"Are ye all ready?"
"Yes, and waiting."
"Then, genl'men, Fall in!" exclaimed the sergeant, the first two words being uttered in his natural voice, but the last in an awful sepulchral tone, like two raps on the base kettle drum. Off duty, Jerry rather resembled a toy soldier, but when in giving his orders he stiffened his body, threw up his head, and stuck out his hands, he looked so like the wooden figures out of Noah's ark, that the boys burst into a shout of laughter.
"Now, genl'men," exclaimed Jerry in a severe tone, "this won't do. Silence in the ranks. Squad! 'Shun. The fust manoover I shel teach you, genl'men, is the manoover of 'parade rest.' Now look at me, and do as I do."
Anybody would have supposed, naturally enough, that to stand at rest meant to put your hands in your pockets and lean against a tree; but what Jerry did, was to slap his right hand against his left, like a torpedo going off, and fold them together; stick out his left foot, lean heavily upon his right, and look more like a Dutch doll than ever.
The boys accordingly endeavored to imitate this performance; but when they came to try it, a difficulty arose. Whatever might be their usual ideas on the subject, there was a diversity of opinion now as to the proper foot to be advanced, and a wild uncertainty which was the left foot. The new soldiers shuffled backward and forward as if they were dancing hornpipes; while Jerry shouted, "Now, then, genl'men, I can't hear them hands come together smartly as I'd wished, not like a row of Jarsey cider bottles a poppin' one arter the other, but all at once. Now, then, SQUAD! 'SHUN!" in a voice of thunder, "Stan' at parade rest! No—no—them lef futs adwanced! Well if ever!" And Jerry in his indignation gave himself such a thump on his chest that he knocked all the breath out of his body, and had to wait some moments before he could go on; while the boys, bubbling over with fun, took his scoldings in high good humor, and shrieked with laughter at their own ridiculous blunders, to the high wrath of their ancient instructor; who was so deeply interested and in earnest about his pursuit, that he didn't fail to lecture them well for their "insubornation;" which, indeed, nobody minded, except Tom Pringle, who, by the by, was from Maryland, and many of whose relations were down South. He had been looking rather sulky from the beginning of the drill, and now suddenly stepped from his place in the ranks, exclaiming, "I won't play! now I vow I won't!"
"Why, Tom, what is the matter? Are you mad at us?" cried half a dozen voices at once.
"Humm—" grumbled sulky Tom.
"What say? I can't hear you," said Freddy. "Nonsense, Tom, don't be poky, come back and drill."
"I won't! Let us alone, will you?"