't get Mr. Kindred to look at us."

"My dear!" said Mrs. Beguile. "I am surprised! _Never_ show such special interest. Why, you will turn the young man's head."

"Just what we're after," said the Kitten. "And what we'll do, too. I'll _make_ him look at me--I vow I will!"

The words were spoken half aloud, but the young lady got not a glimpse of the eyes in question. Corporal Kindred's words of command rang out minus let or hinderance; and if the girls put themselves in the way, he led his men straight on, and they had to get out of it.

"I don't mind," said Miss Saucy, after one of these raids. "It's fun. And he can't _help_ seeing us!"

"It's ravishing to hear anything in such a voice," said Miss Beguile. "If I were going to be shot, I should like to have him give the order."

"It wouldn't be exactly what you call going off the stage to slow music," said Miss Saucy, as a sharp and imperative "Halt!" came from the young corporal's lips. The girls refreshed themselves with a prolonged titter, the weary plebs dropped down upon the grass. Magnus walked slowly down the road.

"I wonder if one might venture to address his High Mightiness, in these his moments of comparative leisure?" said Miss Dangleum. "They are so pernickity about drills. Mr. Kindred!" (softly and experimentally). Magnus turned within a yard of the young lady and paced back.

"Oh, Mr. Kindred! If there was a snake here, could you come and kill it? Wouldn't a rattlesnake be against regulations?"

And now there was a smothered laugh among the plebs. But the corporal turned and took his way past the ladies again, and gave no sign.

"Mr. Kindred!" (very pleadingly) while one pretty hand held out a box of brown chocolates and another a red-cheeked peach. In apparently deep abstraction Mr. Kindred once more paced down the road.

"I'll throw it at him! I vow I will," said Miss Saucy. "If I could knock his cap off, I should die radiant."

And she did her best. But some puff of adverse wind, some swerve in the fair hand, spoiled all; the corporal's cap maintained its position; the peach fell harmlessly at his feet.

"Attention!"

The plebs started, and so did the girls.

"I'll go home after that," said Miss Saucy. "The only thought left to make life bearable is, that he'll come back after drill and pick it up." But he did not.

Parade followed drill, and supper came after parade; and then in the cool evening light people began to gather for band concert. What pleasure Magnus had had there with his mother, night after night! This time he did not want to see anybody or hear anything. Yet the evening's witchery kept him out of his tent, and the unearthly sweetness from some of the brass instruments drew him, little by little, into the group around the band. Pretty soon Rig touched him on the shoulder.

"Say, Kin, Miss Dangleum wants you."

"What for?"

"Wants to show you how she's done her back hair."

"Don't get off any grinds on me to-night," said Magnus, "I'm not in the mood."

"What shall I tell her?"

"What you like!"

"All right. I'll go back and report that you are out of town, and have left a bear to keep house."

Which apparently he did, to judge by the shout of laughter that went up.

"Oh, do bring him!" cried a pretty voice. "I do so dote upon bears. Oh, I think they're dear! Which one is Mr. Kindred?"

"You'll know by his eyes, when he turns round," said Miss Saucy.

"But that's the only way I can ever tell cadets apart--by their eyes," said Miss Midget. "Is that the reason they order 'Eyes front' so much?--so that the officers can know which one to report?"

Another laugh followed.

"You'd better believe old Towser would know, if they hadn't any eyes at all," said Randolph, "or if he hadn't!"

"Well, he hasn't, much," said Miss Saucy.

"Stands to reason," said Rig, "because he's got 'em all over--diffused. In the back of his head, and on his shoulder-straps, and the white stripe down his trousers, and the point of his nose."

"That's awfully funny!" said Miss Beguile. "Must make it awfully lively for all of you."

"Just does. The only enjoyment he has in life is skinning cadets. So it's 'Skin 'em! Skin 'em!' all the day long. Too much shirt-collar at breakfast, and too little coat above belt at drill."

"And too much hair," said Mr. Carr. "I declare, when Towser comes rubbing up and down the back of my head, I feel as if I was a baby getting washed and dressed."

The girls clapped their hands in applause.

"Such pretty hair, too," said the Kitten, "or would be, I'm sure, if one could see it." Mr. Carr made a profound reverence.

"Thank you so much," he said. "Awfully good of you. Wish you'd give Towser a hint."

"Wherever did the poor man get such a name?" said Miss Beguile.

"Simple and descriptive," said Mr. Carr.

"Look here, D. T.," said Rig, "I wouldn't be as funny as I could, not every time, don't you know. You might get the blues for disrespect. He's sure to be round."

"And why do you call _him_ 'D. T.'?" demanded another girl.

"Doubletimes it every day," said Rig. "Gets a late in the morning, and a cold absence at night."

"But what _can_ we do to rouse Mr. Kindred from this awful abstraction?" said Miss Dangleum.

"Let's give him homeopathic treatment," said the Kitten. "D. T., double-time it over to the band and bid them play 'Love Not.'"

"I'll go," said Rig. "He won't get there till the drum beats. 'Love Not'--I never heard of such a tune in my life."

"You will--first time you make love to the wrong girl," said Miss Saucy. "Now go!"

"They won't do it for him," said Carr; "they _can't_--unless the Com. or the officer in charge says so. You'll have to go yourself. Towser's in charge."

"Send the Kitten," said Miss Dangleum. "That will just fit. Here, Puss, draw in your claws and stretch out your paws, and go get an order for the band to play 'Love Not.'"

So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep interest.

"He won't do it," said Randolph.

"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole canine contingent."

And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand, took their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.

And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it so long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.

Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the old words kept sounding in his ears:

"Love not! Love not! The thing you love may change."

"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved people at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers did write!

He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then began the simple air again; and the words would come:

"Love not! Love not! The thing you love may die."

A great pang shot through the boy's heart. _Could_ such things happen to him? How had his mother looked? Magnus turned away from the band and hid himself in the dark recesses of his tent.

XXII

GIRLS

Rien de trop est un point Dont on parle sans cesse, et qu'on observe point.

--LA FONTAINE.

So Miss Dangleum failed for that time. But "To-morrow is also a day," says the proverb. And it is not in human nature to be always insensible to blandishments. Mr. Kindred found himself scanning his wonderful eyes in the small glass quite oftener than was needed. He could also pick out Miss Dangleum's red parasol clear across the plain from all its compeers; and knew at least half of Miss Beguile's fans by experience. She declared that he had broken a quarter of them, but this statement is plainly incorrect.

The Point filled up to crowding as the encampment neared its close, and introductions, walks, picnics, were multiplied, and every cadet who liked the fun could have enough of it.

Magnus Kindred, for one, had about all he could manage, Rig's favourite cousin was always on his hands when Rig himself was on guard or in confinement. This happened pretty often, and as Rig was his "wife" Magnus could not object. Chapman's sister was often turned over to him because Chapman's best girl was also at the Point.

Then there was every now and then some plain, unnoticed girl whom Magnus in his chivalry would look after and take out, giving her a royal good time. There were guests at some of the houses where the young cadet had been made welcome, and he must help amuse them. And finally (for my hero was every inch a man), there were wits and beauties with whom he liked to stand at least as well as the best. It was all very enticing, and he was so lonely when his mother had gone that petting of any sort felt good.

So that last part of August was one grand whirl, in which common sense and right ways got drawn in and danced a breakdown. At least that was what Cadet Kindred said of it himself in his calmer moments. For "Kindred--late at roll-call," "Kindred--absent at supper," had been read out too often from the blue list after parade.

Magnus was on guard the last night but one of Camp Golightly, and between reliefs took time to foot up his accounts. What had he to show for those weeks since his mother went away? Or (excepting only her visit) for the whole of "Yearling Camp"? Not much, he thought to himself with a curl of his lip. The little pleasure he had given was easy and cheap; the pleasure he had had--well, it did not look very bright to him now. Not very satisfactory.

It seemed rather small business to take all the sweets he could get: compliments, flattery, and boodle, from girls to whom he neither would, could, nor should, give more in return than a walk or two; perhaps only the convenient phrase:

"Thanks, awfully."

And that very phrase was his mother's aversion.

And it was no end mean, to laugh at a thing and then afterwards score it sharply. Was he still "training with the wrong crowd"--only of girls this time?

Then he changed his ground and came up on the other side. How far had he been a power for good in all those weeks? How much stronger or purer had any company been for his presence? Who had learned to think sweeter things of religion for his glad life? Whose doubts had weakened in the light of his faith? Was anyone more ready to swear fealty to Christ for _his_ constant witnessing to the blessedness of the service? Nay, Cadet Kindred knew, now that he took time to think, what had ailed some of the merrymaking. It jarred his conscience. And sometimes he had felt it at the time.

That Sunday afternoon, when he had walked about with Miss Dangleum, and smiled at her vapid infidelities, the twinge had been so sharp, as he thought of his mother in the old porch at home, drawing strength and knowledge from her open Bible, that he never did _that_ thing again. But he had laughed at Miss Beguile's jests about church and church service, and the very next day, in chapel, had taken the sugar plums she offered under cover of her fan.

He had been indignant when some girl, displeased with the sermon, shook her fist at the preacher then and there. But perhaps she had never been taught any better--and what had been his own criticisms of that very sermon? Just as open as he dared make them.

Cadet Kindred felt rather sick of himself, on the whole.

"That's a large place in which to keep your colours!" he said, looking down into his grey sleeve.