Part 12

And then the girls came. Some "opening buds" that had come fresh from Paris; and some early birds, besides robins and song sparrows. The company drills had lookers-on; the walks round Flirtation were not always games of solitaire.

Among the visitors who appeared thus early, was a certain Mrs. Granton, with two girls of her own, and two belonging to other people--Miss Bee and Miss Clive. The Granton girls were just average damsels, but, of course, having a gay brother in the first class, they went everywhere, and knew everybody. Miss Clive was an heiress and played ditto, ditto upon yet stronger ground.

In the wake of these triumphant young ladies came Miss Bee with just funds enough to pay her own bills, but no particular store of either wealth or beauty.

She was a sensible girl, had a sensible little face, with pleasant eyes and a merry mouth, but had not knowledge to make the most of herself in the way some others did; nor, it may be, the inclination. No poppy leaves stained her cheeks, no powder whitened her forehead, no foreign coils of hair swelled out the moderate portion which was of home growth. And no extra-high heels put her further up in the world than she was by nature. Her shoes were "common sense"; her gloves were large enough to button all the way; her parasol was brown, and she had a trick of saying nothing she did not mean.

No girl who behaves herself will ever be slighted at West Point; cadets are too courteous and too chivalrous as well. But in view of all I have told of Miss Bee, you will easily guess that her place in the public interest was small. Everyone was polite to her, but no one missed her, or looked for her, or wondered where she was. Cadets never scowled at each other for her sake; and pretty girls never cared what she had on. Yet perhaps among them all there was not one who tasted every crumb of pleasure with such keen relish as Miss Bee. She had had so little of it in her life, poor child! This was her first real outing. No wonder West Point was fairyland, and every cadet a born prince in disguise.

At first, indeed, she was terribly afraid of them; conscious, perhaps, of her own lack of "fetching" qualities, but by degrees that changed a little. The innocent colour started to her cheeks as readily as ever, when some grey uniform came up with:

"Good-evening, Miss Bee. How did you enjoy the Light Battery this morning?"

But when none of them came, when they were all swept away in the gay whirl of beauty and fashion, and she sat solitary with Mrs. Granton, this was not quite so easy to bear, Mabel found, as at first. And many a brave struggle for victory went on under the old trees before parade, and Saturday afternoons at the Hotel, and in her own room. Nobody guessed it, and she never told.

It was no great wonder if, to this rather dull young life, thus suddenly set down at the edge of the bright whirl, the hero of all romance, past, present, and future, should array himself in bell buttons and grey dress coat. It was also quite natural that this hazy individual should develop into the face and figure of Cadet Charlemagne Kindred, with no fault on his part, and no special folly on hers. In truth, it was some time before the child picked up a dictionary of herself, with definitions.

But Magnus was undoubtedly one of the handsomest men there, with keen eyes that could be wondrously soft upon occasion, a winning smile, and a laugh that was refined and pure as well as gay. And then, as may happen, his good intentions led him perilously far. He thought the girl rather neglected by her own party, and so took special pains to see and to speak to her whenever she was about. He asked her for a walk, when there was danger of her being left behind; asked her opinion, right over the head of Miss Dashaway, and (I shall have to confess it) enjoyed the quick flutter of colour that lit up her face whenever he came near. For Magnus had no thought of risk in the matter; he was far too much of a gentleman--too much of a man--to try to draw her on for his own amusement. He just meant to be kind to her, though he did pick up a little pleasure for himself as he went along. Now and then he took refuge with her when other girls bored him; made her a "previous" against Miss Flirt's advances, and never noticed that all the while he was drinking in silent flattery by the cupful; getting his own mind so befogged, indeed, that he could not see how swiftly and surely one poor little craft was heading for a very dangerous coast.

Cadet Kindred was not a vain fellow, but what man does not feel the bewitchment of having eyes watch for him and look up to him, even though he be too careless of them to know their colour? What man does not like to have his words counted and treasured as if they held the distilled wisdom of the sages and the ages? And Magnus was also minus a dictionary, and did not know how to spell things one bit. The girl _must_ have a good time, he told himself, she could not be left riding at anchor while all the rest set sail, and what might happen if he too often played pilot, to that he never gave a thought. All _that_ was in the realm of impossibility, in this connection. Wise men and poor girls.

It looked so impossible to other eyes, and the girl kept her own counsel so well that it drew little notice. Rig did once or twice ask Magnus if he was getting rattled with that little Bee girl, and some others remarked that Kin was practising how to flirt when the time came; but such words were empty air to Magnus. It was well for all parties that June stepped in, with its absorbing demands.

There were plenty of men who did more flirting and frolicking now than ever, but not so Magnus Kindred. Everything dropped out of his life but home and furlough. Each night he wrote to his mother about three lines, telling her what the "Exam" had done with him that day, and in all the other between-times he was either freshening up his knowledge of some hard points of study, or he was taking long walks with June, and June only, to clear his brain. If he heard voices, or caught a glimpse of grey coats or red parasols, Magnus sheered off, scaling the rocks or scrambling down the cliffs to some breakneck spot, quite beyond reach for any cadet who had girls in tow. There he would lie on the moss and listen to the river, or the bell notes of the thrush; listen without hearing, as he planned his journey home. He would take such a train, and make such a connection, and jump off at the old station at just such a time. He would not tell them quite when to expect him, because they would be sure to come to meet him, and some of them would cry--right there before everybody. And it was a bother to attend to your luggage with three girls round your neck. But then Magnus laughed and coloured too. There could hardly be _three_--yet somehow two seemed even more objectionable. And still if he sent no word, and they did not meet him, there was a good half hour lost from that end of his furlough.

So he argued it, back and forth. And all the while, poor little Miss Bee was weeping secret tears over the seeming defection of her knight. She _must_ have displeased him somehow.

"My sisters can hardly wait until I get home!" said Mr. Randolph one night.

"There's another man's sister can hardly wait until I do," said Clive.

XXV

FURLOUGH

Den away, away, for I can't wait any longer. Hooray! Hooray! I's goin' home!

--_Old Shady._

It is strange how some event towards which you have been working, and which seemed to fill earth and sky till you reached it, at once then sinks down and becomes hardly distinguishable from the plain. So passed by the examination to Magnus Kindred.

In fact everybody is so fagged out by the 12th of June, tired with work, with gaiety and excitement, that feeling seems swallowed up of high pressure. This may be one reason why the bad success of other men affects so little those who have won through. Exceptionally strong as class feeling is at West Point, the dropped names seem to make very slight impression. And in some cases, of course, there is no surprise. When a man bones nothing but mischief, and tries to crowd into the three weeks before examination the study which should have filled six months, June is not always kind to him. Unless, indeed, he be one of those men who are pure mathematics--and even then the discipline column may cut him down. So it was with small surprise that Magnus heard Chapman's name among the "found deficient." Chapman did not whimper, but he took it hard.

"It's that beastly calculus!" he confided to Magnus, in the hurried moments of parting. "Oh, yes! I know what you mean by raising your eyebrows, but a man couldn't live here if he didn't run it now and then."

"But you see a man can't always live here if he does," said Magnus.

"Bosh! Yes, he can. Only they don't all run against old Towser every time, as I did. No, it wasn't that at all, it was the calculus."

And doubtless, in great measure, it was. Another boy, from far away, fairly came to tears.

"I don't see how I am to go home!" he said. "I don't know what my mother will say!"

While another, who had got a turn-back, liked so little what his mother _did_ say that he gave her a sharp little lecture on the Graduation ground.

"I can't tell what makes you go on so!" he burst forth. "I'm only turned back. Lots of men are sent away altogether. Why do you talk like that? What's the matter?"

Poor mothers! It is often pathetic to hear them explain the case to other people.

"He's a good boy, Miss Smith; but you know he has always been delicate. Hard study never agreed with him." (True, this last.)

"You see, Mrs. Brown, he has had such trouble with his eyes that I wonder he has kept up at all. I really must speak to the Superintendent about the study lights. Then these early recitations. Why, at home we never thought of waking him up till eight o'clock, and then gently, you know, and by degrees. And now he says that gun just goes through his head without a word of preparation. I suppose, really, that is what ails his eyes."

"Everything here is so wretchedly mismanaged!" commented a wise and sympathetic damsel. "The cadets are abused at every turn. I don't see how they stand it. It is the meanest place!"

"Well, I've done what I could to straighten things," said a beaming matron. "Look at this bag,--absolutely worn out in the service. It has brought Tom _everything_--from cigars up. And when he wants money, he has only to say so."

Strange, that with such care Tom should ever grumble at anything--especially regulations.

But graduation has come and gone, the graduates have scattered; some for home, some for Europe, some to be married "on graduation leave." For three months they have "the world before them, where to choose."

The furlough men, too, are scattered, yet more widely and individually, speeding away on the spider's web of railways that covers the country. Class supper was over, changed from a gay revel to a less brilliant memory, and Magnus Kindred went whirling along towards home. And the great question of taking them all by surprise was still unsettled.

The home folks, however, had their own ideas on the subject, and for at least two days before Magnus could possibly come, they had met every train from the East; Mrs. Kindred, Rose, and Violet. Cherry went the first time, but after that absented herself on one plea or another. And so on that sweet June afternoon, when the train slowed up to let off the one passenger and the one trunk, the three were in hiding behind the station.

No one could ever describe what that first home-coming was to Magnus. For miles and hours the excitement in the boy's heart had been working itself up to white heat, as point after point rose up to give him welcome. Here a cliff and there a hill; the schoolhouse near by, the church further off; if he had only had a dozen straw hats, I think eleven of them would have gone out of the window, for pure joy.

But the little platform was empty, save of officials; not a creature got out of the train but Magnus, and not one was waiting to get in. Not a figure broke the broad June sunlight that filled the old road towards home. But when he had hurriedly tramped down the steps, he found himself in his mother's arms, with the two girls sobbing for joy on either side.

Of the next few minutes, I think no one of them could afterwards give much account. Then Magnus, with one arm round his mother, gave that hand to Violet, and the other to Rose, and so they walked along. How they talked!--with tongues once set free; but most of all, how they looked at each other. Mother and son had met within the year, but the two girls gazed at their handsome brother with a surprised delight that could never have enough.

"But I had forgotten that you were so brown, Magnus," said Rose.

"Drills."

"You always were straight," said Violet, "but now----"

"Bracing up."

"And your hair is _so_ short," said Rose.

"Regulations."

Then how they all laughed and hugged each other over again, for there were only the wild birds to see.

"Well, certainly, if brevity be the soul of wit, you have improved in one line," said Rose.

"They teach it out there," said Magnus. "'Mr. Kindred, your head is on one side, sir!'--'Yes, sir. Which side, sir?'"

"And what did you get for being so saucy?" asked the mother, as the laugh died away.

"Nothing that time. Even Towser can't skin a man unless he gets hold of him. But wherever is Cherry? When you all came out of the first bush, I thought she would jump out of the second."

"She's at home," said Rose. "We wanted her to come, and she wouldn't."

"But she did the first time," said Violet eagerly; "the first day we thought you might come."

"Oh, ho!--and as I didn't show up then she put on her high-heeled shoes," said Magnus. "Girls are all just alike the world over."

"No, they are not!" cried both the charming specimens then present. "And you shall not say that of Cherry. She is like nobody else--and nobody else is like her."

And privately, Magnus thought his own two sisters very unlike most other girls. With their fresh, unjaded faces, undoctored complexions, untrammelled feet and waists, and unspoiled minds, they made a wonderful sweet contrast to Miss Dashaway and Miss Flirt. Magnus had not known how his estimate of women had run down among the crowd till he found it mounting up again, ten degrees at a time.

Even Cherry's absenting herself--it provoked him heartily, and he felt himself much injured, but it was after all a refreshing change after Miss Dangleum's ways. Yes, demonstrations were the man's business, and in his present mood Magnus felt quite equal to them, could he but get hold of the right person.

No half-grown girl in half-long dresses appeared, however, as they reached the house, but for a few minutes Magnus had all he could manage. The old dog (prudently left at home) was nearly as wild over the meeting as his young master; jumped upon him, clung to him, danced round him, whimpered, whined, and barked for joy. It was not five minutes before the two were rolling down the grass slope together, then running a sharp race, and then flying all over the old house from room to room. Magnus shouldered his trunk and rushed upstairs with it, and Plato dashed after him, wakening all the echoes that were anywhere about. The two girls, putting rolls in the oven and setting on cream and butter, almost danced in their tiptoe joy; the mother in the small sitting-room hid her face in her hands, and cried and gave thanks. Just to hear that boy's step overhead, what was it like? And then to have the pair come racing down the old stairs when supper was ready, Plato barking in a perfect scream of delight;--do you wonder that the prayer for a blessing was spoken low and falteringly? or that a hush filled all the room for some moments thereafter?

Then the three busied themselves earnestly about their boy's supper, and the boy also lent his assistance; Plato lying on the floor and winking at him. The old dog was afraid to really go to sleep lest he should lose sight of his young master.

"I suppose her High Mightiness expects me to put on my war paint to-morrow, and to go and ca--ll," said Magnus, drawling out the last word with ridiculous intonation.

"Who? Cherry? Now, Magnus, you shall not call her that," said Rose.

"Shall not, hey? I will call her anything I like," said Magnus.

"Well, go on, then, and do it," cried Violet, with a laugh, "for here she is."

And in more confusion than he expected from himself, after this bravado, Cadet Kindred started up from the table and found himself face to face with his old playmate.

Cherry had the advantage of him; she had seen the photograph, and was partly prepared for what she saw now--not quite. But to Magnus, with eyes full of the gleesome, outspoken girl of sixteen, this vision of a tall, slender maiden of eighteen summers, with something of a woman's shy reserve floating round her like the daintiest filmy veil, was altogether new. He had seen nothing like it. She was so lovely, so dainty, so sweet--if any epithets presented themselves, they died on his tongue.

And the girl, too, had caught her breath; the living presence is always so far beyond the picture. All her nicely prepared words of welcome took to their heels, and Cherry held out her hand and said simply:

"How do you do?"

Magnus got hold of the hand, and kept it; held it fast while he pushed and pulled chairs about to give her a place by himself. The hand was something tangible--especially as it was not quite ready to be held.

"How do I do?" he repeated, as she took her seat: "you don't care. Why didn't you come to meet me?"

"I think you had enough at the station."

"And you had enough at home, I suppose."

"Enough to do--yes."

"Well, how can you spare the time to be here now?" said Mr. Kindred, pursuing his inquiries. A girl who did not wear even the semblance of a heart upon her sleeve was something new of late, and exasperating. "It is very frivolous work to sit by and see me eat supper."

"It will be less so, when I get something to eat myself," Cherry answered demurely. "But I can wait still longer, if it is not certain the supply will hold out."

"There! now you have got it," cried Rose, clapping her hands; "and good for you, too. Hectoring her in that style! Give her some berries, Magnus, before you eat another one. Cherry picked two thirds of them with her own fingers."

"She did!" said Magnus, reddening in spite of himself under Cherry's fire; second classman on furlough and presumptive first sergeant though he was. "That explains why I've had to empty the sugar bowl. I'm sorry I have made such a raid, Cherry, but you shall have what is left."

And swiftly he drew everything as near the girl's plate as the dishes could find room. Bread plate and butter plate, cake basket, cheese, cream pitcher, water pitcher, and the wreck of the broiled chicken. Then seizing the berry bowl Magnus began to pile the sweet wild strawberries upon her plate, adding slowly and skilfully till they ran down to the very edge and rose up in the middle a red fragrant cone.

"How will that do to begin?" he said. "Will you have some sugar?--but I suppose not, as you picked them yourself and put all the tartness into mine."

The other three looked on, laughing and interested; but now Cherry was out of her depth. She looked down at the strawberry hill, at the dishes, then glanced round at Magnus. What did he mean? Was he really vexed? Could he really think? It was the fairest kind of a look, so earnest and questioning. What do you mean? it said.

I think Cadet Kindred knew very promptly what he meant, and saw some things clearly which had been hanging about in a sort of uncertain haze. And thus in answer to her shy questioning, Cherry met a look so keen and merry and full of mischief, full of she hardly knew what, that her eyes fell and the pink flushes came hurrying over her face.

Then Magnus laughed. He had the vantage now which belonged to him, and he felt better.

"Cherry," he said, "you are a transparent humbug! Mother, will you give me a cup of tea?"

"I think you are an extremely rude boy," said Mrs. Kindred, putting in an extra lump of sugar the while. "If these are your West Point manners, you will need a few terms at some other school."

"West Point manners are all packed away with my dress coat. This is the original Magnus variety."

"It is good to know," said Rose. "Here we have all been rubbing _our_ manners up, to receive you properly."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Magnus, turning to gaze at Cherry. "Good to know, as you say. I did suspicion it was something got up for my express benefit."

"Let her alone, and finish your supper," said Mrs. Kindred. "That is, if you ever intend to finish."

"Emphatically I do!" said Magnus. "If I didn't, I could never begin again, and that would be a loss out here. Cherry, give me just a few berries off your plate. I am bashful about taking any more out of the dish. The sugar has given out, too," he added, dropping his voice; "and these will not want any."

Poor Cherry!--she literally found not a word to say, but sat looking down at her plate in helpless silence, as the hands she remembered so well conveyed away part of its contents. Then Rose came with a replenished sugar-bowl and set it down by him. But Magnus waved it away.

"Thank you, no," he said. "These are too sweet for sugar. How do you suppose Cherry worked it, to get them all on her plate?"

"Crazy boy!" said Rose, "you put them there yourself. Magnus, is your dress coat here?"

"Truly. Had to bring it along, lest a war should break out before I get back. May need it yet----" with an indescribable inflection which only Cherry caught.

"Then if you _have_ done, as mother says," said Violet, "go straight upstairs and put it on, and come down and show yourself."

"Put on my dress coat, after such a supper," quoth Magnus. "I think I will!"

"Don't be foolish," said Rose. "Go at once, if you want pancakes for breakfast."

"Make it waffles----"

"Very well, then, waffles," cried both the girls, laughing at him. "Now Magnus, go! While your hair is short."

XXVI

CHERRY

'Tis the middle watch of a summer night. The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Naught is seen in the vault on high, But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky, And the flood that rolls its milky hue, A river of light, in the welkin blue.

--_Culprit Fay._

And thus it was, that in ten minutes or so there entered upon the scene a fine presentation of a West Point cadet: short hair, white collar, bell buttons, and all the rest.

Just inside the door Magnus paused, drew himself up, and gave a comprehensive military salute; then came on with quick, regulation step, halted in front of Cherry, and took off his cap with the true cadet swing.

"Thought you'd be out, Miss Reserve. I saw you clear across the plain. Now Cherry, you must ask how I could possibly see so far."

"What would you answer if I did?" Cherry said diplomatically. This photograph in person was not easy to talk to.

"I should remark that I can always see some people, across the world. Then you must put your head on one side and say: 'But you know you have _such_ eyes, Mr. Kindred!'"

"Well, I certainly shall not say _that_," Cherry declared, venturing a look.

"Magnus, you are a young peacock," said his mother.

"Fine feathers, mammy. How do you like West Point, Miss Reserve? Is this your first visit? Very warm, isn't it? What do think of our view?"

Oh, how they laughed at him, Cherry and all! Magnus kept a grave face.

"Will you walk with me after supper?" he went on. And Cherry's sweet eyes opened full on him, to see what he meant.