The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-10-17
wanted to have the star role.


ened at these repeated failures and have
settled down into the ordinary round OF
duties of the ordinary lieutenant, but bar
ton had the making of a general in him,
coupled with desire to be leader OF
men. He could not reconcile himself to
getting up at reveille, going to bed again
and sleeping until breakfast at the mess
at 9 O'Clock, twirling his mustache and
incidentally his thumbs in the suffers
store all the morning, sleeping from lunch
con to retreat, dining and retwirling his
mustache and thumbs until taps OF
course he could have put in his time at
reading and thinking, being intellectual,
but man in his position should not be
intellectual.
No; Barton would make last and SUI
preme effort to awake these lethargic peo-
pie from their stupor. He would get up
hop. Visions of old West Point dances
rose before him and filled his soul with
longings. He made it next the order Of
the day to find room big enough to hold
an ordinary set of iancers There was no
ballroom, nor was there the usual avail
able library room which SO often does
service. OF course none of the quarters
would answer the purpose. He bethought
him of one of the hospital wards and got
the doctors permission to use it, 1t was
not big, not more than 30 by 30 feet, but
it could be made to do The floors were
rough, but sperm candles would make
them slippery. The walls were bare and
the plaster cracked. He would draw on
private houses and the suffers store to
decorate them. Nothing should daunt
him.
So he sent his own striker to sweep and
dust and scrub. He gave the post children
jubilee by letting them shave candles in
the boards and slide about to smooth them
down. 1t was lots of fun for the children,
and Barton took pleasure in watching
their pretty gambols until the G. O.'s
youngest son slipped and broke his wrist.
When that happened, even this inexperi-
enced youth knew that it was little short
of a calamity for him; that it would be
naaxy a long day before the commandments
therefore the commandant himself
would smile upon him again. He car
ried the child home and submitted in ST.
lence to the stony glare from its mothers
eyes. When he tried to explain, she walked
away. 1t was evident that he was held as
guilty of the sweet little fellows mishap,
and he loved the child accordingly.
When the hall was all draped in flags,
bunting, Chinese lanterns and parasols,
Barton began to believe that fate was at
last propitious. 1t looked very pretty, and
the incest girl told him SO, with a shy
glance which made the lieutenant feel as
he had not felt since old West Point days.
The hop was to be on Saturday night.
The band contributed Is pieces to make
music for the flying feet The. incest girl
blushed and consented to let Barton take
her and have the major part of the waltzes
M the cards which he himself had got up.
1t was during this midday glare of sue
cess that cloud, small, but very black,
arifted across the sun. One of the linen"
by which is meant the privates-devel-
oped case of some sort of fever. Barton
was not very clear as to what kind, but
the doctor told him that it was of a sort
which noise would make worse; that the
man was in the hospital in the ward just
below the one all decked for the hop, and
that, therefore, the hop would have to be
postponed.
Now, Barton was not naturally unkind,
but he was not the first ambitious man in
the worlds history who had sacrificed 9TH
ers to his ambition. This dance had to be
a success after so many failures if ten men
had the fever Barton pleaded, reasoned,
coaxed. The doctor was obdurate. But
the doctor had weakness-it was toddies
and that sort of thing. A deep scheme
entered the lieutenant's head He would
decoy the doctor to the suffers, he would
get him full as he gracefully expressed
it, and when the old fellow should be
sweet tempered Barton would make him
consent to having the hop that night
1t all worked just as the West Pointer
had foreseen. The doctor, after having
given an oft reiterated consent went back
to his quarters for nap. The nap, as
Barton had expected, lasted all night
They danced into the wee sma' hours, for,
though there were only six men, the four
girls and chaperon, the thing was lots Of
fun. The fact that there were more mu-
sicians than dancers was no drawback.
The incest girl was radiant and gave Bar
ton great hopes. Yes, at last there was a
success. And the fever patient was only
a little worse for the noise Barton was
rather remorseful when he heard that the
man had become delirious. He sent cham
payne up for him, that being his idea of
an amende honorable Having carried
this hop through, Barton was too wise to
risk another. He rested on his laurels.
But some things can never be foreseen,
least Of all what an enlisted man may do.
The fever patient had chum who thought
1t his duty to go about the world fighting
what he considered wrongs. He was Ger
man and the garrison correspondent of a
German newspaper in the city near by.
he wrote up a most pathetic account of
the heartless butterflies of fashion who
danced and rollicked despite dying man
in the next room. 1t made very nice lit
tie tale, calculated to bring tears to any
eyes. So does small thing travel A doc
tor of the town, young and aspiring to
public notice and advancement, read in an
idle moment this narrowing story Burn
ing with sense of the poor soldiers
wrongs, he cut out the slip and sent it,
with his own name in conspicuous place,
to the powers that be at Washington.
One day Barton was called by the COM
mandant's orderly from the peaceful pc
rusal of note from the incest girl with
the request to get to the adjutant's Office,
as the G. o. wished to see him. Barton
stuck the little note in his pocket-the
ono paarect his hpart-aDd caI1ied forth