West Point Colors

Magnus, however, was not so critical, he did not see even such as these every day, and so enjoyed everything to his mother's heart's content. And as she feasted on her boy there was really no lack anywhere. The fair August lights and shades chased each other among cedars and oaks, the locusts hummed; the birds that had nestlings sped swiftly to and fro, bringing food. Fall after fall of rocky woods and winding road lay at their feet; below all, the white camp in its green setting, then the river—never twice the same. Far up in the north the Catskills lifted their blue, changeless heads.

It was all so wondrous and so new to Mrs. Kindred that she was watching it, taking it in, even when she thought she had no eyes but for Magnus. The hills bewitched her; the distant blue, the nearer green; on all sides she seemed to hear the silent chanting of her favourite psalm:

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Surely this was a place wherein to grow "strong in the Lord"; a place where to remember:

"Thou wilt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures."

"Mammy, you don't eat," said Magnus, beginning on another small pie. "You might venture—just a little. I think there'd be enough left for me."

"My dear, I have too much," said the mother. "Magnus, don't eat any more of that pie; it is not Cherry's make, remember."

"Don't I know it! But her pies are across the continent, worse luck. It is good the know-nothing girls here don't try their hand. Shade of Scipio Africanus, what a poisoning of cadets there would be! Dr. Senna says that if it wasn't for Pretty Newcomb and her candy—with a sprained ankle now and then—he shouldn't have a man on the sick list."

"Well, that is good," said Mrs. Kindred heartily; "the place must agree with you all. Magnus, do you know many people here?"

"Three hundred cadets, more or less, and too many officers quite intimately," said Magnus, trying the cake. "Besides the bugler and the orderly."

"Any ladies?"

"Quite some."

"I really do wish they taught English here," said poor Mrs. Kindred. "You are just as bad as ever, Magnus."

"Worse!" But Magnus laughed up into her eyes with a look that to the mother negatived that. What eyes his were! And that reminded her.

"Have you ever met a Miss Kitten?"

"The cadets' 'pet Kitten'? Well, I should say I had, rather."

"Magnus; I do not like to hear you talk so."

"But that is what she is, mammy, so why shouldn't I say it?"

"Always speak respectfully about women, my dear."

"Women? Well, let her pass for that," said Magnus, unconsciously quoting Portia.

"You do know her then?"

"Enough to take off my cap when I meet her and walk while she talks," said Magnus. "Why mammy, what makes you so curious about the Kitten?"

"I am interested in anyone you know."

Mrs. Kindred went on, silently putting the remains of the feast into the basket. Magnus, leaning on one elbow, watched the hands that did their work so quietly and well. Then he bent down and kissed first one hand and then the other, touching them with cheek as well as lips. And Mrs. Kindred left her basket, and coaxed his head down on her lap, softly stroking and caressing it. Magnus drew a long, deep breath.

"Mammy," he said, "they don't grow beds of Roses and Violets out here, nor anywhere, I guess, but at home."

"It is you that have to grow 'out here,' Magnus."

"Yes'm. How much?" said Magnus; "I'm a good half-inch taller already."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Kindred, quoting her favourite lines:

"A whole half-inch, Magnus?"

Magnus laughed.

"Ah, mammy," he said, "you can't keep dark worth a cent. Truly, a whole half-inch. Call it three-quarters."

"I must remember and tell the girls," said Mrs. Kindred.

"Yes, don't forget," said Magnus ironically. "Charge your memory, and tie a red string round every finger. Then tell 'em the first minute they meet you at the station, mother, and have it off your mind."

"You are a very saucy boy," said Mrs. Kindred, trying to look grave.

"West Point is a developing place, as some wise M. C. said last June. Have the girls grown, mother? How tall is Cherry?"

"Grown a little, I think, in several ways. Every day I see her, I think she could not be sweeter—and then the next day I think she is," said Mrs. Kindred warmly.

"Bless her dear heart!" Magnus remarked under breath.

"Sometimes I think she works too hard," said Mrs. Kindred. "I really believe that child carries a book in her pocket, and studies every chance she gets. She has coaxed the other girls into a sort of class, and for two hours every day they study together."

"Good for her!" said Magnus; "good for 'em all. Studies are extremely developing. I wish I could send 'em all mine. I think I have grown enough."

"I suppose you carry a book in your pocket, too," said Mrs. Kindred, taking her turn at the irony.

"Haven't got one," said Magnus; "or doubtless I should. The books are on hand, but the pocket is wanting."

"No pocket?"

"No'm. Now you have an idea of desolate destitution." And Magnus raised himself on one elbow again, drew out a white handkerchief from his sleeve, and after a melancholy wave in the air, tucked it back again.

"But my dear!" said Mrs. Kindred.

"Ah, you see what development costs here," said Magnus. "No wonder I have shot up into the air, that being the only place where I couldn't run against regulations. Just notice to-night at parade what preternaturally tall men we have in the Corps. You see there are no Tacs up overhead,"—and Magnus gazed pathetically into the serene blue.

"Stop fooling," said his mother. "Magnus, if you have no pockets—why, I never heard of such doings!—then where do you put anything?"

"Up my sleeve."

"Nonsense; your sleeve will not hold much to speak of."

"No," said Magnus; "and so what it holds is generally not spoken of. In winter we have a resource—a small one; but in summer we should be hard up if it wasn't for the girls."

"What have the girls to do with your pockets?" said Mrs. Kindred rather severely.

"Would fill them, if we had any. As it is, they fill their own and empty them at our feet."

"Magnus, I don't know you," said his mother; "I never heard you talk in that way at home, and I do not like it now."

"Well, it's the truth," said Magnus. "The Kitten threw a pear after me yesterday, as I went by; and only this morning Miss Midget pelted the men who were at Derby Drill, from her basket of peaches. What can a man do? You must speak of people as you find them."

Mrs. Kindred drew a longer sigh than her boy had done.

"If that is for me, you needn't," said Magnus; "Kittens aren't lions, mammy. I'm better off than Daniel, yet. Only his detail of an angel stayed by him,—and mine comes—and will go!" And Magnus brought the beloved hands up to his face again.

Poor Mrs. Kindred! it was all so strange and sweet, and perplexing and delightful, that she was on the very edge of a burst of tears. That touch of her boy's fingers and face, so long unfelt, and for so long to be again, just wrung her heart. And when so many other confusing ideas came to tangle themselves in with this, no wonder her nerves got out of order. And so, as such dear people will, finding earth altogether too much for her, Mrs. Kindred took refuge where the ways are marked out, and the standing sure.

"I am glad you reminded me of Daniel," she said, her voice faltering in spite of her. "Yes, 'My God will send his angel' to look after you."

"He has," put in Magnus.

"But dear," the mother went on, "Daniel risked everything, for loyalty to his master. I should go home with a glad heart if I knew that was true of you."

How sweet the summer silence lay between the two. The soft plash of the river quickened just now by the swell of a passing boat; the bird notes waking up a little as the day wore on; the lengthening shadows, the descending sun. And no human voice broke the hush. If a sigh came to Mrs. Kindred's lips, it was stayed there; if deprecating, excusing words were ready with Magnus, not one came out. Hand in hand, so they sat; but presently the mother's heart went up in such eager, wordless prayer that, except that hand-clasp, she was conscious of nothing else. Magnus, glancing at her furtively from under his cap, saw the closed eyes and the rapt face; but even as he looked, the eyes opened and lifted with a glow of love and trust that sent his own face down, down into her lap.

"Well?" she said gently. "How is it dear? Are you like that?"

"Not much!" Magnus answered, sitting straight up again, and gazing off at the shining river. "About as little as you'd like to have me. But mother, you don't know how hard it is."

"Perhaps I do," she said. "The world power does not go by places, nor is the devil shut up to any State. Didn't you tell me that you had always at least a storm flag out?"

"Did you guess what I meant?"

"Cherry guessed," said Mrs. Kindred. "She said you never took your flag down, even on the stormiest days."

"Like Cherry!" cried Magnus. "Her true heart could not even imagine anything else. Well, mother, that's what it ought to mean—and what it does mean, for that blessed old banner down yonder. The toughest wind that blows never finds that flagstaff empty, from reveille to retreat. And in the deadest sort of a calm you can see a touch of blue and a gleam of red clinging and glowing about the top of the old pole."

"And for you, Magnus? What does it mean for you?" the mother said anxiously.

"Oh, nothing very bad!" Magnus answered. "Only sometimes I seem to fly my storm flag in fair weather."

There was a long, quiet pause. Magnus waited for his mother to speak, and her words were not ready. The young cadet, looking at her again, found no shocked expression, as he had feared; the tender face was grave and thoughtful, but calm; the eyes gazing out far beyond him.

"Dear," she said at last, "are all the men in your Company Christians?"

"All the men in my Company? Well, I should say not."

"Or all your special associates?"

"Why, no! Not by several and many."

"Magnus, suppose this pretty place was suddenly peopled with aliens, and not an American left but the one in charge of the colours. What should he do?"

"Hang out the garrison flag, if it blew to tatters!" said Magnus.

Mrs. Kindred laughed, but her eyes filled and her lips trembled.

"Yes, dear," she said. "So do."