The four rifles, barrels to the front, were stood erect, the butt of each in its wooden socket at the back of the floor, the muzzle poked through a hole in the wooden shelf fastened about four feet from the ground on the rear tent pole. The white webbing belts, supporting the cartridge-box and bayonet-scabbard, were hung on pegs projecting from the wooden shelf. Shoes, "neatly blacked and dusted at all times," were aligned at the back of the floor, toes to the front. Such books as were allowed were piled on the floor at the back end of the locker. All woollen uniforms, overcoats, rubber coats, etc., were to be hung on the hanging-pole. All white trousers, sheets, underclothing, collars, cuffs, gloves, etc., to be stored, each man's in his own locker. Brushes, combs, shaving utensils were stuck in loops tacked on the inside of each lid. The black full-dress shakos were, when procured, to be neatly placed on the shelf of the rear pole, ornaments to the front, and forage-caps hung on the owners' pegs. There was a place, howsoever small, for everything, and everything was to be kept in its place.
By the time the first drum was beating for troop parade everything was in spick-span order. The officers had gone about their duties, and a group of yearlings, looking as though each and every one had just stepped from a bandbox, so far as his dress and equipments were concerned, quickly formed in the company ground in front of the newly occupied "plebe hotels," the very imp of mischief grinning in the sun-tanned faces of the younger and more boyish members, but one and all full of the liveliest interest in the appearance of the new-comers and their household affairs. Comment and criticism, advice and suggestions, more or less valuable, were showered on every plebe; but even while silently and good-humoredly submitting to his fire of remarks, Pops could plainly see that no tent was so surrounded as their own. It really seemed as though every Third Class man and many a senior in Company B, reinforced by strong detachments from other companies, had come to claim the acquaintance of Major-General Frazier, and furthermore that the luckless Benny, instead of maintaining good-humored reticence, and speaking only when he had to, was rapidly adding to the array of charges laid at his door by trying to be smart in reply. The sudden batter of the second drum transferred the laughing, chaffing crowd into two silent, statuesque ranks, and for the rest of that momentous hour, while doing his best to give his whole thought to drill and duty, Geordie Graham found himself thinking, "Just won't we catch it to-night!"
CHAPTER V
The dusk of evening had fallen on the Point when the battalion broke ranks, returning from supper. A few minutes later, a hundred strong, came the column of plebes, marching by fours, looking even more than usually sombre now in their suits of gray, contrasting with the white trousers and natty bell-buttoned coatees of the corps, and feeling, doubtless, more than usually solemn in anticipation of the possible experiences ahead of them. First night of plebe camp is a thing not soon to be forgotten, even in these days when pitchy darkness no longer shrouds the pranks of the yearlings, and official vigilance and protection have replaced what really seemed tacit encouragement and consent of over thirty years ago. Then it was no uncommon thing for the new cadet to be dragged out ("yanked," was the expression in vogue) and slid around camp on his dust-covered blanket twenty times a night, dumped into Fort Clinton ditch, tossed in a tent-fly, half smothered in the folds of his canvas home, tumbled by his tormentors about his ears, ridden on a tent pole or in a rickety wheelbarrow, smoked out by some vile, slow-burning pyrotechnic compound, robbed of rest and sleep, at the very least, after he had been alternately drilled and worked all the livelong day. Verily, the hardening process of the early sixties was a thing that might well be frowned down upon and stamped out, but it took stringent measures to effect it. In great measure the deviling system was, so far as its most harmful features were concerned, but the ghost of its old self when Ralph McCrea entered the Academy just after the Centennial year. Then little by little means were taken to make the process still more difficult to the perpetrators, until twenty years after the War of the Rebellion hazing became indeed hazardous. Officers were kept on duty and on the alert in camp at all hours. Gas-lamps were placed along the sentry post. In every way the authorities could foresee the plebe was protected from the more active torment of the old days. But so long as boys will be boys some modification must exist; and as for the year of probation which the new-comer must pass—the year in which he is taught in every conceivable way that he is a creature far apart from the rest of the corps, a being to be drilled, trained, disciplined, badgered, even at times bullied—it is really a year of most valuable experiences, perhaps the most valuable of the four. It is this that teaches him that no matter what may be the wealth or social standing of his relatives, he is no better than the humblest clodhopper of his class. It is this year that teaches him to look to his own class-mates and no others for comrades and chums. It is this that teaches him silence, patience, and fortitude. Nine out of ten of the plebes and their relatives pronounce it inhuman and barbarous so long as it applies to them or theirs. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, however, uphold it so soon as their plebehood is done.
All this George Graham fully understood, and was ready to bear his part in without a murmur. Not so his friend Benny. That young gentleman had been too long the prize boy at school and the spoiled boy at home to "come down gracefully." Nothing could convince him that the cadet officers had not shown outrageous partiality to Graham and abominable malice towards himself in the matter of advancement in the school of the soldier. It was worse still when Connell stepped up into the first squad. But now, argued Frazier, we're all starting fresh again. We're all on a level to-day as B Company plebes, but the moment we are completely uniformed and relieved from squad drill under such brutes as Loring and Flint, and with our own company officers, I'll soon show them I know a trick or two far beyond them. But the golden gift of silence was something beyond Benny Frazier, and he couldn't keep his hopeful predictions or his boyish boasts to himself. He had attracted at the outset the attention of the whole class of yearlings, and, just as Graham expected, their house-warming was all too well attended.
Two minutes after their return from supper this particular "plebe hotel" was surrounded. The yearlings in force had come to call on Major-General Frazier. No noise was made. Nothing, on their part, at least, occurred to attract the attention of the army officers in charge or the cadet officers of the guard. Indeed, the latter are most apt to be particularly deaf at such times. The darkness gathered no more quickly, no more noiselessly, than did the crowd. And doffing their natty forage-caps, bowing with exaggerated politeness, cadets Cramer, Cresswell, Daggett, Driggs, Elton, etc.—one might go alphabetically through the list of the Third Class and hardly miss a name—begged the honor of an interview.
Benny, standing well back within the tent, his hand on his heart, bowed, smiled, and protested that nothing would give him greater delight than to meet the entire class; expressed his sense of the high honor paid him, regretted that his quarters were so contracted that he could not invite them in, and was thereupon invited out, but begged to be excused. Connell was lighting the candle, and Graham, seated on the locker, was whimsically wondering what form the mischief would take, when the broom came up from behind the locker in most mysterious fashion. Match and candle both went out, and an instant later so did Benny, projected by some mysterious force from behind.
Pops and Connell were conscious of the sudden arrival from under the tent wall of three or four shadowy forms, and of smothered laughter as Benny shot forward into the company street, to be instantly ingulfed in a swarm of active young fellows in gray and white, through whom it was impossible to break away. In an instant he was standing attention, heels clamped together, knees straight, and with anything but stiffness, for they were trembling violently, shoulders and elbows forced back, little fingers on the seam of the trousers, head high, and eyes straight to the front—the attitude of the soldier in the presence of his superior officers as interpreted by his natural enemies, the old cadets. And then began the mad confusion of question, comment, and criticism; dozens talking eagerly at once, and all demanding reply, still making very little noise. The suppressed tones could hardly be heard beyond the company streets.