WEST POINT, ITS GALMOUR AND ITS GRIND

By

Captain Harold Hammond, USA

CHAPTER I

WINNING THE APPOINTMENT

LIKE the average boy in a Western town, or anywhere else for that matter, the words “West Point” did not convey to me a very definite meaning at the time I was growing up, and, like most boys, had a desire to go there. There was something fascinating about the words, and yet, at the same time, very intangible and undefined.

Perhaps one of the principal reasons for this fascination was the alluring inaccuracy which pervaded all accounts of West Point life which had fallen into my hands. I had read several stories and one book about West Point, but, though I did not know it at the time, they had been written by persons whose knowledge of the place had been most superficial.

These stories invariably told of the heroic cadet who went rowing with the charming girl and when the boat capsized, which it invariably did, he rescued her from a watery grave, and although his rival did his best to keep them apart and to cause trouble between them and always succeeded for a time, the outcome was necessarily a wedding in the pretty little cadet chapel on graduation day. If it was not a boat ride that led up to the culmination of the romance, it was a sprained ankle at Fort Putnam, causing the hero to get into a lot of trouble through being late getting back to camp on account of his limping companion.

It was through such agencies, aided by the alluring pictures which always accompanied the misleading accounts of West Point, that I had acquired what I felt to be a rather fair conception of life there.

I knew it to be the place where by some magic art, the ordinary everyday boy was transformed into an entirely separate and distinct sort of individual, known as a “cadet,” where he had nothing to do but wear rows and rows of brass buttons all the time and go walking and hold a parasol over a beautiful girl whenever he felt like it; where he could camp out all summer, carry a real gun and be a real sentry and call out in a loud voice “Halt! Who goes there?” whenever any one came near him, and to demand the mystic “countersign.” It was a place where he was accorded the privilege of drilling as much as he pleased every day and where horseback riding reached such a degree of recklessness that a circus rider or cowboy would actually shrivel up with envy at the wonderful feats which to cadets became mere child’s play.

These and a hundred other delights made West Point the most-to-be-desired place imaginable, and its practical inaccessibility made me covet it all the more. In a vague sort of way I had hoped I might sometime go to West Point, and had even pictured to myself how well I would look in one of those gray coats all covered with brass buttons, but how or when I was to get there I had not the faintest idea. My parents took but little interest in my ambitions, and lacking the political influence which seemed necessary to get the appointment, I received but little encouragement whenever I broached the subject.

This is a stage of life through which a large percentage of Young America must pass before they are content to settle down to be doctors or lawyers or merchants. There is the boyish desire to become a soldier which must either be satisfied by becoming one or else must be outgrown before other ambitions permanently take root.

I had just passed my eighteenth birthday when one day, in glancing over our weekly paper, my eye fell upon the announcement of a competitive examination for the cadetship at West Point from our congressional district. Heretofore the appointment had been made direct, but a new congressman had seen fit to throw the chance open to all boys of eligible age, between seventeen and twenty- two, in the district.

I made up my mind at once to try that examination. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. For two months I studied hard and conscientiously, keeping my intention all to myself, for there were three or four other boys in my town who, I feared, would decide to try also. As it was, I seemed to have a clear field as far as Emporia was concerned.

I doubt if there is anything in life which a boy goes into with less knowledge of the thing he seeks than when he enters the lists for an appointment to one of our National academies, West Point or Annapolis. Though the announcement of the examination appeared in the paper for some weeks, it failed to create much interest for some reason, and my only fear was that others might be working quietly like myself.

Such proved to be the case and a couple of weeks before the day set for the examination I learned that at least two other competitors would be there to represent Emporia on the appointed day. The examination was to take place at Sterling, our congressman’s home, a city about seventy miles from Emporia.

One of the boys who announced his intention of taking the examination, Ernest Swaine by name, was of slender build, rather undersized for his age and far from being physically robust, a very close student and number one in his class in the high school. The other, Cheater Leasure, could boast of a constitution fully as vigorous and healthy as my own and he was a year older than either Ernest or myself. He had just returned home from an Eastern school, where he was preparing for college. He was home presumably to spend his Easter vacation, but I felt that no doubt the coming examination for West Point had more to do with his being home at that time than Easter did.

Inwardly I did not like him, though there as no outward sign of strained relations between us. This dislike was due, though I would not have admitted it at the time, to his having rather outshone me for favors in the eyes of our mutual boyhood ideal, Virginia Abbott. Before Chester’s departure, less than a year before, I had run him a fairly even race as Virginia’s suitor, and during his absence I had had things quite my own way, but on his return from school for vacation, his college ways, fashionably cut coats, trousers very full and turned up around the bottoms, his straight-brimmed derby hat and long hair were all too much for the impressionable Virginia and I no longer seemed a factor in her life, at least in the way I had been.

When Chester made his announcement that he believed he would take the examination, he did so with an air that rather discouraged anyone else trying to compete with him.

“I know several fellows from ‘The Point,’ ” said he, speaking with exasperating familiarity, “and they seem to be a rather decent sort as a rule. I hadn’t thought of it, but I don’t believe it would be such a bad idea to have a try at it. If I shouldn’t care to go in I wouldn’t have to.”

Chester’s father was one of the pillars of the mercantile life of Emporia, and he took every occasion to remind us of more modest means that the matter of doing anything more than what he chose was irksome to him, which indeed it was.

His announcement and apparent eonfidenee of winning, coupled with my chagrin regarding Virginia’s preference for Chester’s society, spurred me on to greater efforts in preparing myself for the examination. He, of course, having “been away at school,” did not need to prepare for an examination of such an elementary character, embracing such subjects as grammar, arithmetic, geography, history and spelling. Instead he chose to drive about town in a stylish trap or regale those who would listen with tales of how they did things in “the East.”

Finally the day arrived, a beautiful May morning, and l bade my parents farewell with their best wishes for success accompanying me. When I reached the station I found Chester and Ernest already there. They were surprised to see me, for outside my own family, I had managed to keep my intentions to myself.

“Hello, Kingsley,” exclaimed Chester, “where you going?”

“Sterling,” I answered.

“Going to try the West Point exam?” queried Ernest, unnecessarily.

“I might just as well as not,” I replied; “it’s free.”

“Guess a fellow don’t stand much of a show there without something more than a high school education,” observed Chester, “though of coarse the ‘prelim’ ought to be easy.”

I did not pretend to see his reflection on my limit of local schooling, but merely said that what I was interested in at present were the subjects which could be learned in Emporia. Ernest was in the same boat as myself in the matter of schooling, and consequently agreed. They both expressed surprise at my going and seemed to take it for granted that I had made up my mind at the last minute, and therefore did not see in me a very formidable opponent. On my part, in spite of Chester’s confidence, I considered Ernest much better equipped for the mental examination than either of us, though not our equal physically.

Our trip to Sterling occupied most of the day, owing to our being compelled to wait at a junction for some hours. I put in my time reviewing some points on history and geography, the two subjects in which I felt the greatest need of study. Ernest did likewise, except when a disposition to doze overcame his powers to remain awake.

Chester, on the other hand, sat in the smoker most of the day, consuming numerous cigarettes, and joining in the conversation of some commercial travelers who were playing cards there, and incidentally divulging his familiarity with “the East,” which seemed to be preying on his mind.

At Sterling we all went to the same hotel, where we found about twenty other competitors had already registered, coming from all over the district, from city, town and farm. We soon became acquainted, due to our being there for a common purpose and discussed with delightful ignorance the prospect in view for the one who should be so fortunate as to come out first. Chester gravitated to the poolroom with some flashily-dressed fellows from Peoria, and apparently did not care to be confused with the modest-looking crowd who had come for the examination.

Next morning we assembled, according to instructions, at the courthouse, where tables and chairs had been arranged for the examinations, which were to be written. The congressman himself was there and took personal charge of all arrangements. First of all came the physical examination, as severe a test as one could expect to encounter, and which I have always felt was unnecessarily so. The doctors had taken their instructions literally and put as through a course of thumpings, measurings, and searching for blemishes that would have done credit to veterinarians. Then we read cards at heroic distances, first with one eye and then with the other, repeated nonsensical sentences with one ear dosed, hopped the length of a long room on one foot and back on the other and then had our hearts examined with a cup-shaped piece of hard rubber at the end of which were long tubes which the doctor put in his ears. After this we were weighed, clothed in nature’s garb, and then measured for altitude.

All this proved too much for poor Ernest, and before he was half through with the ordeal he had disclosed some real or fancied weakness of the heart, as well as failing eyesight. His physical shortcomings eliminated a dangerous opponent for the rest of us, for he was not allowed to write the examinations with us. Three others from different parts of the district were also turned down by the doctors and allowed to go to their homes without further delay.

I felt a pang of compassion for Ernest as he packed his suit case and departed at noon to catch the train for home. He took his disappointment bravely, and I do not think he need have regretted his failure for long, and I have long since ceased to pity him. He is the senior member of a successful law firm in Chicago now, making as much in a month as I do in a year, and whatever heart trouble he may have divulged on that examination has long since been outgrown.

To pass over two strenuous days briefly, I will only say that my mental state, and I presume that of many others, may be imagined when I confess that on the last afternoon in our history examination I gave it as my fixed opinion that Samuel J. Tilden was the vice-president who served out the unexpired portion of James A. Garfield’s term of office.

The realization of this horrible mistake dawned on me while Chester and I were discussing the examination on the way home. I did not doubt for a moment that such a fatal answer to a simple question would alone bar me from further consideration by the board. This and other glaring errors for which my haste to answer all the questions in the short time allotted to the different subjects had been responsible, caused me to give up hope, even before the ink was scarcely dry on my examination papers.

Chester did not think that he had missed many of the questions, though in some of the harder subjects he was very reticent regarding his answers. He seemed fairly confident of winning out, depending somewhat, so it seemed, on the long-standing friendship between his father and the congressman.

Inquiries of our friends on reaching home brought forth the opinion from Chester that he had done quite well, in fact, he believed as well as any of the competitors. For my part, I said I had done well in some subjects and not so well in others and would wait until I heard from the examination before expressing an opinion as to how I had come out. My terrible blunder in the history examination preyed on my mind against hope of success.

However, there must have been others as badly off as myself, for on the fourth anxious day after my return home I received a congratulatory letter from the congressman, notifying me that I had received the highest average made on the examination and that he had sent my name on to the Secretary of War as the appointee to West Point from the eleventh district. I was further informed that I would be required to report at West Point on the twelfth of June for the final entrance examination.

Without exception, that was the happiest day of my life. Do you blame me that I have that letter, and even the envelope in which it came, framed as the monument which marked the turn in the road which led to unexpected places?

A boy from Sterling was second and would likewise report at West Point with me as alternate, and in case I should fail there and he should pass, he would enter the academy. Chester had stood fifth, according to the report of the examining board, which fact he attributed to having become rusty on the common school branches through his pursuit of higher subjects in “the East.” He did not seem to regret much his failure to stand higher, as far as going to West Point was concerned, but he could not conceal his chagrin that I should have stood ahead of him on the examination.

In a short time I began to feel an unusual importance attach itself to me, especially when I received a long official envelope from the War Department containing a letter signed by the Secretary of War himself, notifying me officially of my appointment. I tried not to show my elation when my friends congratulated me on my success, but I made a poor mess of it, I fear. Aside from the great prospects which the future held out to me, there was in the immediate future that trip to West Point which I looked forward to as only a boy can who has never been more than a hundred miles from home in his life and which was to be mine anyway, now that I must go there to take my entrance examination.

The idea that it should fall to my lot to be Emporia’s first representative at the National academy during the fifty years of her existence had rather an inflating effect on my conception of my importance, which I still contend was pardonable to a certain degree in a boy of my age and surroundings.

Another result of my success and perhaps, also, of Chester’s defeat, was that Virginia’s interest in me seemed to revive perceptibly; though it may have been partly due to the novelty of his imported manners having worn off. Try as hard as I could to be indifferent and to carry out my intention to let our past friendship be regarded as ancient history, I could not keep back my elation when she asked me if I would not give her a photograph of myself before I left and write to her occasionally afterward.

Instead of displaying indifference to her as I had pictured myself doing, if opportunity ever offered, I gladly promised to do as she requested and went further by promising to send her another picture of myself in uniform, in case I should pass the entrance examination.

To add to my glory, my home paper published a long and glowing prophecy of the brilliant future before me, and, in addition, gave several good reasons why their “townsman should write his name in letters of gold on the scroll of fame.” The article went further and proved, by tracing my lineage back four generations, in which they were aided by well-meaning parents, that I came of “real old fighting stock,” and was “one well worthy to perpetuate and bring to even greater heights of fame the illustrious name of his forefathers.” This effusion came to an end with the sentiment, printed in small capitals, “Good Luck to the Pride of Emporia – Gordon Kingsley.”

How sweet was fame! How I read and reread those lines and inwardly shuddered at the thought of what might have become of our country had I not been discovered! But it is well not to be able to see into the future, even the immediate future. Those empty phrases were well meant, of course, and fulfilled their temporary function of causing gratification, but I later learned that fame sometimes precedes one into undesirable places.

CHAPTER II

LEAVING HOME

IN due time the day came for my departure, and as I strode proudly down to the station with my father, carrying my conspicuously new suit case, I felt that Emporia was about to lose one of the most important personages that had ever done her the honor to claim her as his birthplace.

I was now about to go forth and write the first few lines on the “scroll of fame” which the editor of the “Republican” had so happily mentioned. As the time had drawn near for leaving, my mother, realizing more than I, what a breaking of home ties my departure was causing, had enthused less and less over my good fortune, and when I left she chose to bid me God-speed within the privacy of our own home.

That trip to West Point was an event unparalleled in my life up to that time. Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo were wonders to me, and I reveled in even the fleeting glimpses I got as we passed through. At Albany, of course, I abandoned the train for the boat which would land me at West Point. On the boat I noticed a boy who, like myself, seemed to be alone, and who looked to me suspiciously like a candidate for West Point, too. I scraped up an acquaintance with him and found that I was right in my guess. His name was Burton Knox, and he was from Wisconsin. That chance acquaintance ripened into a friendship which to this day has ever been a source of pleasure and benefit to me and, I have reason to believe, to him.

Through my friend’s persuasion, I consented to continue my trip on to New York and go to Highland Falls the next day; he having learned that it was much more desirable to stay at this village, a mile below West Point, than to go to the hotel there, as I had intended.

As the steamboat glided along the beautiful river we sat in the bow and strained oar eyes for the first glimpse of West Point. As we approached the narrows below Newburgh we saw between the towering heights of Cro’ Nest on one side and Storm King on the other a level plateau directly ahead. This was West Point, so called owing to its position at the sudden turning of the Hudson from its southerly course to one directly east for half a mile and then south again.

Never had I viewed such scenery, and the effect of the majestic, wooded heights, coupled with the historic interest which clang about them, was to inspire in me a feeling of awesome reverence which never departed during the long time I lived among them.

We could gain only a very vague idea of West Point from the river, but we had seen it and it was real and it was beautiful, and we hoped we would “get in.”

We spent next day wandering about New York in a more or less dazed way, gazing on the superficial wonders of the great city.

We saw Broadway, that thoroughfare of which we had heard and, read so much, Wall Street and the statue of George Washington in front of the sub-treasury, went on board an ocean steamer, which had always been one of the ambitions of my life, and then we visited and climbed to the top of that colossal lantern, the Goddess of Liberty. All of these things which are so commonplace to many are ranked among the wonders of the world by the unsophisticated boy from the West.

It was not until late afternoon that we inquired our way to the Weehawken ferry, by which we crossed the Hudson and took a train for Highland Falls, where, after a most interesting ride of nearly two hours, we arrived shortly before dark. On alighting at the station, we inquired of the station agent the way to a hotel.

That individual evidently sized us up at once as candidates, having seen hundreds of forlorn-looking boys such as we during his long term in that capacity. The lone cab driver, too, was equally knowing, for he did not even suggest that we ride. The candidate’s pocket is invariably too modest to afford such a luxury as a ride in his antiquated coach offered.

“Just keep on up the hill,” directed the agent, jerking his thumb in the direction of the winding road, “and when you get to the top, turn to your left and keep going until yon come to the hotel, just this side of a little bridge. You’ll find lots of others in your fix when you get there.”

“Seems to know what we’re here for,” observed Burton, as we picked up our suit eases and started off, “and he doesn’t seem to think we’re open to congratulations.”

“I guess we won’t find anybody around here to receive us with open arms,” I replied, “and whether we get along or not from now on depends on us.”

From the time the forlorn candidate even approaches the regions of West Point until he has passed the first annual mile-stone in his military career he is made to feel this wide-spread evidence of the position he occupies in the general mind. It is ever present and he is never free from its depressing influence.

We toiled on in silence for several minutes. The road was steep and apparently endless. We already felt our enthusiasm oozing from as, and each was content to preserve a guarded silence. The novelty of the last few days was over and we were rapidly coming face to face with an experience that grew less and less attractive as we approached it. I think the station agent’s manner and his reference to others being in the same “fix” did more to chill our enthusiasm than the occurrence seems to warrant.

“Let’s rest,” said Barton, after awhile, “I’m about tuckered out.”

“I’m willing,” said I, dropping my suit case heavily to the ground; “wonder when we’ll get to ‘turn to the left’?”

“Couldn’t blame a fellow much if he was to turn all the way round right now,” ventured Burton, mopping his forehead.

“When I turn somebody’s got to turn me,” I asserted, trying to appear cheerful as well as determined.

“Oh don’t fret about me,” replied my friend quickly. “I’m not quitting yet.” And never again daring our long acquaintance have I had occasion to doubt his tenacity to any purpose toward which he set his determination.

After a brief rest we started on again and soon a turn brought us to the top of the incline and to the road leading parallel to the river through Highland Falls, on each side of which the straggling houses of the village attach themselves at irregular intervals.

Here again we were made to feel the unimportance of our position in the world, for even the corner loafer cast upon us pitying glances and inwardly congratulated himself that of all the things he might have been, he had never been a “candidate.”

We at last reached the hotel, looking rather seedy, no doubt, after our dusty ride on the train and the long trudge up the hill. At the hotel we found candidates from all parts of the country, some sitting on the veranda, discussing their chances of “getting in,” others on the inside, distributed around a table in the big, bare sitting-room, poring over their books. These latter had reached that stage of anxiety and uneasiness that their only peace of mind lay in constant study. To do aught else at this time seemed to them as rank sacrilege.

It was dark by the time Burton and I had prepared for supper, and as soon as the meal was over we joined the party on the veranda. Under circumstances involving such a vital community of interest as those which had brought us all together, slight introductions were necessary, and soon we began to feel the tie of a common status draw us into the circle. We felt that, though the station agent, the hack driver and the corner loafer might scorn us, here, at least, was that welcome which we so much craved, extended by those who were “in the same fix.”

The talk was entirety of West Point, of course. Most of the boys had hem at Highland Falls for several days, some for many weeks, studying for their examination at a preparatory school in the village, so of course we considered them oracles on the subject and drank in their every word eagerly.

During that conversation Burton and I preserved diligent silence and learned many things, both directly and by inference. It seemed a wise policy to give West Point a wide berth until the time came to report, for one was liable to encounter cadets afflicted with a retentive memory and who did not hesitate to inform candidates that they would be “remembered when they came to camp.” If one desired to go up to the Point it was deemed best by those who had had experience to keep well in the background, and, above all things, to avoid all contact with those who would in a short time feel privileged to make life miserable for the incoming class of plebes.

This hazing seemed to he the one thing that held most terrors for everyone. Tales of the various methods of initiating the newcomers were many and varied, and 'most all exagerated, as I found out later .

“I understand they make the plebes black shoes for the upper classmen,” said one hot-headed Southerner, “and if I black anybody’s shoes besides my own, it will be after there have been some heads cracked. We don’t stand for such things down where I come from.”

His concern in this direction was unfounded, for that was an extent toward which the unwritten law at West Point had long since decreed that hazing should not approach. Even the having of blacking in a cadet’s possession is against regulations, as men are especially hired for that purpose and no cadet is supposed to polish his own shoes, to, say nothing of polishing those of another.

One of the occupants of the veranda was a fellow named Dawson, who hailed from somewhere near Boston. He monopolized the conversation and knew all about everything. As to passing his examination, there was no doubt, and that he would stand at the head of his class was a foregone conclusion. He affected the most extreme tastes in dress and sported his gold cigarette case and amber holder with the effrontery of a cad.

He was patronizing, self-satisfied and intolerant of anyone not conversant with the usages of city life. As to hazing, that was one thing to which he would not submit.

“I was hazed at Amherst when I was a freshman, and did my share of it when I was a soph, so I guess that when they find out that I’ve been through it they’ll let me alone. Besides, I met three cadets at Cape Cod last summer while they were on furlough, and we had them up to the cottage to dinner a couple of times. They’re seniors now and I guess it wouldn’t be good for any of the under classmen to try to haze me.”

“Most likely your friends will look out for you and take care of you,” said a quiet fellow who up to this time had not spoken.

Dawson failed to catch the double meaning to this remark and graciously acknowledged the envy which his immunity had created.

“Yes, I suppose so, but the rest of you fellows will have a pretty hard time, I expect. However, I’ll do what I can to get you off easy.”

This was certainly very kind of Dawson, but I do not remember anyone having faith enough in his protective power to thank him for his interest in our welfare. He was unpopular without a question, and it was only his self-assertiveness that gained him either an audience or the indulgence of listening to his boasting.

Burton and I went to our room that night with a mingling of apprehension over our chances of getting into the academy and concern as to what was going to happen to us if we did get in. This concern was grave enough to cause me to take from my pocket then and there the clipping concerning myself which I had cut from the Emporia Republican and to tear it into a hundred pieces.

CHAPTER III

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

NEXT morning Burton and I decided that, much as we needed to study, we must go up to West Point immediately and satisfy to some extent our burning curiosity to see the wonderful place at whose doors we were so soon to knock.

It was graduation day, and it seemed as though everybody in all the country around was going. As we walked along the ill-kept sidewalks carryalls of every description passed us, filled with their gayly dressed occupants, mostly of the feminine persuasion, all eager with excitement.

It was the outpouring of relatives and friends of cadets from the hotels and boarding houses of Highland Falls, where annually the patience and endurance of these helpless admirers of brass buttons are taxed to the extreme and the purse strings are stretched to their elastic limit or beyond to pay the bills.

A short walk brought us to the southern limits of the reservation, which marks the extent of village authority. We could easily tell when we stepped across the boundary by the beautifully kept, metaled road, which extends from there northward, and also by the two enormous cannon, half buried, muzzle down, which adorn each side of the road. Long since obsolete these once powerful engines of destruction were now mutely doing duty merely to mark the limit of military authority.

Further on we saw a soldier sentinel coming toward us. It was the first time either of us had ever seen a real, live soldier and we were both duly impressed. He was in full dress, as, I learned afterward, members of the guard always are during graduation week. He carried a rifle on his shoulder and in his belt were several shining cartridges.

Both of us unconsciously stepped off the walk as he neared us and deliberately stopped and watched him as he passed us without even so much as a glance in our direction. That this was rather inappropriate treatment from a mere private soldier toward future generals did not occur to us. Had he known who we were his attitude would have been still more haughty, for I soon learned that his kind, too, seemed to feel it their duty to remind us on all occasions that we did not stand high in the military scale. Though in time they might be under the command of the men they now looked down upon, that was too dim in the distance to affect the attitude of superiority it was now their privilege to assume.

Though we had already absorbed our share of the dread which all candidates have for what is in store for them at West Point once they have passed the threshold, yet we were optimists and still maintained our good spirits. The trees were in full leaf, below us the Hudson flowed serenely and majestically oceanward, while ahead on both sides of the road we could see the tall, forbidding granite buildings which fairly radiated discipline in their severity.

All this newness and strangeness and dignity of surroundings impressed us properly, and we were even awed at the prospects which the future held out to us. In spite of the station agent, the corner loafer and the hack driver, the tales of hazing and the absence of friends, I do not believe we would have traded places with any two boys in the United States that June morning as we gazed on the scenes around us.

“Gee,” said Burton, feelingly, “d’you suppose we’ll ever actually live here?”

“Lots of people do live here,” I replied confidentially, “and I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”

So far we had seen no cadets, though we were keeping a sharp lookout for the sight of one. Presently a couple of animated ramrods swung around a corner and came straight toward as. Clad in gray coats, into which it seemed they had been poured, with three rows of blazing brass buttons down the front; stiffly starched white duck trousers which seemed not to bend at all in walking, and topped by the jauntiest of dark blue caps, set slightly askew, these two individuals came nearer being the acme of perfection than anything I had ever believed human beings capable of.

They scrutinized us closely as they approached, and as they passed we heard one of them say in an undertone something about “candidates.” Burton and I glanced at each other, but neither said a word.

As we proceeded toward the large buildings ahead we met several more cadets, all looking precisely alike to us, except as to size. Each seemed to be going on some definite errand and there was an air of assurance about them all that bespoke training.

Fearing recognition, we kept as far away as possible from all groups of cadets. We crossed the broad level grass plain and continued our way until we found ourselves at Trophy Point, though we did not at that time know the name of the spot. Here we were very mach alone and to our hearts’ content could glory in that beautiful “view up the river,” which beyond doubt surpasses any river scene in this or any other country.

It is said that there are three questions that a cadet asks of every girl who comes to West Point: “Is this your first visit to West Point?” “Have you seen the view tip the river?” “Do you love me?”

Here also were relics of the Revolution in the shape of several links of the great chain which was stretched across the Hudson from West Point to Constitution Island during the Revolution, to prevent the passage of British war vessels up the river; trophies of the Mexican and Civil wars in the shape of rows and rows of captured bronze and iron cannon.

All this was intensely interesting to us, who had never seen anything of the kind, and it seemed to bring us to a more intimate conception of certain phases of our national history than all our studying had done. Here were the actual proofs of conflict, and all about, us were the scenes of actual strife. Old Fort Clinton was only a couple of hundred yards away and Fort Putnam looked down upon us from its commanding position in the hills behind West, Point.

Below us toward the north lay the siege and mortar battery, which were now objects to incite in us a martial feeling, but which later came to be looked upon as agents of the most exquisite drudgery ever invented by the designer of plebe drills. And still further below, at thee river's edge was the sea-coast battery, obsolete muzzle-loading eight-inch cannon, but to us wonderful engines of destruction.

Beyond, across the river, under the towering Storm King, nestled the village of Cold Spring, its spires pointing upward above the trees, and surrounded by such quiet that it seemed a deserted village. Constitution Island, on which, during the Revolution, Washington chose for a time to make his headquarters, was a point of interest which we gazed upon with a feeling of wonder.

Suddenly we were brought back to the realities of the present by the loud beating of a drum in front of the large, sombre-looking, four-story granite building, which we learned later was Cadet Barracks. From our distant point of view we saw, a few moments later, swarms of gray-coated cadets pouring from the doors, and even at that distance we could see that they were armed with rifles and wore white belts over their shoulders and around their waist.

While we watched, the drum beat again and the mass of' animation instantly took definite form in the shape of four rigid companies. Then the band struck up a tune, the battalion swung into column and marched away to the graduation exercises in front of the library.

Burton and I did not go to the exercises. We decided we had better not. The uneasy feeling which clung to us could not permit our going near the place where so many cadets were assembled and where we might be recognized. The general in command of the army had come from Washington to deliver the diplomas, and there would be several other dignitaries, both civil and military, on the stand, but even such inducements could not tempt us. We were in that state of mental unrest which it seems to be intended all candidates should be.

This uneasiness finally overcame our desire to tarry just a little longer, and we started back to Highland Falls resolved that whatever hardships might be in store for us, we hoped that the next time we came we would come to stay.

The day following our visit to West Point Burton and I spent in study at the hotel, and on the morning of the 12th we packed our suit cases, paid our bills, and started for West Point. The proprietor had seen many such as we start on the same errand.

“Well,” he said, genially, “how soon may I look for you back?”

“Never, I hope,” I answered. I hope the double meaning of my answer penetrated his brain, but I doubt it. I believe he ran that hotel for profit.

CHAPTER IV

THE GRIND BEGINS

MY letter of instructions from the adjuant of the academy, received before leaving home, directed me to “report in person to the superintendent before twelve o’clock noon.” It did not say how long before, so we made an early start, being about the first to leave the hotel.

A soldier whom we met on the street directed us to the superintendent’s office, on the second floor of the headquarters building.

Leaving our suit cases downstairs, we proceeded upstairs, where we found half a dozen candidates already waiting at the door of the adjutant’s office, he being the officer to whom we really were to report. An orderly directed us to fall in at the end of the line. One by one those ahead of us went in and emerged a few minutes later by another door.

At last my turn came. I walked in briskly, but with my knees trembling and my heart beating audibly, and presented myself at the desk where sat a tall, severe-looking officer in uniform. I handed him my letter of appointment, which he glanced at hurriedly, and then, running his finger down the printed list in front of him, he checked me off with a blue pencil.

“That’s all,” he said, scrutinizing me closely for a second. “Go downstairs and wait until you get further instructions.”

Without a word on my part I turned and made my exit, glad that this was over. I went downstairs and out on a small porch, where were gathered those who had gone before me. All wore a more or less apprehensive look and none seemed inclined to hilarity.

Presently a natty-looking cadet, with a couple of V-shaped black stripes on his sleeves, appeared and proceeded at once to assert his authority.

“Turn out, you candidates!” he ordered in a tone which denoted that immediate obedience was expected.

Without hesitation we all proceeded to obey and meekly followed him out to the walk in front of the building.

“Fall in in column of twos!” commanded the corporal, for such he proved to be, though to us as well as to himself he seemed a most important personage.

“Column of twos” meant nothing to any of us and we showed it in a dozen different ways.

“Squad, halt!” shouted the corporal in high disgust, and again we were perplexed at the new and meaningless words.

“You two, stand here,” he said, indicating the two candidates nearest him, “and the rest of you fall in behind, and be quick about it.”

With surprising alacrity we obeyed. Such is authority. He was a mere boy, younger than many of us, and one whom we had never seen before, and yet here we were jumping to do his every bidding without question and with more promptness than we had ever obeyed a word of command before in our lives. It is in us all, this respect for authority – or is it fear to combat it? – and no matter how strenuously the free American citizen asserts that he wouldn’t “be bossed around by somebody no better” than he is, I have yet to see the newcomer at West Point who took that view of the situation after he got there. And if it isn’t West Point it is some other place, and the man who doesn’t respect and who chooses to assert his independence of the authority vested in those who exercise it does not get far in any direction.

“Forward, march!” came the sharp command of the corporal.

We started off raggedly, many of us stepping clumsily on the heels of the boys in front of us.

“Squad, halt!”

This we had learned meant to suspend all signs of animation instantly.

“Now, when I say ‘March!’ everybody step off with the left foot, understand?” Then, a moment later, “Forward, march!”

This time things went better, and at last we were under way. Without doubt there is no more hopeless, helpless-looking sight in the world than a drove – no other word expresses it – of candidates in tow of a yearling corporal for the first time. They are a misfit aggregation from every corner of the United States and from every walk of life, bereft of individuality, and by the strange severity of the atmosphere about them, afraid to call their soul their own.

West Point has her own methods of teaching, and time has demonstrated their efficacy. Although severe, her ways are effective and produce results in an alarmingly short time. It makes a difference whether the pupil pays a handsome sum for his tuition at a college, or whether he receives a salary for procuring the education which his country extends to him, in the ways in which he is induced to accept his learning. In the former ease his college is dependent on him and such as he for its very existence, and in the latter, the reverse is the case.

We were having our first lesson in that school of quick results, the school where no bridge joins the status of instructor and that of pupil save that of official relations, and where the former is not dependent on the latter for a livelihood.

As we started across the wide paved road, the corporal strutting beside us, as only new authority can strut, we passed immediately in front of a carriage which had just drawn up in front of the building.

“Keep your heads and eyes to the front!” shouted the corporal to those of as who had dared to glance at the vehicle. “Come off that gazing about in ranks!”

Instantly every head and eye obeyed, but not in time to prevent a sight of Dawson, he of the many and bold assertions, stepping from the carriage with a smile of mingled condescension and assurance on his face. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the corporal taking mental note of Dawson and his stylish turnout, and the expression on his face did not indicate any desire to go over and introduce himself.

To ascend the first rung of the ladder of military fame from the step of a victoria is not calculated to create a very desirable impression, and I saw at once that Dawson had made his first mistake.

During the next hour events happened rapidly. We were conducted to a room on the first floor of the eighth division of barracks which was used as an office by the cadet officers in charge of candidates. Here the corporal, with a very military salute, reported us to a very impressive cadet, older than himself, who wore his chevrons above the elbow, a cadet lieutenant, as we soon learned. He took no notice of us apparently, except to give us a sweeping glance with a pair of cold, passionless eyes.

Here our names were recorded and we were assigned to quarters, three of us to a room. These assignments were made by another corporal, very much like the one who had conducted us over to barracks.

The manner of reporting here to this office was somewhat different from what it had been in the adjutant’s office. After being arranged in single file, the boy in front standing directly in front of the table which did duty as a desk, something like the following conversation took place:

“What’s your name, Mister?” This from the corporal on duty at the “office.” The one who had brought us over had returned to headquarters for another lot of victims.

“Gentry. Paul Gentry,” replied the first boy in line.

“No, it isn’t,” declared his interrogator, emphatically; “your name is ‘Mr. Gentry, sir,’ and will be for just one year, if you stay here that long. Understand? Now, what’s your name?”

“]Mister Gentry, sir,” confessed the boy, meekly.

“That’s a little better. Now get your heels together, draw in your chin, straighten out your elbows, draw up your stomach, and say it again, and keep your eyes off me!”

The effort to comply with all these strange demands at once resulted in a ridiculous stiffening of arms and straining of the muscles in general. The result, however, was fairly satisfactory, and then the next question came:

“Where are you from?”

“Baltimore,” then, after a pause, “sir.”

“Baltimore! Where’s that? What State?”

“Maryland – sir.”

“Well, then, you’re from Maryland, when anybody asks you. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now say it all over again, and keep your eyes off me!”

One of the greatest crimes a candidate or a plebe can commit is to permit his gaze to linger on an upper classman’s countenance, provided that individual becomes aware of the fact.

After “Mr. Gentry, sir,” had been allowed to pass on, we all, one by one, went through this ordeal of questioning, bracing and keeping our eyes straight to the front, divulging our names and the States from which we hailed. It was well for us that there were no fond friends to see our first lesson and that all who did see it were in the same boat and therefore took it seriously.

We faltered and forgot the necessary “Mister” and “sir” sometimes, and suffered uncomfortable delay in getting away as a result. These words are the most important words in a plebe’s vocabulary and were impressed upon us with an emphasis that was lasting.

Burton, “Mr. Gentry, sir,” and myself were assigned to a room together on the fourth floor of the adjoining division and as soon as the assignments were all made we were marched in a body to the Cadet Store, as the supply department of the academy is called, and there we were each issued a mattress, a pillow and other bedding, a chair, a broom, a galvanized iron pail, a dipper the bowl of which was made from a cocoanut shell, and a corrugated mirror.

These articles were issued to us to be used during the period of our candidacy; to be returned in case we failed on our examinations, and to be retained for our use in case we should pass. According to the requirements of regulations, each candidate must deposit one hundred dollars on reporting, this amount to be placed to his credit if he remained, and returned to him with the amount of his board while there deducted in case he failed to enter. This deposit, in my case as in many others, had been made directly from home, though several made the deposit in person on reporting for their equipment.

Since time immemorial, candidates have been called “beasts” and the time spent in barracks during examinations was known as the period of “beast barracks.” To me it seemed that this expression could only have been invented by some one who had been through it, for no one else would have thought of a name so appropriate. Candidates now are spared this trial almost entirely, for the examinations are now held at the principal army posts throughout the country, and “beast barracks” is no longer a crucial period of a cadet’s life.

A printed list of “calls” was given us, which we were to follow absolutely. Reveille would be at six o’clock in the morning and breakfast half an hour later. Dinner would be at one and supper immediately after retreat parade, in which, needless to say, we took no part. There were no cadets in barracks, the two classes remaining after the graduating and furlough classes had departed had moved to camp the day after graduation. We were separated from them by several hundred yards of benevolent distance and by the strictest prohibition against their coming to barracks. Needless to say, we had no desire to go any nearer camp than necessary.

Although we were far from being cadets and many of us never would be, yet we were to be subjected to the strictest military discipline from the start. We would be allowed to leave our rooms only when necessary, and then we must report our departure and our return to the corporal on duty in the office below, and that was not a very delightful prospect, considering our first experience.

After “dragging” our bedding and other articles to our room, another corporal gave us a lesson in piling our bedding and preparing the few things we had for inspection. These inspections would be frequent and at no stated times. We would be required to leave our rooms in proper condition at all times. There was a prescribed place for everything, and everything must occupy its prescribed place. The official “Blue Book” was distributed, one to each room, to serve us a guide for arranging our rooms according to regulations.

The corporal taught us to stand “attention,” which position we were to assume and retain when any cadet officer or the tactical officer in charge of the instruction of new cadets should enter our rooms.

These tactical officers, or “tacs,” as they are known among the cadets, are army officers, graduates of the academy, who are detailed for four years to have charge of the military instruction of the cadets, and are the bêtes noires of cadet life. They seem to be sleepless, intuitive and soulless, ever present where they are least to be desired, and generally timing their inspections so that they occur at the most unwelcome hours.

Scarcely had we been left alone in our room when the second squad came struggling up the stairway with their paraphernalia from the cadet store. So overawed were we by the strangeness and strictness of everything about us that we had closed the door, oh, ever so gently, when the corporal departed, and feared even to look at the others.

“How do you like it so far?” queried Burton in an undertone.

“I’m not ready to say just yet,” I replied guardedly. “It might be worse, though I don’t just exactly see how. I don’t think we’ll forget very soon the things we’ve learned already. By the way, how do you suppose all this’ll strike our friend Dawson?”

In a few minutes, while we were still discussing what was in store for the arrogant son of the Commonwealth, we discovered in a very unexpected way that it had struck Dawson already and evidently it had struck him very forcibly.

A widow in the room across the hall was pulled down violently from the top, and immediately we heard in loud and voluminous tones the words: “Mr. Dawson, sir! Mr. Dawson, sir!! Mr. Dawson, sir!!!” being hurled forth against the forbidding granite walls of the gymnasium, toward which our windows faced.

We opened our door very slightly and tiptoed across the hall to see if possible what this peculiar performance was all about. On entering the other room, we saw the redoubtable Dawson, mounted high on a wooden-bottomed chair, his head and shoulders straining far out the window. Again he began shouting his name in stentorian tones as before, while his two roommates and ourselves stood by in silent wonder, watching him.

Presently we heard from the hall below: “That will do, Mr. Dawson. Come downstairs,” and we recognized the voice of the corporal whose business it was to record the names of the new arrivals and to teach us what our names really were and how to say them.

Dawson dismounted from the chair, his face livid with rage and embarrassment, cursing as though it did him good. Growing bold, Burton ventured the first question:

“What’s the matter, Dawson'” he inquired soberly. “Lost a friend up in the woods some place?”

“None of your business what’s the mater,” retorted Dawson, savagely, “but I’ll get even with some of these upstarts before I get through with this place, or I’ll know the reason why.”

“Haven’t been hazing you, have they?” persisted Burton; “surely not after you told them you are a graduate of Amherst and are exempt from hazing.”

“I said it was none of your business, didn’t I?” he shouted. “Now then, you fellows, tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine,” and with that he flung from the room and went downstairs.

Plainly he would not discuss the matter, and, besides, he did not have time, for he had been ordered to come “downstairs.” We found out later that Burton had hit the nail squarely on the head, for, when reporting, Dawson had tried to get familiar with the cadet officers, informing them that he had been through the whole thing elsewhere, and, also, that he was not supposed to put any “Mister” and “sir” on anything when speaking to them. By methods which were not made public, however, he had been induced to go to the top floor of the adjoining division and shout his name three times so loudly that it could be heard in the office below, and to shout it as he had been instructed to say it, and never again when asked what his name was for him to answer as he had on reporting: "Dawson, Amherst, ninety –” This he had done until the lieutenant sent word that his name, properly enunciated, had been heard.

At one o’clock, the whole class having reported by this time, we were formed in line in the area of barracks, which is the cinder-covered enclosure surrounded by barracks, the Academic Building and the Corps Headquarters. Thence we were marched in “column of twos” to the mess hall for our first, meal. On reaching this desirable destination, we were required to face toward the building so as not to see the gray and white battalion as it marched to the stirring music of the fife and drums corps from camp. Such unhallowed eyes as ours were not yet permitted to gaze upon the organization of which we hoped soon to be a part.

We entered last and were assigned seats at tables far enough removed from the “yearlings,” as cadets in their second year are unofficially termed, not to be molested.

We ate ravenously of the excellent dinner before us and had scarcely finished when the first captain gave the order for the battalion to “Rise!” after which we were again formed and marched back to barracks.

After reaching our room, Burton, Gentry and I had a chance to review the happenings of our first day, and we decided that as a place absolutely devoid of human kindness for the newcomer West Point should be awarded first prize. We had encountered on all sides only the strictest military authority, with the kind words of welcome and interest that usually greet the new arrival conspicuously lacking. Then we sought forgetfulness in much needed study.

Suddenly a sharp knock on our door brought us up standing like an electric shock. Although oar bodies were at rigid “attention,” our eyes wandered toward the visitor, who was our friend of the morning, the corporal who had escorted us from headquarters.

“Take your eyes off me,” he snapped, looking at all of us at once, it seemed. “Don’t you know better than to be gazing about at inspection? Keep your eyes to the front.”

After a critical examination of everything in the room, and requiring us to repile our bedding and rearrange everything in the alcove and clothes-press over and over, he seemed to be more pleased than when he first came in.

“Rest!” he commanded, but none of us moved a muscle.

“Rest!” he repeated. “Come oft that bracing and get back to life!”

As we relaxed our set position and resumed an attitude of restrained naturalness.

“What are you boning there?” he inquired, pointing to the book lying open in front of me.

“Arithmetic, sir,” I replied, having by this time found out that “to bone” is theWest Point equivalent of the verb “to study."

“Having any trouble?” he inquired, his tone very much modified and approaching civility.

“Yes, sir,” I admitted, "a good deal, sir."

I had learned already the value of that word “sir,” and knew that to use it too frequently was impossible.

“Well, let’s see where the trouble is,” he suggested, in an encouraging tone, pulling off his white gloves and seating himself in my chair.

In a few minutes we timid boys had grown somewhat less ill at ease and had become the attentive pupils of our heretofore severe and haughty superior. Carefully and clearly he went over the knotty problems which had been perplexing us and had incidentally given us many useful hints as to what was required at the examination and how to make our solutions clear as well as brief, which meant a saving of time.

Surely this was a side of West Point candidate life which we had not believed possible, and when he rose to go, after a half hour’s diligent instruction, which was most valuable to us, Burton made bold to thank him for his assistance. He made no reply to this remark, but, instead, reminded us in no soft-spoken words, that we were to stand “attention” until he left the room.

“That fellow’s all right, I don’t care what anybody says,” declared Burton, when the sound of our visitor’s footsteps on the iron stairway told us he had passed beyond hearing, “and I expect in the long run these other things we are learning will be as valuable to us as the arithmetic lesson.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but his way of teaching arithmetic seems to me a lot more civilized.”

We continued our studies unmolested until parade time, when we were assembled in the area, in military formation, the roll was called and we were subjected to a most rigid inspection of clothing, shoes and linen. We were required to wear our coats buttoned at all times. After the inspection we stood at “parade rest” until the retreat gun over in camp was fired, announcing that it was dismissal time. After a few minutes’ rest, we were marched to the mess hall again for supper.

Our evening was spent in study and at half past nine our rooms were again inspected, this time by the “tac” in charge of us, and after this inspection we were permitted to make down our beds. At ten o’clock “taps” was sounded, three taps on a drum, at which time we must have all lights out and be in bed for a dark-lantern inspection made by the cadet officers, and woe be to the candidate upon whom the shaft of light should strike and he be not in bed. After the strenuous day, however, I do not think anyone had any desire to remain up after the time came to go to bed.

Long before reveille next morning three wide-awake boys sat on the edges of their beds, fully dressed, waiting for time to “turn out.” With that ever-present fear of being late which is the horror of the candidate or new “plebe,” we had wakened half an hour before time, piled our bedding, swept the floor at least twice, dusted everything we could see and were now listening for the summons from below, “Candidates, turn out promptly!”

Presently the boom of the reveille gun over in camp was followed by the reverberating din of fife and drum in the hall below, which we had not expected. We rushed from the door and joined the swarm of candidates that came pouring from the three divisions in which all were living. How different was everything from any day we had before spent in all our lives. From rising in the morning to going to bed at night, there was nothing that we were now compelled to do that we had ever done before, yet we were rapidly adjusting ourselves to the new condition and requirements, and, strange to say, I believe we all liked it. It all had the fascination about it of being different, and there was the novelty about it all that appealed to our desire for new experiences.

CHAPTER V

EXAMINATIONS

SOON after breakfast we were marched in squads of ten to the cadet hospital, an imposing granite building, set well back from the road on a well-kept, sloping lawn, where we underwent a thorough and critical physical examination from head to feet, and including both. Three dignified and severe-looking army doctors conducted this examination, and, while they said little, they recorded much about us on blank forms and said nothing as to their findings. No doubt they had to make liberal allowance for rapid pulses, occasioned by the excitement incident to such a searching inspection.

The remainder of that day we passed uneventfully in study, preparing for the mental examinations which were to begin the next day. Our rooms were inspected twice, but we were not bothered as we had been the day before, being left to our studies practically without interruption.

Notwithstanding our long day we awoke the next morning as we had the day before, and our rooms were ready for inspection when we should have been sleeping. How different were those mornings from later days, when our senses became so finely adjusted that we could sleep through the shriek of fifes and the rattle of drums outside our doors and not be aroused until toward the final notes of reveille, when we would literally spring into our clothes on the run and dash into ranks simultaneously with the sounding of the final note!

Eight candidates were found to be physically disqualified by the surgeons and lost no time in getting away. I believe many of as more or less envied them, for the moment, their prospect of freedom which was soon to be theirs again.

Our mental examinations were written, the first being in history. A sad, yet valuable, lesson was taught us that day which, I think, had its everlasting effect on all of us. One boy, whom I remember seeing at Highland Falls, was noticed by one of the officers in charge of the examinations to be frequently consulting something beneath the table at which he sat. A quiet investigation disclosed a tightly rolled strip of paper in the handkerchief which lay in his lap. What the paper contained I do not know, but I do know he was quietly told that he need not complete his examination, and to arrange his departure without delay. He walked from the examination hall in a dazed, unsteady way, his eyes downcast and his face flushed with shame. When we returned to barracks after the examination he had departed and I never heard of him again.

It meant much to this boy, who did not know how unsparingly such things are looked on at West Point, thus to be sent away in disgrace, and it also meant much to those who learned a valuable lesson from his misfortune. To any who may have had a tendency to do likewise his downfall was an indelible object lesson.

Day after day, with the exception of Sunday, when we were marched to chapel for an uncomfortable hour and a half, the examinations continued. Some were hard and none were what would be called easy, and it was a pleasant thought when they were at last over.

It is a wonder that anybody passed the reading examination. We were sent in squads of ten to the examination hall, where were assembled, in full military regalia, the academic board, mostly composed of gray-haired celebrities who had been pointed out to as by

the cadets over us and who always spoke of them with bated breath.

Before these august personages we must get up and read from a book or newspaper; a simple enough task ordinarily, but in this case one sufficiently terrifying to cause the quaking knees of the frightened candidate almost to double under him, and to cause the most simple words to stick in his parched throat and come forth finally in broken, hollow and unnatural sounds. One boy, I remember, was rejected on account of an “impediment in speech” which we all attributed to nothing more than temporary fright.

In spite of the orders prohibiting upper classmen from coming to barracks while we were there, they managed to evade this order very frequently, much to our regret. They watched for us in the bathrooms and gave us a taste of what was awaiting us when we came to camp.

We were required to tell stories, sing songs, and do the “slide for life,” as it was called. This consisted in sliding, in a sitting posture, across the wet tiled floor of the bathroom, evidently much to the delight of those who had so slidden the summer before.

“Swimming to Newburgh,” was another favorite pastime of ours, urged on by the “yearlings” who had “run it” to barracks to get even with somebody for what they had done the year before. This exercise consisted in lying on our stomachs on top of low partitions between the small bathrooms and going through the motions of swimming with our arms and legs.

“How far do you think you have got, Mister,” one of the yearlings would inquire.

“I think I’m about to Newburgh, sir,” the swimmer would answer.

“Newburgh!” he would exclaim, “why, you haven’t passed Cold Springs yet. Keep it up.”

These and other ingenious devices kept us from feeling neglected and aroused in us the question as to whether we really wanted to go to camp or not, but the doubt never took definite form in my mind. I had come to stay, no matter what happened, and if others had stood it, I could.

Finally the day came when the results of the examination were to be announced. We were sitting uneasily in our rooms, as we had been for the two days since the exams were finished, when the electrifying order which always brought us up standing was heard in the hall below:

“Candidates, turn out promptly!”

We tumbled downstairs and were lined up in single rank in the area. In front of us stood the adjutant of the academy, the officer to whom we had reported that first day, with a paper in his hand.

“Those whose names are called,” he announced, “will step two paces to the front.”

Then he began calling names alphabetically, and slowly a new rank began to form in front of us. I had a long wait before he reached the “K’s.” My knees shook and trembled in spite of my efforts to keep them steady. With exquisite anxiety I heard the adjutant slowly approach my place on the list and then pass on to the ones below me without reading it.

A crushing weight seemed lifted from me and I felt like rushing from ranks in my exultation. I had passed, and was now sure of becoming a cadet.

Then it came over me with a chilly, sickening shudder that we had not been informed which rank was which. What if those whose names were called were the ones that had passed. My anxiety came back and I suffered anew at the possibility.

When the process of division was at last completed, the adjutant folded up his paper and pronounced sentence on the waiting groups.

“Those whose names I have read,” he said, “have been found deficient on their examinations, and as soon as they have turned in the articles that have been issued to them they will be permitted to return to their homes. Those whose names were not read will be admitted to the academy.”

That was all. No words of consolation for the unfortunate, no congratulations for those who were to remain. An entire absence of sentiment marked the whole proceeding, which meant so much to so many.

When we broke ranks all was confusion. The unsuccessful ones bore their disappointment with becoming fortitude and those elected to stay endeavored to hide any signs of gratification over their success. After hurriedly carrying their bedding and other equipment to the cadet store and receiving their deposit money, less a small charge for board, those who had been “found” packed their belongings, said a few good-by s, and departed with the utmost haste.

Burton had passed, as I had felt sure he would, but poor Gentry had not been equal to the requirements. He was barely seventeen, and the effort had been too much for him. We cheered him up by reminding him that he could come back the next year and probably have no trouble, and assured him that we hoped we would still be here to welcome him if he came. But he chose to do differently. He enlisted the next year and served two years in the ranks, after which he took the examination for a commission and won out, leading by a full year those of us who took the examination with him. It was a strange turn of fate that sent him to our regiment as a captain some years later, and that I should be one of his lieutenants.

For those of us who remained, one hundred and five in all, events happened rapidly. Study and examinations were over and our military instruction was to begin without delay. First came the fitting to put us in cadet uniform, the thought of which was a delight to us. How we had grown to despise our tightly buttoned “cits,” as our civilian clothes were called, and how we longed to see them safely stowed away in the trunk room! Of coarse we had to take what was an approximate fit until uniforms could be made to our measure, but still, it was a uniform and the fit mattered not.

Two pairs of gray flannel trousers, a gray blouse, a cap and two pairs of uniform shoes were issued to each of us, and we were ordered to lay aside our “cits” at once. We were still far from an attractive aggregation, but still we were an improvement on the composite extraction from North, East, South and West that we had been, with our widely different styles of clothing.

Next day we were marched in a body to headquarters, where, at the rate of twenty-five cents per head, we were required to raise our right hands and enter into a binding contract with the United States to serve for eight years, “unless sooner discharged by competent authority.” We were present in person, but the United States was represented by an old-time clerk, who was also a notary public.

CHAPTER VI

DELIGHTS OF DRILL

DRILLS began immediately, four hours daily being devoted to learning the rudiments of military education. Our drillmasters were cadets from the upper classes, to each of whom were assigned eight “new cadets,” as we were now to be known officially, though we were habitually to be known as “plebes” then and for the next year. It did not seem possible to us that these wonderfully wise individuals who directed our every step could possibly have been as “wooden” and “gross” one year ago as they declared we were today and that we could ever arrive at their stage of proficiency seemed absolutely incredible.

And we were wooden, too, woefully so. The impatience our drillmasters exhibited was pardonable, I have no doubt. Back and forth, round and round, we went, an awkward, perspiring lot, mercilessly criticized and relentlessly urged to “wake up,” objects of interest, amusement and compassion to the many visitors and excursionists who loitered in the shade of the trees to watch us, shade that would have been so grateful to us had we been allowed to enjoy it. I thanked my stars that no relative of mine was there to see me at that time, and sympathized with those whose fond parents had come on to see their sons launched on their military careers.

In about a week after I had written home of having passed the final barrier which lay between me and the goal of my ambition, I received a letter from Virginia, congratulating me on my success and saying how much she would enjoy seeing me in my new uniform and having me show her some of the attractive walks and shady nooks in which West Point abounded and of which we had talked so often after I received my appointment. I smiled as I read her letter. “Attractive walks, shady nooks indeed! Maybe there were such things, but they were not for such as I. Bared of the novelty of romance, West Point had already lost the poetic glamour which had so long hung over it and I was viewing it from the standpoint of reality.

Also I knew that I was anything but an attractive object in my mew uniform, and in many ways I lacked the confident assurance that a real ideal cadet should have. Whenever we went we must force our shoulders back farther than they had ever been before we must not swing our arms, an we must depress our toes in walking until they dug into the cinder covered area, and our chins must be drawn in and our stomachs drawn up, until it was a hardship to leave one’s shelter and go forth into the open.

I was thankful for the hundreds of miles that separated me from Virginia, and resolved that if I could help it she should not become aware of just how unimportant an individual I was in the world about me, and hoped she would continue to picture me the trim-figured, natty cadet of the story book, a pleasant delusion, but an exploded theory.

Some days after our instruction in drill began, we were divided into squads according to efficiency, and to the further advanced squads were issued rifles, with which we were given instruction in the manual of arms, and drill under arms. We had known that this separation was to come sooner or later, and it was the object of everyone to avoid the awkward squad, or “goats,” as the least proficient are called.

Barton and I escaped the “goats” by a good margin, but our friend Dawson, whose path had been anything but smooth since his arrival, was not so fortunate. The unpardonable offense which he had committed by arriving in a carriage on the day he reported was not to be forgotten, and he was daily reminded of it and promised a merry time when he got to camp. His attitude all along had been one of injured insolence, and now, to his chagrin, he was further insulted by being put in the last squad. Much as he hated this distinction there was no appeal from it until he worked himself up by his own efforts.

“I’ll get even with somebody for putting me in the goats, all right,” threatened Dawson, as we were going up to our rooms after drill the day the assignments were made.

“Who’ll you pick out as the object of your wrath?” inquired Burton, facetiously.

“It’s that little upstart of a corporal, Leighton, who did it,” sneered Dawson. “He’s nobody – he needn’t have such a swelled head – he used to work in a bookstore before he came here.”

“Well, if he’s nobody,” said I, “Lord pity the rest of us.”

“I’ll fix him, just the same,” growled Dawson, throwing his cap across the room viciously.

As a matter of fact Leighton, he who had assisted us with our arithmetic lesson, had had nothing to do with Dawson’s landing in the goats. The assignment had been made by the “tac” in charge of us, but Dawson could not hope to ever get even with him. He had been present at most of the drills and had kept a memorandum of the proficiency of his flock It was entirely Dawson’s indifference and his “take-it-for-granted-I-know-it-all” air which was responsible for his landing exactly where he should.

Whether or not Dawson said anything to those in authority about his assignment I do not know, but I do know, that he did something that afternoon which caused him to be disciplined in a way which, while harmless, must have proved humiliating.

When I reported my departure for a bath that afternoon, Dawson was standing on a small wooden box in the corner of the “office,” his face to the wall. His helpless indignation was eloquently expressed in every outline of his broad back. He was bracing “with life” and the vertical wrinkles in his coat between his straining shoulders showed me that he was a different person, outwardly at least, from the Dawson who had held forth with so much assurance on the hotel porch at Highland Falls and who had driven up with so much consequence in a carriage to the door of the headquarters building such a short time before.

When I returned half an hour later, Dawon was still standing on his box, perspiring handsomely, while the corporal to whom I reported my return was reclining comfortably in a chair, feet on the table, reading a magazine. How much longer Dawson remained there I do not know, but long enough, no doubt, to allow him fully to repent of his indiscretion.

CHAPTER VII

THE FOLLY OF FAME

AFTER about two weeks of incessant drilling, with and without arms, learning the “setting up” exercises, marchings and manual of arms, we received four pairs of white duck trousers each, and next day the order was published for us to move to camp, where the first and third classes had been ever since graduation. The second class divas on furlough until August 28, enjoying the vacation which comes at the end of the second year’s course.

It is the policy at West Point, and a wise one, that the new men shall receive the rudiments of their military education while entirely separated from the upper classmen. There is no mingling of the three upper classes with the plebes during the entire first year, and it is well to have this fact thoroughly instilled into the new cadets before they come to live and move among the superior beings that hold them at arm’s length so rigidly and so long.

Moving to camp was a great event. We were assigned by the order to companies, according to our height, the taller men going to companies A and B, the shorter to C and D, there being only four companies at that time. We had never been near the camp, alway s giving it a wide berth when enjoying out brief respites from duty in the way of walks about the post. Camp was the Holy of Holies which we dare not even approach until sent there to live. Set well over toward the river, partially shaded by large maple trees, the white tents gleaming in the sun, and the brisk, natty figures moving about, or sitting on the visitors’ seats, basking in the admiration of one or more feminine adherents, there had always been a glamour of enticing uncertainty as to what the inner life would be from a plebe’s standpoint.

We were desirous of the change, yet most apprehensive. The conspicuousness of our position galled us and we longed for the time when we would be absorbed in the white-trousered battalion, no matter what the price. We hated the living in separate quarters, eating at separate tables, and, above all, being marched to and from the mess hall, conspicuous as a separate organization.

We took with us to camp our personal belongings and bedding, with the exception of mattresses. Neither mattresses nor cots were allowed in camp at that time, though cadets are now furnished with folding cots. Our beds were the hard tent floors, padded only with the scant bedding with which a plebe is furnished.

It was not a haven of refuge into which we marched, as, armed with brooms, buckets and bedding, we toiled across the hot, gravel-covered cavalry plain, across post number one, and were lined up just outside the forest of white tents, laid out in eight parallel rows.

Immediately we were surrounded by an inquisitive horde of upper classmen, looking us over and indulging in the most personal remarks, which to them seemed mirthful, but to us were utterly devoid of humor; in short, they acted as if we were so much live stock herded together for their inspection and purchase. In this chaffing no words were addressed to us; we were merely the objects of comment, apparently devoid of personality.

I could scarcely suppress a smile as one inquisitive yearling shouted to one of the corporals over us:

“Did you bring Mr. Dawson over with you, or is he coming over in a carriage later, with the ‘Supe’ and the ‘Com’?”

The “Supe,” as the superintendent is known, is the commanding officer of the post and its most sacred personage. Second only to him, is the “Com” (commandant of cadets), who has direct control of affairs concerning the corps of cadets only.

Soon we were assigned to companies and to tents. Being allowed to choose our tent mates, as far as practicable, Burton and I, both being assigned to “A” company, moved into a vacant tent and began to arrange our belongings.

“You’re getting that all tangled up,” said a voice at my elbow, as I was trying to sling a “stretcher” from the ridge pole of the tent. “Let me show you how to do it.”

To my surprise, there stood an upper classman just outside our tent, one whom we had never seen before, offering his assistance. These stretchers are canvas-covered frames, hung by short ropes from the ridge pole of the tents, and on which are piled different articles of clothing. Everything not kept in the wooden floor lockers is kept there.

Entering our tent, with no further ceremony, the upper classman proceeded to direct and assist in the most efficient manner the setting of our tent to rights. Soon he was joined by another of his class, and together they soon had our tent ready for the most critical inspection, bedding piled in the corner and rifles and dress hats all in their proper places.

This familiarity warmed me with something akin to emotion and only my memory of the arithmetic lesson deterred me from extending thanks and introducing myself and Barton. It was just as well I did not. That custom of helping plebes get settled was only the calm before the storm, and the lesson we learned that day was used during the weary months that followed in keeping in order the tents of the men who had been so kind to us. They chose Burton and me for their “special duty men,” and we waited on them faithfully daring the remainder of camp, making lemonade (contraband), carrying ice water, printing “hop cards,” keeping their tent in general good order and even acting as social secretaries on occasions by writing letters for their signature.

Much as may be said against this custom of the upper classmen using the plebes as special duty men, some of the most lasting friendships in the army today are those between men whose acquaintance began under these circumstances. An upper classman would never allow another to impose upon his special duty man, and his tent was always a haven of refuge from annoyance. To him he always bequeathed his white trousers and extra dress coat and other needful articles which a plebe can acquire in no other way. Sound advice and wise counsel were always gladly given, and a plebe always felt that there was one person to whom he might go for guidance and receive valuable assistance.

My front rank “file,” the man behind whom I stood in ranks, was a yearling named Savage, and well did the name suit him, as it seemed to me then. My pride at being at last in the battalion and permitted to march with the corps to dinner, wearing white trousers and looking as near like other cadets as a plebe can, was seriously damaged during our march to dinner that first day.

On the way to the mess hall I found myself continually stepping on Savage’s heels, each time drawing forth from him a threatening grumble, promising me all sorts of dire calamities if I did not “come off walking up his back.” I began to wish I had not been absorbed into the battalion, at least behind Savage. Of course, I dared not even glance down, for there were three vigilant corporals in the file close behind me, exerting much vocal effort in shouting to all of us plebes, individually and collectively, to get our shoulders back, “more yet,” to “drag in” our chins and to stop swinging our arms, to keep our “heads up” and eyes “straight to the front.” Unless you have perspired your way across a sizzling barren plain, bracing yourself almost to prostration, with three or four barking corporals hanging on like wolves behind you and shouting that oft-repeated, never-satiated “more yet,” you cannot appreciate what a long distance a half mile is.

On reaching the mess hall I began a stammering apology, but was interrupted with the assurance that I would “catch it” when we got back to camp, which assurance did not add to the pleasure of my dinner. I did not know that my apparent clumsiness was due to Savage crossing one foot over the other as he walked, for the sole purpose of annoying me.

When we returned to camp I had my first lesson in the sign language. A short, heavy-set yearling entered our tent, and as we stood at rigid attention, held his doubled-up fist close to my face, his thumb sticking straight up in the air.

“Well,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “sound off.”

“I don’t know what it means,” I ventured, meekly.

“Sir!” he prompted, sternly.

“Sir!” I repeated.

“That means ‘what’s your name?’ ” pushing his thumb a little closer.

I told him my name and he instantly twisted his fist ninety degrees to the right. This I learned was a mute inquiry as to the State from which I came.

Another turn of the thumb to the left signified a desire to know the name of my “pred” – i. e., the man who had last represented my congressional district at the academy. Next the inquisitive thumb was turned directly downward, which I learned was an inquiry concerning my “P. C. S.,” which, literally translated, meant my “previous condition of servitude,” or my occupation previous to entering the academy.

“Schoolgirl, eh?” sneered my inquisitor, when I informed him that my last occupation had been going to school.

“What have you got there?” inquired another cadet, coming up to our tent at that moment.

“This is Mister Kingsley,” answered our first visitor.

“Ah, ha!” cried the newcomer, with apparent delight. “Mister Gordon Kingsley, eh, from Emporia, Harrison County, Iowa. Here, ‘Billy,’ ” he called to a third cadet across the company street, “I’ve found the celebrity we’ve been hunting for; here’s the ‘Pride of Emporia!’ ”

My heart sank My notoriety had preceded me. Where once I had gloried and expanded in the limelight of eulogy and praise, I now shrank from the thought that I was in some way to reap the harvest of that ill-advised write-up in my home paper.

Billy appeared, and in his hand he bore a newspaper clipping. I gasped and tried to gulp down a rising lump in my throat as I recognized it to be a copy of that hateful eulogy in the Emporia Republican, all neatly pasted to a piece of cardboard. Imagine my depression when I was informed that I was to commit to memory this column and a half of journalistic flattery, which had been such a source of delight to me a short time before, and be prepared to recite it on request, with appropriate gestures.

How they obtained possession of a copy of the Emporia Republican was more than I could fathom, and something I dared not ask, but there it was and no mistake. I learned later that a brother of one of the cadets had seen the article and had sent it as a joke. If there was any joke about it, I failed to see it then.

During the next two months I believe I recited my praises, as set forth in that article, on an average of six times a day, accompanying my recital by sweeping gestures, until I made a resolve that my first official act, if I ever got home again, would be to hunt down and slay that reporter, if it took dynamite to carry out my purpose.

On the morning of the Fourth of July we awoke to the strains of patriotic airs, played by the West Point band as it marched through the company streets at reveille. This custom of having the band turn out at reveille is one which dates back to the early days of the institution. All duties were suspended for the day, and we listened to patriotic airs in the morning, and a national salute was fired at noon. Best of all, we were treated to an extra dinner in the mess hall by way of celebration.

CHAPTER VIII

ON GUARD – CAMP LIFE

A DAY or two after the Fourth we were “marched on guard” for our first tour. How we did “spoon up” for that event. The upper classmen helped us too, for there was a certain rivalry as to which company should turn out the best appearing plebes at guard mounting. We, who had been chosen from our companies, were delighted that we had advanced far enough to go on guard.

The cadet adjutant, who officiates at guard mounting, exerted all his efforts to find something we had overlooked, and he succeeded admirably. He found dust on our rifles where there could not possibly have been any; he found a belt too long here, a spot on a cartridge box there and shoes not properly shined all the way down the line. To the yearlings who were in the guard detail he paid but little attention.

At last it was over. The old guard had presented arms to us as we marched past them to the guard tent, the sentinels had been relieved and we went to camp to carry our bedding to the guard tent, where we were to be on duty for the next twenty-four hours. Two hours out of every six were to be spent on post, of which at that time there were six. We had studied our orders for days before, yet we spent a large part of our time during the day “boning guard manual” and our special orders.

All went well until night. My third tour on post was from midnight until two in the morning. I felt a weight of responsibility as the countersign was turned over to me and the corporal gave the word “No. 5 Post,” and the relief with measured tread marched off in the darkness toward the guard tent, leaving me alone in my glory on No. 5.

As I paced back and forth in the fading moonlight, everything about me shrouded in solemn stillness, I felt very much a soldier. I thrilled at the responsibility that was mine. How a sentinel could ever sleep on post was beyond my comprehension. I was on the alert for the half-hourly call of “All’s well,” which sounded so like the war times I had read about.

After a while I heard it, clear and distinct: “No. 1, half-past twelve o’clock.” This was repeated by Nos. 2, 3, and 4, each adding the words “And all’s well.” In my loudest and bravest tones I repeated their call, loud enough to be heard by No. 6, whose form I could see dimly under the gaslight at the other end of his post. No sooner had the words left my lips than suddenly and without warning half a dozen ghostlike figures rushed toward me from the nearby line of tents and surrounded me, cavorting gayly, but uttering no sounds. I was dazed and frightened out of my wits. My orders fled from my mind like shadows, and I stood helpless, speechless.

All at once I felt a rope about my waist, and before I could attempt to release myself I was drawn to a nearby tree and wrapped round and round, hand and foot, until I was as securely bound as was ever a victim to the stake.

I was then relieved of my rifle, without resistance, I admit, and as suddenly as they had come my assailants departed, leaving me alone and powerless. I was ashamed to call for help, also I dreaded the consequences, and tried every effort to extricate myself, but without success. The corporal of the guard, who I have always suspected was not far off when I was tied up, appeared a few moments later and gave me a round “cussing out” and assured me that the lightest punishment I could hope for would be summary dismissal when the proof of my negligence had been brought to the notice of the “Com.” “Sleeping on post” and thereby losing my rifle was not an offense to be treated lightly. No assurance of mine would convince him that I had never been wider awake in my life.

After releasing me he told me where I would probably find my rifle, and after warning me against any further neglect of duty; he went his way. I found my rifle where he had suggested, and in fear and trembling paced my lonely beat until two o’clock, when I was relieved. The monotony was relieved by a visit from the officer of the day, the officer of the guard and the sergeant of the guard, all of whom had heard of my misfortune and who agreed with the corporal that my case was a serious one.

Nothing came of the occurrence, of course; in fact, if it had ever come to the attention of the “Corn” I would have been much less liable to punishment than any one else. Frequently that summer we were molested in the stillness of the night, but never did I take my troubles as seriously as I did that first night when I found myself, an armed exponent of military vigilance, hopelessly and. helplessly tied to a tree.

The mornings in camp were taken up with drills of various kinds, company drill, battalion drill, mortar battery drill, and drill with the field guns without horses, known as standing gun drill. The upper classes went down by the sea-coast battery, and built pontoon bridges. Due to the fact that they wore their oldest clothes to this, they called it “pants” drill; at least, that was said to be the reason. We who had to haul the heavy field pieces back and forth and “right” and “left,” longed for the time when we might have something easier or more interesting to do.

Mechanical maneuvers and P. M. E. (practical military engineering) looked attractive, to us too, for in the former was taught the art of mounting guns temporarily, the advantageous way to use block and tackle and other mechanical devices for military purposes. In P. M. E. the art of making hasty entrenchments, gun pits, temporary fortifications and obstacles such as wire entanglements and abbatis, revetments and palisades, was taught, and in all this we could see something worth learning. In fact, anything seemed preferable to the daily drudgery which our drill schedule prescribed for us.

One hour a day was devoted to either swimming or dancing lessons, these two exercises falling on alternate days. In the former we were instructed by the athletic director of the academy and were required to qualify by swimming a prescribed distance in a prescribed position. We enjoyed the sport, and went swimming voluntarily whenever opportunity offered.

In dancing we were under the tutelage of an antiquated German dancing master from Milwaukee, assisted by his son, Rudolph. Diligently did he labor with the boy from the Kansas farm and the former social success from the Back Bay. For the novice he would mark on the floor a square with a piece of chalk. Then it would be:

“Von, two, t’ree, von, two, t’ree. Oh! stop, stop! Dat will nefer do. Now vatch me!” and he would glide noiselessly through the waltz steps with a grace remarkable for one of his age. Then