The Drummer Boy | Page 9

of his influence over
Jack. This incident, as we shall see, had a bad effect upon Frank
himself; for, instead of persevering in the good work he had undertaken,
he was inclined to give up all hope of exerting an influence upon any
body.
In the mean time Jack was washing down the sermon, as he said, with
more brandy.
"'Twas such an awful dry discourse, boys;" and he passed the bottle
around to the others, who all drank, except Abram Atwater. That
stalwart young soldier stood in the midst of the tent, straight and tall,
with his arms calmly folded under his blue cape (a favorite attitude of
his), and merely shook his head, with a mild and tolerant smile, when
the liquor was passed to him.
Such was the beginning of Frank's camp life. It was not long before he
had recovered from his confusion, and was apparently on good terms
with his messmates. He spent the afternoon in walking about the camp;
watching some raw recruits at their drill; watching others playing cards,
or checkers, or backgammon; getting acquainted, and learning the ways
of the camp generally.
So the day passed; and that night Frank lay for the first time
soldier-fashion, under canvas. He went to bed with his clothes on, and
drew his blanket over him. It was not like going to bed in his nice little
room at home, with Willie snuggled warmly beside him; yet there was
a novelty in this rude and simple mode of life that was charming. His
companions, who lay upon the ground around him, kept him awake
with their stories long after the lights were out; but at length, weary
with the day's excitement, he fell asleep.
There,--a dweller now in the picturesque white city of tents gleaming in

the moonlight, ruggedly pillowed on his soldier's couch, those soft
brown curls tossed over the arm beneath his head,--the drummer boy
dreamed of home. The last night's consultation and the morning's
farewells were lived over again in the visions of his brain; and once
more his mother visited his bedside; and again his father accompanied
him to the recruiting office. But now the recruiting office was changed
into a barber's shop, which seemed to be a tent supported by a striped
pole; where, at John Winch's suggestion, he was to have his hair
trimmed to the fighting-cut. The barber was a stiff-looking officer in
epaulets, who heated a sword red-hot in an oven, while Frank preached
to him a neat little sermon over his ration. Then the epaulets changed to
a pair of roosters with flaming red combs, that flapped their wings and
crowed. And the barber, approaching Frank with his red-hot sword,
made him lie on his back to be shaved. Then followed an excruciating
sense of having his hair pulled and his face scraped and burnt, which
made him move and murmur in his sleep; until, a ruthless attempt being
made to thrust the sword up his nostrils, he awoke.
Shouts of laughter greeted him. His companions had got up at midnight,
lighted a candle, and burnt a cork, with which they had been giving him
an artificial mustache and whiskers. He must have been a ludicrous
sight, with his countenance thus ornamented, sitting up on his bed,
rubbing his eyes open, and staring about him, while Winch and Harris
shrieked with mirth, and Ned Ellis flapped his arms and crowed.
Frank put up his hand to his head. O grief! his curls had been mangled
by dull shears in the unskilful hands of John Winch. The depredator
was still brandishing the miserable instrument, which he had borrowed
for the occasion of the fellow who cut the company's hair in the "Owl
House."
Frank's sudden awaking, astonishment, and chagrin were almost too
much for him. He could have cried to think of a friend playing him
such a trick; and to think of his lost curls! But he had made up his mind
to endure every thing that might befall him with unflinching fortitude.
He must not seem weak on an occasion like this. His future standing
with his comrades might depend upon what he should say and do next.

So he summoned all his stoutness of heart, and accepted the joke as
good-naturedly as was possible under the circumstances.
"I wish you'd tell me what the fun is," he said, "so that I can laugh too."
"Give him the looking-glass," cried Jack Winch, holding the candle,
while Ellis stopped crowing, to bring a little three-cornered fragment of
a broken mirror, by which Frank was shown the artistic burnt-cork
work on his face. He could hardly help laughing himself at his own
hideousness, now that the first disagreeable sense of being the sport of
his friends had passed.
"I hope