“Well, young man, I will tell you, for your satisfaction, that I have got you provided, for, for four long years to come.” The speaker was Mr. Brigham. As he uttered these words he placed his hat and gloves on the table, and looked down at his son Lester, who had just entered the library in obedience to the summons he had received, and who sat on the edge of the sofa, twirling his cap in his hands. The boy looked frightened, while the expression on his father’s face told very plainly that he was angry about something.
“I have had quite enough of your nonsense,” continued Mr. Brigham, in very decided tones. “Since we came to Mississippi you have done nothing but roam about the woods and fields with[6] your gun on your shoulder, and get yourself into trouble. You made yourself so very disagreeable that none of the decent boys in the settlement would have anything to do with you, and consequently you had to take up with such fellows as Bob Owens and Dan Evans. After setting fire to Don Gordon’s shooting-box, and being caught in the act of stealing David Evans’s quails, you had to go and mix yourself up in that mail robbery. Why, Lester, have you any idea where you will bring up if you do not at once begin to mend your ways?”
“Why, father, I had nothing to do with that,” exclaimed Lester, trying to look surprised and innocent; “nothing whatever. You know, as well as I do, that I was at home when those men who lived in that house-boat waylaid and robbed the mail-carrier.”
“I am aware that you took no active part in the work,” said his father. “If you had, you would now be confined in the calaboose. But you told Dan Evans about those checks for five thousand dollars that my agent sends me every month.”
“I didn’t,” interrupted Lester.
“Everything goes to prove that you did,” answered[7] Mr. Brigham. “If you didn’t, how does it come that Dan knew all about those checks? He made a full confession to Don Gordon. The story is all over the country, and the people about here are very angry at you. Suppose that Dan had shot Don Gordon, as he tried to do? What do you suppose would become of you? I really believe you would have been mobbed before this time. I wonder if you have any idea of the excitement you have raised in the settlement?”
No; Lester had not the faintest conception of it, for the simple reason that he had held no conversation with anybody, save the members of his own family, since the afternoon on which Dan Evans was overpowered and robbed of his mail-bag. When the full particulars of the affair came to his ears, he was as frightened as a boy could be, and live. He knew that he was in a measure responsible for the robbery, that it would never have been committed if he had held his tongue regarding his father’s money, and the fear that he had rendered himself liable to punishment at the hands of the law, nearly drove him frantic. His terror was greatly increased by his father’s last words. There had not been so much excitement in the[8] settlement since the war—not even when it became known that Clarence Gordon and Godfrey Evans had dug up a portion of the general’s potato patch, in the hope of unearthing eighty thousand dollars in gold and silver that were supposed to be buried there. Don Gordon had more friends than any other boy in the settlement, unless it was Bert, and the planters were enraged at the attempt that had been made upon his life. If Dan Evans’s bullet had found a lodgment in his body instead of going harmlessly through the roof, Dan and Lester Brigham, as well as the three flatboatmen who stole the mail, might have had a hard time of it.
Lester’s first care was to hide himself in the house, as he had done after he and Bob Owens burned Don’s old shooting-box. He earnestly hoped that the men would escape with their plunder; but when he learned that a strong party, led by General Gordon, had pursued them in Davis’s sailboat and captured them, he was ready to give up in despair. Judge Packard would have to look into the matter now through his judicial spectacles, and Lester did not want to be summoned to appear as a witness. Neither did Dan,[9] who, disregarding the advice Don Gordon had given him, took to the woods and hid there, just as he did after he picked his father’s pocket of the hundred and sixty dollars that David had made by trapping quails.
When Mr. Brigham saw that Lester took to staying in the house, and that he had suddenly lost all interest in hunting and shooting, his suspicions were aroused. He always kept his ears open when he went to the landing, and by putting together the disjointed scraps of conversation he overheard while he was waiting for his mail, he finally accumulated a mass of evidence against his son Lester that fairly staggered him.
“I couldn’t believe this of you until I went to Gordon and asked him what he knew about it,” continued Mr. Brigham. “Then the whole story came out. Lester, you will have to go away from here.”
“That’s just what I want to do,” exclaimed the boy, in joyous tones. “I never did like this place. It is awful lonely and dull, and there is no one for me to associate with. If I could only go off somewhere on a visit——”
“As I told you, at the start, I have got things[10] fixed for you for four years to come,” said Mr. Brigham. “You ought to have something to do—something that will occupy your mind so completely that you will have no time to be discontented or to think of anything wrong. I have decided to send you to school; and I am sorry I didn’t do it long ago.”
When Lester heard this he threw his cap spitefully down upon the floor, planted his elbow viciously upon the arm of the lounge, and looked very sullen indeed. School-rooms and school-books were his pet aversions.
“I don’t want you to do that,” said he, angrily. “I would much rather stay here.”
“Do you want to grow up in ignorance?” demanded his father.
If Lester had given an honest response to this question it would have been: “No, I don’t want to grow up in ignorance, but I do want to live at my ease. I desire to go to some place where I can find plenty to amuse me, and where I shall have no labor to perform, either mental or manual.” But he did not quite like to say that, and so he said nothing.
“You don’t know a single thing that a boy of[11] your age ought to know,” continued Mr. Brigham. “I have just had a long conversation with Gordon and his two boys.”
Lester looked up with a startled expression on his face. “You haven’t determined to send me to Bridgeport, have you?” he exclaimed.
“I have,” was the decided answer.
“To the military academy?” asked Lester, in louder and more incredulous tones.
“That’s the very place. The systematic drill and training you will there receive, will be of the greatest benefit to you, if you are only willing to profit by them. That school has made men of Don and Bert Gordon already.”
“I should say so,” sneered Lester, suddenly recalling some items of information that had come to him in a round-about way. “Don has been in a constant row with the teachers ever since he has been there.”
“That is not true. He got himself into trouble when he first entered the school, and lost his shoulder-straps by it; but he has toned down wonderfully under the influence of those three boys he brought home with him, and he is bound[12] to make his mark before his four years’ course is completed.”
“But, father, do you know that the teachers are awful hard on the boys—that if a student looks out of the wrong corner of his eye, or breaks the smallest one of the thousand and more rules that he is expected to keep constantly in mind, he is punished for it?” asked Lester, who was almost ready to cry with vexation. It was bad enough, he told himself, to be sent away to any school against his will; but it was worse for his father to select a military academy, and then to hold that embodiment of mischief and rebellion, Don Gordon, up to him as an object worthy of emulation. Lester had no desire to learn the tactics, and he dreaded the discipline to which he knew he would be subjected.
“I heard all about it during my talk with Don and Bert,” replied his father. “A strong hand and plenty of work are just what you need.”
“But do you know that Bert is first sergeant of the company to which I shall probably be assigned, and that one of its corporals is a New York boot-black? Do you want me to obey the orders of a street Arab?”
[13]
“He could not have attained to the position he holds unless he had proved himself worthy of it. The majority of the students, however, are the sons of wealthy men, and they are the ones I want you to choose for your associates. Make friends with them and bring some of them home with you, as Don and Bert did, or go home with them, if they ask you. My word for it, you will see plenty of sport there, if you will only do your duty faithfully. Gordon’s boys are impatient to go back; and yet there was a time when Don disliked school as heartily as you do.”
“When shall we start for Bridgeport?”
“A week from next Wednesday. New students are received up to the 13th of the month; so we must make our application two days before the school begins.”
“Of course we’ll not go up on the same boat with the Gordons?”
“Why not? Having been there before, they can save us a great deal of trouble by telling us just where to go and what to do.”
“But I don’t like the idea of traveling in their company. They will snub me every chance they get.”
[14]
“You need not borrow any trouble on that score. They have good reasons for disliking you, but if you conduct yourself properly, you will have nothing to fear from them. Now, Lester, promise me that, if you are admitted to that school, you will wake up and try to accomplish something. I will do everything I can to aid and encourage you, and I will begin by putting it in your power to hold your own with the richest student there.”
Lester perfectly understood his father’s last words, and he was considerably mollified by them. If there were anything that could reconcile him to becoming a member of the military academy, it was the knowledge of the fact that a liberal supply of spending money was to be placed at his disposal. Lester’s highest ambition was to be looked up to as a leader among his companions. He had failed to accomplish his object so far as the boys about Rochdale were concerned, but he was pretty sure that he would not fail at Bridgeport. He didn’t, either. His money, which Mr. Brigham might better have kept in his own pocket, brought him to the notice of some uneasy fellows at the academy, who joined him in a daring enterprise, the like of which had never been heard of before.[15] It gave the village people something to talk about, and furnished the law-abiding students with any amount of fun and excitement. In fact the whole school term was crowded so full of thrilling incidents, so many things happened to take their minds off their books, that when the examination was held, some of the best scholars narrowly escaped being dropped from their classes.
“I will do anything I can for you,” repeated Mr. Brigham, seating himself in the nearest chair and taking a newspaper from the table. “If you will go through the four years’ course with flying colors, and come out at the head of your class, I shall be highly gratified, and I assure you that you will lose nothing by it.”
Mr. Brigham fastened his eyes upon his paper, and Lester, taking this as a hint that he had nothing more to say just then, picked up his cap and went out. He made his way directly to his own room, and taking his squirrel rifle down from the antlers that supported it—purchased antlers they were, and not trophies of the boy’s own skill—he buckled a cartridge belt about his waist and left the house. He wanted to go off in the woods by himself and think the matter over; but it is hard[16] to tell why he took his rifle with him, for he had no intention of hunting, and he could not have killed anything if he had. Perhaps it was because he had fallen into the habit of carrying a weapon on his shoulder wherever he went, just as Godfrey and Dan did.
“It is some comfort to know that the governor is not disposed to put me on short allowance,” thought he, as he sat down on a log and rested his rifle across his knees, “and perhaps I can manage to stand it for a while. If I can’t, and father won’t let me come home, I’ll skip out, as Bob Owens did; only I’ll not go into the army. But it can’t be all work and no play up there. There must be some jolly fellows among the students who are in for having a good time now and then, and they are the ones I shall run with. I am sorry Bert is an officer, for he will tyrannize over me in every possible way. I feel disgusted whenever I think of that.”
Lester Brigham was not the only boy in the world who felt disgusted that day. There were three others that we know of. One of them lived away off in Maryland, and the others lived in Rochdale. The last were Don and Bert Gordon.
[17]
When their father came into the room in which they were sitting and told them that Mr. Brigham was waiting to see them in the parlor, they followed him lost in wonder, which gave place to a very different feeling when they learned that this visitor had come there to make some inquiries regarding the Bridgeport military academy, with a view of sending his son there. Bert gave truthful replies to all his questions, and so did Don, for the matter of that; but he did not neglect to enlarge upon the severity of the discipline, or to call Mr. Brigham’s attention to the fact that no boy need go to that school expecting to keep pace with his classes, unless he was willing to study hard. Believing that Lester would make trouble one way or another, Don did not want him there, and he hoped to convince Mr. Brigham that the academy at Bridgeport would not at all suit Lester; but he did not succeed. The visitor seemed to believe that military drill was just what his refractory son needed, asked the boys when they were going to start, thanked them for the information they had given him, and took his leave.
“Well, now, I am disgusted,” exclaimed Don;[18] while Bert went over to the window and drummed upon it with his fingers.
“I don’t see how you are going to help yourselves, boys,” said the general. “Lester Brigham has as much right to go to that school as you have.”
“I know that,” replied Don. “But I don’t want him there, all the same.”
“Neither do I,” said Bert. “He will be in my company, and if I make him toe the mark, he will say that I do it because I want to be revenged on him for burning Don’s shooting-box and getting Dave Evans into trouble.”
“Do your duty as a soldier, and let Lester say what he pleases,” said the general.
“Oh! he’ll have to,” exclaimed Don. “If he doesn’t, he will be reported. Bert’s got to walk a chalk line now, and if he makes a false step, off come his diamond and chevrons. It’s some consolation to know that we can’t introduce him to Egan and the rest. They would snub us in a minute if we did, and serve us right, too. A plebe must be content to wait until the upper-class boys get ready to speak to him.”
“Having passed four years of my life in that[19] academy I am not ignorant of that fact,” said the general, after a little pause, during which he recalled to mind how he had once had his face washed in a snow-drift by a couple of second-class boys whom he had presumed to address on terms of familiarity. “But I hope you will do all you can for Lester. Remember how lonely you felt when you first went there, and found yourselves surrounded by those who were utter strangers to you.”
“Oh, we will,” said Bert, while Don scowled savagely but said nothing. “If he will show us that he has come there with the determination to do the best he can, we’ll stand by him; won’t we, Don?”
Of course the latter said they would, but he gave the promise simply because his father desired it, and not because he had any friendly feeling for Lester Brigham.
The other disgusted boy was Egan, who, on this particular day, was pacing up and down the back veranda of his father’s house, shaking his fist at the surf that was rolling in upon the beach, and acting altogether like one whose reflections were by no means agreeable. What it was that had[20] happened to annoy him, we will let him tell in his own way.
Christmas, with its festivities, was now a memory. New Year’s day came and went, and Don and Bert, each in his own way, began making preparations for their return to Bridgeport. The latter, who was determined that the close of another school year should find him with at least one bar on his shoulder, devoted his morning hours to his books, while Don, to quote his own language, proceeded to put himself through a regular course of training. There was a long siege of hard study before him, but one would have thought, by the way he went to work, that he was preparing himself for a physical rather than an intellectual contest. He rode hard, hunted perseveringly, kept up his regular exercise with Indian clubs and dumb-bells, and looked, as he said he felt, as if he were good for any amount of work.
Knowing how valuable a little advice would have been to them when they first joined the academy, Don and Bert rode over to see Lester, intending to give him some idea of the nature of the examination he would have to pass before he would be received as a student, and to drop a few hints[21] that would enable him to keep out of trouble; but they never repeated the experiment. Lester was surly and not at all sociable; and he was so very independent, and seemed to have so much confidence in his ability to make his way without help from anybody, that his visitors took their leave without saying half as much to him as they had intended.
“I know what they are up to,” said Lester, who stood at the window watching Don and Bert as they rode away. “They have reasons for wishing to get on the right side of me. Somebody has probably told them that I am to have plenty of money to spend, and they intend that I shall spend some of it for their own benefit. I am going in for a shoulder-strap—I am not one to be satisfied with a sergeant’s warrant—and the first thing I shall do, after I get it, will be to take those stripes off Bert Gordon’s arms. He and his boot-black can’t order me around.”
This soliloquy will show that Lester had changed his mind in regard to the school at Bridgeport. He wanted to go there now. His father, who knew nothing about the academy beyond what Don and Bert had told him, and who judged it by the fashionable boarding-schools at which he had[22] obtained the little knowledge he possessed, had neglected no opportunity to impress upon Lester’s mind the fact that a rich man’s son would not be allowed to remain long in the ranks, and that there was nothing to prevent him from winning and wearing an officer’s sword, if he would only use a little tact in pushing himself forward. After listening to such counsel as this, it was not at all likely that anything that Don and Bert could say would have any influence with him.
“He thinks he is going to have a walk over,” said Don, as he stroked his pony’s glossy mane.
“It looks that way, but there’s where he is mistaken,” replied Bert. “Lester will be walking an extra before he has been at the academy a week.”
“Well, we’ll not volunteer any more advice, no matter what happens to him,” said Don. “We’ll let him go as he pleases and see how he will come out.”
The day set for their departure came at last, and Don and Bert, accompanied by Mr. Brigham and Lester, set out for Bridgeport, which they reached without any mishap. They rode in the same hack from the depot to the academy, and when they alighted at the door, they were surrounded[23] by a crowd of boys who had already reported for duty, and who made it a point to rush out of the building to extend a noisy welcome to every newcomer. School was not yet in session, and the first-class boys were not above speaking to a plebe.
Among those who were first to greet Don and Bert as they stepped out of the hack, were Egan, Hopkins and Curtis. As these young gentlemen had already completed the regular academic course, perhaps the reader would like to know what it was that brought them back. They came to take what was called the “finishing course,” and to put themselves under technical instruction. After that (it took two years to go through it) Hopkins was to enter a lawyer’s office in Baltimore; Egan intended to become assistant engineer to a relative who was building railroads somewhere in South America; while Curtis was looking towards West Point.
The boys who composed these advanced classes were privileged characters. They dressed in citizens’ clothes, performed no military duty, boarded in the village, and came and went whenever they pleased. When the students went into camp, they were at liberty to go with them, or they could[24] stay at the academy and study. If they chose the camp, they could ask to be appointed aids or orderlies at headquarters, or they could put on a uniform, shoulder a musket, and fall into the ranks. They held no office, and the boy who was lieutenant-colonel last year, was nothing better than a private now.
Don and Bert greeted their friends cordially, and as soon as the latter could free himself from their clutches, he beckoned to Mr. Brigham and Lester, who followed him through the hall and into the superintendent’s room.