Dear Mother:—

I am writing at about 7.30 o’clock on the range, after having fired my practice shots to make my sighting sure, and now with time to wait before my rapid-fire test. Imagine the usual confusion, the heavy rapping of the shots, the calling over of names, and the buzz and laughter of the men waiting near me. A perfect morning, the dew just burning off, a little breeze from the lake, and not a cloud in the sky.

We are shooting from the two hundred yard mark, sitting position, and since I have watched a few rounds, I am able to tell you the way of it.—As the guns become silent with the disappearance of the targets the Lieutenant calls, “Next men up!” Those who have just shot rise and nervously stand aside, to watch the scoring of their ten shots. The new men, while loading and locking their pieces, also watch the record of their predecessors. Passing behind D Company a few minutes ago, I saw the flag cross one target six times. I did not see the beginning of the score, and how many more misses the poor devil made, I can only guess. The men go away with their scores, the new ones stand waiting.

From the left rings the high call, “Ready on the right!” The lieutenant responds to his men, “Unlock your pieces.” To the waiting men the interval is long. Then slowly the blank targets begin to sink and the tops of the true ones to rise. It is the signal. The men drop to the sitting position and settle the butts in their shoulders; the muzzles rise, waver, and steady. Then together “Pol-lop!” and the whole line, faster and faster, bursts into the rap-rap-rapping of the continued fire. Along the line, little spurts of flame; a thin haze rises from the muzzles and at once disappears. Beside each shooter kneel two coaches, one calling the time, the other exhorting, warning, entreating. A distinct lag in the firing between forty-five and fifty seconds—the men are loading their second clips. Then the fire gradually quickens to the full rate, the coaches urging the slow ones on, holding the hasty ones back. The fire slackens, and seems stopped, when as the targets sink at the ninety seconds, two last hasty shots slap out. The round is over. In the brief time the three dozen men have fired three hundred and sixty shots.

(Later.) My turn approached, and I stood waiting, the sling clasped on my arm. I felt the strain of the long wait before there came the call, Ready! To my coaches I had said—to one, “Don’t let me shoot too fast, and keep me on my target”; to the other, “Remind me to squeeze.” Then the blank target, beside the great 28, began to sink, and down I dropped. I was not nervous now; at least I did not tremble. I tried to fire slow, to squeeze, to keep on my own target, (for truly, as the captain lately said, firing on another man’s target is one of the sad things of life.) My second clip I had to shoot quicker until my last shot, when the coach said, “Plenty of time.” So I sighted and squeezed my best, felt that I could call the bullseye, and pulling out the bolt for the last time, to show that the breech and magazine were empty, stood up and stepped back. Now for the score.

The target rose at last. The red disk was all I hoped for, but there came the white, again the white, again the white, again, again, again, then three times the red, and once the black. I still waited, having lost count. Would the flag come now? But no, the target sank, and my coaches congratulated me on a forty-five!

(Evening. In the tent.) Well, I won’t put in too much detail for you, to whom perhaps this shooting has no interest. We finished at two hundred yards and moved back, carrying benches, racks, chairs, flags, everything, and began over again at three hundred yards, prone. The men were mostly very much on the stretch, and I admit that I was, for while I now was practically sure of my grade of marksman, I might, by shooting especially well, even become a sharpshooter. Lucy was in a similar state, marksman being within his grasp. Randall was swaggering; he had been shooting well. But Knudsen was very anxious, surprising in so cool a fellow. “To be Expert,” he said, “I’ve got to make a fifty. Confound it, I’m afraid that shot I sent into the wrong target will ruin my chances. I need the little leeway it would give.”

Well, he missed it by two, and that little error undid him. Lucy got his grade of marksman, and his excitement was delightful. He sought out each member of the squad and called for congratulations. How disgusted his mother would be to see him with his hand on Pickle’s shoulder, discussing the score, for really, don’t you know, socially Pickle is less than nobody! I made my grade as sharpshooter, just made it, with a forty-nine.

Poor Reardon! His scores had not been good, only a miracle could make him marksman, but he lost his chance. Loretta—

I’ll tell you about Loretta, a sergeant whom the boys have nicknamed thus. Luckily he is not in our platoon; but we soon got to know the lofty smile with which he passed up and down the street, and his contempt for the enlisted man. Such, my dear mother, is the inflating power of a little authority.

Well, he has been very busy with the shooting, making a good record himself, and helping, as all the sergeants did, with the scoring. Needing a scorer at one of the targets, he took poor Reardon and put him at work just when his last turn was coming on, and in spite of the fact that he had already served long hours at the job. Reardon protested, Loretta promised to let him have his turn, but when the shooting was all over there was poor Reardon still at the desk, and his last round was not fired. We noticed that on the way back to camp he was very silent and cast down, but we did not know why till we were cleaning our guns in the tent, all the racks being occupied outside. Then I questioned Reardon, and the facts came out.

All of us were wrathy, but you should have seen Lucy! Tears of anger came into his eyes as he started up. “I’ll go at once and tell the captain!” Reardon clutched him. “No,” said the good fellow. “I hadn’t a chance to qualify. It’s perfectly true. Loretta told me so.”

“Loretta told you so!” echoed David. He was quite white and shaking at this instance of adding insult to injury. “By God!”

He was for going at once and complaining, but Reardon wouldn’t let him. “Then,” said David, “wait till the hike. If you don’t get even with him then, I will!”

I wouldn’t tell this story to David’s mother. She might think her son too sympathetic with an “outsider.”

The fellows have been in the habit of cooing at Loretta as he passes their tents. His pet name precedes him down the street, the coos come from the shadowed interiors. It has been meant harmlessly. But this story of Reardon has spread rapidly, and I thought I detected a snarl in the cooing when Loretta just went by. There is something in David’s threat. Wait till the hike!

This afternoon we had our usual drill and calisthenics, after which I went swimming in the lake, as I do daily, though under certain difficulties. The beach is very stony and bruises the feet, and the piers that have been built at our two bathing places are quite inadequate, both as accommodating too few men at a time, and next as not going out into deep water. Perhaps early in the summer the water at the ends may be up to one’s shoulders, but now it is scarcely above the waist, and none but the cleverest and most venturesome dare to dive. So many would like the diving that it is a pity that a little money can’t be expended here. However, the water is fine, even if it is now getting so cold that some of the men are giving up their swim. We often have surf here, when the southeast wind quarters across the bay all the way from Burlington, and then the fun is notable.

The scene at the foot of the pier particularly struck me today, after the men were out. There were nearly a hundred of them in a rather narrow compass, so close to each other, on the boulders of the beach, that they reminded me of the pictures one sees of big birds in their colonies. The men were naked, and every one in active motion, rubbing down. The sight of so much brown and pink skin, of so many moving bodies and arms and legs, was most peculiar and amusing.

The list of company officers has been published. Two of our best sergeants becoming lieutenants, other sergeants have been named, and the list of corporals and sub-squad-leaders has been fixed. In our squad Bannister and Reardon stand as before. Ban quietly told us that he was glad to get the appointment. “I had my eye on you,” he said to Knudsen, “and on you,” to me. “This will please my old father: he was a corporal in the Civil War.” And good Ban forgot us as he thought of the satisfaction of the old man at home.

Tonight at conference we were given definite details of the scheme for reimbursing us for our travelling expenses and our mess. The government will repay those who take the oath of allegiance—and everyone is hunting for the nigger in the woodpile. There is so general a sentiment that the War Department tricked the militia into taking the oath of six years’ service before starting for Texas, that none of us cares to be caught promising too much. But I feel that the form of oath, which was read aloud tonight, is pretty straightforward. We enlist only for the period of the camp, and for instruction only. I shall take the oath. If before the period is over the government takes us away for service anywhere, I suppose there will be an emergency to justify it.

We were also given additional facts regarding the hike. Having so small a regiment, yet having the baggage train of the large August camp, we are to go on the longest hike yet, eleven days on the road and in the field, ten nights in the pup-tents. We are sorting our belongings to take or to leave, and David is wondering how he can carry all his exquisite appointments.

But he has just come out strong. Company conference being over, there was held the boxing match which one of the sergeants has been promoting, and the whole company (officers discreetly absent) formed the ring and applauded the heroism. Much of it would not interest you, yet you could have stood a glimpse of it—the circle of men, good-naturedly applauding, the heavy shadows under the overhead light, the gray-green uniformity of men and sand, the two dancing figures, and the pat-pat of the gloves. There were some neat bouts, and then the promoter made an announcement, which to my surprise I saw Randall, stripped to the waist, furtively trying to stop.

He had on his left, said the sergeant, one remaining contestant, whose opponent had just sent word that he had hurt his wrist. Would any gentleman be willing to provide Mr. Randall with an antagonist?

No one came forward. Randall looked very formidable, with his handsome features and also a most superb set of muscles. I was saying to myself that perhaps I’d better give him a go, when I caught sight of Lucy’s face, peering between the men in front of him, and so plainly full of desire that I waited. Then Corder, on the other side of him, jogged David in the ribs, and said in a low voice, “He called you Lucy!” In an instant David, without a look behind or a moment’s hesitation, was pushing through the ring. “Let me try.” And he stepped out into the light.

Someone caught me by the arm, and there was Knudsen, very angry. “Why didn’t you stop him?” he demanded. “He never can stand up to that fellow.” But I, feeling quite as satisfied as ever I felt in my life, smiled him down, “Somehow I think he can,” said I, and pushed after David, to act as his second.

Oh, I coached him all I could, and in the rests I helped the gasping boy in every way I knew how. The rounds were short, but too long for him in his still soft condition. And he knew so little of the game! Had Randall, who really had boxed before, used his head, poor David would have stood no chance whatever. Yet the boy’s insight was correct. No sooner did Randall see before him the lad’s unmistakably eager face, and know from David’s first rush that here was a fight, than he was flustered. So as boxing the bout was nothing: neither could hit clean, parries were clumsy, much was accident. David’s very ardor betrayed him, and he came back to me at the end of each round quite winded. But for the rest, nothing could be finer. Randall was twenty pounds the heavier, and slight David staggered when the blows came home, yet always he came back. His panting persistence, his determination to strike, were too much for the other. He held back, and David came on; he drew aside, and David followed him; he struck, and David without parrying came right through, and landed blow after blow somewhere.

The men were yelling presently, here was so evidently grit against mere muscle, spirit against flesh. Randall grew angry and hit hard, but he was wild; he grew afraid and tried to clinch, but his rush was feeble. David jabbed him repeatedly in the ribs, drew off, and for the first time in the three rounds (the referee was just calling time) hit Randall neatly—on the nose.

And Randall, in pain but not hurt (for the boy couldn’t hit hard) nevertheless believed himself finished. I think he wanted to stagger and fall at full length, but he only succeeded in sitting down. Shout upon shout upon shout! Then we of the squad took David, groggy with his own efforts, rubbed him and fanned him and swabbed him, and finally walked him off between us.

Knudsen said in my ear, “You were right. That was worth a thousand dollars.”

A fellow from another squad tried to be complimentary. “Well done, Lucy!”

Pickle, without any ceremony, pushed in between. “Cut that out! His name is Farnham.”

The chap was puzzled. “But you don’t call him that.”

“We know him better now,” said Pickle. “We call him David.”

And David, who had been leaning heavily on me, at the words stood upright. He had been smiling with satisfaction; now he looked happy. He put his arm over Pickle’s shoulder as the other fellow walked away. “Thanks, Pick, old man,” he said.

Knudsen and Corder and I fell behind and shook hands. The name Lucy was dead and buried.

David wouldn’t go to bed; he sat contentedly on his cot, sopping liniment on a bruised lip, while fellows kept coming in from other squads, to congratulate. After a while I went out, and seeing a little knot of our men at the captain’s tent, joined them.

The officers like to have the men come to them with questions, and after repeated invitations issued at general conferences, the men have come to believe it. So there is growing up a little habit of stopping at the captain’s tent for a question which often extends into an interchange of ideas from which each side benefits. But they weren’t on any technical subject tonight; the men had got the captain talking on the topic of an officer’s life, and they had just reached the items of his expenses. I had never particularly thought of this side of the matter before; I knew that an officer is technically a gentleman and must dress as such, but that his pay is so small, his perquisites so few, and his necessary uniforms so many, I had not realized. To tell the truth, the little group of us who listened were really rather shocked that these men who work so hard for the nation are under such burdens. The captain perceived it, and for his own interest suddenly turned the tables on us.

“I have been rather frank, gentlemen,” he said. “Now I know your expenses are such as you choose to make them; but would you mind telling me how your incomes compare with mine?”

The question was perfectly fair, for the men had been pumping him; and they responded at once. “I count on eight thousand yearly from my factory,” said one. The next said that his salary was six. The third, with a little embarrassed laugh, admitted that he earned ten thousand. And the next said that last year he cleaned up forty thousand dollars. As you can imagine, these were all men older than the average rookie. They wear their uniforms badly, some of them, being no longer lithe and lissome; and yet the forty thousand dollar man was lean and hard as an Indian. I had so far known him only as a sportsman who loved to talk about big game. The captain, as he listened, nodded gravely at each statement, and when the last had spoken turned his eye on me. I could only tell him the truth—twelve thousand as my salary, and perhaps an equal amount on the side.

He drew a long breath. “Well, gentlemen, you have my congratulations. On the other hand, I’m not sorry to have told you these facts about army life. It’s well that you civilians should understand conditions. As for myself, I went into the service with my eyes open, and I’m not yet ready to change it.”

His eye rather lingered on me. I have the impression that he’s acutely conscious of my presence whenever I’m about. Is that Vera’s doing? Do you suppose she’s got him too?

Love from