Mrs. Davidson looked puzzled, as, indeed, she was.  But she suddenly remembered something that made her feel more at ease.

“Why, I saw an officer and some soldiers on a train, the other day,” she cried.  “The officer had at least eight or ten soldiers with him, under his command.  I remember what a fine-looking young man he was.  He had what looked like two V’s on his sleeve, and I remember that they were yellow.  What kind of an officer is the man who wears the two yellow V’s?”

“A non-commissioned officer, Mrs. Davidson; a corporal of cavalry.”

“Was he higher that you’ll be when you graduate from West Point?”

“No; a corporal is an enlisted man, a step above the private soldier.  The sergeant is also an enlisted man, and above the corporal.  Above the sergeant comes the second lieutenant, who is the lowest-ranking commissioned officer.”

“Oh, I am sure I never could understand it all,” sighed Mrs. Davidson.  “Why don’t they have just plain soldiers and captains, and put the captains in a different color of uniform?  Then ordinary people could comprehend something about the Army.  But in describing that young soldier’s uniform, I forgot something, Mr. Prescott.  That young soldier, or officer, or whatever he was, beside the two yellow V’s, had a white stripe near the hem of his cuff.”

“Just one white stripe?” queried Dick.

“Just one, I am sure.”

“Then that one white stripe would show that the corporal, before entering the cavalry, had served one complete enlistment in the infantry.”

“Oh, this is simply incomprehensible!” cried the new pastor’s wife in comical dismay.  “I am certain that I could never learn to know all these things.”

“It is a little confusing at first,” smiled Dick’s mother with another show of pride.  “But I think I am beginning to understand quite a lot of it.”

Mrs. Davidson went out of the bookstore conducted by Dick’s parents in the little city of Gridley.  Dick sighed a bit wearily.

“Why don’t Americans take a little more pains to understand things American?” he asked his mother, with a comical smile.  “People who would be ashamed not to know something about St. Peter’s, at Rome, or the London Tower, are not quite sure what the purpose of the United States Military Academy is.”

Yet, though some people annoyed him with their foolish questions, he was heartily glad to be back, for the summer, in the dear old home town.  So was his chum, Greg Holmes, also a West Point cadet, and, like Prescott, a member of the new second class at the United States Military Academy.  Both young men had now been in Gridley for forty-eight hours.  They had met a host old-time friends, including nearly all of the High School students of former days.