The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-03-19
THE NUMBER CT
| HIS REGIMENT
An Episode in the Life of a Soldier
Whom III Fortune Had
Made 4 Tramp.
r,ou III. rr.nen Of rtaneot, cspp.e.

From he Frfnch or FRANCOIS Coppte'
The country was magnificent and the
tramp was evil in looks, He was one OF tho
Migrants that appear in swarms at the
sarvest times but 80 ugly and suspicious In
appearance that he was driven away from
all the farms whore he asked for work.
The stick Of oak upon which he leaned
looked less like an innocent walking stick
than a murderer bludgeon and, stamped on
the under side Of his coarse blouse. covered
with dust and damp with moisture, there
was doubtless the black, ignoble number
Of the galley or prison
His age? Misfortune knows none. Tall
and thin, he walked with the agility OF a
Young man, but his yellow mustache was
Rrizzled, and years Of military discipline
showed in his straight shoulders and erect
carriage. The man was following mar
row path between two oornhelds, whose
high stalks reached nearly to his head.
He had no idea where the road would
lead him. Before him and beside him the
golden fields shone in the June sun. Scat
tered gayly among the waving corn stalks,
we're brilliant peoples and blue cornhowers
where, his note betraying him, the cicada
shrilled monotonousy. Overhead the pure
blue Of the noon sky was unbroken by
single heecy cloud
The tramp rubbed his armnCross his wet
brow.
The day before, in answer TO his hoarse
pleading question: Have you days work
for me?" the farmers, after a quick glance
at the rough face, had, one and all, replied
dehantly:
mo! We need no one
There were just three SOUS left in the
tramp's pocket. With these he had bought
a bit of bread and eaten it as he went along,
drinking from the brook beside him.
When night came, June night glowing
with radiant stars, the outcast jumped
a hedge and, his stick for pillow, slept
soundly until daybreak
To-day he had had nothing TO eat, but
his keenest distress was his lack Of tobacco.
It was long since he had been able to get
any. and the pipe in his blouse pocket was a
constant aggravatiOn.
As he plodded through the warm sweet
smelling fields, the tramp thought vaguely
Of his dark. horrible life,
founding. brought up by charity
nurse in the country, he could recall nothing
Of his early childhood save his terror of
the old woman whose hand was always
lifted TO strike. He had worked with her
in the forests, gathering dry wood and
roofing in the soft earth like pig for the
acorns that ekod out his scanty fare Of
black bread and thin soup. and somehow,
in some way, he had scrambled up to
boyhood.
When he was s the old cronc reluctantly
sent him 10 school. where he learned to
read and write and count But his COM
rades, little peasant boys with red cheeks
full Of nourishing soup and cruelty, called
him the witch's son and would have
nothing TO do with him. He returned
their hatred warmly and his school life
vas the scene Of constant fighting, battles
in which. happily for him, he was almost
always the victor
His wicked old nurse died when he was
IL and the boy would then have starved
had he not obtained work as stable lad at
three francs a month and the privilege OF
sleeping in the straw. Hated by his COM
panions Knocked by all the girls about
him, passing for an idiot because he was
sullenly unsociable, he had yet grown to
be a strong, vigorous young man. Then
he was seized by the conscrpt officer and
sent to the Seventy-fifth Regiment Of in
fantry.
Those first years in the regiment were
his only happy memories. There, for the
cfrst time. this pariah, this social outcast,
'learned the meaning Of the words equality
and justice.
His uniform might be too thick in sum
mer and too thin in winter. but it was what
every other soldier wore; his ratoDs were
often impossible to eat, but his were no
different from any one else's In his bar
racks, in the bunk next his, slept a visoount
who had enlisted after several escapades.