“So, mein sohn, you haf a brave heart.”
“What’s the use of having anything else, I’d like to know, as long as it can’t be helped,” was Leon’s comment, when he told Harry of the old German’s praise. “It’s worth all the bother of it to be fed up as I am, and have all you fellows at my feet, to say nothing of the lieutenant and old Bony himself. If ’twasn’t quite such splendid coasting, I shouldn’t be in any hurry to get on my feet again. I do hope daddy’ll let me come right back after the holidays, though, and not make me wait till I’m over it.”
A day or two later, several of the cadets were strolling back from the armory where they had their afternoon drill, now that the storms had made the parade-ground unfit for use. Leon was with them, for he had been over to look on, a little enviously, it must be confessed, for the drill under Lieutenant Wilde had been his delight, and this was the first time he had seen it since his loss of promotion, a month before. The boys came slowly along, adapting their pace to his rather uncertain one. As they reached the steps of Old Flemming, Leon dropped down there in the warm sunshine. The others followed his example.
“It doesn’t seem as if ’twere almost Christmas; does it?” asked Alex, turning up his collar to keep out the wind, and then bending down to do the same by Leon, who sat on the step below him.
During the past month, a strong intimacy had sprung up between the two cadets, so far apart in age. Next to Harry, Leon adored Alex as a superior being, and was never quite so happy as when in his society. Alex, on his side, had been attracted from the first by Leon’s wide-awake manner and frank, open nature. Then came the boy’s accident, and Alex had been completely won by his pluck and uncomplaining endurance. He had been most unselfish with him, giving up many an out-of-door frolic to stay with him, until even Harry was half-jealous at times, and laughingly protested that Alex was cutting him out.
“Thanks, old fellow,” said Leon, turning around, as he felt the hand on his collar. “I don’t feel in any great hurry for vacation; I’m well enough off here,” he added contentedly.
“You might petition the doctor to keep right on,” suggested Max wickedly, while he appropriated one of Leon’s crutches to knock down an icicle near by.
“No,” said Leon meditatively; “I don’t know as I mind going home for a few days for a change. What are you going to do, Alex?”
“Stay around here, somewhere,” answered Alex. “Vacation’s too short to make it worth while to go clear to Denver and back.”
“Not go home? H’m!” And Leon thoughtfully drew down his lips and raised his eyebrows, in unconscious imitation of Mr. Boniface.