Dick Prescotts Second Year at West Point | Page 2

the forenoon---these cadets had been up, as they we every day in summer, since five in the morning---spirits ran high at the midday meal, and chaffing talk and laughter ran from table to table.
The meal over, the battalion marched back to camp. There were a few minutes yet before the afternoon drills. A few minutes of leisure? Yes, if such an easy act as dressing in uniform appropriate to the coming drill, may be termed leisure.
"Drills are going to be called off, I reckon," murmured Greg, poking his head outside the khaki colored tent after he had put himself in readiness.
"What's up?" demanded Anstey, lacing a legging.
"The sky is about the color of ink over old Crow's Nest," reported Greg.
Just then there came a vivid flash of lightning, followed, in a few seconds, by a deep, echoing roll of thunder. The summer storms along this part of the Hudson River sometimes come almost out of the clear sky.
"I'm always thankful for even the smallest favors," muttered Anstey, with a yawn.
"We'll have to make up this drill some other day, when it's hotter," Dick observed, but he nevertheless dropped on to a campstool with a grunt of relief.
Yes; each of these three cadets could now have a campstool of his own in quarters, for Prescott, Holmes and Anstey were all yearlings.
And a yearling is "some one" in the cadet corps. For the first few days after his release from the plebe class the yearling is quite likely to feel that he is nearly "the whole thing." By degrees, however, the yearling in summer encampment discovers that there is a first class of much older cadets above him.
There are no second classmen in summer encampment, until just before the time to break camp and return to barracks for the following academic year. Members of the new second class---men who have successfully passed through the first two years of life at the United States Military Academy---are allowed two months and a half of summer furlough, during which time they return to their homes.
Readers of the foregoing volume in this series, _"Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point"_, are already familiar with the ordeals, the hard work, the sorrows and the few pleasures, indeed, of plebe life at West Point.
These readers of the former volume recall just how Dick and Greg reached West Point in March of the year before; how they passed their entrance examinations and settled down to fifteen months of plebedom. Such readers recall the fights in which the new men found themselves involved, the hazing, laughable and otherwise, will be recalled. Our former readers will recollect that about the only pleasure that Dick Prescott found in his plebedom lay in his election to the presidency of his class---position that carries more responsibility than pleasure for the poor plebe leader of his class.
But now all was wholly and happily changed. Dick, Greg and Anstey were yearlings, entitled to real and friendly recognition from the upper classmen.
It is only seldom that yearlings are accused of b.j.-ety (freshness), for about all of that is taken out of the cadet during his plebedom.
But the greatest sign of all to the new yearling is that now, instead of finding himself liable to hazing at any time, he is now the one who administers the hazing.
It is rare that a first or second classman takes the trouble to haze a plebe. A first or second classman may notice that a plebe is a little too b.j. If so, the first or second classman usually drops a hint to a yearling, and the latter usually takes the plebe in hand.
So far, our young friends had been yearlings just three days. They had not, as yet, exercised their new function of hazing any plebes. The first three days in camp had been too full of new and hard duties to permit of their doing so.
As Greg looked out of the tent, the wind suddenly sprang up, driving a gust of big raindrops before it. In another moment there was a steady downpour. Cadet corporals in raincoats darted through the company streets, carrying the cheering word that drills were suspended until change of orders.
"I hope it rains all afternoon, then," gaped Anstey, behind his hand. "It's a rest for mine---you bunkies (tentmates) permitting."
Anstey stretched himself on his bed and was soon sound asleep.
In summer encampment, taps sound at 10.30, and first call to reveille sounds at five in the morning. Six hours and a half of sleep are none too much for a young man engaged at hard drilling and other work. The cadet, when his duties, permit, may, however, snatch a few minutes of sleep at any time through the day. Cadets in camp quickly get the knack of making a few minutes count for a nap.
"It's going