There are tears as well as smiles, on that fateful day in June. Here is a mother, who, having had her son within easy reach for the last four years, knows that now, after the short graduation leave, he will be whirled away beyond her ken. To Barrancas, it may be, or Huachuca, or Indian Territory. So the mother breaks down and cries visibly.
And here are roommates, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in all sorts of hardships, now henceforth, until, they are grey-haired men, to live as far apart as this broad country can put them; and it is a sobering thought.
Then, this pretty, timid girl, who has ventured her heart on the insecure ground of cadet soft speeches; or thought out her wedding dress after one particular walk around Flirtation; or tried the class ring on one of her own slender fingers, without being asked to keep it there.
"Oh, it is too dreadful!" she cries, stamping her little foot, and with the tears all ready, when that heartless band fall off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me." "I can not see what they find in that old tune."
It goes hard with her, sometimes, poor child, in matter of health.
And sometimes a like hope is laid down with the grey, and the blue must seek another charmer; and earth is—henceforth and comparatively—a desert. All sorts of things happen at graduation; and when you hear an eager, "You will be sure to come back in August," it does not follow that he will, or that she will wait for him if he does.
But there was no shallow sentiment about Mr. Upright. On the day of his graduation, the young first captain, having put off his cadet honours and come out in plain "cits," went down to the mess-hall dinner to look round the old place once more, and to speak farewell words to his own company and the Corps. Magnus Kindred caught his eye and smile, and started a yell for Mr. Upright, which quite cut short that young man's power to say much; but every word had the resonance of true metal.
"'Quit you like men! be strong.' 'Strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might,'" he said; vainly trying to shake all the hands held out to him. But if the tones faltered, the meaning was full strung, and Magnus once more opened his eyes, and looked at himself and his doings. And the more he looked, the less he liked it.
It was a good day for feeling blue. The sudden quiet, the cut-down numbers; envy of the furlough men, and to a degree, of the graduates, made men restless and dull. No drill, no parade, and not even "a plank" left of the Board of Visitors. Not even many girls to look at; for half the Post, and three-tenths of the visitors, had sailed away with the gay throng on the down boat, and candidates swarmed everywhere.
Magnus Kindred strolled off by himself to the river edge, sat down and looked himself over.