West Point Colors

by Anna Bartlett Warner

Magnus did not hurry. He had no quarters to spend on omnibus fare, and no mind at all to be wedged in among those lively ladies. He picked up his bag and walked after the stage as it slowly climbed the hill. A few swift strides would have easily taken him beyond it. But he lingered and loitered, sat down on the tall stone curbing of the road, and tried to find out why he felt so uncomfortable. What if he was a "candidate"? There was Cherry, and the other two girls at home, on tiptoe over that very fact. Why should West Point feel so differently? He had come to learn to serve and to defend his country; to grace her ranks, wherever he might be.

Magnus looked after his stageful of enemies, and seeing that they had turned down towards the south, he quickened his steps, and soon reached the top of the hill. There paused again, partly for strangeness, and partly for wonder. It was all so beautiful, so new.

The grass, close shaven and vividly green, covered the ground on every side; up the slopes, and down in the hollows; with only the cavalry plain lying brown and bare in the sunshine. Buildings, with hardly two alike, were dropped down for the most part in a long, curving line, the end of which he could not see. No people, anywhere, for it was dinner time or lunch time all over the Post; only as Magnus crossed the road to get a nearer view of the buildings, he came upon a very distinguished personage with a gun on his shoulder, pacing aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. His uniform was blue, his "deportment" fierce. "He must be an officer," thought the boy to himself, "and this some special important point he must watch."

Magnus found a seat under a friendly tree, and studied him. That slow, ceaseless, back-and-forth march, fascinated the quicksilver youngster. Orioles whistled over his head, sparrows sang, catbirds cried out in fear or shouted for joy. Further off was the whistle and roar of trains, and the bell of the ferryboat. In every pause the breeze rustled softly by, and the river plashed against the shore. He had never seen anything so lovely in all his life. But now, where were all those voices?—a mild roar of talk. Plainly, in that small grey stone castle just over the way.

He strolled on again, passed the old Academic, and came out upon the plain. And then for a while he forgot everything but what his eyes took in.

The smooth greensward, irregularly framed in with trees, and having here and there a slight undulation which only heightened its beauty, lay shimmering in the summer sun. On one side, behind the trees, the row of houses went its winding way; on the other, the trees drew together rather thinly in a little wood; but Magnus just then gave no heed to either. His eyes followed the green right on to a sort of jumping-off place, where the ground dropped suddenly all along the line. There too was a closer-set clump of trees; and from among them, white and slim, rose the tall flagstaff, bearing aloft the beautiful banner of the Stars and Stripes.

There was not much wind, and the great flag hung in those half-way curves which are more picturesque than the full expansion. Softly twisting, turning, its mighty folds; the red, white, and blue seeming ever in playful strife for the upper hand, which should show most and which give way.

Magnus looked at it, and then instantly bared his head. He had never seen so large a flag, nor ever one that floated with such clear assumption of its rights; such careless, easy grace in claiming and keeping them. "Make a friend of the flag," Mr. Wayne had said, and from this moment the boy took it to his very heart. Fight for it? Aye, that he would!

He walked slowly across the plain, still watching the flag, until he stood close beneath it, and could hear the soft flapping of the halyards as they beat against the pole. But now it was fairyland everywhere.

All about him, spotting the green grass, were guns: big guns and little guns; shining black and mouldy green; with piles of wicked-looking black shot. The guns themselves, like many other senders-forth of mischief, looked sleepy and innocent enough. Tall trees rose up, bordering the little platform, from which the ground fell off steeply towards the river; some younger and softer tree heads showing there and hindering the further view. But Magnus wanted no more views just then.