Fifty seats in the parquette had been reserved for the members of the class graduated from West Point on the beautiful morning of the 12th of June. The brilliant auditorium was thronged with friends of the young fellows. Officers of the Academy were seated in the boxes, interested no more in the play than in the enjoyment of "the boys" just released from their four years of hard study and rigid discipline. Two of the chairs were vacant almost until the close of the first act, then their owners came in.
"You fellows have missed a heap of fun," whispered a classmate. Then a burst of laughter and applause drowned his words. "All the same we didn't miss the train," was the reply as soon as the new-comer could make himself heard, after the lowering of the curtain. "Poor old Dad! It wasn't easy to let him go."
"What took him off in such a devil of a hurry? We counted on his being with us at the last supper."
"Oh, the Parson don't take much stock in last suppers—of this kind," answered the other in no irreverence of spirit, for the young fellow spoke in genuine earnestness; "still, he couldn't have gone back on us if it hadn't been for bad news from home."
"What, his mother?"
"No—o. It's a girl. He said he had to go."
"Ah, yes, we knew all along he was engaged, though he never said anything about it. Parson never struck me as being one of the spoony kind."
"No, he wasn't a bit. He wrote to her every week, but her letters kept coming all the time—regular continued stories; but he wouldn't stand chaffing about them and didn't fancy remarks, so I quit."
"Know anything about her? Ever see her picture?"
"Once, by accident,—a mighty pretty girl, too,—but he never talked about her; it wasn't his way. We lived together the last two years, and I reckon there isn't anything I didn't tell him. I remember how you all laughed at the idea of my taking up with 'Parson' Davies, but he's pure gold."
"There's no discount on that, Jimmy; but what a time it took to find it out! If it weren't for the riding-hall we never would have known how much there was to him. There may be some prettier riders than Parson, but he's all round the best horseman in the class. What on earth did he choose the infantry for?"
"Something about that girl, I reckon. Looks to me as though he were going to get married before he joined the regiment."
"Sacrificing himself and his profession for the sake of a spoons, is it? Well, thank God, I'm not in love, and I wish he weren't."
Meantime the subject of this cadet chat, a tall, slender, serious-faced young fellow, was sitting in one of the crowded cars of the night express whistling away up the shores of the Hudson, shadowy yet familiar, fifty miles to the hour. His new civilian dress—donned that morning for the first time—bore something of the cadet about it in its trim adjustment to the lines of his erect, even gaunt figure. He sat very straight, looking silently across the aisle out on the starlit river to his left, and holding on his knees the new dark-blue cape and an old travelling-bag. A lone woman in search of a seat had entered the car at Harlem and passed by a dozen unsympathetic travellers, who made no move to share the seat over which they sprawled aggressively. The first to lift his satchel and make way for her was the tall, thin-faced young man in the straw hat and pepper-and-salt suit. He rose and offered her the inner half, which she accepted gratefully, then thanked him in broken English for stowing her various bundles in the rack above.
The conductor looked oddly at him as he unrolled his ticket.
"Going through? Don't you want a sleeper?"
"How much is a single berth to Chicago?"
"Five dollars."
"No. I'll get along here."
Not until they reached Albany, after midnight, had he a seat to himself. Meantime, finding his companion overcome by drowsiness and her poor old head bobbing helplessly, he rolled his new cloak cape into a sort of pillow, wedged it between her and the window seat, and bade her use it. As they came in view of the brightly-lighted station she awoke with a start and made a spring for her belongings. She had slept soundly ever since they left Poughkeepsie, and was again profuse in gratitude. "We stay here several minutes," said Mr. Davies. "Let me help you with your bundles." And, unheeding her protest, he marched off with a bird-cage and a big band-box. A burly German made a rush for the car the moment she appeared upon the platform and lifted her off with vehement osculatory welcome, Davies standing silently and patiently by the while, then surrendering her traps to her legal protector. "He is such a kind young man," said the smiling frau. "He gif me his seat. We have a sohn, yust so old as you," she added, "but he is farder as Chick-ago. He is a soldier, out by Fort Larmie."
"Yes?" said Davies, smiling. "Then perhaps I'll see him some day. I expect to be out there before long."
"And you are a soldier, too! Ach Gott! ein offizier?" she exclaimed, in consternation, born of German associations.
"Not yet, though I suppose I shall be very soon. What is your boy's regiment?"
And, jabbering excitedly now, both at once, the two old people began pouring their tale into his ears; told their boy's name,—"He was a gorboral alretty,"—and they were justly proud, and Davies made them happy by noting the name and company in his book and giving his own, though he explained that he was not yet a lieutenant, only a just-graduated cadet, but that if ever he found the corporal, he said, he should tell him of his pleasant meeting with the old folks, and then, after a cup of coffee at the restaurant counter, he returned to his own thoughts and the car.
Soon they were spinning up along the shining Mohawk, and still his eyelids would not close. In his waistcoat-pocket lay a bulky letter, the last of many in the same superscription—a prim, unformed, school-girlish hand—that had come to him during the last two years of his cadet life. Its predecessors, carefully wrapped and tied, were in the old trunk somewhere ahead among the baggage. In his hand again was the telegram that, reaching him at the moment when he was bidding adieu to the academic shades he had grown so deeply to love, had determined him in the already half-formed resolution to cut loose from his comrades and the class festivities in New York and take the first train for the far West.
"Doctor says come quick. Almira worse.
"B" was Almira's elder sister. Urbana, the home of his boy- and her girlhood, the home where his father lived and died, pastor of the village flock, a man whose devotion and patriotism during the great war had won for himself the friendship of the leaders of the armies of the West and for his only son, years afterwards, the prize of a cadetship at West Point. Deeply religious in every fibre of his soul, the chaplain had labored among the hospitals in the field from first to last, and died not long after the close of the historic struggle, a martyr to the cause. He died poor, too, as such men ever die, laying up no treasures upon earth, where moth and rust and thieves are said to lessen treasure there accumulated, yet where its accumulation seems the chief end of man not spiritually constituted as was Davies, who was imposed upon by every beat and beggar, tramp and drab, within reachable distance of Urbana. Far and wide had spread abroad the words of his personal creed,—that he would rather it were recorded against him that he had been duped a million times than that one human being had left his door hungering. His widow was not only merely penniless, she was helpless but for the strong arms of her son, who slaved for her as the father had slaved for the Union. Those were the days when pensions were few. It was too soon after the war, and facts were fresher in men's minds. Percy did all the farm-work by day and taught school by night until, in his twenty-first year, he was sent to the Military Academy by the President himself, who had known his father from the days of Donelson. It was told of the tall, taciturn young man that he seriously contemplated resigning during his fourth class year when he found that he could not send home the little savings from his cadet pay. If the rule of the sacred commandment could but be made to work both ways, and days would be indeed long in the land the Lord our God had given to him who most honored his father and mother, no life insurance company in all America would have hesitated in Percy Davies's case, had the policy been millions and the premium unity. A gentle woman was Mrs. Davies, but a distressingly helpless and dependent one, and it was an old saying in Urbana that Davies had married poor Salome Percy because if he didn't nobody would; not because he stood in need of her, but because she was much in need of him. And when, not long after his father's death, Percy appealed to a well-to-do citizen on the widow's behalf, he was refused, and the brawny son and heir of the well-to-do citizen told of the incident, and was idiot enough in Percy's presence to repeat this old village saw as the reason of the refusal, it nearly led to tragedy. Seizing the first available weapon, a flail, which he wielded with uncommon skill, in one mad moment the indignant youth smote the other hip and thigh,—the first, and for years the only, time he was ever known to lose control of himself. In ten seconds the battered gossip was sprawled full length, and they who would have rushed to tear his assailant away stood amazed to see him tearfully imploring the pardon of the vanquished.
And then as Percy grew in years and grace, working day and night that he might obey that last sacred whispered injunction, "Take care of poor mother," and Urbana grew in population and importance, one mortgage was lifted by the sale of part of their little farm, and the home made more comfortable for the ailing, querulous woman. She loved young folks, and yet lacked the faculty of attracting them. Striving to interest some of the village maids in her, Percy interested more than one in himself, and among these was a rural beauty, by name Almira Quimby. She was only sixteen, a romantic child with an exquisite complexion, big melting blue eyes, and curling ringlets. She lived, said other village maids, "on Sylvanus Cobb and slate-pencils." She devoured with avidity every bit of sensational trash procurable in the public or post-office libraries, and made eyes at the tall, strong school-master,—the best rider, reaper, thresher in the field, and best reader and declaimer in the winter lyceums. He was intellectually far ahead of his fellows, and his father had labored to teach him. He was "serious," which was our Western way of saying he had strong religious views, and Almira became devoted in her attentions at church, Bible-class, and Sunday-school. Still, he did not become an adorer, and she began visiting the widow in her affliction, and thereby seeing more and more of the widow's son. There were strapping prairie beaux who would have given all they possessed for any one of the soft, shy looks she stole at Percy Davies, and who began to hate him vehemently as her fancy for him increased.
He would have been of utterly unimpressionable material could he have looked unmoved day after day upon her budding beauty, and it was not long before Davies found himself strangely interested, and still he would not speak. It was not until his appointment came, and he was preparing to go to the Academy, that he owned himself vanquished. Almira's red eyes and not entirely concealed emotion had told the mother how the girl was grieving at the prospective loss of her first love, and she with motherly solicitude took Percy to task. If he cared for Almira why didn't he say so? With perfect truth the young man replied that he couldn't help admiring her, but had struggled against it because he was in no position to marry, and did not know when he would be. To this the mother replied that she had grown very fond of Almira, and had learned to depend upon her. She was not only very pretty but, what was much better, a very good girl, and her father was as "well-to-do" as anybody in Urbana, except the hotel-keeper. He could well afford to give her part of the big farm and build them a house near the widow's own roof. She knew, or thought she knew, as do so many of us, just what her neighbor could and should do, but overlooked the fact that old Quimby had two sons and three daughters older than Almira. The fact that most of them were married in no wise detracted from their expectations of material aid from the "old man." The fact that he might care to take unto himself a wife to replace the late incumbent now sleeping placidly in Urbana's leafy cemetery was no more contemplated by them than by the Widow Davies. But there was another widow in Sangamon County who knew better and who wisely said naught. Almira's father was well off, said Mrs. Davies. She had rich relations in the great metropolis of the State. Her Aunt Almira was married to the manager of the Q. R. & X. Railway,—the man who used to send father Davies an annual pass so long as he lived. Mrs. Davies longed, she said, to see her son happily mated, and then she would be glad to go and rest by the father's side under the shadow of the soldier's monument. How it all happened would be too long, too old, and by no means uncommon a story. When Percy Davies went to West Point he left behind him a weeping maid who vowed that she would wait for him a lifetime, if need be. It was really quite a romantic parting, and the young man believed himself very deeply in love, and so did Almira.
And yet he was not easy in his mind. Percy Davies was old for his years. He was going to the Point because of his father's strong predilection for the graduates of that institution. The son had no especial taste for a military life. He was studious. He would far rather have gone to some college or university and pursued a classical course, and then studied for the law or the ministry. He had no means for such an end, however, and accepted what was offered him on his father's account, with no little uneasiness on his own. It was not his desire or purpose to remain in the army. If he could honorably do so he meant to leave the military service within the four years which his letter of appointment stipulated he should serve after graduation. He doubted the propriety of his accepting it under the circumstances, and he—looked upon by his fellow-men and youths as the most enviable of their number—left his home for the new life in no enviable frame of mind.
For some months after his departure Almira fairly lived with the invalid mother, and was faithful both to her and to the absent lover. Not a day passed without her spending hours with the widow and discoursing on the perfections of the absent one. Old Quimby, a hard-fisted, hard-headed old democrat, had made no objection to the engagement, remarking that if 'twan't Davies 'twould be somebody else, and seeing as he was the smartest lad at farming and schooling, and that it would be four years anyhow, why, there was no call for him to worry. Then Urbana built a bigger school-house and got a new teacher, and for two years saw naught of Percy Davies. Property increasing in value, another slice of the homestead lot had been sold, and with economy the widow could be comfortable on her little income; but it was not long before the gossips, dropping in to cheer her up a bit, began to tell of the swains who were making eyes at 'Mira, and then of 'Mira's growing consciousness of her charms and fascinations. The second year of Percy's absence there could be no doubt that three or four bucolical hearts were turned on her account. Had there been just one devotee the absent lover's claims might have been endangered, but there being several she was content in a placid cowlike way in their attentions, and became less devoted to mamma. With the second summer, however, Percy came home on cadet furlough. The slight stoop was gone. An erect, martial carriage and quick, springy step had replaced the somewhat plodding gait of the school and farm. The sprouting beard and whiskers had vanished, and a stiff moustache, which soon began to curl and twist becomingly, adorned his upper lip. The "store clothes" of the Western town long since cast aside, Davies appeared in stylish and trim-fitting civilian dress, but resolutely declined all appeals to wear—except for mother's eyes—the uniform of his famous corps. When he went on sunshiny Sundays to the church that seemed hallowed to his father's memory, the spotless white trousers and natty sack coat of dark-blue flannel were, however, so military in their effect as to create, despite himself, almost the effect of regimentals. Then he had acquired already an air and manner, a polish that distinguished him at once above his fellow-townsmen, and Almira's wavering allegiance gave place to new romance and fervor. The old flame had found too little breath in his earnest, honest letters to keep it alive. As for him, though he had belonged to what was termed the "bachelor gang" at the Point and mingled but little in ladies' society, he was a close observer, and Percy Davies saw at a glance that though more radiant in her rustic beauty than before, more appealing to the senses in the flush of her health and unconscious grace, there was still something besides the fashion of her gown that differed widely from the beauties who thronged the gravelled walks, the shady groves, the tented field of the national military academy. The swains of the winter gone by were less in evidence now, and it pleased her anyhow during the two months of his home stay to forget them one and all and cling only to him. Changes came in the next two years—and trouble. Old Quimby married again. Almira's home-life became unhappy. Quarrels ensued between the new wife and the children. Reproaches fell from the lips of the failing widow because of Almira's tacit acceptance of the devotions of young Mr. Powlett, son of the resident physician of the sanitarium that was now bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly strove to imitate. That Urbana censors should go to the widow with invidious comment upon Almira's misbehavior was a matter of course, and that the widow should transmit their tales, not entirely without embellishment and reproof, was only to be expected. Almira accepted both with ill grace, was moved to tears and protest. She couldn't help it if people admired her and liked to dance and walk and talk with her. She must either submit to it or shut herself up and mope and not go out at all. She thought Mrs. Davies most unjust, but she did not promise to amend. Then the widow, finding Almira obdurate, was moved to write to Percy advising him that he should caution her, who was only light-hearted and thoughtless, and, to the widow's surprise, Percy refused. He gravely wrote that Almira was but a child when she engaged herself to him. She had seen nothing of the world or of other men, and it was a matter he would not interfere with, and one that he desired his mother to leave alone. This was simply incomprehensible. Urbana was very gay that autumn and early winter. The sanitarium was the means of bringing business to town, and a number of new stores were opened, and new young men came to tend the counter and swell the parties, and still young Powlett held supremacy, and everybody began to say that the cadet was cut out, and Almira Quimby had gone over heart and soul to the new claimant, when there came a cataclysm,—a scandal at the sanitarium, a stir at the Palace Hotel, Urbana's new hostelry, the arrest of a recently discharged patient by the name of Brannan, an afflicted young man with what was described as an unconquerable mania for drink, and the sudden disappearance of young Powlett. There was investigation and more scandal. It transpired that this young Adonis had abused his father's trust to the extent of smuggling liquor to certain patients and of heaven only knew what else. Dr. Powlett resigned, crushed and humiliated. Lawyers came and bailed out the other unfortunate, of whom it soon was rumored that he was Almira Quimby's own cousin, the son of her rich city aunt, and that was the reason the lawyers and not the relatives came. It was presently established that young Brannan was more sinned against than sinning, and the holidays opened, with a fearful gap in Urbana, for Almira's devoted lover, to the comfort of every right-thinking maid and swain in Sangamon society, had fled, no one knew whither.
Two weeks later the Widow Davies lay at death's door. Her son was telegraphed for, and came. His leave was for only one week,—even that a most unusual concession, granted only because of his unimpeachable conduct and his safe though not high standing in scholarship. His coming seemed to give new life to the mother, and Almira vied with him in attention and devotion. Urbana took it much to heart that after her months of monopoly of Mr. Powlett, of whom the most damaging and dreadful things were now told, she should so calmly and complacently resume her apparent sway over this martial and dignified and superior sort of person, the widow's son. Urbana fully meant that his eyes should be opened just so soon as the mother's were closed. But Urbana found that luck was dead against it. The widow began to mend,—the son it was who was suddenly prostrated on the eve of his return to the Point.
Leaving Almira at her father's door one night after seeing her safely home, Davies was found lying in the high-road, senseless, an hour later, and never, said Urbana, knew what hit him. Concussion of the brain was feared, for he had evidently been assaulted in the dark from behind and felled to earth by blows of some heavy, blunt instrument. Robbery was evidently the motive, for his little store of money and the beautiful and costly watch presented to his father at the close of the war were gone. Almira had two patients now, and devotedly she attended them. When in a fortnight Percy declared he must return, and did return to pass his midwinter examination, she wore at last an engagement ring. Urbana did not know that he had offered—and she had refused—freedom. Urbana did not know that she declared she loved him as she never did before, and as she never had another. Urbana resented it that he who was so soon to occupy the exalted station of an officer of the regular army, and the princely salary of something over a thousand dollars a year "with all expenses paid,"—double the sum enjoyed by the head salesman of Miller & Crofts,—should be so utterly deluded as to the frivolous character of his betrothed, and means were taken to enlighten him. Anonymous letters came to Cadet Davies of the graduating class, which that grave and reverend senior committed, not to memory, but to flames. Whatever she had been before his visit and mishap, Almira was all devotion now. In May he wrote to her gravely and affectionately, bidding her remember that he always felt that she had been pledged to him when too young to know her own mind, that his must needs be a life of self-denial, privation, and danger, that he must live with the utmost economy consistent with his position as an officer, because his mother's comfort must be a sacred charge so long as she lived, and that it might be years before he could see his way to asking any woman to come and share his lot. All this he had conscientiously explained to her before, and she had met it with tears and reproaches. She could help him live economically. They could sell the homestead and take mother to live with them. She would welcome the day when she could leave her father's roof, now no longer a home to her. She knew it must be that he was tiring of her,—that he had met some proud lady in the East, and his poor little village maid was forgotten, etc. Now, in answer to this last letter, virtually proffering release if she so desired, her response was vehement. He would kill her with his cruelty and coldness. She had no hope or ambition other than to share his lot, however humble. To be her noble soldier, her hero Percy's bride, would be her heaven, and neither gold nor grandeur nor princely mansion could tempt her from his side, and she would welcome the grave if he proved false to her. It was all the high-flown, emotional, melodramatic trash to be expected of an ill-balanced girl whose pretty head was stuffed with the romance of the country post-office type, and Davies sighed heavily as he read.
He had planned to visit an old friend of his father's and see something of New York harbor and city before turning his back on the East. Never yet had he set foot in Gotham, and as it would be years before opportunity might again be afforded him, he had weighed it all pro and con, and decided that Dr. Iverson's advice and invitation should be accepted. He would go with his classmates, spend the last evening with them, and join the reverend doctor on the morrow. His mother, even in her invalided state, urged that he should do so, but Almira heard the plan with fresh outburst of tears. There was to be a grand picnic of all the beaux and belles of Urbana on the 18th. She had counted on having her soldier lover in attendance on that occasion. She had told him of it, and that was enough. She had declined all other invitations, saying that Mr. Davies was to hasten thither the moment the graduating exercises were over, and now to think of the triumph and malicious delight of the other girls was intolerable. Her lover should fly to her like homing-pigeon the instant he was released from prison. It was tantamount to treason that he should purpose anything else. Almira fretted herself into a fever. She wrote one long letter to the recreant Parson, and her sister Beaytrice, as they called her, followed it up with another still more alarming. Then, as he did not wire instant submission, the telegram was sent. Old Quimby was on the platform at the Urbana station as Davies sprang from the train. "Nothing much," said he, in response to the young man's eager inquiry. "Some dam girl nonsense she and Bee have cooked up between them. When they ain't devilling the life out of their step-mother they're worrying somebody else. Oh, yes!—'course the doctor's been humbugging for a week,—too glad to get a chance of shovin' in a bill."
Davies went gravely up the sunny street to his mother's home,—a meeting that served to chase away the clouds, and then an hour later to Almira's bower. Bee ushered him into a pretty room whose windows were overhung with honeysuckle and pink chintz, and there in a great old-fashioned rocking-chair reclined the lovely invalid, who greeted him with outstretched arms and rapturous cry, and who was sufficiently restored to exhibit him at the Sunday-school picnic as originally planned. So far as she was concerned, all went blithely as a marriage-bell until the morning of July 5, when there came the fearful news of the massacre of General Custer and his troops at the hands of the Sioux. That evening the city papers said all officers on leave were hurrying to their regiments, that reinforcements were being pushed to the front, that recruits were needed at once; and the next day, followed by a mother's prayers and a maiden's unavailing protest, Percy Davies was gone. Just as his father did in '61, leaving all to pursue the path of duty, the young soldier, though not yet commissioned, sped to the nearest army post, and joined the first command en route for the field.
