From Headquarters: Odd Tales Picked up in the Volunteer Service

by James A. Frye

Yes, it was a great and ruby-lettered day for "A"—the day when Larry came to it—and in all its long history its quarters never were kept so neat and clean, and its officers and men never were entertained so well as they have been since he began his genial reign. And it was a great day for the regiment when our "seventh major" joined—for Stearns' nickname of "Major" Callahan has been adopted officially—because Larry's fame has gone abroad in the land, and his deeds have added new lustre to the name of the Third.

Larry had been with us a little over a year when his great opportunity came to him. It was on a certain night when "A" had made arrangements for a smoke-talk, up in quarters—for Captain Stearns had met at his club one Lieutenant Hackett, of the regular cavalry, whom he had induced, after much patient persuasion, to come over to the armory and informally talk to the boys on the delights and discomforts of chasing Indians around through the Bad Lands.

Now, much as Larry respected his own corps, he held the regulars in even higher esteem, for he always had heard "The Army" held up as a pattern of all that is, in a military sense, good-and-holy and generally worthy of imitation by the hard-working and much-cursed-at volunteer. So when it came to his ears that a regular officer—and one, too, who actually had seen holes shot through people!—really was going to honor his domain by his presence, he went to work with even greater energy than he had displayed at inspection time, and accomplished a house-cleaning such as would have warmed the heart of any New England matron to witness.

First he swept the floor, and then he dusted from the furniture the dust which had been raised by that operation, and then he swept up again the dust which the dusting had caused to return to the carpet—and then he paused, reflecting that, in the nature of things, he might continue this alternation forever unless he stopped. So, after a final dusting, he bent his energies to the arrangement of the chairs, marshalling them in ranks of military rigidity, and squinting critically along each row—muttering, "Back in de center, dere!" or "Up on de left, dad-gast-yer-shoulder-blades!" as he rectified the alignment. Then he polished the glasses of the pictures which form the nondescript art-gallery of the company; and finally he put the crowning touch to his afternoon's work by brushing the plush cushions of the great, carved chair in which the captain seats himself on occasions of state and ceremony.

He had been so busy that he had allowed his supper-hour to slip by unheeded, and when he happened to glance up at the clock he gave a low whistle of surprise, and said to himself, "Quarter pas' sev'n? Wow! how de time's be'n humpin' along? Well, I s'pose I might's well skip me grub now: de boys'll be showin' up in less 'n a shake."

He had given one last critical glance around the room and was turning towards the door, when his eye fell upon the great, wrought-iron lamp which the company rifle-team had won, a couple of years before, in a match with "K," of the Fourth, and suddenly he remembered that the oil in it nearly had been burned out. Now, the boys of "A" regard that lamp with particular affection, because it was won in a contest to which they had been egged-on by a series of peculiarly exasperating events; and it has become a time-honored custom of the company to have the lamp a-glow on every occasion when its members are assembled by night. So Major Larry, knowing that the absence of its cheerful rays would rouse the wrath of the company kickers, picked up the heavy mass of iron, and lugged it into the equipment-room.

Here he filled the lamp, polished the chimney, trimmed the wick, lighted it, and had raised his burden to carry it back to its place—when, in some unexplained way, he lost his grip upon it, and the whole heavy affair went crashing down upon the floor. In an instant the scattered oil was in a blaze, and as Larry stood there, horrified at his mishap, he saw the creeping tongues of flame beginning to lick their way up the varnished woodwork of the nearest lockers. In two jumps he was at the door: a dozen steps more brought him, yelling "Fire!" at the top-pitch of his voice, out into the corridor—and then there came to him a thought that almost stilled the beating of his heart.

"Good Gawd!" he gasped, stopping short in his tracks, "dey's five hundred round o' ca'tridge an' a ten-pound canister o' powder in de nex' locker to de one dat's burnin'—an' de door's locked! Oh, what'll I do—what'll I do!"