Suddenly, just after the second lesson, while the rich ringing voices of the soldier choir were chanting the "Gloria," little Jim was seen to bow his head and burrow for his handkerchief. Dwight looked down, bent over him, whispered a word or two, smiled encouragement and fond assurance, and, blushing very much, with downcast eyes and his face half hidden in cambric, the lad came forth and hastened down the aisle and out into the brilliant sunshine beyond.
"Nose-bleed," whispered Dwight to Mrs. Stone, who leaned back, sympathetically, from her pew. "It sometimes seizes him just that way."
And the stately service went uninterruptedly on, and Jimmy over home, and little more was said of the incident until the coming of another day.
CHAPTER VIII
ACCUSING LETTERS
For a week Miss Priscilla Sanford had been in a state of mind bordering on the ecstatic. For months letters of portentous size, bearing the stamp of a great and powerful organization of Christian women, had been left at her door, and many an hour had that energetic maiden been devoting to correspondence with boards, committees, secretaries, etc., adding much to the burden of the mail orderly, and not a little to his malevolence. A dour and unsocial Scot was McPherson, as he called himself, but there was wisdom in the selection, for Kennedy, his predecessor, was as genial as Mac was glum, and Kennedy's fall from grace was due mainly to his amiable weakness for the opposite sex, a trait that had led to his lingering far too long in the early spring mornings—and many a "storm house"—along the row, and to concomitant complaint. Letters delayed, letters even diverted from their proper destination, had been all too often charged to him, for more than one housemaid, not to mention a mistress or two, was possessed of a devil of curiosity as to the correspondence of many another, and Kennedy was too much interested in all of them to be austere. Not so McPherson. There was not another of his clan, there were but three of his nationality, in the entire garrison, for seldom, save under the flag of Great Britain, is the Scot in peace time a soldier. Mac had served his native country in the "Forty Twa"; had come to the States a time-expired man; had met his fate, married, and been bereft and deserted within two years, and, like many another man, he had sought in the profession of arms the peace denied him at the domestic fireside. Uncle Sam employs no recruiting solicitors; he needs none, for the petticoat drives to his ranks more men than he will take. Something of Mac's history was made known to his colonel, and when Kennedy had to be replaced, although Mac had not been a year in the regiment, Stone issued his mandate. "There's the man for the place," said he to the adjutant. "There'll be no peeping and prying with that red-headed Sawny in charge."
Priscilla had not been slow to note the substitution, nor to divine the cause. Priscilla had much disapproved of Kennedy, and Kennedy of her. "That prayin', pryin', pesterin' old maid beyant," he described her to the surgeon's becapped and bewitching Kathleen, the belle of the non-commissioned officers' ball. Priscilla found in Presbyterian Mac a far more promising subject, and was aggrieved and dismayed at her lack of success. McPherson would only stand at salute, frigidly respectful, but as icily impenetrable. Mac scented mischief at the outset. He had heard much among the men about Miss Sanford's kindergarten, the Bible class, the prayer meetings, and her persistent preachings against the Canteen. Now, Mac himself disapproved of that institution, and hearing of this—I fear me Sandy told her, and for motives altogether mischievous—Miss Sanford had lain in wait for Mac, and held him one brief moment in converse at the door. The story of that episode delighted Minneconjou and the minority, let us say, when it was later told in Congress.
"I'm so glad to hear, McPherson," said Miss Sanford, beaming upon him, as she took from his hand the little packet of letters, "that you, too, are one of the right sort of soldiers. Now, tell me why you disapprove of the Canteen," for Priscilla was sending that day another long letter of experiences to the Banner of Light; and the reply came, prompt, unflinching, uncompromising, but—most unsatisfactory:
"Because, mem, ye canna get a drap o' whusky."