Читать книгу West Point Colors - Anna Bartlett Warner - Страница 7

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The man that wants me is the man I want.

—Dr. Edward Payson.

"This seat is not engaged? You are not expecting a companion?" the stranger said as he sat down.

"No, sir, I have nobody to expect," said Magnus, his tone making the answer broader than the question.

"Nobody to expect?" Mr. Wayne repeated the words, then went on softly to himself, yet just so that Magnus caught the sound, "'My soul, wait thou upon God, for my expectation is from him.'"

"Where does this train stop for supper?" he said abruptly, after a minute or two.

"They had supper at Beaver Junction."

"So, so! Just where I got in. Have you had yours?"

"No, sir. I didn't want any."

"Well, you and I wear our family likeness with a difference," said Mr. Wayne. "I have had no supper either, but I want it. They used to stop at Edenton. Been a change, I suppose, since the extension of the road."

He rose up and went to the further end of the car, where the conductor was taking a minute's rest; coming back with the word that another chance for refreshments would be at Centerville Junction, where they had to wait for the train from Combination.

"Then you and I will go and sup together," he said.

"I don't want any supper," the boy repeated.

"What's the matter? You're not sick?" and the keen eyes made a closer survey.

"No, indeed, sir."

"The home station is close at hand, then, is it?"

"No, sir. It will not be near me for two years," said Magnus, trying to speak with the proper pride of a young man off on his travels, and far from home, but the boyish voice betraying itself and him.

"Two years!" Mr. Wayne repeated; adding with a breath that was almost a groan, "Two years out of sight of home! You are going to West Point?" he said the next minute in his quick way.

"Yes, sir. But how did you know?" said the boy, rousing up in his surprise.

"Yankees aren't worth a red cent if they can't guess," said Mr. Wayne, smiling. "Well, that settles the question of supper. If you get to West Point in a die-away condition, they'll not take you in; and you will see the home station quicker than you care about, maybe. The first thing they'll tell you at West Point will be to 'brace up,' so you'd better do a little at it before you get there."

If Magnus was half ready to resent the words he could not, for the merry glance that went with them.

"Were you ever at West Point, sir?"

"Often."

"Well, what sort of a place is it?" said Magnus, sitting straight up in his interest.

"One of the very loveliest places on this fair earth," said Mr. Wayne. "With hills and woods and river that you will lose your heart to, and never get it back."

"Nice people, too?" questioned Magnus.

"All sorts of people. As in every other bit of the world. All sorts."

"There is only one sort at home," said Magnus proudly.

"Ah, true! But home is the only exception. And so,

"Be it ever so homely,

There is no place like home."

"But even in the home neighbourhood, I think, you can remember varieties?"

"Yes, indeed," said Magnus, smiling. "Chaff Pointer said it was waste time for me to go to West Point, for he knew I'd never get through."

"Well, I'd prove that man a false prophet, if he does belong near home," said Mr. Wayne. "How did 'Chaff' get his name?"

"All the rest of the family are sound and good for something, and so everybody calls him 'Chaff,'" said Magnus.

Mr. Wayne laughed heartily. "All sorts there, too," he said. "But here is our ten-minute station. Come along. I invite you to be my guest, and when you are invited out to supper, you must go when you don't want to go, and eat when you are not hungry."

And Magnus laughed and followed. But to hurry into that brilliantly lighted room after a cheerful companion, and to eat all sorts of queer railway providings at railway speed, was a very different thing from munching his dry sandwich alone in the dusky car, and all the time seeing nothing but the dear fingers that put it up. Appetite came back, and spirits, with somewhat of the joyous sense of enterprise and novelty; confidence and liking for his new friend sprang up into life-size proportions, and it did not take long to tell over the whole little home story. It was such a comfort to speak to somebody.

And Mr. Wayne listened with deepest interest. He had meant to take a sleeper as soon as they left the Junction, but changed his purpose, and sat by the boy through all the hours of the night. Ready for words when Magnus roused up to speak them; and when the young eyes closed, and the young head sought intervals of rest against the hard, swaying back of the seat, then studying the boy with a face from which the laugh had vanished, and a grave, almost solemn, look came up to take its place.

"Good blood," so he muttered to himself, as he noted the clear skin and pure colour, "and well brought up"—for unmistakable lines of truth and intelligence marked the face. "Warm-hearted—almost—as a woman, and wilful enough for two! What will he do at West Point? and what will West Point do to him?"

The grave eyes were shielded, and from the kindly heart went up that longing petition of the Lord himself:

"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."

So the night wore on, with alternate snatches of talk and sleep, until the early dawn of the June day came swiftly up over the outside world.

"To-night I shall be at West Point," said Magnus, as the two new-made friends went back to their car after breakfast.

"Ordered to report to-day?"

"No, sir, not until Friday."

"Where will you stay to-night?"

"Oh, I cannot tell," said Magnus. "I don't know anybody nor anything at West Point. Oh, I suppose I'll find some place!"

"'Some place' is not always a good place. You had better stay in town with me to-night, and take an early morning train up river."

"Do you live in town, sir?"

"Not I! But I shall be there to-night."

Hotels and hotel bills were as yet unknown things to Magnus Kindred, and he entered into this plan with great alacrity; nor ever guessed, till he went home on furlough and put up at the same hotel, how large a part of his fare that night was paid by Mr. Wayne himself.

It was very late when the train ran into the big city, at least according to the standard at Barren Heights, but those weird old hands on the church steeples of New York count nothing "late" until it is two o'clock in the morning, and so in truth early once more.

Magnus felt quite sure that the rumble and roar would not let him sleep a wink, but after he had once closed his eyes, they never opened again until broad daylight.

The two friends roomed together. A big room, it seemed to Magnus, the two sides of which had each quite a retired privacy of its own. Mr. Wayne, writing letters under the gaslight, noted the boy's neat, orderly ways in all his preparations for bed. Magnus had sat reading his own private chapter first, not with haste, but with interest, and then they had had prayers together. Now, the boy knelt quietly by his own special bed, his face upon his arms, and once or twice there came a sound that brought the quick drops to Mr. Wayne's own eyes. But then Magnus called out his "Good-night, sir!" in a cheerful, resolved tone, which was all that could be wished.

In the morning the two walked up to the Grand Central together. There their ways parted, Mr. Wayne going off on the New Haven road, while Magnus checked his trunk for Garrisons and West Point.

"Magnus, what is going to be your dependence at West Point?" said Mr. Wayne, as they stepped along.

"Hard work, sir."

"Good," said Mr. Wayne. "And what for your hard work? How do you expect to keep yourself at it?"

"My own will, sir."

"Good again," said his friend. "And how is that will to be kept to its duty?"

"Mother says I'm self-willed enough for anything," said Magnus.

"Truly. But self-will and will-power are very different forces, and often come in sharp collision. Misguided steam is quite likely to blow up the whole concern."

"Well, sir, what can I do with my will but use it?" said the boy with some quickness.

"You can abuse it quite easily," said Mr. Wayne. "Turn it on the wrong things, fire it up in the wrong place. A soldier needs to have the 'governor' of his own private engine in excellent working order."

"I'm not a soldier yet," said Magnus, laughing, "and shall not be for four years."

"You will be one, to all intents, as soon as you are admitted at West Point. From that moment you are counted in the service of the United States, and under her orders. Bound to do her bidding, whether you like it or not, whether you understand it or not."

"Even if someone has blundered?" said Magnus with a half laugh.

"Even if someone has blundered. With that question you have nothing to do. Men will blunder now and then, at West Point as elsewhere, but that is no concern of yours. Uncle Sam's orders are to be obeyed, and neither the quality nor the quantity of them affects the thing in the least."

"That sounds hard," said Magnus.

"It is hard."

"And rather impossible to carry out, I should say," remarked Magnus with a boy's air of competent criticism.

"Nothing is impossible which ought to be done," said Mr. Wayne. "If the authorities at West Point did not disapprove of decorations, I would have that written up over your door in gilt letters."

"Disapprove!" Magnus repeated.

"Disapprove. A soldier's life has small time and place but for the absolute needs-be."

"Did you ever go through West Point, sir?" said Magnus with a wondering look at his new-found friend.

"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and a few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may come to."

Magnus stopped short and gazed at him.

"Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been there?" he said.

"Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad I am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as much in grey as you ever will in blue."

"Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh.

"Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls is the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else, from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders—sworn in to obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?"

"Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus.

"Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must have forgotten. He never means to disobey.'"

"How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring, too.

"I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name, it is a West Point tactical officer."

"Who is he?" said Magnus.

"The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue, specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey."

"They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see if you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that on me!"

Mr. Wayne laughed a little.

"Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that you haven't got does not pay at West Point."

"Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with growing distaste.

"It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and that often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear to obey orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come out. From the time you get up till the time you go to bed,—and after."

"Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive lift of the brows.

"Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being asleep will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will come round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if you are not too tired, I think you had better get up.'"

It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that the boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up.

"What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?"

"Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often."

"They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that kind office for himself.

"Armies are seldom large enough for each man to have another man detailed to look after him," said Mr. Wayne drily.

Magnus made no answer. He paced up and down the long station house by his friend's side, swinging his little handbag with an air that was not all of enjoyment.

"It's a hard place, then, isn't it?"

"There are no easy places in this world, so far as I know," answered Mr. Wayne. "Not for men who wish to get on. There are a few where you can stand still. West Point is not one of those. Back or forward you must go, there. But there is no hardest place on earth that 'work and pray' will not carry a man gloriously through."

"Well, mother has taught me the one, and I guess I'll soon pick up the other," said Magnus. "I'm not afraid of work, if I am rather lazy."

"Magnus," said his friend suddenly, "when you get to West Point I want you to make friends with the flag."

"All right," said the boy, laughing. "Do they fly the flag all the time? That is glorious!"

"They fly it all the time, in all weathers; from the small storm flag in a gale, to the bunting thirty-six feet long, on a holiday. What would you think, if they hauled the flag down every time someone came by who did not like it?"

"I should say, 'Shoot the man who touched the halyards'!" said Magnus.

"Suppose the passerby was from a powerful nation that we feared to offend?"

"There is no such nation!" said the boy, drawing himself up.

"But Young America can suppose, for the argument's sake," said Mr. Wayne, smiling.

"Hard thing to do, sir," laughed Magnus. "However, I'll suppose, as you say. And I say, the man would come down, a long sight ahead of the Stars and Stripes. I'd risk offending anybody, for the flag."

Mr. Wayne paused and faced him.

"Magnus," he said, "I have just three words for you at West Point. Work, pray, and keep your colours flying! Good-bye; the doors are open."

So they parted, and soon the cry was, "All aboard!" and the train moved slowly out of the Grand Central.