Captain Jinks, Hero, Ernest Howard Crosby [free e books to read TXT] 📗

of an uncontrollable passion for things military. Manhood and brass buttons were with her interconvertible terms, and the idea of uniting her young life to a plain civilian seemed to her nothing less than shocking. The pleasures of her first two or three summers at East Point and of her first half-dozen engagements had partaken of the bliss of heaven. The engagements had never been broken off, they had simply dissolved one into the other, and she had felt herself rising from step to step in happiness. Naturally her conquests filled her with a supreme confidence in her charms. She was not especially fickle by nature, but she discovered that a first-class cadet, particularly if he was an officer and had black feathers in his full-dress hat, was far more attractive to think of than a supernumerary second lieutenant assigned to duty in some Western garrison. Gradually, however, she found herself less certain of winning whom she would. The competition of young girls some two or three years her junior became threatening. She was obliged to give up cadet officers for privates, and then first-class privates for third-class privates, as the hotel waiter had explained to Sam. At the time of Sam’s arrival at the Point she was having more difficulty than ever before, and she became thoroughly frightened. She took up with Saunders because he alone came her way, but the engagement was a poor makeshift, and she could not get up any enthusiasm over it. She could hardly pretend to be in love with him, and she felt conscious that she had a foolish prejudice in favor of straight noses. What was she to do? If she was to marry at all in the army⁠—and how could she marry anywhere else?⁠—she must soon make up her mind. Her experience now stood her in good stead. Had she not seen these very first-class cadet officers only three years before as mere despised “beasts,” doing all kinds of drudgery for their oppressors? Had she not seen her fiancé, Saunders, himself, a short twelvemonth ago, with nose intact, slinking like a pariah about the post? She had learned the lesson which the younger girls had yet to learn, that from these unpromising chrysalises the most gorgeous butterflies emerge, and like a wise woman she began to study the fourth class. Sam stood out from his fellows, not indeed as supremely handsome, although he was not bad-looking, but rather as the soldier par excellence of his class. Marian was an expert in judging the points of a soldier, and she saw at once that he was the coming man. She could not make his acquaintance or speak to him, but she could smile and thus lay the foundations of success for next year. It would be easy thus to reach the heart of a lonely “beast.” And she smiled to a purpose, and it was that smile that won the untried affections of Sam Jinks.

When June at last came and the new fourth-class men began to arrive, Sam felt a new life surge into his soul. For a year he had been duly meek and humble, for such it behooved a fourth-class man to be. Now, however, he began to entertain a measureless pride, such being the proper frame of mind of a man in the upper classes. He watched the hotel sedulously to learn when Miss Hunter had made her appearance. One morning he saw her, and she smiled more distinctly than ever. He knew that his felicity was only a short way off. He must wait two weeks until the graduation ball and the departure of the old first class; then he could undertake to supplant the absent Saunders, who probably knew the history of Miss Hunter and was not unprepared for his fate.

Meanwhile great events had occurred, and thrown East Point into a state of excitement. The country was at war. Congress had determined to free the downtrodden inhabitants of the Cubapine Islands from the tyranny of the ancient Castalian monarchy. A call for volunteers had been issued, and the graduating cadets were to be hurried to the seat of war. During this agitation news arrived of a great naval victory. The mighty Castalian fleet had been annihilated with great loss of life, while the conquerors had not lost a man and had scarcely interrupted their breakfast in order to secure this crushing triumph. It was in the midst of such reports as these that the susceptible hearts of Sam Jinks and Marian Hunter came together. The graduating class had gone, and Sam had for two days been a full third-class man. For the first time he had occupied the front rank at dress-parade, and seen clearly the officer in command, the adjutant flitting about magnificently, the band parading up and down and turning itself inside out around the towering drum-major, the line of spectators behind, the bright faces and gay parasols, and among them the black eyes of Marian looking unmistakably at him. When at the end of the parade the company officers marched up to salute and the companies were dismissed, Sam saw a member of the new first class talking to her. He was now on an equality with all the cadets, and he boldly advanced and asked for an introduction. At last he had her hand in his, and as he pressed it rather harder than the occasion warranted, he felt his pressure returned. Sam’s fate was sealed. He made no formal proposal, it was unnecessary. The engagement was a thing taken for granted. It was a novel experience for Marian as well as for Sam, as now for the first time she meant business. It is impossible in cold ink to reproduce the ecstasies of those many hours on Flirtation Walk, during which Sam opened his heart. For the first time in his life he had found a person as deeply interested in military matters as he was, and as much in