ON FURLOUGH IN THE OLD HOME TOWN

“My son, Richard.  He is home on his furlough from the Military Academy at West Point.”

Words would fail in describing motherly pride with which Mrs. Prescott introduced her son to Mrs. Davidson, wife of the new pastor.

“I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Prescott,” said Mrs. Davidson, looking up, for up she had to glance in order to see the face of this tall, distinguished-looking cadet.

Dick Prescott’s return bow was made with the utmost grace, yet without affectation.  His natty straw hat he held in his right hand, close to his breast.

Mrs. Davidson was a sensible and motherly woman, who wished to give this young man the pleasantest greeting, but she was plainly at a loss to know what to say.  Like many excellent and ordinarily well-informed American people, she had not the haziest notions of West Point.

“You are learning to be a soldier, of course?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Davidson,” replied Dick gravely.  Neither in his face nor in his tone was there any hint of the weariness with which he had so often, of late, heard this aimless question repeated.

“And when you are through with your course there,” pursued Mrs. Davidson, “do you enlist in the Army?  Or may you, if you prefer, become a sailor in our—­er—­Navy?”

“Oh, I fear, Mrs. Davidson, that you don’t understand,” smiled Mrs. Prescott proudly.  My son is now going through a very rigorous four years’ course at the Military Academy.  It is a course that is superior, in most respects to a college training, but that it is devoted to turning out commissioned officers for the Army.  When Richard graduates, in two years more, he will be commissioned by the President as a second lieutenant in the Army.”

“Oh, I understood you to say that you were training to become a soldier, Mr. Prescott,” cried Mrs. Davidson in some confusion.  “I did not understand that you would become an officer.”

“An officer who is not also a good soldier is a most unfortunate and useless fellow under the colors,” laughed Dick lightly.

“But it is so much more honorable to be an officer than to be a mere soldier!” cried the pastor’s wife.

“We do not think so in the army, Mrs. Davidson,” Dick answered more responsibility, to be sure, but we feel that the honor falls alike on men of all grades of position who are privileged to wear their country’s uniform.”

“But don’t the officers look down on the common soldiers?” asked Mrs. Davidson curiously.

“If an officer does, then surely he has chosen the wrong career in life, madam,” the cadet replied seriously.  “We are not taught at West Point that an officer should ‘look down’ upon an enlisted man.  There is a gulf of discipline, but none of manhood, between the enlisted man and his officer.  And it frequently happens that the officer who is a graduate from West Point is called upon to welcome, as a brother officer, a man who has just been promoted from the ranks.”