"Gol darned if I wouldn't be so scat I'd surrender on ther spot ter ther red-headed gals in bloomers."
These words do not look very humorous in print, but they sounded comical as they came from the mouth of that raw countryman, and the crowd roared with laughter again.
"Be me soul!" exclaimed Barney. "It's yersilf thot knows a hape more thin Oi thought yez did. Ye show yer good judgmint in surrunderin' to th' girruls, fer wan av thim alone wud capture yez av she set out to, an' ould Nick take th' countysoign—she wudn't nade it!"
Next the country lad was invited to sing, "to develop his vocal organs."
"Oh, say!" he awkwardly grinned. "I can't sing—I really can't, by gum!"
"Oh, you vos too modest alretty yet," declared Hans. "You peen goin' to ged ofer dot britty soon pime-by."
"But I hain't got no voice, an' I can't sing a tune no more than a mule kin."
"Me b'y," said Barney, "Oi admire yer modesty, but ye'll foind it necessary to sing fer th' intertainmint av Ould Gunn an' under professors av ye stay in th' academy, so ye moight as well begin now."
"You'll laff."
"Nivver moind that."
"It will sp'ile me so I can't sing. If I couldn't see ye laff I might do——"
"Dot vos all righdt," declared Hans. "You bet my life we been aple to feex dot britty soon right avay queek. Shust gif me your bocket handerkerchief."
"Whut you want of it?"
"Nefer you mindt dot. Shust gif me to id."
The country boy produced the handkerchief, and Hans quickly folded it in a thick strip about three inches wide.
"Now I feex id britty shlick so you don'd see us laugh oudt loudt," he said, as he quickly tied the handkerchief over the boy's eyes, while several of the others made Ephraim submit and stand with his little fingers still glued to the seams of his trousers.
In a few seconds the boy from Vermont was securely blindfolded.
"Now you sing dot song," commanded Hans.
"Whut shell I sing?"
"'Yankee Doodle,' begobs!" cried Barney. "It's patriotic songs Ould Gunn admoires."
"I can't git the tune," said Ephraim, "an' I don't know the words of only jest one varse."
"Well, sing pwhat yez know, an' kape repeating it over an' over till yez are told to stop."
"Dot vos der stuff. Let her go, Gallup!"
So the country lad opened his mouth and began to sing in a droning, drawling way:
"Yankee Dewdle came ter taown
'Long with Cap'n Goodwill,
An' there he saw the boys an' gals
As thick ez hasty poodin'."
"Louder!" commanded several voices.
So Ephraim repeated the stanza, singing still louder.
"Dot vos petter," complimented Hans; "bud id don'd peen loudt enough to blease Lieudenant Cordan."
"Louder! louder!" ordered the yearlings. "Open your mouth and let the sound out. You can never expect to sing if you pen the words up in such a cavern as that."
This time Ephraim shouted the words at the tops of his lungs, and he was complimented on all sides, while Barney Mulloy hastily said:
"Kape roight at it, an' kape on singing till ye're towld t' stop by me. Ye know my voice, an' don't ye moind another thot spakes to yez. Av he kapes bothering av ye, tell him to let ye alone, ur you'll kick th' back-strap av his trousers clane out through th' top av his head. Oi'll shtand by yez. Now, let her go again, an' kape at it."
The country boy began once more, and this time he bellowed the words so they could be heard for a mile.
The grinning yearlings lost no time in slipping quietly away from that locality, and taking positions at a distance, where they could watch what followed.
All alone in the street in front of his tent stood the blindfolded plebe, bellowing the words at the full capacity of his voice, and repeating them over and over.
In a very few seconds Lieutenant Gordan, the regular army officer at the academy, came marching briskly down the street in the dusk, his face so red that it almost seemed to glow like a light. Stopping short in front of the lone plebe, he called:
"Sir!"
Ephraim kept on with
"An' there he saw the boys an' gals
Ez thick ez hasty poodin'."
"Sir!" came sharply from the lieutenant.
Ephraim began the stanza over again, roaring it louder than before, if possible:
"Yankee Dewdle came to taown
'Long with Cap'n Goodwin——"
"Sir!" cried Lieutenant Gordan.
"Git aout!" snorted the boy from Vermont. "I'm here ter sing, an' I'm goin' ter fill ther bill, by gum!"
Then he began at the first of the stanza, and howled straight through it, for all that the lieutenant spoke to him twice.
In the dusky shadows not far away the cadets were convulsed with laughter they could not suppress.
"Sir!" thundered Lieutenant Gordan, "you are making a fool of yourself!"
"Ef you don't shut up an' stop interruptin' me, I'll be gol darned ef I don't kick you clean inter the middle uv next week! You ain't ther feller that sot me ter singin', fer your voice is of a diffrunt color than his. Naow you keep mum, ur I'll take this handkerchief off my eyes, spit on my hands, an' sail right into you, by thunder!"
Then Ephraim began once more:
"Yankee Dewdle came to taown
'Long with——"
The exasperated lieutenant snatched the handkerchief from Ephraim's eyes, almost bursting with rage.
"If you don't quit this howling, I'll lodge you in the guardhouse!" he declared.
The boy came near smashing the lieutenant with his fist, and then, seeing who it was, he gave a gasp and nearly fainted on the spot.
"Where's them fellers?" he murmured, looking around for his tormentors. "By gum! they've slipped! I've bin fooled!"
After giving him some sharp advice, the lieutenant sent him into his tent, and departed.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AN OPEN INSULT.
The spirit of mischief seemed to break loose in the camp that night. A dozen times were some of the plebes hauled out of bed and slid around the streets enveloped in their own blankets, ridden on a tentpole, or an old wheelbarrow, tossed in tent flies, or nearly smothered with smoke that filled their tents from the burning of some vile-smelling stuff.
Time after time was the guard turned out to capture the perpetrators of these tricks, but still alarm followed alarm, and not one of the jokers was captured.
Every inspection seemed to show the older cadets all in their beds and sleeping with amazing soundness, considering the racket that was going on.
Lieutenant Gordan was at his wits' end, for never had there been such an outbreak in camp since his coming to Fardale, and he began to believe there was something radically wrong about the system as enforced at the academy.
The professors were driven from their tents and compelled