Captain Jinks, Hero
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| Publié par | mashar |
| Publié le | 08 décembre 2010 |
| Nombre de lectures | 39 |
| Langue | English |
| Poids de l'ouvrage | 2 Mo |
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Jinks, Hero, by Ernest Crosby This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Captain Jinks, Hero Author: Ernest Crosby Illustrator: Dan Beard Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19353] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN JINKS, HERO *** Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
CAPTAIN JINKS, HERO "SAM WAS TAKENSTRADDLING A CHAIR" [ Page 124 ]
BY ERNEST CROSBY Author of "Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable"
Illustrations by DAN BEARD
NEW YORK AND LONDON FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 1902 COPYRIGHT, 1902, By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY Registered at Stationers' Hall, London Printed in the United States Published February, 1902 TO F. C. CONTENTS AND CARTOONS CHAPTER I. A B OMBSHELL , I .I E AST P OINT , II .I L OVE AND C OMBAT , IV. W AR AND B USINESS , V. S LOWBURGH , V .I O FF FOR THE C UBAPINES , V .II T HE B ATTLE OF S AN D IEGO , VIII. A MONG THE M ORITOS , IX. O N D UTY AT H AVLILA , X. A G REAT M ILITARY E XPLOIT , X .I A D INNER P ARTY AT G IN -S IN , XI.IT HE G REAT W HITE T EMPLE , XIII. T HE W AR -L ORD , XIV. H OME A GAIN , XV. P OLITICS , XV.IT HE E ND , FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE C APTAIN J INKS , H ERO , Frontispiece "Sam was taken straddling a chair " . W AR ' S D EMAND , 6 "But what did he want of soldiers?" T HE M ANLY S PORT AT E AST P OINT , 56 "Starkey stood off and gave him his 'coup de grace.'" A B LOOD B ROTHERHOOD , 120 "A big company to grab everything.... The Benevolent Assimilaiton Company, Limited." T WO OF A K IND , 206 "There are four marks." C ONSENT OF THE G OVERNED , 238 "What business have these people to talk about equal rights?" W INNERS OF THE C ROSS , 266 "He got the Victorious Cross in South Africa." T HE P ERFECT S OLDIER , 324 "The Emperor gave an exclamaiton of surprise and delight." H ARMLESS , 392 "He sits like that for hours." CHAPTER I A Bombshell
PAGE 1 14 34 60 89 117 151 185 216 240 250 277 310 338 365 374
LESS my soul! I nearly forgot," exclaimed Colonel Jinks, as he came back into the store. "To-morrow is Sam's birthday and I promised Ma to bring him home something for a present. Have you got anything for a boy six years old?" "Let me see," answered the young woman behind the counte,r turning round andl ooking at an upper shelf. "Why, yes; there's just the thing. I 't s a box of lead soldiers. I've never seen anything ilke them before"—and she reached up " and pulled down a large cardboard box. "Just see, she added as she opened it. "The ofifcers have swords that come off, and the guns come off the men's shoulders; and look at the——" "Never mind,"i nterrupted the colonel. "'Imi n a hurry. That'll do very well. How muchi s it?" And two minutes later he went out of the store with the box in his hand and got into his buggy, and was soon driving through the streets of Homeville on his way to his farm. No one had ever asked Colone lJinks where he had obtained his title. In fact, he had never put the quesiton to himsefl. tI was an integral part of his person, and as iltlte open to challenge as his hand or his foot. There are favored regions of the world's surface where colonels, like poets, are born, not made, and good fortune had placed the colonel's birthplace in one of them. For the benefit of those of my readers who may be prejudiced against wa,r and in jusitce to the colonel, it should be stated that the only miiltary thing about him was his itlte. He was a mild-mannered man with a long thin black beard and a silght stoop, and his experience with fire-arms was conifned to the occasiona lshooitng of depredatory crows, squirrels, and rats with an ancient fowling-piece. Sitll there is magic in a name. And who knows but that the sublte influence of the title of colonel may have unconsciously guided the searching eyes of the young saleswoman among the Noah's arks and farmyards to the box of lead soldiers? The lad for whom the present was intended was a happy farmer's boy, an only child, for whom the farm was the whole world and whol ooked upon the horses and cows as his fellows. Hisl itlte red head was constantly to be seen bobbing about in the barnyard among the sheep and calves, or almost under the horses' feet. The chickens and sparrows and swallows were his playmates, and they seemed to have no fear of him. The black cotl with its thick legs and ruflfed mane ran behind its gray dam to hide from every one else, but it let Sam pat it without ilfnching. The ifrst new-hatched chicken which had been given to him for his very own turned out to be a rooste,r and when he found that it had to be taken from him and beheaded he was quite inconsolable and refused absolutely to feast upon his former friend. But with this tenderness of disposition Sam had inherited another still stronger trait, and this was a deep respect for authority, and such elements of revotl as revealed themselves in his grief over his rooster were soon stifled in his litlte heart. He bowed submissively before the powers that be. From the time when he ifrst ilsped he had called his parents "Colonel Jinks" and "Mrs. Jinks." His mother had succeeded with great difficutly in substituitng the term "Ma" for hersefl, but she could not make him address his father as anything but "Colone,l" and after a itme his father grew tol ike it. No one knew how Sam had acquired the habit; it was simply the expression of ani nherenlty respectfu lnature. He reverenced his father and loved his father's profession of farme.r His earilest pleasure was to hold the reins and drive "like Colone lJinks," and his earilest ambiiton was to become a teamste,r that part of the farm work having peculiar attracitons for him. In the afternoon on which we were introduced to the Colonel, Sam was watching on the veranda for his father's return, and was quick to spy the parcel under his arm, and many were the wild guesses he made as to its contents. The Colonel left it carelessly upon the hall table, and Sam could easily have peeped into it, but he would as soon have thought of cutitng off his hand. "What's in that box in the hal,l Colonel Jinks?" he asked in an embarrassed voice at supper, as he ifngered the edge of the tablecloth and looked blushingly at his plate.
"Oh, that?" replied his father with a wink—"tha'ts a bombshel.l" And a bombshe llindeed it proved to be for the Jinks family. The box was put upon a table in the room in which litlte Sam slept with his parents, and he was told that he could havei t in the morning. He was al ong itme going to sleep that night, trying to imagine the contents of the mysterious box. Not unitl he had quite made up his mind that it was a farmyard did he finally drop off. At the first break of day Sam was out of bed. With bare feet he walked on tiptoe across the cold bare floor and seized the precious box. He lifted the ild at one corner and put in his hand and fetl what was there, and tried to guess what it could be. Perhaps it was a Noah's Ark; but no, if those were people there were too many of them. He would have to give it up. He took off the cover and looked in. It was not a farmyard, at any rate, and the corners of his mouth became tremulous from disappointment. No, they were soldiers. But what did he want of soldiers? He had heard of such things, but they had never been anything in his life. He had never seen a rea lsoldier nor heard of a toy-soldier before, and he did not quite know what they were fo.r He crept back to bed crestfallen, his present in his arms. Sititng up in bed he began to invesitgate the contents of the box. It was a complete infantry battailon, and beautiful soldiers they were. Their coats were red, their trousers blue, and they wore white helmets and carried muskets with bayonets ifxed. Sam began to fee lreconciled. He turned the box upside-down and empited the soldiers upon the counterpane. Then he noticed that they were not all ailke. There were some officers, who carried swords instead of rilfes. He began to look for them and single them out, when his eye was caught by a magniifcent white leaden plume issuing from the helmet of one of them. He picked up this soldie,r and the sight of him filled him with deilght. He was taller and broader than the rest, his air was more marital—there was something inspiring in the way in which he held his sword. His golden epaulets were a miracle of splendo,r but it was the plume, the great white plume, that held the boy enthralled. A ray of ilght from the morning sun, relfected by the window of the stable, found its way through a chink in the bilnd and fell just upon this plume. The effect was electric. Sam was fascinated, and he continued to hold thel ead soldier so that the dazzling ilght should fal lon it, gazing upon iti n an ecstasy.
WAR'S DEMAND "BUT WHAT DIDHEWANT OF SOLDIERS?" Sam spent that entire day in the company of his new soldiers,—nothing could drag him away from them. He made his father show him how they should march and form themselves and fight. He drew them up in hollow squares facing outward and in hollow squares facing inward, in column of fours and in line of battle, in double rank and single rank. "What are the bayonets fo,r Colone lJinks?" "To sitcki nto bad people, Sam." "And have the bad people bayonets, too?" "Yes, Sam. " "Do they sitck their bayonets into good people?" "Oh, I suppose so. Do stop bothering me. fI 'Id known you'd ask so many quesitons, 'Id never have got you the soldiers." His parents thought that a few days would exhaust the boy's devoiton to his new toys, but it was not so. He deserted the barnyard for the lead soldiers. They were placed on a chair by his bed at night, and he could not sleep unless his right hand grasped the white-plumed colone.l The smell of the fresh paint as it peeled off on his iltlte ifngers clung to his memory through life as the most delicious of odors. He would tease his father to play with the soldiers with him. He would divide the force in two, and one side would defend a fort of blocks and books while the other assautled. In these games Sam always insisted in having the plumed colonel on his side. Once when Sam's colonel had succeeded in capturing a particularly impregnable fortress on top of an unabridged dicitonary his father remarked casually: "He's quite a hero, isnt' he, Sam?" "A what?" said Sam. "A hero." "What is a hero, Colonel Jinks?" And his father explained to him what a hero was, giving several examples from history and ifction. The word took the boy's fancy at once. From that day forward the officer was colonel no longe,r he was a "hero," or rathe,r "the hero." Sam now began to save his pennies for other soldiers, and to beg for more and more as successive birthdays and Christmases came round. He played at soldiers himsefl, too, coaxing the less warlike children of the neighborhood to join him. But his enthusiasm always left them behind, and they itred much sooner than he did of the sport. He persuaded his mother to make him a uniform something ilke that of the lead soldiers, and the stores of Homeville were ransacked for drums, swords, and belts and toy-guns. He would stand on guard for hours at the barnyard gate, saluting in the most solemn manner whoever passed, even if it was only a sparrow. The only interest in animals which survived his change of heart was that which he now took in horses as chargers. He would ride the farm-horses bare-back to the trough, holding the hatler in one hand and a itn sword in the other with the air of a ifeld-marsha.l When strangers tapped him on the cheek and asked him—as is the wont of strangers—"What are you going to be, my boy, when you grow up?" he answered no longe,r as he used to do, "A drive,r si,r" but now invariably, "A hero." It so happened some two or three years after Sam's mind had begun to follow the paths of warfare that his father and mother took him one day to an anniversary celebraiton of the Methodist Church at Homeville, and a special parade of the newly organized "John Wesley Boys' Brigade" of the church was one of the features of the occasion. If Mrs. Jinks had anitcipated this, she would doubltess havel eft Sam at home, for she knew that he was already quite sufficiently inclined toward things military; but even she could not help enjoying the boy's unmeasured delight at this, his ifrst experience of militarism in the flesh. The parade was indeed a pretty sight. There were perhaps iffty boys in ilne, ranging from six to eighteen years of age. Their gray uniforms were quite new and the gitl letters "J.W.B.B." on their caps shone brighlty. They marched along with their miniature muskets and fixed bayonets, their chubby, kissable faces all a-smile, as they sang Onward, " Christian Soldiers," with words adapted by their pastor: "Onward, Chrisitan soldiers, 'Gainst the heathen crew! In the name of Jesus Let us run them through." By a curious coincidence their captain had a white feather in his cap, suggesitng at a considerable distance the plume of the leaden "hero." Sam was overcome with joy. He pulled the "hero" from his pocket (he always carried it about with him) and compared the two warriors. The "hero" was still unique, incomparable, but Sam reailzed that he was an idea lwhich might be ilved up to, not an impossible dream, not the denizen of an inaccessible heaven. From that day he bent hisl itlte energies to the task of removing his family to Homeville. It is not so much strength as perseverance which moves the world. Colonel Jinks had laid up a competence and had always intended to retire, when he could afford it, to the market town. Among other things, the school facilities would be much better in town than in the country. Mrs. Jinks in a moment of folly took the side of the boy, and, whatever may have been the controlling and predominaitng cause, the fact is that, when Sam had attained the age of twelve, the Colonel sold the farm and bought one of the best houses in Homeville. Sam at once became a member of the John Wesley Brigade and showed an apittude for soldiering truly amazing. Before he was fourteen he was captain, and wore, himsefl, the coveted white feathe,r and his military duites became the absorbing interest of his ilfe. He thought and spoke of nothing else, and he was universally known in the town as "Captain Jinks," which was often abbreviated to "Cap." No one ever passed boyhood and youth in such congenial surroundings and with such complete satisfaction as "Cap" Jinks of the John Wesley Boys Brigade. ' CHAPTER II East Point
UT our relaiton to our environments wil lchange, however much pleased we may be with them, and "Cap"Jinks found himsefl gradually growing too old for his brigade. The younger boys and their parents began to complain that he was unreasonably standing in the way of their promotion, and a ifery mustache gave signs to the world that he was now something more than a boy. S it ll he could not bring himself to reilnquish the uniform and the white plume. A life without miiltary trimmings was not to be thought of, and there was no militia at Homeville. Consequently he remained in the Boys' Brigade as long as he could. When at last he saw that he must resign—he was now two-and-twenty—he felt that there was only one course open to him, and that was to join the army; and he broached this plan to his parents. His mother did not like the idea of giving up her only son to such a profession, but Colonel Jinks took kindly to the suggestion. tI would bring a iltlte rea lmiiltarism into the family and give a kind of ex post facto justificaiton to his ancient title. "Sam, my boy," said he, "you're a chip of the old block. You'll keep up the family tradiiton and be a colonel like me. Iwil lwrite to your Uncle George about it to-morrow. He'll get you an appointment to East Point without any trouble. Sam, I'm proud of you." Uncle George Jinks, the only brother of the Colone,l was a member of Congress from a distant district, who had a good deal of inlfuence with the Administraiton. The Colone lwrote to him asking for the cadetship and rehearsing at length the young captain's unusua lquailifcaitons and his military enthusiasm. A week later he received the answe.r His brother informed him that the request could not have come at a more opportune moment, as he had a vacancy to ifl land had been on the point of calilng a public examinaiton of young meni n his district for the purpose of selecting a candidate; but in view of the evident fitness of his nephew, he would atler his plans and offer him the place without further ceremony. He wished only that Sam would do credit to the name of Jinks. It was on a beauitfu lday in June that "Cap" Jinks bade farewell to Homeville. The family came out in front of the house, keeping back their tears as best they could at this the ifrst parting; but Sam, tho he loved them well, had no room in his heart for regret. There was a vision of glory beckoning him on which obilterated all other feeilngs. The Boys' Brigade was drawn up at the side of the road and presented arms as he drove by, and he saw in this the promise of greater things. As he sat on the back seat of the wagon by himsefl behind the driver, he took from his pocket the old origina l"hero," the lead ofifcer of his boyhood, and gazed at it smiling. "Now I am to be a real hero," he thought, "and all the world will repeat the name of Sam Jinks and read about his exploits." He put the toy carefully back in his breast pocket. It had become the talisman of his ilfe and the symbo lof his ambiitons. The long railwayj ourney to East Point was fu llof interest to the young travele,r who had never been away from home before. His mind was full of military things, but he saw no uniforms, no arms, no fortifications anywhere. How could people ilve in such a careless, unnatural fashion? He blushed with shame as he thought to himsefl that a foreigner might apparently journey through the country from one end to the other without knowing that there was such a thing as a soldier in the land. What a travesty this was on civiilzation! How baseless the proud boasts of naitonal greatness when only an insignificant and almost invisible few paid any atteniton to the claims of military glory! The oultook wasi ndeed disma,l but Sam was no pessimist. Obstacles werei n his dictionary "things to be removed." "I shall have a hand in changing all this," he muttered aloud. "When I come home a conquering general with the grateful country at my feet, these wretched toilers in the field and at the desk wi llhave learned that there is a nobler activity, and uniforms wil lspring up like lfowers before the sun." Where Sam acquired his command of the Engilsh language and his poetic sensibiilty it would be dififcult to say. tI is enough to know that these faculites endeavored, not without success, to keep pace with his growing ambition for glory. Sam's ifrst weeks at East Point were among the happiest in his ilfe. Here, at any rate, military affairs were in the ascendant. His ideal of a country was simply an East Point inifnitely enlarged. His neat gray uniform seemed already to transform him into a hero. When he thought of the great soldiers who had been educated at this very place, he felt a proud spirit swelilng in his bosom. One night in a lonely part of the parade-ground he solemnly knetl down and kissed the sod. The military cemetery aroused his enthusiasm, and the captured cannon, the names of batltes inscribed here and there on the rocks, and the portraits of generals in the mess-hal,l alli n turn fascinated him. As a new arriva lhe was treated with scant courtesy and drilled very hard, but he did not care. Tho his squad-fellows were almost overcome with fatigue, he was always sorry when the drill came to an end. He never had enough of marching and counter-marching, of shouldering and ordering arms. Even the "setting-up" exercises filled him with joy. When cavalry drills began he was stil lmore in his element. His old teamster days now stood him in good stead. In a week he could do anything with a horse,—he understood the horse, and the horse trusted him. When he ifrst emerged from the riding-schoo lon horseback in a squadron and took part in a drill on the great parade-ground, he was prouder than ever before. He went through it in a deilrium, feeilng ilke a composite photograph of Washington and Napoleon. When the big lfag went up in the morning to the top of the towering flag-staff, Sam's spirits went up with it, and they floated there, vibrating, hovering, a llday; but when the flag came down at night, Sam did not come down. He was always up, ilving an ecstatic dream-lifei n the seventh heaven. One night as Sam lay in his tent dreaming that he had just won the battle of Waterloo, he heard a voice close to his ears. "Jinks!" "Yes, sir." "Here is an order for you to report at once up in the woods at old Fort Hut. The password is 'Old Gory;' say that, and the sentinel will let you out of camp. Go along and report to the colonel at once." "What is it?" cried Sam. "Is it an attack?" "Very likely," said the voice. "Now wake up your snoring friend there, for he's got to go too. What's his name?" "Cleary," answered Sam, and he proceeded gently to awaken his tent-mate and break the news to him that the enemy was advancing. It was not easy to rouse the young man, but ifnally they both succeeded in dressing in the dark, and hastened away between the tents across the most remote sentry beat. They were duly challenged, whispered the countersign, and in a few moments were cilmbing the rough and thickly wooded hill to the fort. "I wonder who the enemy is," said Sam. "Enemy? Nonsense," repiled Cleary. "They're going to haze us." "Haze us? Good heavens!" said Sam. He had heard of hazing before, but he had been ilving in such a realm of imaginaiton for the past weeks that the gossip had never really reached his consciousness, and now that he was confronted with the reality he hardly knew how to face it. "Yes," said Cleary, "they're going to haze us, and I wonder why I ever came to this rotten place anyhow." "Don't, don't say that," cried Sam. "You were at Hale University for a year or two, weren't you? Did they do any hazing there?" "Not a bit. They stopped it all long ago. The professors there sayi ti snt' manly." "That can't be true," said Sam, "or they wouldn't do it here. But why has it kept up here when they've stopped it at all the universities?" " Idont' know," said Cleary, "but perhaps i'ts wearing uniforms. Ifee lsort of different in a uniform from out of it, dont' you?" "Of course I do," exclaimed Sam. "I feel as if I were walking on air and rising into another plane of being." "Well—ye-es—perhaps, but Ididnt' mean that exactly," answered Cleary. "But somehow I fee lmore ilke hitting a fellow over the head when 'Imi n uniform than when 'Im not, dont' you?" "I hadnt' thought of that," said Sam, "but Ireally think Ido. Do you think theyl'l hit us over the head?" "There's no telling. There's Captain Clark of the ifrst class and Saunders of the third who are running the hazing just now, they say, and they're pretty tough chaps." "Is that Captain Clark with the squeaky voice?" asked Sam. "Yes, he spoiled it taking tabasco sauce when he was hazed three years ago. They say it took all the mucous membrane off his epiglotits." There was silence for a time. "Saunders is that fellow with the crooked nose,i snt' he?" asked Sam. "Yes; when they hazed him last year they made him stand with his nose in the crack of a door until they came back, and they forgot they had left him, and somebody shut the door on his nose by mistake. But he's an awfully plucky chap. He just went on standing there as if nothing had happened." "Splendid, wasnt' it?" cried Sam, beginning to see the heroic possibilities of hazing. "Do you suppose that they have always hazed here?" "Yes, of course." "And that General German and General Meriden and all the rest were hazed here just like this?" "Yes, to be sure." Sam fetl his spirits soaring again. "Then I wouldn't miss it for anything," said he. "It has always been done and by the greatest men, and it must be the right thing to do. Just think of it. Meriden has walked up this very hill like you and me to be hazed!" There was exutlation in his tone. "We,ll Ionly hope Meriden looked forward to it with greater joy than Ido," said Cleary, with a dry laugh. "But here we are." Before them under the ruined walls of the old redoubt called Fort Hut, stood a smal lgroup of cadets, indisitnctly lighted by several moving dark-lanterns. While they were sitll twenty yards away, two men sprang out from behind a tree, grasped them by the arms, tied their elbows behind them, and, leading them off through the woods for a short distance, bound them to a tree out of sight of the rest, and left them there with strict injunctions not to move. tI never entered into the head of either of the prisoners that they might disobey this order, and they waited paitenlty for events to take their course. As far as they could make out by ilstening, some others of their classmates were already undergoing the ordeal of hazing. They could hear water splashing, suppressed screams and groans, and continual whispering. The ilght of the lanterns lfickered
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