“I’m afraid mine are going to be too big for me,” remarked one newly enlisted lad, who was rather small, though not below the standard.
“There’s a tailor right here on the premises, who’ll make them fit you like the paper on the wall,” said the officer. “And that’s one thing you boys might as well learn first as last. You’ve got to look neat while you’re working for Uncle Sam. He’ll do his part in giving you good clothes and the means to keep them in order. The rest is up to you.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” remarked Frank.
“Same here,” agreed his brother. “If there’s anything I like, it’s to be clean and neat.”
They had both been brought up that way.
If Ned and Frank had imagined that now they had received their outfit of clothing, there was nothing more to be done for a time, they were disappointed, for the petty officer, having arranged with the tailor to make certain alterations in some of the garments, told the recruits they would now be expected to mark each of their articles of wearing apparel with a stencil, so that each one would always know which was his.
“And when that is done you’ll have a few instructions in folding your things and stowing them away in your bag.”
“Fold our things!” exclaimed Ned. “Why can’t we hang them up? They’ll get all wrinkled if we fold them.”
“Not if you fold them the way I show you,” was the reply.
The officer then led the new recruits to the barracks, where each one was assigned to a certain hammock in the dormitory on the second floor. There were hammock hooks on the walls, just as there are on board a ship, and in a little while Ned, Frank and the others, after they had stenciled their clothes, were shown how to unlash the hammocks which were trussed up neatly out of the way.