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Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 24. Conclusion |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION There was one more formation yet---one more meal to be eaten under good old Bancroft Hall. But right after breakfast the graduates, each one now in brand-new cit. attire, began to depart in droves. Some went to the earliest train; others stopped at the hotels and boarding houses in town to pick up relatives and friends with whom the gladsome home journey was to be made. "I don't like you as well in cits.," declared Belle, surveying Dave critically in the hotel parlor. "In the years to come," smiled Dave, "you'll see quite enough of me in uniform." "I don't know about that," Belle declared, her honest soul shining in her eyes. "Do you feel that you'll ever see enough of me?" "I know that I won't," Dave rejoined. "You have one great relief in prospect," smiled Belle. "Whenever you do grow tired of me you can seek orders to some ship on the other side of the world." "The fact that I can't be at home regularly," answered Midshipman Darrin, "is going to be the one cloud on our happiness. Never fear my seeking orders that take me from home---unless in war time. Then, of course, every Naval officer must burn the wires with messages begging for a fighting appointment." "I'm not afraid of your fighting record, if the need ever comes," replied Belle proudly. "And, Dave, though my heart breaks, I'll never show you a tear in my eyes if you're starting on a fighting cruise." Mrs. Meade and Dave's parents now entered the room, and soon after Danny Grin, who had gone in search of his own father and mother, returned with them. "What are we going to do now?" asked Mr. Darrin. "I understand that we have hours to wait for the next train." "We can't do much, sir," replied Dave. "Within another hour this will be the deadest town in the United States." "I should think you young men would want to spend most of the intervening time down at the Naval Academy, looking over the familiar spots once more," suggested Mrs. Dalzell. "Then I'm afraid, mother, that you don't realize much of the way that a midshipman feels. The Naval Academy is our alma mater, and a beloved spot. Yet, after what I've been through there during the last few years I don't want to see the Naval Academy again. At least, not until I've won a solid step or two in the way of promotion." "That's the feeling of all the graduates, I reckon," nodded Dave Darrin. "For one, I know I don't want to go back there to-day." "Some day you will go back there, though," observed Danny Grin. "Why are you so sure?" Dave asked. "Well, you were always such a stickler for observing the rules that the Navy Department will have to send you there for some post or other. Probably you'll go back as a discipline officer." "I would have one advantage over you, then, wouldn't I?" laughed Darrin. "If I had to rebuke a midshipman I could do it with a more serious face than you could." "I can't help my face," sighed Danny Grin. "You see, Dave," Mr. Dalzell observed, with a smile, "Dan inherited his face." "From his father's side of the family," promptly interposed Mrs. Dalzell. Here Mr. Farley, also in cits., entered the parlor in his dignified fashion. "Darry, and you, too, Danny Grin, some of the fellows are waiting outside to see you. Will you step out a moment?" "Where are the fellows?" asked Dave unsuspectingly. "You'll find them on the steps outside the entrance." Dave started for the door. "You're wanted, too, Danny Grin, as I told you," Farley reminded him. "I'll be the Navy goat, then. What's the answer?" inquired Midshipman Dalzell. "Run along, like a good little boy, and your curiosity will soon be gratified." Danny Grin looked as though he expected some joke, but he went none the less. Dave, first to reach the entrance, stepped through into the open. As he did so he saw at least seventy-five of his recent classmates grouped outside. The instant they perceived their popular comrade the crowd of graduates bellowed forth:
Dave Darrin waved his hand in thanks for the "Four-N" yell, the surest sign of popularity, and vanished inside. When he returned to the parlor be found that Farley had conducted his parents and friends to one of the parlor windows, from which, behind drawn blinds, they had watched the scene and heard the uproar without making themselves visible. At noon the hotel dining room was overrun with midshipmen and their friends, all awaiting the afternoon train. But at last the time came to leave Annapolis behind in earnest. Extra cars had been put on to handle the throng, for the "train," for the first few miles of the way, usually consists of but one combination trolley car. "You're leaving the good old place behind," murmured Belle, as the car started. "Never a graduate yet but was glad to leave Annapolis behind," replied Dave. "It seems to me that you ought not to speak of the Naval Academy in that tone." "You'd understand, Belle, if you had been through every bit of the four-year grind, always with the uncertainty ahead of you of being able to get through and grad." "Perhaps the strict discipline irked you, too," Miss Meade hinted. "The strict discipline will be part of the whole professional life ahead of me," Darrin responded. "As to discipline, it's even harder on some ships, where the old man is a stickler for having things done just so." "The old man?" questioned Belle. "The 'old man' is the captain of a warship." "It doesn't sound respectful." "Yet it has always been the name given to the ship's captain, and I don't suppose it will be changed in another hundred years. How does it feel, Danny boy, going away for good?" "Am I really going away for good?" grinned Dalzell. "I thought it was only a dream." "Well, here's Odenton. You'll be in Baltimore after another little while, and then it will all seem more real." "Nothing but Gridley will look real to me on this trip," muttered Dan. "Really, I'm growing sick for a good look at the old home town." "I wish you could put in the whole summer at home, Dan," sighed his mother. "But, of course, I know that you can't." "No, mother; I'll have time to walk up and down the home streets two or three times, and then orders will come from the Navy Department to report aboard the ship to which I'm to be assigned. Mother, if you want to keep a boy at home you shouldn't allow him to go to a place where he's taught that nothing on earth matters but the Navy!" Later in the afternoon the train pulled in at Baltimore. It was nearing dusk when the train pulled out of Philadelphia on its way further north. Yet the passage of time and the speeding of country past the ear windows was barely noticed by the Gridley delegation. There was too much to talk about---too many plans to form for the next two or three weeks of blissful leave before duty must commence again. Here we will take leave of our young midshipmen for the present, though we shall encounter them again as they toil on upward through their careers. We have watched Dave and Dan from their early teens. We met them first in the pages of the _"Grammar School Boys' Series."_ We know what we know of them back in the days when they attended the Central Grammar School and studied under that veteran of teachers, "Old Dut," as he was affectionately known. We saw them with the same chums, of Dick & Co., when that famous sextette of schoolboys entered High School. We are wholly familiar with their spirited course in the High School. We know how all six of the youngsters of Dick & Co. made the name of Gridley famous for clean and manly sports in general. Our readers will yet hear from Dave and Dan occasionally. They appear in the pages of the _"Young Engineers' Series,"_ and also in the volumes of the _"Boys of the Army Series."_ In this latter series our young friends will learn just how the romance of Dave Darrin and Belle Meade developed; and they will also come across the similar affair of Dick Prescott and Laura Bentley. Dave and Dan had, as they had expected, but a brief stay in the home town. Bright and early one morning a postman handed to each a long, official envelope from the Navy Department. In each instance the envelope contained their orders to report aboard one of the Navy's biggest battleships. Our two midshipmen were fortunate in one respect. Both were ordered to the same craft, their to finish their early Naval educations in two years of practical work as officers at sea ere they could reach the grade of ensign and step into the ward-room. [THE END] _ |
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