Illustrated by Instantaneous Flash-light Photographs of "Troop A" Cadets.
he cavalry has always been the most popular branch of army service in song and story, and, beyond doubt, in the mind of the public. To a boy who has a leaning towards military things it has an absolute fascination, and if he likes a horse (and what boy does not?) it is his choice beyond all others.
In New York city there exists a troop of boy cavalry that has been drilling and exercising faithfully, and under such able direction that it may be taken as a model for what a boys' organization of this kind should be. Soldiering means really serious work, whether it is in the service of a State, a country, or merely entered into for the love of it, and a boy who has not the proper spirit cannot long remain a member of "Troop A" Cadets. It is astonishing to find how quickly and how well the boy recruit learns to ride, how much he learns about a horse, and how his muscles and his eye and his self-reliance develop under the drill. The writer has seen riding that no cowboy need be ashamed of done by a boy of fourteen who a year before had never thrown his leg over anything but a Shetland-pony, and many of the young troopers never mounted a horse at all until they first made their appearance in the tan-bark ring of the troop riding-school. If a boy is a "muff," he does not stay at it long; it takes a lad with the "proper stuff" in him, as the riding-master tells you, to stand the thumping and sometimes the falls of the first month's drill. A horse is a very complicated piece of machinery to the novice, and he must be managed by the eye, the whole body, and the mind. He knows when the rider on his back is timid or determined, and he often acts accordingly. Horses have an individuality that bicycles haven't, and the young trooper must learn to govern besides learning merely to guide and "stay on."
But to take in order what a boy cavalryman must learn. In the first place he must be strong and willing, and quick to listen; that is a great thing—listening. He will find out a great deal about himself, and if he has the right stamina and spirit he improves in every way most wonderfully.
DRESS PARADE.
As soon as the recruit has been proposed for membership, which is done in the same way it is done in the National Guard—that is, his name is proposed by two members in good standing, then voted on by a committee, and lastly by the whole troop—as soon as all this is done he takes his first lesson. It is not on horseback—that comes later—but on foot; the setting-up exercise has to be gone through with. This is quite a trial, for it means standing erect, and going through various exercises with the arms, the legs, the whole body; bending over with knees stiff, and touching the ground until he wonders where so many aching muscles come from.
Then he learns the facings and marchings, a good deal like an infantryman. But at last a sabre is put in his hand, and he is taught to use it, standing firm on his out-stretched legs, and making wonderful cuts and points to right and left—"cut at head, cut at body, at infantry, at cavalry," etc., over and over. At first some of his wonderful strokes in strange directions would cleave his horse in two, and others would relieve him of his head or mayhap his tail; but soon he learns the proper positions of all these things, and acts as if he were on horseback. When this has been accomplished he is taught the drill with the carbine, loading and firing, and the manual on foot. The lieutenant in charge of the cadets informed me that boys learn quicker and improve much more rapidly than grown men in all this, and that they seldom remain in the "awkward squad" for any length of time. But now comes the riding, and a great deal more; for the cavalryman must look after his own mount, and be able to saddle and bridle.
The first lesson means much. It is a good thing that grace does not count, for it is hard to be graceful or at ease on a bumping, thumping nag with nothing on his back but a blanket. In a little time one learns to hang on with the knees and balance with the body, and then it looks more like fun—the instructor lets go of the bridle-rein and ceases his everlasting words of advice, and the recruit "goes it alone." When he sits in a saddle after undergoing a long course of tan-bark drill, he feels as comfortable as if he was in a chair, and wonders how he ever thought it hard to do.
IN COLUMN OF FOURS.
Now comes the drill on horseback at a walk, a trot, and a gallop. If the horse is an old hand he helps the new trooper out amazingly; he seems to understand the orders, and whisks into place and dresses into line promptly as could be wished for.
After the trooper gets out of the awkward squad for good and all, the drills become exciting; every meeting is a series of games on horseback; he learns to cut at the ball on the wooden post—"the Turk's head"; he slashes at imaginary enemies afoot and mounted; he learns "tent-pegging," which is riding full tilt down the arena at a wooden peg driven into the ground, which he endeavors to pick up on the point of his sabre, and soon he becomes part of his horse. It is exciting to see three troopers playing the "ribbon chase." One of them has a knot on his right arm, and the other two (they are all mounted without saddles) try to get this ribbon off. It can only be taken off from the left side, and they play tag and manœuvre every which way to get a position. If the one who is "it" is clever, he dodges and doubles, turns and backs, and if he can keep his ribbon for three minutes he wins. But the others push him hard, and here it is where good riding tells. I have seen a little shaver who had to be helped up on to a fifteen-hand horse do some riding that would be credit to a Comanche Indian. They wrestle—these boy troopers—on horseback, and I have seen one leap from his own horse astride that of his opponent, and then succeed in dismounting him. All this brings out the best thing in a boy; it teaches him to be self-reliant and quick in judgment, and it makes his big brother feel proud of him—if he has a big brother.
WRESTLING.
When they grow old enough (most of them are between fifteen and seventeen) they generally get into the troop itself, and their preliminary work puts them on a par with the best of the older troopers.
Of course it costs something to organize and maintain a squadron of mounted men, and the members pay yearly dues which cover the expense of horse hire. Their uniforms they own themselves, and they cost about twelve dollars.
In any good-sized town or city it is perfectly possible for a number of boys, with the help of their fathers, to organize such a troop if they go about it in earnest and work in a systematic way.
First of all a competent instructor must be obtained, and every one should realize that money cannot be judiciously saved in his salary. He should be the best man obtainable after a somewhat extended search. Usually he is an old cavalry officer, or perhaps some cavalry officer who has retired. Such men are to be had after some search, and apart from their knowledge of cavalry movements they are valuable because they take a personal interest in all that has to do with their work.
Having secured the instructor a hall is then necessary, and this is by far the most difficult thing to find of the whole outfit. Few towns and not many cities have any hall the ground-floor of which can be used for horses. If the troop is to be a serious affair, and it is impossible to organize one unless it is to be serious, the cheapest way in such cases is to build a huge shed with the earth for a flooring. Here is a proportionately large expense, and the result is that most cavalry cadet troops will have to be formed under the auspices of National Guard troops, which already have armories for cavalry practice.
Once you have an armory and an instructor, the rest is merely detail. Much objection is made of late to military drill and the encouragement of the love of war. Boy troopers have nothing to do with war. They should not wish to fight, even to grow up to fight some day, except in defense of their country. There is no more question of war in a cadet troop than there is in a bicycle club. It is merely that the discipline, the training, the exercise that are good for boys can be obtained in this healthy, manly way, and cannot be obtained with equal efficiency in any other way.
AN "OLD-FIELD" SCHOOL-GIRL.[1]
BY MARION HARLAND.
CHAPTER III.
It was only half past eight when the search party left Greenfield, but it would be no darker at midnight. The two negroes who led the way down the avenue and out into the public road carried blazing lightwood knots—that is, long thick pieces of "fat" pine cut from the heart of the tree, and, when lighted, burning for hours with a fierce flame fed by the turpentine and resin which were the sap of the tree.
Close behind the torch-men rode Mr. Grigsby, the dogs trotting beside him, and almost upon his horse's heels was the "top gig" containing the Major and Mr. Tayloe. The scene was striking and even solemn, and except that the Major and his companion now and then exchanged a sentence in subdued tones, not a word was uttered until they arrived at the open space surrounding the school-house. There Mr. Grigsby dismounted and Major Duncombe and Mr. Tayloe got out of the gig. The negroes were left with the horses, Mr. Grigsby and the Major taking their torches.
They trod lightly, and the soaked ground made no noise under their feet. Pushing the door further open, they entered, holding their torches high to throw the light into the room. The glare reached the figure of the sleeping girl in the far corner, and with a whispered congratulation to the father, the Major led the way to her. She lay upon her side, facing them, her head pillowed upon her book, her hand under her cheek. She slumbered soundly and sweetly, not stirring when the full blaze of the fat pine struck her closed eyelids.
At the second glance both men exclaimed in horror. Coiled right across her naked ankles and feet was what looked like a striped gray and brown rope. The spectators knew it instantly for a moccasin snake, next to the rattlesnake and copperhead the most deadly of Virginia reptiles. Attracted by the warmth of the child's body, he had curled himself up for his nightly rest, and, raising an ugly head, hissed viciously as the light was reflected from a pair of wicked eyes. Then, instead of striking at the unconscious sleeper, he dropped to the floor and glided swiftly under the benches to a darker corner. Mr. Grigsby sprang after him and planted his heel upon his head. Had he missed him or put his foot upon any other part of the snake, he must have been bitten. He ground his heel into the creature's head with all his might until the convulsed body, that had wrapped itself about his leg and writhed up and down like a curling whip lash, ceased to twist and quiver.
"Bravely done!" said Mr. Tayloe, in honest admiration. "But you ran a great risk."
"I did not think of that," answered the Scotchman, briefly.
He was deadly pale, and his jaw was rigid. The sweat dropped from his chin as he stepped off the dead snake and turned back to the bench where his child lay. It was strange that the exclamations and stamping had not aroused her. Had she been bitten, and was this heavy sleep the stupor of death? The same thought was in the minds of the others while they watched him in breathless silence. He knelt down by the still figure and laid his hand gently upon her head.
"DAUGHTER! FATHER'S LASSIE!" HE SAID, HIS LIPS CLOSE TO HER EAR.
"Daughter! Father's lassie!" he said, his lips close to her ear.
His voice was husky and unnatural, but she knew it in her sleep. Her eyes unclosed slowly upon his face, and widened as she saw Major Duncombe and Mr. Tayloe behind him. Still dreaming, she smiled slowly and lifted her hand to wave it. It was all a part of the examination day. She was still "playing ladies."
"You do me too much honor, I assure you, sir," she murmured.
She had not been bitten by the moccasin. But for the necessity of ascertaining this, she would not have been told what danger she had escaped. Short work was made with explanations, and no time was lost in hurrying her from the place. Major Duncombe lifted her with his own hands to her seat in front of her father upon his broad-backed horse, and insisted upon sending one of the torch-bearers all the way home with them. Flea was wrapped to her heels in a shawl that had been put into the gig by Mrs. Duncombe's order. It was soft and fluffy and thick, and the folds felt like a caress to her chilled limbs. Her father's arm held her close to his breast; her head lay against his strong shoulder—how strong and safe she had never guessed until now.
Flea never forgot that ride and her awed enjoyment of each feature of it. Her father's silence did not surprise her. He was never talkative, and assured by his gentleness at the moment of her awakening, and the clasp of his arm about her now, that he was not displeased, she was glad to lean back in his embrace and indulge the fancies born of the night's event. She was almost sorry when the dogs ran before them as they neared the house, and the clamor of the welcome they received from the dogs who had staid at home drew out Chaney and Dick from the kitchen, and was the signal for the opening of the front door. It was full of heads, seen blackly against the lighted interior, and Mrs. Grigsby's high-pitched voice rang out, shrilly: "Got her, 'ain't you, pa?"
"Ay, ay! all's right!" he answered.
Carrying the muffled form in his arms, he walked up the path leading from the yard gate, into the house, and set her down before the chamber fire as he might a roll of carpet.
"Don't you look too funny!" laughed Bea, as Flea began to disengage herself. "Lor'! if you 'ain't got on Mrs. Duncombe's winter shawl!"
"An' trouble enough she has given, I'll be boun'!" scolded the mother, heedless of her husband's gravity and silence. "I should 'a' thought yer pa would 'a' left you at Greenfiel' 'tel mawnin'."
"Peace, wife," interposed Mr. Grigsby, sternly. "All of you come in here and be still."
They trooped into the chamber, Chaney, Dick, and the Greenfield negro bringing up the rear, all curiosity and expectation, subdued by his tone and action. For he had taken a well-worn Prayer-book from the mantel shelf, and was turning the leaves while he spoke. Finding what he sought there, he put out his arm to draw Flea to his side, and knelt with her in the middle of the room.
"Let us pray!"
Everybody knelt where he or she chanced to be standing—Mrs. Grigsby by the cradle of her sleeping baby, Bea and Calley at the foot of the bed, Dee before a chair, the negroes crouching upon the floor. The candles flared and guttered, the blaze in the fireplace was beaten this way and that by the damp wind pouring in through the open doors, the drip and dash of the rain without were a low accompaniment to the father's voice, weighted with emotion. While he prayed he kept his hand upon Flea's head.
"Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we give Thee humble thanks that Thou hast been graciously pleased to deliver from great danger the child in whose behalf we bless and praise Thy name in the presence of Thy people. Grant, we beseech Thee, O gracious Father, that she, through Thy help may both faithfully live in this world according to Thy will and also may be partaker of everlasting glory in the life to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
When all had risen he told in few and strong words where and how he had found the child, now sobbing with excitement in his arms.
"Now," he concluded, "we will talk no more of this matter to-night, and I will have no questions asked this child. She is tired and nervous. In nothing is she to blame. We have great cause for thankfulness for her safety. Mother, have you had supper while we were away?"
He never called her "ma." Flea was the only one of the children who imitated him in this respect. Mrs. Grigsby was fussy, and in many things foolish, but she obeyed her husband's orders in not questioning the runaway, and wiping her eyes more than was quite necessary, led the way meekly to the dining-room. It was an unusually silent meal, the father setting the example of saying little while he ate. When supper was over he kissed Flea, which he seldom did to any of the children, and bade her, "Go right up to bed," and not to forget to say her prayers.
"And you, Beatrice, when you go up, do not talk to her. She needs rest and sleep."
He was a sensible man, and his behavior on this occasion was what seemed wise and becoming according to his judgment. If he had intended to establish poor Flea in her dignity as an important personage, and stuff her head with absurd notions, he could not have done it more surely. When her bare feet trod the short crooked staircase leading to her bedroom, it was with the measured pace of one who has a position to fill and means to fill it. She was almost surprised that the glass to-night reflected the face she was used to seeing in it.
Bea followed her shortly, brimming over with curiosity and resolution to hear all there was to tell.
"Say," she said, in a half-whisper, coming up to her sister, "how big was the moccasin? It must have felt mighty heavy on your feet. What did pa kill him with?"
Flea looked at her with owl-like seriousness, and laid her finger upon her lip.
"Don't be a fool!" returned the other, contemptuously. "Pa can't hear us."
Whereupon the newly made heroine lifted her hand and pointed upward, rebukingly.
"God can hear you," was what she meant.
"Bah!" sneered Bea. "You needn't preach to your betters. Keep your old story to yourself. I ain't a-going to put up with your airs. Mother ain't, neither. Any runaway nigger can go to sleep in the woods and wake up with a snake lyin' 'longside o' him. 'Tain't as if you had done anything."
This was rough talk, but Flea was, in her own opinion, so high above her sister's level that she could afford to despise it. Long after Bea had fallen asleep the younger girl lay listening to the drip, drop, drip, of the rain overhead, her cheeks on fire, her brain in a whirl, and her eyelids feeling as if they were buttoned back and would not shut.
She was a heroine. The former life had slipped off and away from her as her friend the moccasin had shed his skin last spring. She must recast her thoughts and her manners, make them over through and through in order to live up to her new character. She hoped the rain would hold up by morning, so that she could go to church.
In imagination she saw how every head would turn toward her when she should walk up the aisle. How people would stare and nudge one another during the service, and crowd around her when it was over! Perhaps—and she thrilled all over with merely thinking of it—Mr. Slaughter, the rector, would return thanks publicly for her deliverance. It would be just like Major Duncombe to ask him to do it. A church prayer, said in a white surplice, with all the congregation saying "Amen" at the end, was not too great an honor for a girl who had had an adventure.
That was what the Major had said—"an adventure." She went carefully over every word of his speech, remembering each word.
"We are only too thankful to an overruling Providence that our little heroine's adventure was not also a catastrophe, Mr. Grigsby."
He had rolled it out in a grand, solemn way, quite as he read prayers every morning and night at Greenfield.
Everything had conspired to turn the little maid's brains topsy-turvy. Her head felt actually light at her awakening from the sound sleep that had finally overcome her. There was a queer strained aching all through her, and she had never been crosser in her life.
It was still raining. The ground was sodden; the trees drooped miserably under the weight of wet leaves; the sky was one sullen, obstinate cloud, heaviest and most obstinate toward the west faced by her bedroom windows.
No church or Sunday-school to-day. No show of her famous self to an admiring congregation. Dreams and hopes came down with a cruel thump to the realities of every-day home life. True, she put on, of her own accord, stockings and shoes, and there were always clean clothes for Sunday, but there were week-day clothes, and there were fried middling and corn bread for breakfast, just as if nothing had happened. The coarse food stuck in her throat; the common crockery—white, with fluted green edges—the pewter spoons, the tin coffee-pot, the heavy grayish-blue mug out of which she drank her "hot-water tea" (i.e. milk and water sweetened), had not offended her taste yesterday, or ever before. Now they were disgusting and humiliating.
"You ain't eatin' nothin'!" remarked the mother, as the girl sat back in her chair after a vain attempt to behave as usual. "Do you feel sick?"
"No, ma'am. I'm just not hungry. I don't know why. I reckon I'll go up stairs and lie down."
"Let her alone. She'll be all right after a while," said her father, as her mother began to scold, and Flea got herself out of the room as quickly as possible.
She could never be all right in this house, she was sure. Nobody understood, or sympathized with her. She was stifled and cramped. So far as the discouraged heroine could foresee, every day to come would be like this and all those that had gone by—all rag carpet, and green-edged crockery, and sugar-raggy babies, and Bea's old frocks made over and let down, and fault-finding—
"Flea!" screamed her mother, from the bottom of the stairs, "ain't you coming down to-day? Here's your sister with all the things to wash up and put away."
Flea was lying face downward on the unmade feather bed, dry-eyed and wretched, when the call came. In sinking and sickness of heart she obeyed the summons, the very click of her shoes on the stairs expressive of unwillingness. Nothing she had read or heard of heroinic behavior helped her to go through with the drudgery of scraping plates, rinsing, washing, and wiping crockery and pewter.
"I don't see why mother don't use her silver spoons every day," she grumbled to Bea, wiping and laying down a pewter spoon disdainfully.
"She's goin' to leave 'em to me when she dies," returned that prudent young person. "I'm glad she doesn't wear 'em out, or maybe get one of 'em lost, before then."
There were only six teaspoons in all, and Mrs. Grigsby kept them in a locked drawer. It was all of a piece with the mean, skimpy, tiresome round of her daily life. There was no help for it—none.
The day dragged on more wearily and slowly than ever day had gone before. Her father could have told her, if she had confessed her misery to him, that much of it was the reaction after last night's excitement. As she did not speak of it, he paid little or no attention to her sober face and unwonted silence. She performed her share of dish-washing, table-setting, and table-clearing listlessly, but without complaint, and when not thus employed spent most of her time upstairs. Nobody asked what she did there; still less was anybody concerned to know what she felt there.
Dee—which is by interpretation David—had had a stupid day too. The Grigsby Sunday rules bore hard upon story books and toys, and an active boy of ten was soon at the end of his resources. His mother had scolded him a dozen times for making a noise and getting in her way, and boxed his ears twice.
After the last buffet Dee took refuge in the barn and the society of Dick and the horses. His father would not have approved of it, but his father was not at home. Coming in at dusk, the boy stole up stairs on tip-toe and peeped into his sister's room. The sun was fighting bravely with the bank of clouds on the horizon, and the world was bathed in lurid mist. By this flushed fogginess Dee could see Flea lying in a sort of crumpled heap on the floor by the window. She started up at the noise he made in entering.
"What do you want?" she demanded, crossly.
"You needn't get mad about it," returned her brother. "I'm just sick of Sunday, and I reckon you are too. Monday's worth fifty of it, if you do have to go to school. Ma's cross as two sticks, and pa's gone to look after things up at 'the house,' and Bea's on her high horse, and the young ones are worse'n a pack of bees for noise 'n' swarmin'." He sat down sociably upon the floor by his sister. "I say, Flea, what you s'pose you were sparred for?"
"Spared for? What are you talking about?"
"Dick says that Chaney says that ma says you were sparred for somethin' real big. Hadn't 'a' been for that, the moccasin would 'a' bit you sure, and you'd been dead before anybody could 'a' got to you for to draw the p'ison out. What you s'pose they meant? What you goin' to do?"
Flea sat upright, looking straight out of the window. As Dick stopped speaking she raised the sash and let in a wave of warm, sweet, damp air. The pink light streamed in with it, flooding the girl's figure and face. Her hair was tousled, and the dust of the bare boards had mixed with her tears to streak her cheeks. Yet the boy stared at her, open-mouthed and puzzled. Light that did not come through the window shone in her face; her eyes were two stars; her fingers were knotted tightly upon one another.
"You are sure that you are not fibbing, Dee? Did they really say that?"
"Certain sure. And Dick says it's true as gawspil. He know'd a baby oncet they thought was clean dead, and all on a suddint it come to, and sot up 'n' walked—like a maracle, you know. And his mother, she said right straight off, 'He will be somethin' wonderful.' And so he was. He fit in the las' war, an' killed, oh, thousands of the British, but girls can't fight, you know. That's 'cause why I arsked you what you s'posed you could 'a' been sparred for."
Flea put her arm about her brother's neck, and pulled the rough head to her shoulder. She and apple-cheeked, slow-witted Dee always got on well together.
"I love you, Dee," she said, in a gush of tenderness. "No matter how great a lady I get to be—and I'm going to be something very great some day—you and I will always be good friends. You won't tell anybody if I tell you a secret?"
The much-impressed Dee gave the desired promise.
"Then—I'm a heroine, Dee!"—sinking her voice—"a sure-enough heroine. And wonderful, beautiful things always happen to heroines. Like Miranda, and Olivia, and Portia, and Cordelia, and Perdita, and Juliet, and Hermione, and Rosalind, and ever and ever so many more ladies I've read about. I'll tell you about some of them to-morrow. They are not Sunday stories, you know."
Neither, for that matter, was that Sunday talk into which she now launched, holding the boy spellbound while the sun went down clear, and the bright clouds grew pale, then dark. Into Dee's greedy ears she poured the tales of what she meant to do and to be in the wondrous To-Come of her dreams.
The talk with her brother, the hopes rekindled by it, and his faith in her and her future made the out-goings of the unhappy day to rejoice. She laid her head upon her pillow that night in tolerable content with home and kindred. They had sung hymns together, as was the Sunday-night custom, and recited each a psalm and three questions in the Church Catechism to their father, who had then granted them the treat of a long story of his early life in Glasgow.
No misgivings as to to-morrow held her eyes waking as she nestled down under the patch-work coverlet she and Bea had put together and helped their mother quilt last winter. The school-room would be her own territory. As the only girl in the school who knew Mr. Tayloe, and had been particularly recommended to him by his patron (she had borrowed that word from an English story-book), she would be foremost in his esteem. In "playing ladies" before sleep got fast hold of her she saw herself introducing less-favored scholars to his favorable notice.
"My sister Beatrice, Mr. Tayloe," she would say. Perhaps he would answer, "I hope she is as intelligent and industrious as her sister."
Flea's was a generous nature, but she did feel that that would pay off Bea well for certain things she had said to her in days past. As for Dee, who was dull at his lessons, her heart warmed and yearned over him in the thought of the good she could do him through her influence with the teacher. Mr. Tayloe looked as if he might be severe with a dull pupil. She would stand between Dee and trouble. He was such a loving little fellow, and her best crony, even if he did not care for books.
Bea was going to wear a white frock to school if the weather were warm enough. Flea's frock, a brown calico with round white spots on it, with an apron of the same, was new and strong and clean. As the prize scholar she could afford to be indifferent to dress. One of these days she would make people who now laughed at her plain clothes open their eyes with her satins—and—laces—and—India cotton stockings—and—oh yes! the pink sash should be just the color of a peach blossom—and—have—fringed—
Flea was clean off to Slumberland, where nobody expects to dream of sensible and probable happenings.