Don Gordon's Shooting-box (1883)

CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE MILITAKT ACADEMY 5 CHAPTER II. DON AND BERT AT SCHOOL 18 CHAPTER III. a A PLEBE.. . . 36 CHAPTER IV. THE NEW YORK BOOT-BLACK 55 CHAPTER V. Dox AND BERT HAVE VISITORS 73 CHAPTER VI. CONY RYANS PANCAKES 92 CHAPTER VH. RUNNING THE GUARD Ill 484O59 LIBRARY iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE How DON GOT IN 131 CHAPTER IX. DONS YANKEE INVENTION 152 BREAKING UP THE SET CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. 173 THE STUDENTS IN CAMP 192 CHAPTER XII. THE DESERTERS AT THE SHOW 215 CHAPTER XIII. A NIGHT ATTACK 237 CHAPTER XIV. DON GORDONS SHOOTING-BOX 260 CHAPTER XV. LESTER BRIGHAM MAKES NEW FRIENDS . ., . . 285 CHAPTER XVI. THE MAIL CARRIER IN TROUBLE 307 CHAPTER XVII. CONCLUSION. . . . . 330 DON GORDONS SHOOTING-BOX. CHAPTER I. THE MILITARY ACADEMY. YTTELL, now, I am disgusted. So am I. I call it a most unusual pro- ceeding. That is a very mild term to be applied to it. call it an outrage. The Professor has deliber- ately gone to work to disgrace the school and every student in it. Thats my opinion. I shall give my father a full history of the case in the next letter I write to him and I incline to the belief that he will order me to packmy trunk and start for home. I know that is what my father will do. Why, fellows, just think of it for a moment What if this street gamin, who has been brought here as the Professors pet, should accidentally win a war- rant at the next examination Or a commission That would be worse yet. Wouldnt a gentlemans son look nice obeying his orders the orders of a bootblack Ill never do that. Ill stay in the guard- house until I am gray-headed first. Well, I wont. Ill go home first. This conversation took place one cold, frosty morning in the latter part ofJanuary, 18, among the members of a little party of boys who were walking up the path that led to the door of the Bridgeport Military Academy. There were adozen of them in all, and their ages varied from thirteen to sixteen years. They looked like young soldiers, dressed as they were in their neat, well-fitting uniforms of cadet gray, set off by light blue trim- mings but it seems that they were anything but good soldiers just then, for their words indicated a determination on their part to rebel against lawful authority. The Bridgeport Military School was a time- honored, wealthy, and aristocratic institution. It was modeled after the school at the Point, and although its course of study differed materially from that pursued at the national academy, its rules of discipline were almost the same. It was intended to fit boys for college, for business, foi civil or mining engineering, or for West Point, if they wanted to go there and could command in- fluence enough to secure the appointment and in order that they might begin early in life to realize the majesty and dignity of law, and to see the necessity of submitting to it as becomes good citi- zens of the republic, they were put through a course of military drill as strict as that to which they would have been subjected if they had been private soldiers in the regular army. The majority of the students there were nearly three hundred of them in all were deeply in love with the school, and with every body and every thing connected with it...