CHAPTER XIV.
The great city had gone wild. Not a month before many of Pop's boys hadridiculed the lads of a rival school who had employed a drill-masterfrom the Ninth Regiment and met two evenings a week. But Shorty, aftervainly trying to start a rival company among his own mates, had goneover and enlisted in the ranks at Mulholland's. As a drum-boy he was notallowed to handle a musket and "fall in" with the famous regiment towhich he was attached. Indeed, he would have had to stand on astep-ladder to load "according to tactics" the long, glistening musketwith which the troops were at that time armed. Mulholland's boys hadhired a lot of old-fashioned cadet musquetoons, heavy and cumbrous, butthey were marvellous weapons in the eyes of the lads. Officers on dutyat Governor's Island were frequent visitors at the Primes' at FourteenthStreet, and Shorty could not but hear of the preparations at thearsenal, the effort to send reinforcements and provisions to MajorAnderson at Fort Sumter. All the world knew at this time how the "Starof the West" was fired on and forced to put back to sea, but still notone man in five would admit there should be war, and, in the greatDemocratic community, hundreds and hundreds of people and not a fewpapers almost openly took sides with the South. Two lads at Pop'sactually came to school wearing the colors of South Carolina in theirwaistcoats, and in the First Latin the Ballous, whose father hadembarked his capital in steamships trading with Charleston and Savannah,and Seymour, whose relatives were nearly all Southern, and the Graysons,who were Northerners by birth, but had many kindred in Virginia andAlabama, were all openly "secesh" in their talk. And still lessons wenton, and the boys even had time to talk of Snipe and wish him back, andof Hoover and wish him in Jericho. Long ere this, now that there weretwo absent and Briggs had not a friend or a believer left in the school,all the First Latin had swung round into the conviction that poor Snipewas the victim of circumstances and conspiracy, and that Hoover was thecause of all his woes. The story of the hundred-dollar stealing hadbegun to be accepted as a fact, though Pop and his assistants couldnever be got to admit it. The further fact that Hoover and thosenotorious scamps, the Hulkers, had not been seen in New York since theChristmas holidays had set afloat a story that they had been discoveredto be connected in many a piece of rascality. Everything missing atschool for over a year was now attributed to Hoover. He had been able,said the boys, to dispose of his plunder through those Hulker fellows,who, despite the money lavished on them by their foolish mother, haddebts in many a bar-, billiard-, and pool-room, and were known to havepawned valuable jewelry from time to time. She was with them somewherein the South, and the gloomy old house in Twenty-first Street was caredfor by the servants, who were glad enough to have their young mastersaway and suspicion attaching to themselves at last removed. But stillthat watch of Joy's and certain valuables of Aunt Lawrence's remainedunaccounted for. Still the police were baffled. Still there came no newsas to Snipe's whereabouts, and his mother, deeply distressed, had gonehome to Rhinebeck and had to be content with receiving once a month afew lines saying her boy was well, working, and would return to her oneof these days when he had earned enough to make him independent. Thoseletters bore only the date, which often differed by three days from thatof the post-mark, but the post-mark helped them not at all. One letterwas posted in New York, another in Boston, a third in Philadelphia. Itwas evident that Snipe was determined to give his step-father no furtherchance to find him. Once he wrote to Shorty, upbraiding him gently forbeing instrumental in putting "old Park" on his track, but that was all.Shorty felt it keenly, but with that poor mother and the Doctor and hishome people all importuning him and telling him what was his duty, theboy had weakened and given the clue, with the result that they hadgained nothing and he had lost his friend. There was little comfort inthe assertions of the one whom he referred to as his "Sunday-schoolaunt," that he ought to be thankful to be rid of so undutiful andundesirable a companion. Shorty, to use the vernacular of the day,"couldn't see it," and fell from grace for saying so. But now thethrilling days of suspense were on the nation, and, while everybody whoknew the South knew well the South meant fight, the baa lambs of thepulpit and the braying leaders of the press kept on preaching about theties of brotherly love, the right of the people to assemble peaceably("even when under arms"), and the wrong of interference or intimidation,so "Let the erring sisters go in peace." As late as the 8th of April,one night when the boys were drilling in the big gymnasium on the upperfloor of Mulholland's school, and quite a number of people were lookingon, a venerable patron of the school stepped forward during the rest andproceeded to address them.
"Cease all this waste of time, boys. Put away your cruel weapons.Abandon this senseless strutting and marching. War is a relic of thedark ages,--of barbarism. The world has grown wise with years, and ofthe enlightened nations of the earth America stands foremost. Trust tothe broad views of our statesmen and the good sense of the people. Theywill ever stand between us and the horrors of a civil war."
There was much applause among certain mothers and sisters sitting alongamong the spectators, but Mulholland and the boys did not join. It wassignificant of what the drill sergeant thought that the moment thehandclapping subsided he commanded attention and then "Fix bayonet!"Within the week that followed, the broad views of many a Southernstatesman were manifest in the shotted guns trained on Sumter. The goodsense of the people, so far from "standing between us and the horrors ofcivil war," boiled over in a genuine Anglo-Saxon exuberance of battlefervor. The news that the stars and stripes were lowered in CharlestonHarbor sent them to the peak of every staff throughout the North, andmen, women, and children swarmed upon the streets, decked with thebadges of red, white, and blue. All Gotham had caught the war fever. ThePresident's call for the services of the State militia to defend thecapital until the volunteers could be enrolled sent the SixthMassachusetts through the city the very next morning, the famous NewYork Seventh following by special train late the following day, and theEighth Massachusetts marched down Fifth Avenue the same evening theSeventh went away. The best blood and brawn of the metropolis and of theBay State were the first to respond. The Sixty-ninth, Seventy-first,and Seventy-ninth, Irish, American, and Scotch regiments of the greatcity, followed within the week, the jaunty Frenchmen of the Fifty-fifth,the Grays of the Eighth, the Blues of the Twelfth were promptly underarms. Every able-bodied man of the tribe of Prime was in uniform andaway to the front before the month of May was ushered in, and Shorty,with breaking heart, had shut himself in his room and sobbed himselfsick because he was forbidden to even think of going. He listened to thethrilling strains of the Seventh's splendid band until the last sound oftheir favorite "Skyrockets" was drowned in the hoarse cheers of thecrowds that saw them off. He went to school as ordered and got "flunked"in every lesson. He sat on the mourners' bench in utter misery anddespond all through the week that followed the going of the city troops,after having deliberately absented himself from every session duringwhich a regiment happened to be marching away, and in all the two weeksthat followed the coming of the news from Sumter only once had therecome into his life a moment of joy and comfort, and that was the dayfollowing the departure of the Seventy-first (red-jacketed drum corpsand all,--all except poor Shorty), when, as the First Latin bustled outinto the street at recess, and Shorty, last of all, came drearily downwith his hands in his pockets, ordered out, in fact, by Mr. Beach, hewas greeted on the sidewalk by a jeering laugh and Briggs's taunting,sneering words. "Hullo, drummer! So you thought you'd better stay homewhere there wasn't going to be any show of fighting, did you?" andBriggs might have known what would happen. Just as before, in a suddenwhirl of fury, the youngster flew at him, landed both fists on thefreckled "mug" before Briggs could either dodge or guard; bore himbackward in the full force of the instant attack; the carroty headbanged on the curb and knocked him stupid, and then the peace-makersreally might have been less deliberate in pulling Shorty off. Briggs wasa wreck when his raging assailant was dragged away, and Halsey,wild-eyed, came rushing out to stop the fray. "Prime, Prime!
" he said,as he held him by the collar. "You've tried the rector's patience to theutmost this last week, and I fear this will end it all."
"I don't care if it does!" panted Shorty. "I'd rather be killed thankept here any longer. I hope he _will_ expel me. Then perhaps they'lllet me go where I belong!" And in a torrent of wrath the youngster'sswelling heart burst over all bounds, and he was led sobbing away.
Still dazed, half blind, and bleeding, Briggs was lifted to his feet."It served you right, you hulking coward," said Joy, as he and Bertramled the battered object to the horse-trough in the stable. "You couldn'thave insulted him more brutally."
"It's of no use," said the Doctor that evening, gravely, to agray-haired grandsire, who was himself burning with longing to go to thefront. "That boy can't study now. You see he was regularly enlisted asa drummer. He fully believed that when his regiment was called out thatnothing could keep him back, and, boy-like, he has said so among hisfellows,--probably bragged of it a little. He who had been so boastfullyconfident now has to stay and face the sneers of the school, while bigboys of eighteen and nineteen like Dix and Julian have gone with theSeventh. It breaks his heart, my friend. There's no likelihood offighting just now. The rebels won't be fools enough to attackWashington. Send him down there to his uncle. Let him have a taste ofcamp life. The city troops will come home as soon as the volunteersbegin to arrive. In fact, if you don't there'll be incessant war righthere at school."
"But there's his examination for college," said the head of the Primes,himself a don of Columbia.
"Well, didn't you assure Dix and Julian that Columbia would admit themwithout examination whenever they knocked at the doors? Didn't you atfaculty meeting say that three seniors, who never could have got theirdiplomas in the world, should have their degrees without furtherquestion, despite the fact that they have dragged along at the foot oftheir class for the last two years, all just because of the fact thatthey have gone to the front with their regiments?"
"But then he's so small for his years," was the next objection.
"All the better soldier! Those big, long giants break down. Thosestocky little fellows are the stayers. Besides," says Pop, with atwinkle in his eyes, "size doesn't seem to count for much. You--ought tohave seen Briggs."
"Was he well pounded?" asked the head of the house, with interest illbecoming his years and station. Perhaps he is thinking of old, old daysat "Harrow on the Hill," when he, too, had been under the ban for morethan one forbidden fight.
"Halsey says he looked as though he'd been mauled by a wildcat;" and tosave his reputation the Doctor cannot repress a grim smile.
"The young rascal!" says the head of the house.
Shorty, meantime, remanded to his room to cool off and meditate on hissins, has done neither. The drum which was his joy and the jauntyuniform are gone. To his unspeakable grief, there had come an order forthem from the adjutant the day before the regiment marched. Another boyhad been accepted in his place, a bigger boy, who could hardly squeezeinto either jacket or trousers, but, of course, did not return them.They were regimental property, and yet Shorty felt a sense of personalindignity that, even when he couldn't go, the adjutant should permit anyother one to take his place. Of his misery when, clinging to his perchon a lamp-post above the cheering throngs, he saw those twentyred-jacketed lads, led by the drum-major, coming proudly trudging downBroadway at the head of the splendid command, it would be impossible totell; and now, twitted and insulted at school because he was bound toobey the decree of his grandparents, virtually suspended for resentingthe insult, and, last of all, practically a prisoner in his room, poorShorty's cup was full.
There came a step in the hallway without, a knock at the door, and thebutler's boy, a stanch friend, ally, and fellow-fireman, stood andwaited. There was no answer, and he stooped and hailed through thekeyhole.
"Mr. Shorty, father sent me up with some dinner,--and there's a letter,looks like Mr. Snipe's writin'."
The door flew open and the letter was seized.
* * * * *
"DEAR SHORTY," it read,--"I used to think nothing would ever make me a soldier any more than nothing could keep you from being one, but here I am, high private in the rear rank, and as big if not as broad as the rest of 'em. I swore I was eighteen and over. I have the height and looked strong. They wanted to fill the company up to a hundred, and there was no further question. Fancy my delight when we went into camp next your regiment and my surprise when I couldn't find you among the drum-boys. Billy Archer says you nearly went crazy when they came away without you. What's the matter? You _are_ coming, aren't you? I saw your Uncle Hal in his captain's uniform yesterday, and stood up and saluted with the rest. I shan't tell you my regiment or address this time, though Park couldn't take me away from Uncle Sam even if he did come. But when you get here hunt up Billy Archer, and he'll tell you where to find your old chum. "SNIPE."
* * * * *
That night, late, it occurred to some one that it might be well to go upand see Shorty and try to reason with him and comfort him, or "dosomething," as it was vaguely expressed. The room door was wide open,the dinner stood untasted on the tray, the tray was on the bed, andShorty was gone.