The True Northerner

"Plebe" Camp.

The summer camp is one round of labor for the plebe, as the first-year man is called at West Point. If he were transported to another planet, there could hardly be a greater change in his life than when he leaves the comforts of his home and plunges into the routine of military drill and discipline of West Point. He rises at five in the morning for reveille, and in half an hour marches to breakfast, the interval being employed in doing the policing of his own tent and of the tent of the cadet to whom he may stand in the relation of "special-duty man." When he walks, he marches with depressed palms. He has two hours of drill every morning, and another hour with parade in the afternoon. After tattoo, which is at half-past eight, he may retire; but no downy couch awaits him. He spreads his blanket on the tent floor, and spreads himself on that, with a quilt drawn over him for protection against the night cold. The only change from this programme is on Sundays, or on days when he marches on guard. On Sunday there is the Sunday morning inspection, and two hours at chapel, making it anything but a day of rest; and when, as a sentinel, he marches on guard in the morning, he walks post two hours at a stretch in sunshine and in rain, with four-hour intervals, during the whole twenty-four hours that elapse before the guard is relieved.

This much, in general, falls to the lot of every plebe, in the way of duty. Aside from this, comes in the question of his treatment by older cadets. Ability to sing, play, dance, or render one's self entertaining in some such way, is highly appreciated by cadets; and a readiness to exercise what few accomplishments he may possess usually saves the plebe much harassing. Of course, all do not escape so easily. Many have guns to clean, and water to carry, and bedding to pile for the upper-class men, and are unpleasantly "roughed" in other ways; but the ill-usage which a new cadet ordinarily receives is almost always exaggerated in the accounts which reach the public through the press.—George I. Putnam, in St. Nicholas.