"Not the first," said Rose with a gay laugh, as they reached the edge of the open, "Look! there goes the band. Run, Mr. Bouché!"
"As if I hadn't been running!" said Bouché, much aggrieved. "Miss Rose, I'll owe you one better for this."
And then, run he did.
L
FAIRYLAND
Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,
Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low;
Their banners and their crests waving in a row.
—Frere.
The first week in June at West Point is such an old story that I had best not say much about it here. The (generally) perfect weather, the stirring drills, the crowd of lookers-on, with the sort of jail delivery from study hours and usual restrictions. The cadets come out and sun themselves like hibernated bees, or bears, with an unlimited taste for honey. "Best" dresses sweep the ground, "best" bonnets brave the wind; only the serene blue sky looks down unmoved at the show and frolic and madcap doings of the people. It is a little older than they.
The furlough men are wild with joy and expectation; the plebs have grown two inches since May. Second classmen are sporting imaginary chevrons (the nearest some of them will come to it); and the almost graduates walk at ease, kings in their own right. Bewitching damsels repeat the question, "O, where do you expect to be stationed?" But alas, the reply is not always, "Anywhere—with you!" That might have been in yearling camp; but things have changed; cadet limits are down; and Choice opens its eyes and waits.
In fact, there is need of some sober sense just now. For with the looming up of Fort Grant or Custer; Barrancas, Camp Assiniboine, or San Carlos: comes also the question of comforts and climates. These delicate creatures can walk all day and dance all night in West Point air. But what will their high heels do at Huachuca? and how will their fair cheeks stand the heat at Eagle Pass? Are they brave to be left with only soldier attendants when the young lieutenant is ordered off on a scout after Indians? Can they make bread, where the baker does not come round? and keep their sweet patience when some "ranking" new arrival swoops down upon their pretty quarters, and bids them move? Or again, what if the modest pay of a second-lieutenant should not comport with twenty-dollar bonnets?
Such questions go for little, when it's "a girl I have known for fifteen years"; but they press rather hard upon last week's acquaintance. No wonder many a face in the class looks thoughtful. And no wonder, either, that there are so many last leave-taking walks, for just the fair outlines and the grand old river, near and among which the men have won their shoulder-straps.