Part 14

"Waffles!" cried Rose in the distance, and the talk ended. Only as the mother went out with her boy's arm round her waist, she looked up at him with her true eyes.

"Magnus, _never_ 'go through the motions,' as you call it, with the wrong woman. _Never_, as a sham. It dishonours the woman and degrades the man, and robs the other woman--the right one--of somewhat that belongs to her alone."

"Well, I never really have, mammy," said Magnus gravely; "so make your mind easy. And I never shall--unless the right one throws me over. I don't know what I'll do then."

And in spite of all previous warning Magnus looked round the breakfast room for Cherry, and not finding her, felt very much aggrieved.

There was no lack of talk and laughter, however; the joy of those four people in being together was extreme, and of course, the others did not miss Cherry, not having expected her, but Magnus did. The reserved, dainty girl had taken him by storm. They had always been inseparable as children, and as true boy and girl, though never with any freedom on her part, even then, that passed the prettiest bounds. Now she had stepped off a little, regarding him from a safer grown-up distance, and Magnus was wild to annihilate both time and space, and whatever else came in his way. She had bloomed out into something much rarer than he knew could be in the world, and Cadet Kindred surrendered at discretion, and without a summons. I believe he found that last fact the crowning charm. If Cherry had held forth her little finger to draw him on, or had in any way shortened that new indefinable distance between him and her, I think Magnus would have struck off a percentage from her perfections. It vexed and bewitched him equally.

So the young man sat opposite the open window, where the smoke from the other house curled softly into view, and thought himself ill-used and happy in about half and half mixture. He watched the winding path, but it remained empty. Then he looked at his sisters; how handsome they were, too! Splendid girls, both of them; and wouldn't they make a stir in first-class camp? Of course his mother had always been perfection. And here his eyes came round to her, with a smile of such joyful love and content that poor Mrs. Kindred was very near making a goose of herself, as she would have phrased it. What it was to have her boy home again!

"But I cannot see why they don't move down here!" Magnus broke forth irrelevantly. "Living on there all by themselves in that stupid old house."

"Stupid?" cried Violet. "Why, it's the very prettiest house in all the State."

"You had best not let Cherry hear you say such things," remarked Rose. "She loves that house with all her heart."

"Stuff!" said Magnus. "She'll have to leave it some time."

"She will not while her father lives," said Mrs. Kindred.

"Why, mother, girls do it every day."

"Girls--but not Cherry," the mother answered; and Magnus was so charmed with the saying, and the fair little pedestal on which it placed his heart's delight, that he adopted it for a private phrase of his own; used many times afterwards, it may be said, when "girls--but not Cherry," were around.

"Then, when she will not come, you go to her?" he asked.

"Oh, she always comes," said Violet; "some time in the day."

"Some time in the day!"

"According to what she has to do. Only letter days she always came early, and left the work till she got back."

"Some of it," corrected Rose. "But there's no letter due from Magnus to-day, you know, so we cannot tell when she will be here."

"Now that is too bad!" said Mr. Kindred, pushing back his chair. "Coming to hear my letters, and not coming to see me!"

"Well, the letters were very interesting, you know----" Violet began, and then thought it prudent to vanish.

"But, my dear," said Mrs. Kindred, "as you must of course go up there this morning yourself before you pay any other visits, I do not see how it really matters."

"No, of course," said Magnus briskly. "Oh, mammy, I wish you'd pick out a lot of such easy duties for me."

"We cannot go with you," said Rose, "because we also have something to do; but we will come after you. You must wear your cadet clothes for Mr. Erskine."

So Magnus put himself in trim, and charging his sisters not to hurry on his account, and promising faithfully to wait till they came, began to mount the hill. Good for him the girls were busy--and yet, suppose that other girl were hid away in some part of the house to which Rose and Violet could go, while he could not?

Magnus whistled his thoughts down the wind, as he went on, and then, with a sudden fancy to approach unnoticed, hushed his tones and even his steps, and went in, seeing nobody. Through the hall to the back door--and there got another picture to think of in barracks.

XXVIII

ON EXHIBITION

Wise men always Affirm and say, That best is for a man Diligently For to apply, All business that he can.

--SIR T. MORE.

The Red House had been set very near the branch road by which he came up, and in front there was only a short path and a bit of greensward, but at the back lay a big old-fashioned garden, sloping gaily down towards a bit of woodland and a talkative brook.

Overlooking all this was a very wide porch with sashes on all sides which could be shut, but which on this warm still morning were all slid back. The porch within was full of flowers, with various rustic holders to hang and to stand and to rest on the sills, a wonderful basket of lilies of the valley being the centre piece on the breakfast table.

There were traces in the house of other days and more Eastern regions, and the little spider-legged table was dark with long years of service, the spoons were slim-stemmed and delicate, the dishes of exquisite blue and white.

But the dishes held very simple viands: bread, milk, wheat, with fruit and flowers, were about the whole, for some hurts or injuries dating back to the war time had slowly brought Mr. Erskine to a semi-invalid state, and Cherry wanted nothing but what her father had.

I have told you nothing about Mr. Erskine--and yet he was a very noticeable man. Hair whitened more with sorrow than years (it had changed suddenly upon the death of his wife), cheeks where the native red still lingered, setting off the look of extremely delicate health, with features refined and above-board in every line. The eyes were both soft and flashing, the smile--once the merriest in the world--now never lost its shade of pathos. Everything about the man was refined, the daintily cared-for hand, the plain, scrupulously neat dress. Across one edge of the placid brow a red scar swept down and hid itself among the thick locks of frosted hair, and now, as you looked further, you could see that the right hand had lost its mate, and the left sleeve hung empty.

With one hand resting lightly on that shoulder and kneeling at her father's side, Cherry read to him from a book laid open on the table, while Mr. Erskine was slowly finishing his plate of strawberries, dipping them, one by one, in the white sugar. Now and then a word of question, of comment, of explanation, passed between the two, with heads lifted and eyes meeting each other, then the reading went on again.

This was what Magnus saw; and though he made out no words, the mere tones of Cherry's voice seemed to him as sweet as any bird or brook or leaf-stir in the whole morning concert; and I know not how long he might have stood there in the shadows of the hall, if little Snip, the terrier, being officer in charge and scenting mischief, had not rushed in from the garden on a tour of keen inspection coupled with much comment. Cherry rose quickly to her feet, Magnus stepped out upon the porch, and catching hold of her hand, as he went by, dropped down upon one knee by Mr. Erskine, in laughing glee at his astonishment.

"Magnus!" he cried. "My dear boy, is this you? Can it be possible!" The one arm came round the boy and drew him close.

"So this is what made you stumble over your report of last night," Mr. Erskine went on, turning to Cherry; "you were hiding a secret." Cherry blushed scarlet.

"Did I stumble, papa?" she said, carrying off the dishes.

"Very much, for you. Well, my boy, there is no need to ask you how you are. Stand off there, and let me have a good look."

"I didn't mean to come in war paint, sir," said Magnus, as he obeyed; "but they said at home you would want to see it."

"Of course I do. Well, they certainly turn out--showy fellows over there." Mr. Erskine hesitated over his adjective, as if to choose a safe one. Cherry bit her lips, Magnus laughed and coloured too.

"They try for it," he said; "but we hope to be useful also, some day, Mr. Erskine."

"Of all the 'some days' for being useful, I have ever found to-day the very best. Sit down and give an account of yourself. Let the cloth wait, Cherry. I suppose you want to hear it all, too. Unless you heard it last night."

"No, indeed, sir," said Magnus. "I did not have a chance to tell her half." This with a glance at Cherry, which she did not mean to see.

"Papa," she said, "it will take but a minute to finish the table, and then we can listen so much better."

"Have your own way, love," her father answered, smiling. "My dear love!" he said under his breath, watching her. Then he turned to Magnus.

"Of course we know a good deal about you," he said, "for we have read and reread your letters, but I think I can understand them better now. And so these are the famous bell buttons?"

"Yes, sir, the regulation sort."

"Truly, they are pretty bright," said Mr. Erskine, with an amused smile. "Are the coats still pocketless?"

Cadet Kindred disclosed the hiding place of his handkerchief.

"I should call that hard lines," said Mr. Erskine. "Your mother gave us a description when she came home, and I rather think Cherry cried over it. 'What _will_ Magnus do without pockets?' she said. 'Because, you know, papa, if there was ever anything he did _not_ have in his pocket, it was only what he could not find.' Do you remember, love?"

"Papa," said Cherry, much abashed at both the story and the laugh it brought, "I think it is enough to have said silly things without having them repeated."

She fetched her work basket, and placing herself at the other side of her father, took out some bit of white stuff, and began to fold and hem with great speed and dexterity. Magnus watched her, wishing it were something for him. He had now and then seen a girl with a crochet needle in these two years, or straining her eyes over a piece of mussed unhappy looking drawnwork, but everything about Cherry and her basket was as fresh as the morning. Her strip of muslin might have just come from the shop, and have gone straight back there again, for all the disturbance it had from her neat handling.

"Yes, she's a busy child," said Mr. Erskine fondly, noting where the eyes were bent; "busy and sweet as the day is long. But come, Magnus, draw up your chair, and let us have the story. Of course, as I said, we have heard a great deal, but we want the whole thing now, don't we, love? Do you wear all that finery every day?"

"Yes sir, except when nobody is supposed to see us. We have an ugly, comfortable blouse for study, and meals, and recitations. With fatigue suits, of course, for drills."

"Look your worst at recitations, hey? I should think it good policy to look your best."

"Wouldn't make any difference with those old buffers," said Magnus. "They don't care if you fess perfectly frigid. They'd just as soon give you zero as anything else."

Mr. Erskine's mouth took on a quizzical look.

"Sounds like cold weather, doesn't it, love?" he said. "But let us go on regularly. Suppose it was term-time, how would your day begin?"

"With the gun, always, sir. Unless I am boning math. and have waked myself up for early study. I'm too much of a sleepyhead to do it often."

"Best not; you need the sleep."

"Yes, but when you want to max it, and have been getting two-nine for three days running, you see that will not do," said Magnus. "And I will not bugle; and I can't fudge worth a cent."

The comical look passed into a laugh this time, low and very pleasant, Cherry joining in, after a vain attempt to keep herself quiet.

"Next in prominence to the gun comes breakfast, I suppose," said Mr. Erskine.

"Yes, breakfast--slumgudgeon stew, and the rest of it," said Magnus. "But the bread and butter and milk are always good. They've taken to calling the roll after breakfast, as well as before, in case slumgudgeon should have laid some slain man under the table. Then comes a bit of release from quarters. If I've been fizzling lately, maybe I put in the time on French; but I am more apt to take a walk."

"That is well," said Mr. Erskine. "A brisk walk puts the brain in good order."

"It's not always a brisk walk, though," said Magnus. "Most often I go dawdling along with some girl."

And now Cherry was so still that only the swift-flying needle seemed to move. Mr. Erskine looked amused.

"I should think that a poor preparing for the section room," he said. "Can't be helped if it is," said Magnus. "There's such a lot of girls--and summer girls--about, it takes every minute you can get. Chappy comes up and says: 'Kin, just give my sister a walk, will you? Awfully nice girl, but if I don't bone a little I'll be found in French, sure guns. And besides, my best girl is here.' So I go. Then Miss Beguile says: 'Oh, Mr. Kindred! I've _never_ seen Fort Putnam. Please take me!'"

How they both laugh at him--Cherry holding back a little, then letting her merry notes ring in.

"That sounds stringent," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you notice, love, his fine distinction between 'girls' and 'summer girls'? That is something we simple people know nothing of. By the way, I suppose _you_ must be a summer girl--as he never sees you in the winter."

"If anyone ever dares call her a summer girl," said Mr. Kindred promptly, "I'll knock him down quicker than he ever had it done before."

"Hands off! I'll not call her so," said Mr. Erskine, laughing. "She is an everyday girl, and better each time. But Magnus, suppose _your_ best girl happens to be also on hand?"

"She never is, sir. She has not been at the Point since I went there."

"Hard on you, if she went there before; you speak as if she were a fixed fact. Do you know, Magnus, I am rather sorry to hear that."

"Why, sir?" demanded Magnus, noting the pulsating colour in the fair face bent over the needlework.

"Well, when I thought of it, I hoped you would keep clear of all such entanglements till you knew what you wanted."

"I did, sir."

"Oh, of course! I beg pardon; I should have said till you had seen a little more of the world."

"Do you think the world is the place to choose, sir?"

Mr. Erskine smiled, half sorrowfully.

"I have only an old matchlock," he said, "and cannot cope with you young sharpshooters. But my boy, what I meant was this. When the boy goes off to college and grows into new mental strength and riches, and the girl stays at home and gets not half a chance, poor child, to do anything but wash dishes or (now do not glower at me) perhaps does not wish for higher things, then the man comes home raised to a plane where she is not fitted to stand by his side, and she can never be the helpmeet for him that she should."

Magnus listened respectfully; watching that lovely, flitting colour, it was not hard to sit still.

"You think," he said, "that some girls wouldn't amount to much at a one-company post. When a man was hard up for comrades?"

"Not unless they were 'best girls' in truth."

"Oh, well, mine is," said Magnus confidently, "the very bestest sort. I don't know how much she knows--but if I stay at the Academy two years longer I shall have a stuffed head, full enough to lend on every occasion. Besides, it's not needful for a man's peace of mind that his wife should understand wave motion, is it, sir?"

Mr. Erskine laughed at him, and Cherry laughed too, though now colouring furiously.

"I suppose it is not needful," her father said, not noticing her, "unless in practice. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you. I had a friend, Magnus, who got entangled, as I call it, very early, went away to college, and when he came back with all his honours, his mother forbade the bans on that distinct plea; she said the girl was too ignorant. I think my friend would have gone straight on through it all, but the girl was not of that sort. She refused to enter any family by the side door. So they waited, the engagement was virtually broken, and years went by. Then the mother died, the man sought his old love and married her. But Magnus, the girl had spent those years not in lamenting, not in flirting, but in solid, hard study. So that when at last they went forth in life together she had passed him, and was the better educated of the two."

What was Cherry laughing at? For while the cheeks had not all cooled down, the lips had parted in but half-controlled curls of fun.

"Well, if she was proficient in warped surfaces, I hope they enjoyed talking it over in their play-spells," said Magnus. "I've no use for some of those things, they sift out too many good men. We all felt bad to have Chuck go."

"Finished his course?" said Mr. Erskine.

"At West Point, sir; graduated at the wrong end, dropped. He did everything to stay; ran a light after taps, cut society, and sat night after night with his feet in cold water and his hands in his hair (what there was of it)," Magnus added in parenthesis. "But nothing did any good; he'd go next day and fess on a clean board. 'Mr. Simpkins,' the instructor asked him one day, 'are you as stupid at drill as you are in the section room?' And Chuck turned with the blandest face and answered: 'Nigh on to it, Lieutenant!' And he was."

How the listeners laughed again.

"But that was Simpkins," Cherry remarked. "You said 'Chuck.'"

"'Chuck' was his cadet name."

"Do they name everyone?" asked Mr. Erskine.

"Very generally. But some names go with the office. The fattest man in the class is 'Tubs,' and the oldest 'Daddy'; while the cleanest-face man in all the Corps may be 'mud,' because his pred. or his resemblance owned the name. 'Deacon' and 'Squire', 'Mile-High' and 'Shorty', 'Pretty Jones' and 'Lady Crane.'"

"What is yours?" said Cherry.

"Only 'Kin'; sometimes with the 'Kith' added. Do you see?"

"I see that you are a very wide-awake set of boys," said Mr. Erskine. Cherry slowly pulled off her thimble.

"Papa," she said, "I sent word that they must all come here to dinner, and it is time for me to go and see to things."

"I will come and help," said Magnus.

"Thank you, no," Cherry answered him gaily. "Housekeeping is one of the few things you have _not_ studied. Stay and talk to your mother, she is just here."

So while the two girls followed Cherry, the other three people sat talking over many things, the two elders closely scanning the young cadet; and he, all unconscious of their scrutiny, showing himself just as he was in truth. Certainly the stories and pranks he rattled off were full of mischief, and as surely they gave small token of a reverent respect for regulations. But there was no taint of anything mean or low, no word that savoured of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." The mother breathed freer with every new light thrown upon his West Point life, and felt that her boy had come back to her pure as he had gone away. The eyes of the two old friends met in joyful sympathy time and again, as Magnus talked and told, and their laughter had no reserve of anxious questioning. And when at last Magnus detailed himself to go and look after the girls and dinner, Mr. Erskine stretched out his hand to the happy mother.

"He is a splendid fellow," he said; "a grand boy! I congratulate you with all my heart."

XXIX

SKIRMISHING

O wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him? O wha can prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am?

--_Old Song._

Magnus, meanwhile, with quite as much of the "boy" as the "grand" about him, despite his inches, tiptoed off along passages and through doorways that he knew by heart, following the hum of voices. So presently came out into the small summer kitchen, where a pleasant smell of good cookery steamed and puffed and whiffed from various vessels within and upon the stove. Dishes stood ready on the table, with white-covered pans of rolls just waiting to be baked, but save the old cat, winking and blinking by the oven door, there was nobody in charge.

Magnus gave her a toss up in the air for old times' sake, peeped cautiously out at the broad back steps, then let himself easily down through the open window and came round the other way upon the scene of the sweet chatter that was going on.

The three girls were on the steps, Rose and Violet hulling strawberries, while Cherry in a wide check apron, sat on the lowest step of all with a basket of lettuce at her side, picking over the fresh green leaves, and dropping them into a pan of cold water. A thick clump of lilac bushes served as a screen.

"Do you know," Rose was saying, "I cannot believe it, yet. I think I cried for joy a little bit, when I waked up in the night and remembered that Magnus was really here."

"And doesn't he look well?" said Violet; "and isn't he a beauty?"

"Do not tell him that," Cherry answered with discretion. She would have given a ready enough answer a week ago, but somehow, with the continent no more between them, the young damsel had grown wary.

"I'm afraid everybody else will tell him," said Rose. "But he is not spoiled a bit _yet_. Don't you think so?"

"Not a bit."

It was a very mild way of giving her estimate, and Cherry scolded herself that she could not answer freely, as she had always done; called herself to account for the shyness which had sprung into life with, indeed, the very first coming of that photograph.

"I am such a goose!" poor Cherry thought, bending down low over the lettuce basket. "What shall I do to myself? If only he had not acted so last night!"

And just here, by way of composing matters, two hands came softly round her head, and were laid lightly and respectfully upon her eyes. It was one of his old teasing ways with her.

Cherry's start passed almost into a tremor. She put up her hands to remove the obstruction, and they were taken and held fast; and what more Magnus might have dared had there been no witnesses, will never be known.

Cherry lifted her face, trying to speak sternly.

"Magnus," she said, "you have not improved one bit. I thought West Point was to make a man of you--or a better man--or something."

"It has made 'something' of me," he retorted, gazing down at her. "Give you three guesses."

"Too much else to do. Set that pan of lettuce on the table, please. Don't you see how busy I am?" And Cherry drew towards her a basket of green peas and began to shell with all her might.

"I see it--to the depths of my heart," Magnus answered as he did her bidding. "Here, Viola, give us your apron. If I don't sit down and help this girl, I shall have her fainting away on my hands."

"No, you will not," Cherry said very decidedly.

But Magnus spied a spare apron on a nail, and, tying it carefully round his neck, he put himself down on the doorstep, and dived in among the pea pods. Always taking, if he could, the very one of which Cherry had laid hold, and then dropping that and seizing her fingers, and then mysteriously scattering the peas from his own hands or shaking them out of hers, so that the rolling things had to be sought on all sides. Which last process Cadet Kindred pursued so zealously that more than once his face and Cherry's shining locks came very near together.