Part 11 (1/2)
Going into the troop office the day after his return, Davies was surprised to see a dark-eyed, dark-haired, rather handsome young soldier at the clerk's desk. He recognized him as one of the recruits whom he had brought out in July, but of whom he had seen very little during the campaign.
”That's our new company clerk,” said Hastings. ”One of Differs's latest pets. There are better clerks and better men in the troop. He relieved a better man when he sent Moran up to the agency. But what Devers is driving at is past finding out. There's been a total shaking up since that--well, since the campaign.”
And that this was true Davies could see for himself. Never having known the troop, except in the field on the worst of campaigns, it took him a few days to become accustomed to the change. Some of the most prominent of the troop sergeants were still on duty with it, but in their spick-and-span uniforms and clean-shaven cheeks and chins he found them greatly altered. The first sergeant was the same, and the relations.h.i.+p between him and the captain seemed closer than ever. Haney recognized no middleman in his dealings with the troop commander, and had long been allowed to consider himself as of far more importance than a junior lieutenant, a theory in which, perhaps, there was much to sustain him.
The manner of this magnate to the two subalterns, therefore, was just a trifle independent. Two veteran corporals had stepped up to an additional stripe vice Daly killed and McGrath missing in September.
Some new corporals had been ”made.” None of those whom Davies best knew and most noticed during the summer were among them. He missed two or three of the old hands and asked for them. Sergeant Lutz had gone to the agency. Corporal O'Brien had been reduced for a spree on the home-coming and was serving as private in Boynton's detachment, and Privates Sercomb and Riley were up there, too. The resultant vacancies in the troop had been filled by raw recruits who were being energetically licked into shape.
When Cranston was asked why he supposed it had pleased Captain Devers to send a recruit like Brannan up to the bleak and unwholesome life at the agency, Cranston replied by saying, ”Differs said it was to keep him out of harm's way. Up there he couldn't get liquor, down here he could.”
When Davies asked if Brannan had shown a disposition to drink since getting back from the campaign, Cranston again used Devers's authority.
”Differs said he had,--two or three times.” But when Cranston wrote to Boynton, Boynton replied that young Brannan declared that he had been totally abstemious since the day after they reached the post. The day of their coming in, he arrived half frozen and all tired out, as he had been kept back on wagon guard, and he was offered liquor by Sergeant Haney himself, and drank several times, and was wretchedly ill all the next day as a consequence,--so ill that it frightened him, and he swore off more solemnly than before. Hastings said, in fact, that there was a set in ”A” troop, a clique that ”stood in” with the first sergeant and some of his favorites, and that no man outside of it could hope for recognition and no one in it fear punishment. Brannan was not in it.
It was a Wednesday night, as has been said, that Davies arrived, and not until the following Wednesday could they be installed in their quarters, which were being simply but prettily furnished. Private Barnickel had a.s.sumed the duties of striker, and Mrs. Maloney's strapping daughter Katty was now presiding in Boynton's kitchen as cook and maid-of-all-work. A tenant had been found for the old house at home, who was to pay a certain rental to Squire Quimby, which sum was to be supplemented by a monthly payment from his son-in-law's scanty purse.
”We must live very simply and economically, my wife,” said Davies. ”At the very least it will take me two whole years to pay princ.i.p.al and interest and set us foot free; but we have few other debts. We can be warm and comfortable. You have all the clothing you will be apt to need for a good while, and I will get along with what I have.” And Mira had received the suggestion with all wifely grace. They went to chapel together that first crisp, suns.h.i.+ny, wintry Sunday, and all Fort Scott--at least all that happened to be there a.s.sembled--remarked on Almira's rich color--and furs--and on Davies's reverent manner. He was the only man in the little congregation who actually knelt. The old chaplain rejoiced that afternoon when the tall lieutenant came in at Sunday-school, and, taking immediate charge of the most turbulent of his cla.s.ses,--the big boys,--held them both interested and respectful until the close of the session. Almira came too, and made an impression on the juvenile minds of some of the laundresses' children, who studied her pretty face and new hat and garments with close attention; but it gave her a headache and she would rather not go to the evening service, she said,--a service held more especially for the benefit of the soldiers and their families, and but spa.r.s.ely attended otherwise. Davies went, however, and when he came home to their temporary quarters, found Almira, all animation, chatting with Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling, to whom she had been showing the contents of her big trunk. They were called for presently by Mr. Sanders and his cla.s.smate Jervis, both of whom had known the ”Parson” in his cadet days, but from the somewhat immeasurable alt.i.tude of a two years' start, yet they were the younger looking now, gay, debonair bachelors, pillars of the social gatherings at the post and most delightful partners, and, having completed their duties with tattoo roll-call, they were now in search of these reigning belles and an opportunity to talk over the hop projected for the coming Wednesday night. Of course Mrs. Davies would come, said Jervis, but Sanders's warning kick brought him to consciousness. ”At least I hope--we all hope you'll very soon be able to attend our parties, Mrs.
Davies. I suppose you've reformed the Parson and taught him to waltz.”
Mira looked at her husband, and she knew not just what to say.
Davies smiled gravely and said no, he feared that he was too old and awkward to learn even at the Point, but that Mrs. Davies was very fond of dancing, and by and by, perhaps, they would attend. Then the chat flowed merrily on, of the lovely time that they had all enjoyed,--that is, the garrison people had enjoyed all summer, and the pleasant a.s.sociations they had formed with the gentlemen from town, and how much lovelier it would be now. And while they were talking, through the thin part.i.tion which separated Mr. Boynton's official and personal quarters from those of Lieutenant and Adjutant Leonard there came the sound of sacred music,--Mrs. Leonard at her piano, her clear, true voice blending with the deep resonant ba.s.s of her soldier husband and the sweet treble of the children, and Davies stopped to listen. It was a hymn his father loved, one they often sang at the old church at home,--
”Son of my soul, Thou Saviour dear.”
It brought sweet and sacred memories. It spoke of home and holy influences, of mother love and father's blessing and children's hope and faith. It filled his heart with reverence and his eyes with tears. The babble and chat for an instant were silenced, and then Mrs. Darling spoke.
”The worst of these army quarters is that you can hear just what's going on next door; but,” she added, cheerfully, ”you'll soon be where you won't be bothered on one side, at least.”
Sanders gave a queer, quick glance at the speaker and then at Davies.
Jervis plunged into an immediate rhapsody on the subject of Mrs.
Leonard's children, whom he declared to be the best little beggars he ever knew, unless it was Cranston's. ”Of course,” he added, diplomatically, ”I can safely praise them in your presence, ladies, as you have none of your own.”
Then conversation languished, for Davies was silent and Mrs. Davies uninspired. The visitors left and went laughing down the row, their gay voices ringing in the frosty air.
”How long had they been here, dear?” asked Davies as he returned to the fireside.
”The ladies? Oh, I don't know. Quite a little while. They were so interested in everything,--so friendly. I quite forgot my headache while they were here. Now it seems to be coming on again, and if you don't mind I think I won't sit up,--unless somebody else is coming.”
”There will hardly be any more callers to-night,” he answered, gravely.
”If your head aches you might be better for going early to bed, and I will sit here and read awhile.”
But the wandering thoughts refused to be chained to the page before him.
His heart was full and vaguely troubled. ”I shall be better for a turn in the cold air,” he thought, and so, throwing his cape over his shoulders, he quietly left the house.
It was just after ten, a still, sparkling winter's night. Across the snowy level of the parade the long rows of wooden barracks lay dark and silent, no lights burning except in the window of some company office or first sergeant's room. Those were the days of ”early to bed and early to rise,” and every man was supposed to be sleeping by ten so as to be up and doing stable duty--or nothing--at dawn. Officers and ladies, the privileged cla.s.s of the army, made their own regulations as to domestic hours of retiring. The enlisted man slept or was supposed to sleep ”by order.” Mr. Davies, finding it essential to his comfort to sally forth and imbibe free air, had no one to say him nay,--Mrs. Davies having retired,--and might wander the live-long night about the post at will.
Trooper Blaney or Private Rentz, on the contrary, might toss for hours on sleepless pillow, and could only grin and bear it. It meant so many dollars ”blind,” or such other punishment as a court-martial might inflict to a soldier caught out of barracks after the sound of the signal to extinguish lights.
Already, in the quarters of his next-door neighbor, the adjutant, the parlor was darkened, and except for the studious head of the family, now poring over some precious volume in the privacy of his den, the household had gone aloft. Davies paused a moment, irresolute. To his right the walk extended only a short distance. There were but two more houses. To his left lay the main length of the line,--the colonel's, the surgeon's, the cavalry commander's, and most of the captains'.
Cranston's roof, however, was one of the two to the right, and thither Davies turned. Dim lights were burning in the little army parlor, as he could see through the half-drawn curtain. A shadow flitted across the dormer window above him,--Mrs. Cranston's. The other windows in the upper floor were dark. He wanted to go in and commune with Cranston, the man of all others whom he most liked, but he shrank from ringing their bell at so late an hour. Elsewhere along the row many a window was brilliantly illuminated and the social life of the post seemed in full flow. The Cranstons were home-keeping folk as a rule, ”not at all sociable,” said some of the dames of the Fortieth, and yet they were highly regarded throughout the garrison.