XXIV
NINETY-NINE DAYS TO JUNE
The bargain must be,
That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free.
For this is a sort of engagement, you see,
That is binding on you, but not binding on me. —Nothing to Wear.
It is impossible to put in words what furlough means to a two-years-from-home boy. For "boy" he is still, to the dear home group, as well as in West Point pranks and frolics. But from the time the Hundredth Night is over there is a steadily growing pressure of excitement. It is not long till, for themselves, the men begin to count the hours.
A great deal of outdoor work comes with the softening skies and freshening earth. Company drills, dress parades, make the Point all alive again, and the cadets full of growls. Not all the prospective laurels for perfect marching can make the means to that end a pleasure. They have no time for it, they say; time is so precious, when you do not want to spend it in some particular way. But rides on the road are good, after the winter drills in the Hall; and Saturday afternoons just perfect—except on the area. Springing grass, opening flowers, scented air, and in the distance—June.
For at West Point June has a gift for everyone. In the first class, graduation; to the old second class, first-class camp and privileges; for the old third class, furlough. While the plebs become yearlings, and call themselves the happiest of all.
As the time comes on, all sorts of tradesmen invade the Point; men with samples of cloth for uniforms and for "cits"; with sashes, swords, hats, gloves, helmets, and handbags; with trunks, class albums, studs, canes, and umbrellas. Each Saturday afternoon is weighted with the most perplexed sort of shopping. For when you have lived two years, or four years, in a forage cap, it takes a good deal of study to know whether you will be most Adonis-like in a stove-pipe, or a wide-awake, or a plain straw hat. The cut of coats, the colour of trousers, cause deep debate, as also the probable worth of one tradesman's word as against another's.
With first-class questions Magnus had nothing this year to do, but over one furlough point he had a sharp fight with himself. The "cit" clothes in which he had come as a candidate were odious to him on that very account. All the same, one way to save money was to wear them home. So Cadet Kindred braced up mentally, and said that was just what he would do. And then, to put an extra touch to his goodness, he thought he would try them on and see how ugly they were; break it to himself gently, and by degrees, before he walked out through the sallyport in open day.
It was a splendid plan. For lo and behold! under the hard, despised West Point training, Mr. Kindred had grown and filled out and developed until he could not possibly wear those old clothes.