All of us were wrathy, but you should have seen Lucy! Tears of anger came into his eyes as he started up. “I’ll go at once and tell the captain!” Reardon clutched him. “No,” said the good fellow. “I hadn’t a chance to qualify. It’s perfectly true. Loretta told me so.”
“Loretta told you so!” echoed David. He was quite white and shaking at this instance of adding insult to injury. “By God!”
He was for going at once and complaining, but Reardon wouldn’t let him. “Then,” said David, “wait till the hike. If you don’t get even with him then, I will!”
I wouldn’t tell this story to David’s mother. She might think her son too sympathetic with an “outsider.”
The fellows have been in the habit of cooing at Loretta as he passes their tents. His pet name precedes him down the street, the coos come from the shadowed interiors. It has been meant harmlessly. But this story of Reardon has spread rapidly, and I thought I detected a snarl in the cooing when Loretta just went by. There is something in David’s threat. Wait till the hike!
This afternoon we had our usual drill and calisthenics, after which I went swimming in the lake, as I do daily, though under certain difficulties. The beach is very stony and bruises the feet, and the piers that have been built at our two bathing places are quite inadequate, both as accommodating too few men at a time, and next as not going out into deep water. Perhaps early in the summer the water at the ends may be up to one’s shoulders, but now it is scarcely above the waist, and none but the cleverest and most venturesome dare to dive. So many would like the diving that it is a pity that a little money can’t be expended here. However, the water is fine, even if it is now getting so cold that some of the men are giving up their swim. We often have surf here, when the southeast wind quarters across the bay all the way from Burlington, and then the fun is notable.
The scene at the foot of the pier particularly struck me today, after the men were out. There were nearly a hundred of them in a rather narrow compass, so close to each other, on the boulders of the beach, that they reminded me of the pictures one sees of big birds in their colonies. The men were naked, and every one in active motion, rubbing down. The sight of so much brown and pink skin, of so many moving bodies and arms and legs, was most peculiar and amusing.
The list of company officers has been published. Two of our best sergeants becoming lieutenants, other sergeants have been named, and the list of corporals and sub-squad-leaders has been fixed. In our squad Bannister and Reardon stand as before. Ban quietly told us that he was glad to get the appointment. “I had my eye on you,” he said to Knudsen, “and on you,” to me. “This will please my old father: he was a corporal in the Civil War.” And good Ban forgot us as he thought of the satisfaction of the old man at home.
Tonight at conference we were given definite details of the scheme for reimbursing us for our travelling expenses and our mess. The government will repay those who take the oath of allegiance—and everyone is hunting for the nigger in the woodpile. There is so general a sentiment that the War Department tricked the militia into taking the oath of six years’ service before starting for Texas, that none of us cares to be caught promising too much. But I feel that the form of oath, which was read aloud tonight, is pretty straightforward. We enlist only for the period of the camp, and for instruction only. I shall take the oath. If before the period is over the government takes us away for service anywhere, I suppose there will be an emergency to justify it.
We were also given additional facts regarding the hike. Having so small a regiment, yet having the baggage train of the large August camp, we are to go on the longest hike yet, eleven days on the road and in the field, ten nights in the pup-tents. We are sorting our belongings to take or to leave, and David is wondering how he can carry all his exquisite appointments.