The general smiled, but said nothing until they reached home and the boys began to get ready to go back to the academy at the beginning of the school year. Then he tried to make them understand that “easy times” were entirely unknown in Bridgeport; that the instructors, although they were “good-natured” enough to the guests they met while in camp, were the sternest and most inflexible of disciplinarians in the barracks; and that there was as wide a gulf between them and the students as there was between the officers and privates in the army. Somehow Don could not bring himself to believe it, but before many months more had passed over his head he found out that his father knew what he was talking about. He made his mother the most solemn promises in regard to his behavior, assuring her that he had been in “scrapes” enough, and that henceforth he would give her and his teachers no trouble; and when he made those promises he was fully resolved to live up to them. He was then entirely unacquainted with the temptations that fell to the lot of a Bridgeport student. Cony Ryan’s pancakes and surreptitious sleigh-rides had no charms for him, neither had the guard-house and extra duty any terrors, because he did not know that there were any such things. But they were soon brought to his notice, and perhaps we shall see how he kept his promises after that.
The night of the 15th of January found Don and Bert installed in their room in the academy. It was large enough to accommodate two single beds, a steam-heater, a washstand, a table, and two chairs. At the foot of each bed was a small cupboard, in which they were to keep their uniforms, after they got them, and also their officers’ swords, if they were fortunate enough to win them at the next examination. Bert was poring over his French lesson, while Don, who was more than a year ahead of his class in all his studies, was reading the “Rules and Regulations” that hung upon the wall. There were fifty rooms on that floor, all occupied by boys who were supposed to be studying their lessons for the morrow. The only sound that broke the stillness was a steady tramping in the hall.
“I wish that fellow, whoever he is, would go into his room and keep still,” said Bert, after he had waited a long time for the tramping to cease.
“He’ll not go away until he is relieved,” replied Don. “He is a sentry. I have just been reading about him. He has charge of all the rooms on this floor, and it is his duty to suppress all loud talking or laughing, and to inspect the rooms occasionally to see that the occupants have not slipped out.”
“Where would they go if they did slip out?” asked Bert.
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied Don, as he walked up to the heater and held his hands over it. “Neither do I see why one should want to leave a comfortable room like this to parade around in the deep snow, even if there were a place to go to pass the evening. It’s fearful cold up here in this country, isn’t it?”
When Don and Bert left their Southern home the air was balmy, the birds were singing, a few early flowers were beginning to bud under the genial influence of the sun, and they earned their overcoats done up in shawl-straps; but long before they reached their journey’s end they had put on all their heaviest clothing, and when the train brought them into Bridgeport they found the streets blocked with snow, and the river covered with a sheet of ice that was fourteen inches in thickness. The dreary winter scene that met their gaze every time they looked out of the academy windows made them shiver involuntarily, and it was no wonder that they wanted to hug the fire.
“Suppose that sentry should find a room empty when he looked into it?” said Bert, without replying to his brother’s question. “What then?”
“It would be his duty to report the owners,” said Don.
“That looks almost too much like tale-bearing,” answered Bert. “I don’t like the idea; do you?”