Thus did friendliness give place to estrangement. The watermelons laid their heads together and assured Leonidas that he had acted in a proper and spirited manner. In Sergeant Jones they confided no longer, for which he was man enough to lay the blame where it belonged. He handsomely cursed the Secretary of War, but what good did that do?
Arrived at Fort Chiricahua, the recruits fell into safe hands, though not perhaps entirely wise ones. The post chaplain was an earnest preacher of the same denomination as the Rev. Tullius C. Smith, and delighted to surround Leonidas and his band with the same customs and influences which they had known at home. They were soon known throughout the post as “The Shouters.” This epithet came from their choir singing, which was no whit lessened by their new and not wholly religious environment. If Sergeant Jones or Captain Stone had looked for insubordination as a result of the Secretary’s speech, it was an agreeable disappointment. The recruits were punctual, they were clean, they were assiduous at drill, they showed intelligence, they were model, both as youths and soldiers, and nothing kept them from a more than common popularity in their various troops unless it was that they were a little too model for the taste of the average enlisted man. The parade-ground was constantly melodious with their week-day practising for Sabbath exercises. Sister Smith had sent them much music from home, and the post learned to admire “Moses in Egypt” as arranged by Sister Mingory and interpreted by the upper register of Leonidas.
One person there was whom the strains of psalmody, as they floated from the open windows of the school-room, did not wholly please. Captain Stone disapproved of his Gwendolen’s spending so much time alone with the melodeon and Leonidas. Almost as fittingly might a Senator’s wife sing duets with her coachman, and all the ladies of the Post knew this—excepting Gwendolen! But he could not forbid her, at least not yet. Was she not his bride of scarce three months? In this new army world, where he had brought her so far from everything that she had always known, how could he deprive her of one great resource, he who had cut her off from so many? Time would steadily teach her the conduct suitable for an officer’s wife, and then of her own accord she would put the proper distance between herself and the enlisted men.
“It is so unexpected, Joshua,” she said once, “such an unexpected joy to be able to keep a good influence around those poor boys.”
“What do you call them poor boys for?” inquired the captain.
“To come into so many temptations so far from home!” she exclaimed.
“They’re not going to have you and the chaplain and the organ all their lives, Gwendolen.”
“Now, Joshua, keep your mustache down! The Secretary of War—don’t swear so dreadfully, darling! Don’t!” And the bride stopped her lord’s lips with her hand. “I won’t mention him any more,” she promised. “I must run now, or I’ll be late for practising next Sunday’s anthem with Leonidas Bateau.”
Left on the porch of his quarters, the captain made the same remark about next Sunday’s anthem that he had made about the Secretary of War; but Gwendolen, having departed, did not hear him, and soon from the open windows of the school-house floated the chords of the melodeon with a chorus led by Cousin Xerxes, and a solo on an upper register,
How little do I love this vale of teahs.