The January examination that year came on and went off, bearing with it but few wrecks. One or two hard-working men who were cut out for lines of life where mathematics counted less; with two or three careless ones who coveted lines where there was no work at all. And now in everybody's mind the cold days and hard studies ranged themselves in a shortening vista, with June at the end. June! the short word for first-class camp, furlough, yearling camp, and graduation. While to Charlemagne Kindred and many another, was added in the thought of friends at home who had promised to grace June with their presence. Some men talked about this, but he never did—at least, not in full. To his roommate he did sometimes speak of his mother and her coming, but not of his sisters; never of Cherry. No one knew that she existed, except the men who had been there, and they had been very much thrown off to the other girls even then. And as Magnus was extremely popular at West Point, there were always girls at hand to suggest unlimited chaffing, without crossing the continent to find occasion thereto. Letters came and went in troops, of course, but so they did for other men. Three girls he never heard of wrote to Magnus, desiring a correspondence, and he turned the letters over to Mr. Trent, who had quite a lively time. Thus, one way and another, the weeks swung on, and Washington's birthday was close at hand.

"One hundred days to June!"

So rang out the joyful tidings in the Mess Hall one snowy winter morning, making the old place on a sudden all summer with warm exultation. It was almost beyond belief; and the fourth classman detailed to announce the date might have been chaired and borne back to barracks on the shoulders of the crowd, had such doings been allowed at the Academy. As things were, however, all that could be given him was the further privilege of announcing next morning, that the days had dwindled to ninety nine.

But just in here came the Hundredth Night extravaganza; like Hallowe'en, or the Carnival, or any other special occasion when wits run wild.

If I should try to give you the details of any one particular Hundredth Night frolic, I might either make anomalous blunders or else mark out and specify some one special year, and so date my story. Let me rather, then, give a chance medley from many celebrations, of things that were done—or might have been done—only vouching for the general truth of its details.

Of course Magnus Kindred was in the forefront of everything, with his untiring energy, fine voice, and ready wit; and no beavers could have worked harder over a winter house, than these men over one winter frolic. Plans, dresses, scenery, jokes, and poems, with here and there an elaborate mock-machine; what patience, what perseverance, what endless fertile wits, they did display. Every Saturday afternoon, every minute of release from quarters, went into the work. Ladies were called upon for hints and materials; good-natured officers gave their accoutrements and their advice. The very professors lent their coats to the wicked boys who were preparing to "skin" their benefactors, in the only way possible to cadets.

For the men in grey may not argue, remonstrate, or petition; may not even ask why. "Theirs but to do and die," as they themselves would put it; until the Colour Line comes round, or the Hundredth Night. Then, twice in the year, they are allowed to state their opinions, grievances, and desires, though still within certain limits. Woe be to the man who ventures to disagree with his instructor in the section room; but at the Hundredth night he may make what fun of him he can—within limits.

Of late, however, the censorship over these frolics has been so strict that they are shorn of their old glory. The wild garden effect has changed into more "correct" growths, well trained and trimmed: less distinctive, less individual. Wits will not play without space to play in. But in those times of which I write, it seems to have been thought that steam pent up was more dangerous than the same blown off; and that the quips and jibes and flings, so dear to cadet hearts, were most innocuous when well shaken up and aired twice a year.

Cadet rebukes rarely miss the mark through being wrapped in too much cotton. But if a few cuts and scratches follow they are not deep, and the surrounding fun half heals them. I defy anybody to look grave, when that grey house "comes down" in a roar of merriment.

Of course, many of the jokes are so local and technical that a stranger would be puzzled. West Point affairs, personal hits at cadets, or memories of the section room, figure largely. But whether you understand or not, you have to laugh, just for the rollicking joy that goes on behind you. The jolly storm of applause sweeps you helplessly along. There are years when you go to the Hundredth Night between snowbanks as high as yourself, and along slippery white paths; there are others when the hills are clouded, and the mist hangs low, and the gas lights twinkle and peer through a grey veil. There are still others when air and hills and sky are at the brightest and bonniest, with a clear, hard, brown earth; and you cross the plain amid a glory of contesting lights:—gas round the quarters; a young moon dipping her lovely crescent behind the hill; Newburgh's electric lights winking and blinking like live things, from ten miles away; and close before you, the whole front of barracks in a blaze of lit-up rooms. It is so fair, so weird, that you can only look and look, back and forth, from side to side.

As you gaze and loiter, small parties pass you on the way: people intent upon other effects than those of light and shadow. Generally a cadet with a girl—or two girls; with sometimes a chaperon, and sometimes not. But remember that every West Point cadet is held to be a knight par excellence; a gentleman all through; and so, by long usage and experience, judged to be a fit and sufficient escort on every such occasion. It is the regular thing.

And then when the figures flit by you side by side or arm in arm; pink and grey, or grey and yellow, or, as now, furs and cadet cloth, all your comment is for the pretty combination. And when some solitary greatcoat goes speeding along to meet an appointment at the Hotel or the houses, you instantly hope that the girl will not keep him waiting.

For the minutes are running on; and whoever wants a good seat—or a seat at all—had better not delay.

There is a grey throng about the steps of the old Mess Hall, and girls in quantity.

They press up the stone steps, and pour into the hall, pretty and flushed, proud and sufficient. Officers with their families join in, and now and then a distinguished stranger; and these fill up the front seats. Then come civilians, visitors, and their escorts. Behind the curtain mysterious sounds of tools at work tell of preparations not quite complete. There is music, a pause, and more music; and then from behind the curtain a tall, grey figure steps gravely forth, bows low to the audience, and begins the regulation Hundredth Night address. It is the president of the first class.

Whoever makes the speech, and whatever else he puts in it, the refrain is always:

"One hundred days to June!"

I think I never knew but one exception; and I missed the old words then; but this night they were in full force. Yet the speech was in some ways as unlike most others as he himself was different from many men. Strong, tall, square shouldered, both mentally and physically, Cadet Trueman no more thought of turning a stone wall, or dodging a river, than if they had been pebbles and rivulets. Which way he ought to go, that way he went; the only sort of a steeplechase in which no man comes to grief. Not a brilliant man, but a diligent; "hard work and hard praying" had brought him nobly through. Trueman stood high, wore high chevrons, and knew less (experimentally) of the area of barracks than any man in his class. No ladies' man, as you might guess; although the chevrons, or something, won him many admiring looks. But if ever you met Mr. Trueman meandering round Flirtation with a girl, you might be sure it was a case of philanthropy, pure and simple, and that the damsel was on his hands by no volition of his own. And he never asked for the further favour of a walk after chapel, or on O. G. P. He always acquitted himself well on such occasions, but that was the last of it; and he joyfully slid back among the bachelors again. And now, as he came forward and bowed to the expectant throng, no thought of any—or all—the bright eyes in the room made his pulse one throb the quicker. He had stir enough, in the mere heading of his speech:

"One hundred days to June!"

"Who is that?" whispered a stylish new girl for whom Magnus Kindred played cavalier.

"Fort Put. In moments of deepest affection, 'Old Put.'"

"How absurd you cadets always are! Wherefore do you call him that?"

"Only thing in the neighbourhood like him. Crownest is a trifle large for even his inches."

The girl looked indignant, as if she thought Magnus was fooling her; but then the speech began.

Happy for you, perhaps, that no complete copy has come to my hands; you are spared the danger of being even asked to read it. But the last sentences so fixed themselves in Magnus Kindred's mind that he sent them off to Cherry next day, word for word. And of course I have unlimited control of the correspondence. "Ladies and Gentlemen" figured politely in the opening words, but Cadet True soon forgot them; looking clean across the gay flower garden in front to the grey mass behind: the vivid, eager, forceful lives hid away beneath those trim dress coats.

"One hundred days to June! To freedom, to power, to Life! Men of 18—, shall your freedom be liberty or license? your power sworn in for good, or for evil? Shall life be a failure—or a success? The names that rank highest to-day, will they keep their proud position? The names that stand lower, will they show the world what they could have done here, but for Wave Motion and Spanish?"

And now Mr. Trueman had to pause, for this mention of their dire enemies brought the grey house down.

"It may be—it can be, if you will," he went on. "Every man has it in him to do royal work. 'The people that know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.'

The grey figure bowed and disappeared behind the curtain amid great cheering.

"Good for you, Old Put!" cried Magnus heartily. "You see," he explained to his companion, "True's just the same (or a trifle better) in barracks than he is at prayer-meeting. That's how he won his name. Nothing but treachery could have put the old fort in the hands of the enemy,—and that failed. I believe," said Mr. Kindred, turning bright eyes on his companion, "that if Arnold had carried out his plan, the rocks on the hillside would have risen up and fought back the invaders."

Miss Cray looked at him.

"You're very patriotic, aren't you, Mr. Kindred?"

"Rather," Magnus answered with dry emphasis.

"I've been abroad so long," said the pretty girl, "I get puzzled. I do know about Arnold. There's his tablet in the chapel, you know. But who were Grant and Sherman, anyway? Didn't they figure in the last war, somehow?"

"Some people thought they did," said Cadet Kindred, with a face that had no expression whatever. And then, happily, the curtain drew up.

But how shall I give any idea of the performance to one who has never seen the like? Hits at officers, burlesques of unpopular orders, take-offs of the girls, with jibes and chaff at each other that would have made anybody but cadets just savage. Being cadets, they caught the fun, stood the jeers, and laughed—roared—till the Mess Hall rang.

With all this, songs—often very good; or a charming bit of "silent manual"; and scenes and situations sometimes true, always possible, and very droll. Then some mock machinery that one wondered how they ever found time to make; unheard-of problems and discoveries worked out in most ingenious ways, with just enough flavour of this or that instructor's style to "adorn the tale"—whether any moral came in or not.

Enter a donkey, carefully compounded of four plebs within—and I cannot guess what without. Ears and tail of the proper length, hide of the proper colour. He is slightly jerky and uncertain about his first coming in; but that is all in keeping for a descendant of the donkey "what wouldn't go"; and there is no hitch whatever in the performance. I believe one of the legs fainted as time went on; but the little beast (I mean the donkey), being skilfully pulled by the tail, beat a masterly retreat upon the other three.

A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon sketches of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams, and first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the other, with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of glowing praise and liking—and lo! there stands before you the life-size "counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly enlarged by the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the men cheer! They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes, but they love him none the less.

Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come flirting and fanning, bridling and prinking, in a way to instruct some bona fide girls. The butterfly poise of these airy damsels is quite admirable, and could only have been won by long and careful study of the originals.

A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a tail—longer than the donkey's.

There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post; whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner away, the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands unknown.

Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to the old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in place at West Point,—and no one was caught. It was told, sub rosa, and with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The dog has been painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the chief culprit first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all this had passed, and the dog was himself again.

Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and helmeted, went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when suddenly from behind the scenes slid in the dog—the paint stripes in order as they had been before, and the medallion on its side with the number of its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded little body gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin.

Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons. But words cannot give the utter drollery of the thing, nor tell the perfect way in which it was carried out.

Then came more music, and the reading of the Howitzer.

A cadet Howitzer is a small, wholly original newspaper, full of everything in general; grinds, burlesques, sharp hints and comments, with bits of ridiculous fact as well; free as air, and sometimes as breezy. Verses to the cadet girl, verses at her, as well as touching the stringent professor, and the unpopular drill. Grievances painted in high colours, and jokes about cadets that are as merciless as they are many.

Scene: Riding hall.

Lieut. B.: "Mr. H., let go that horse's mane, sir!"

Cadet H. "I—I—I'm afraid he'll fall down if I do, Lieutenant."

"Why is T. like necessity?"

"Because he knows no Law."

"A first-class horse—the Spanish pony."

"Mabel, what became of that West Pointer you were engaged to?"

"O, he turned out to be a disappointer."

Scene: Section room.

Cadet L.: "Stucco is made by mixing gypsum with a large solution."

Instructor: "Large solution of what?"

Cadet: "The text does not state, sir. It just says it is mixed with a solution of size."

Scene: Section room.

Professor: "Now, gentlemen, the Indians made signs of natural and living objects their language. For instance, if they wished to represent the Little Horn River they drew a little horn; and if they wished to represent the Big Horn River, they drew a big horn."

Cadet C.: "Professor, how did they represent the Little Big Horn?" Such, and such like, keen-worded trifles; a line, or a page long; often very bright, seldom complimentary, but always most impartial in their bestowal of hits.

Miranda: "I think Mr. W. is the most absent-minded cadet I know."

Jenny: "How so, dear?"

Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were just sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"

"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on 'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"

So goes the Howitzer; and the audience are kindly told that at the end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."

I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess what sort of hands will open the letter.

Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well made-up damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed presently by a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering anxiously from side to side.

"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too disappears.

The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on the scene. He also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.

"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this way."

Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of pleasure.

"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as he dives in among the shadows.

The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents pertaining thereto, laughable enough.

But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is Saturday night.

The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the gay company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is over.