Cadet Days: A Story of West Point

by Charles King

"But I'm not in yet, Sergeant," laughed Geordie. "There is Mr. Breifogle to be considered. If he passes, there'll be no room for me; and if he fails, why, I may too. In that event, I'll have to come back and 'list just as soon as I'm eighteen."

And yet Geordie felt no such misgiving as he sat silently in the dark corner of the ambulance, choking down some troublesome lumps that had risen in his throat, and made his eyes blind as his mother's arms were unclasped about his neck. The principal of the school which young Breifogle had been attending for two years had told Mr. McCrea that the boy was neither apt nor studious, that he had twice failed in his examinations for promotion to higher grade, and that only after infinite pains and much help had he been able to answer the sample questions enclosed with his letter of appointment. When asked why old Mr. Breifogle did not withdraw his son from a race in which he had no chance, the master laughed.

"Breifogle is like a great many of our people who have become suddenly rich," said he. "He thinks money and a political pull will do anything. He refuses to believe that West Point is governed by rules that even the President cannot violate. He is confident that all that is necessary is for him to go on with Fritz in June, and the examiners will not dare reject him, especially if Congressman Pierce is there, too."

Now this was no exaggeration. Mr. Breifogle really thought it a very unjustifiable thing in an army officer, supporting a family on so small a salary, to undergo the expense of sending George all the way to West Point and back, for back he felt sure he would have to come. It was still worse to send him ahead of time and pay board and school bills. He and Fritz would not go until June.

"I'm really sorry for the old fellow," said McCrea; "he's so thoroughly earnest and honest in his convictions. It isn't his fault, either. It is part of the stock in trade of many politicians to make their constituents believe that for the benefit of their special friends they have it in their power to set aside laws, rules, or regulations. I haven't a doubt that Pierce has made the old man believe he 'stands' in with the Secretary of War and the Superintendent of the Academy, and that Fritz will go through West Point with flying colors. It will cost Breifogle nearly a thousand dollars to find out his mistake."

This was several years ago, it must be remembered, in the days when all candidates were required to present themselves for examination at the Point instead of appearing before boards of army officers at convenient garrisons throughout the country, as is the case to-day.

"No, Geordie, my boy," said McCrea, in conclusion, "I don't like to take comfort in another man's misfortunes, but there is no chance whatever for young Breifogle and every chance for you. All you have to do is study and you'll win. I have said as much to the old man, for he stopped me at the bank the other day and asked what I thought of the case, and I told him frankly. For a moment he looked downcast; then he brightened up all of a sudden, laid his finger alongside his nose, and winked at me profoundly. 'Vell, you yust vait a leetle,' he said, and turned away. I've no doubt he thinks I'm only trying to bluff him out in your interest."

Two days more, and George, standing on the rear platform of the Pullman, looking down with no little awe upon the swollen, turbid, ice-whirling waters of the Missouri, far beneath the splendid spans of the great railway bridge. Another day, and his train seemed to be rolling through miles of city streets and squares before it was finally brought to a stand under the grimy roof of the station at Chicago. Here from the windows of the rattling omnibus that bore him across the town to the depot of the Michigan Central he gazed in wonderment at the height of the buildings on every side. Early the next morning he was up and dressed, and just before sunrise stepped out on the wooden staging at Falls View, listening to the voice and seeing for the first time the beauty and grandeur of Niagara. A few minutes later, looking from the car window, he seemed to be sailing in mid-air over some tremendous gorge, in whose depths a broad torrent of deep green water, flecked with foam and tossing huge crunching masses of ice, went roaring away beneath him. Such a letter as he wrote to mother that morning, as hour after hour he sped along eastward over bands of glistening steel, flying like the wind, yet so smoothly that his pen hardly shook. Think what a revelation it must have been to that frontier-bred boy, whose whole life had been spent among the mountains or prairies of the Far West, to ride all the morning long through one great city after another, through the heart of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. The Mohawk Valley seemed one long village to him, so unaccustomed were his eyes to country thickly settled. The Hudson, still fettered with ice above the railway bridge and just opening below, set his heart to beating, for now West Point lay but a hundred miles away. How the train seemed to whiz along those bold, beautiful shores, undulating at first, but soon becoming precipitous and rocky! Many people gazed from the westward windows at the snow-covered Catskills as the afternoon began to wane; but Geordie had seen mountains beside which these were but hillocks. The clustering towns, the frequent rush of engines and cars, the ever-increasing bustle, however, impressed him greatly. Every now and then his train fairly shot past stations where crowds of people stood waiting.

"Didn't they want to get on?" he asked the Pullman porter.