“Then keep still about it!”
“Say, I’ve got a right to kick if I want to, as long as I get up when the bugle calls,” declared Bob. “It’s the constitutional right of a free-born American citizen to kick, and I’m doing it!”
“Showing you how much like the mule an otherwise perfectly good fellow can become,” murmured Ned, and then he had to duck to get out of the way of a shoe that Bob tossed at him.
“Come on, fellows! Hustle!” called a non-commissioned officer, thrusting his head in the doorway of the tent where the boys were dressing. “Roll call soon!”
“We’ll be there,” announced Ned. “I hope we get shifted to one of the barracks to-day,” he went on. “It’s a bit damp in this tent.”
“Yes, a wooden shack will be better,” agreed Jerry.
Most of the new arrivals were in the wooden buildings, but in the hurry and confusion of the day before, some had to be assigned temporarily to tents. New barracks were in the course of construction, however, to accommodate the constantly growing number of volunteers. Later the great camps would be filled with the men of the draft.
When Ned had finished his hasty dressing, he strolled over to look at the posted notice in the tent, which gave a list of the day’s duties and the hours for drills. The bulletin was headed “Service Roll Calls.”
The first thing in the order of the day is reveille, but this is preceded by what is known as “First call.” This is sounded at 5:45 in the morning, rather an early hour, as almost any one but a milkman will concede. But one gets used to it, as Bob said later.