A number of young men in the gray uniforms which formed the ordinary dress of the cadets at Woodcrest Military Institute stood around the counter in the school supply room. It was early in July and the summer encampment was at hand. It was the custom at Woodcrest for the third and second classmen to go to summer camp, while the younger classmen and the seniors went home for their vacation. The score or more of young soldiers who were in the supply room this July afternoon were busy getting their camping uniforms.
During the school year the neat, distinguished gray uniforms were worn, but on the encampment the more serviceable campaign uniforms, patterned after those worn by the United States Army, were required.
A tall, red-headed cadet, with twinkling eyes and a humorous expression perpetually on his good-natured, freckled face, was at the moment the next one to be waited on. He gave the sizes of his garments and then grinned.
“If it is convenient, I’d like a uniform in a shade to match my hair!” he requested. This grin was answered by half a dozen others, for Terry Mackson was a great favorite with his classmates in the new second class, into which he and his pals, the Mercer boys, had just graduated.
“We have nothing as red as all that,” the cadet clerk grinned in return. “Would something in deep orange do?”
“Possibly it would, if you are careful to get something that won’t conflict with my beauty!” returned the cadet.
“We haven’t a thing in stock that would conflict with or detract from your beauty,” said the clerk, gravely. “These uniforms are ugly in the extreme, and I’m sure you won’t find them a drawback in the least, Mr. Mackson!”
“Well spoken, my lad!” approved Terry. “Let’s have the plainest uniform you have. Natural beauty ennobles whatever enshrines it, so bring out whatever you have!”
“Why bother with a uniform at all?” laughed the cadet clerk. “The colonel and the rest of us will be so busy admiring your looks that we won’t notice anything else!”
There was a general laugh at this, as Dick Rowen, the cadet in charge of the commissary department, stepped to the counter, a frown on his face.
Rowen was a handsome young man with glossy black hair. He had never been popular with the cadet body, however, for he continually reminded everyone of the wealth and prestige of his family. But he was a very capable cadet and was respected though not popular. He had been placed in charge of the commissary department much to his annoyance, for he considered it beneath him. Rowen was striving for an officer’s commission, and it did not please him to be “dud chucker,” as the cadets called the commissary clerks. All day the endless routine of passing out uniforms, blouses, hats and shoes had galled him, and at the present moment his temper was ragged.