“Why, what’s the matter?” inquired Don. “Have we done anything wrong?”
“I should say so. Why didn’t you douse your glim? Did you not hear the signal?”
“We heard a drum, if that’s what you mean,” said Bert.
“That was ‘taps,’ and it meant ‘lights out.’ Put that lamp out at once.”
“We’ll do it just as soon as we get ready for bed,” replied Bert, jumping up and pulling off his coat.
“Put it out, I tell you,” exclaimed the sentry. “Put it out now, and undress in the dark, as the rest of the fellows do. You had better take my advice and slumber lightly, for after the morning gun is fired you will have just six minutes in which to get into your clothes and fall in for roll-call. Pleasant dreams.”
“Humph!” said Bert, as the sentry closed the door and went out into the hall to inspect the other rooms. “How can a fellow’s dreams be pleasant when he knows that he is going to be reported in the morning? This is a bad beginning, Don. Although we have not been here twenty-four hours, we have got ourselves[ourselves] into trouble already.”
This reflection worried Bert, who always tried hard to obey the rules of the school he attended, and considered himself disgraced if he were taken to task for violating any of them; but it had no more effect upon Don than water has on a duck’s back. He tumbled into bed and slept soundly, while Bert, who was very much afraid that he might not hear the morning gun, lay awake during the greater part of the night. Toward morning he sank into a troubled slumber, from which the solemn booming of the field-piece aroused him.
He and Don were out on the floor and putting on their clothes before the deep-toned reverberations that came from the hills on the other side of the river had fairly died away. There was no time lost in stretching and yawning—not a second wasted in waking up. The drums were beating in the drill-room, and the fifes were shrilly piping forth the first strains of the three tunes that constituted the morning call. Before the second tune was finished, Don and Bert, following the lead of the crowd of students they found in the hall, ran into the drill-room and took their places in line.
There were four companies in all, each one numbering, when the school was full, seventy-five members. They were all officered by boys, the highest in rank being the lieutenant-colonel, while the superintendent of the academy, or one of the instructors, acted as commandant of the battalion. The companies were drawn up on the four sides of the spacious drill-room, in which all the battalion and company exercises and ceremonies were held during bad weather, the members standing at “parade rest.” In front of each company stood the upright, soldierly figure of the first sergeant, note-book in hand. Behind him stood his boy captain, while the officer of the day, his arms folded across his breast, critically surveyed the scene from his post near the door. The instant the last notes of the reveille died away business commenced.