Under Fire | Page 5

was
Tom Barnard's wife, a fair, fat penitent in sealskin and sables, who
drove by in such a magnificent sleigh and style to humble herself at the
altar by the side of such as we, whose social shoes she was as yet held
unworthy to unlatch? Wilbur remembered how once, some years before,
when his father's affairs were straitened and his own were cramped,
when Meg and the baby actually and sorely needed change, but she
sturdily refused to leave him and go East because of the expense, he
had bethought him of Tom Barnard, the rising railway man, and wrote
him a personal note explaining the situation and asking through his
influence if such a thing as a pass for himself and wife could be
obtained over certain roads east of the Missouri, and the answer came,
written by a secretary, brief and to the point. Mr. Barnard enclosed pass

over the Q. R. & X. for Mr. Cranston and wife, but did not feel in a
position to ask favors of any other road. And now Tom Barnard's wife
had come almost at the last moment of his stay and begged that he
would not refuse to see her. What on earth could she want?
A boy with a telegram had just entered and was at the open door as the
captain reached the hall. Under the gas lamp without Cranston saw the
carriage standing by the curb--a livery team, not the beautiful roans that
had caught his trooper eye the first Sunday of his leave when he went
to church with mother and Meg. The message was sharp and clear
enough in all conscience:
"We march at once. You can catch us at Fetterman.
GRAY, Adjutant."
"So old Winthrop goes in command and Bob Gray as adjutant," he
mused. "Then I've no minute to waste."
His step was quicker, his bearing unconsciously more erect and
soldierly, as he entered the parlor and found himself facing the lady.
"I ask your pardon for keeping you waiting, Mrs. Barnard. I was in the
midst of packing when you came, as I must go West at once."
She had not risen from the easy-chair,--a comfortable old family relic
which stood opposite the old-fashioned piano. She leaned forward,
however, so that the sealskin mantle, which the warmth of the room
and the length of her wait had prompted her to throw back, settled
down from her shoulders in rich and luxurious folds. She gave him,
half extended, a hand, which he lifted and lowered once after the
fashion of the day and then released. He remembered her now
perfectly,--the Almira Prendergast the big boys used to say was by long
odds the prettiest girl in the days when half a dozen big brick ward
schools were all the town afforded, but he did not say so, nor did she
care to have him.
"Perhaps I ought to begin by apologizing for taking up your time," she

said, as though not knowing how to begin; and then he saw that heavy
lines of grief and anxiety had eaten their way underneath her dark and
luminous eyes,--ravages that no tinsel could cover or wealth dislodge.
"Was it the driver you spoke to at the door? I heard you say wait. I had
already told him; but it isn't my carriage," she went on deprecatingly.
"Our horses cannot stand night work, the coachman says, and there's
always something the matter with them when they are most needed."
She was looking at him appealingly, as though she hoped he might
suggest some way of helping her to say what had brought her
thither--besides a livery carriage; but Cranston had taken a seat and was
waiting, the telegram crushed in his hand. At last she spoke again.
"You--went to West Point, didn't you?"
"I? Yes."
"Well, then, you could tell me, couldn't you, how to get my boy there?"
"You mean by-and-by when he is old enough?"
"No. I mean now,--at once,--this week in fact."
"W--ell. That is hardly possible, Mrs. Barnard. Cadets are admitted
only in June or September, and only then when there's a vacancy in
their congressional district. But, pardon me. How old is your boy?"
"He is twenty-one,--my eldest,--my first husband's."
"And you wanted to make a soldier of him?" asked Cranston, smilingly.
"Indeed, no! It's the last thing on earth I'd have chosen, nor would he, I
am sure, if he were in his right mind."
"Oh, well, then I shouldn't worry about it, Mrs. Barnard. In this country,
you know, no one has to be a soldier unless he very much wants to, and
very often then he can't. And no boy who isn't in his right mind could
get into the Point even if given a cadetship. What made you think