er dear old Pete, with Arthur
Murray as instructor. This was the only max I ever
made in anything. I fairly floated out of the
library and back to the barracks. The climax of
days came when the marks were read out on
graduation day in June, 1886. Little Eddy Gayle
smiled when I reported five minutes later with a
pair of captain's chevrons pinned on my sleeves.
No honor has ever come equal to that. I look upon
it in the very same light to-day as I did then.
Some way these days stand out and the recollection
of them has always been to me a great spur and
stimulus.

What memories come rushing forward to be recorded.
It was at Colonel Huse's school, now called The
Rocks, I believe, with splendid old Caleb at its
head that several of us got the first idea of what
we were really in for. Deshon, Frier, Winn,
Andrews, Clayton, Billy Wright, Stevens, Segare
and the rest of us at Caleb's used to wrestle with
examinations of previous years and flyspeck page
after page of stuff that we forgot completely
before Plebe camp was over.

[Illustration: Cal. Huse

Splendid Old Caleb]

[Illustration: Kirksville, Mo. State Normal School.]

This brings up a period of West Point life whose
vivid impressions will be the last to fade.
Marching into camp, piling bedding, policing
company streets for logs or wood carelessly
dropped by upper classmen, pillow fights at tattoo
with Marcus Miller, sabre drawn marching up and
down superintending the plebe class, policing up
feathers from the general parade; light artillery
drills, double timing around old Fort Clinton at
morning squad drill, Wiley Bean and the sad fate
of his seersucker coat; midnight dragging, and the
whole summer full of events can only be mentioned
in passing. No one can ever forget his first guard
tour with all its preparation and perspiration. I
got along all right during the day, but at night
on the color line my troubles began. Of course, I
was scared beyond the point of properly applying
any of my orders. A few minutes after taps, ghosts
of all sorts began to app