Dick Prescotts First Year at West Point | Page 8

Prescott, with a wan smile.
"Whom could I mean but Brayton?" almost hissed young Holmes. "Why does that fellow hate us all so?"
"I'll tell you a secret, if you want to hear it," proposed Dick mysteriously.
"Please!"' begged Candidate Holmes.
"Then I don't believe he does hate us."
"'What?" gasped Greg incredulously.
"I don't believe he'd remember half our faces if he passed the members of his squad in' the area right now," declared Dick.
"Then why does he persecute us so?" demanded Greg indignantly.
"I don't believe it is persecution," Dick continued.
"Then why, in the name of all that's kindly, does that fellow put us under the heel of hateful usage? Why must we submit to the tyranny of that cadet corporal?"
"It's the West Point way-that's all, I guess."
"Do you propose to submit to it?" challenged Greg.
"Yes," retorted Dick soberly. "I don't want to have to leave the Academy and go home stamped a failure.'"
"Neither do I," admitted Candidate Holmes in a more moderate tone. "But I wonder whether we have to stand so much nonsense from a petty young official like a mere corporal?"
"I'm afraid we do," nodded Dick. "Now, see here, Greg, can't you make a good guess as to why we're put through such a grilling?"
"I'll confess I can't see any human reason m it," declared Candidate Holmes.
"Why, what did we come here to learn to be?"
"Soldiers."
"Are we soldiers yet!"
"Of course not," Greg admitted.
"Do you think these people at West Point have time to coax and pamper us along!"
"Probably not. But can't they-or can't that fellow Brayton-be decent with us?"
"Now, look right here," counseled Candidate, Prescott wisely. "We want to be soldiers, but as yet we're only ignorant, unregenerate, untaught young cubs. To the older cadets we must seem like pitiful beasts."
"No, we don't,"' sneered Candidate Holmes. "We don't seem anything at all. No cadet here, unless he's obliged to notice us, even looks at us. We're less than nothing."
"That's true," nodded Dick thoughtfully. "And I'll wager it will be pretty nearly as bad all the time we're plebes. Now brace up, Greg. Remember what a small fraction of nothing you are, and be thankful for the severe handling by Brayton, which may eventually transform us into at least pretty fair imitations of soldiers."
Outside a drum was sounding. It was mess call, but neither candidate knew it. Almost immediately, however, Brayton's rousing voice rang up through the subdivision:
"Candidates turn out promptly!"
"There's our slave-driver once more," frowned Candidate Holmes.
Dick, as he raced down the stairs, remembered to button his coat down its entire length. Greg forgot. As he darted through the door-way to the porch overlooking the area he found Corporal Brayton's gaze fastened upon him in severe displeasure.
"Mr. Holmes, button your coat, sir!"
Reddening and frowning, too, it must be admitted, Greg obeyed.
"All candidates will pass quickly through the north sally port and make formation," continued the cadet corporal.
Here the entire uniformed cadet corps was forming, facing the plain. At the extreme left of the line a cadet lieutenant, two sergeants and four cadet corporals busied themselves with forming the candidates and alternates in line. When the word was given the cadet corps wheeled to the right and marched off in column of fours, quite a splendid model of military precision.
Somehow the un-uniformed greenhorns managed to turn into column of fours, though some of the bewildered boys forgot to which four they belonged and there was some confusion.
Behind the superb cadet corps, toiled along these all but hopeless candidates and alternates, scores and scores of them-every fellow of them feeling more awkward than his nearest neighbors in the line. Badly out of step was this green material. Some of the boys slouched as they walked along; others shuffled. Their appearance was enough to dishearten a trained soldier.
But at last all these green ones were marshaled to seats in the great dining hall at cadet mess. There, in a fine dinner, they forgot, momentarily, many of the discouragements of the forenoon.
In the afternoon came a lot more of drilling of awkward squads by other cadet corporals. Greg soon found, under the tender mercies of another corporal, why Brayton was considered "easy."
These cadet corporals are all members of the yearling class, the class directly above the plebes. As corporals these members of the yearling class get their first direct experience in military command.
Later in the afternoon all candidates were notified that academic examinations would begin at eight o'clock the next morning in the Academic Building.
And now the candidates began to shiver! "Bad" as the start had been, they hoped, to a man, that they would pass these academic examinations. To fail meant to return home, the dream of being a cadet shattered!
"Ugh!" muttered Greg, rubbing his hands in quarters. "Br-r-r! Dick, I'm afraid I'm scared cold!"
Prescott smiled, but he, too, was worried over the coming mysteries