Captain Jinks, Hero | Page 2

very own turned out to be a rooster, and when he found that it had to be taken from him and beheaded he was quite inconsolable and refused absolutely to feast upon his former friend. But with this tenderness of disposition Sam had inherited another still stronger trait, and this was a deep respect for authority, and such elements of revolt as revealed themselves in his grief over his rooster were soon stifled in his little heart. He bowed submissively before the powers that be. From the time when he first lisped he had called his parents "Colonel Jinks" and "Mrs. Jinks." His mother had succeeded with great difficulty in substituting the term "Ma" for herself, but she could not make him address his father as anything but "Colonel," and after a time his father grew to like it. No one knew how Sam had acquired the habit; it was simply the expression of an inherently respectful nature. He reverenced his father and loved his father's profession of farmer. His earliest pleasure was to hold the reins and drive "like Colonel Jinks," and his earliest ambition was to become a teamster, that part of the farm work having peculiar attractions for him.
In the afternoon on which we were introduced to the Colonel, Sam was watching on the veranda for his father's return, and was quick to spy the parcel under his arm, and many were the wild guesses he made as to its contents. The Colonel left it carelessly upon the hall table, and Sam could easily have peeped into it, but he would as soon have thought of cutting off his hand.
"What's in that box in the hall, Colonel Jinks?" he asked in an embarrassed voice at supper, as he fingered the edge of the tablecloth and looked blushingly at his plate.
"Oh, that?" replied his father with a wink--"that's a bombshell." And a bombshell indeed it proved to be for the Jinks family.
The box was put upon a table in the room in which little Sam slept with his parents, and he was told that he could have it in the morning. He was a long time going to sleep that night, trying to imagine the contents of the mysterious box. Not until he had quite made up his mind that it was a farmyard did he finally drop off. At the first break of day Sam was out of bed. With bare feet he walked on tiptoe across the cold bare floor and seized the precious box. He lifted the lid at one corner and put in his hand and felt what was there, and tried to guess what it could be. Perhaps it was a Noah's Ark; but no, if those were people there were too many of them. He would have to give it up. He took off the cover and looked in. It was not a farmyard, at any rate, and the corners of his mouth became tremulous from disappointment. No, they were soldiers. But what did he want of soldiers? He had heard of such things, but they had never been anything in his life. He had never seen a real soldier nor heard of a toy-soldier before, and he did not quite know what they were for. He crept back to bed crestfallen, his present in his arms. Sitting up in bed he began to investigate the contents of the box. It was a complete infantry battalion, and beautiful soldiers they were. Their coats were red, their trousers blue, and they wore white helmets and carried muskets with bayonets fixed. Sam began to feel reconciled. He turned the box upside-down and emptied the soldiers upon the counterpane. Then he noticed that they were not all alike. There were some officers, who carried swords instead of rifles. He began to look for them and single them out, when his eye was caught by a magnificent white leaden plume issuing from the helmet of one of them. He picked up this soldier, and the sight of him filled him with delight. He was taller and broader than the rest, his air was more martial--there was something inspiring in the way in which he held his sword. His golden epaulets were a miracle of splendor, but it was the plume, the great white plume, that held the boy enthralled. A ray of light from the morning sun, reflected by the window of the stable, found its way through a chink in the blind and fell just upon this plume. The effect was electric. Sam was fascinated, and he continued to hold the lead soldier so that the dazzling light should fall on it, gazing upon it in an ecstasy.
[Illustration: WAR'S DEMAND "BUT WHAT DID HE WANT OF SOLDIERS?"]
Sam spent that entire day in the company of