United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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3 etro£pect NE Spring evening he was sitting at an open window in the smoking room. The day had been hot with the enervating heat of the first warm days. The moist, heavy air ; the droning murmur of music floating across the terrace ; the gaily lighted armory windows ; the big smoky moon mounting slowly above the opposite bank of the Severn ; and the curling smoke from his worn and darkened pipe— all conspired to conjure dreams before his eyes. It was May of his first class year. The work was nearly over. He was taking advantage of the all too short lull before the tear and rush of June Week with its distracting worries of outfitters ' bills and the excitement of Her coming. It was too hot to dance, so he had wandered there to be alone. His thoughts went back to his plebe days, and strangely enough, he thought first of no less a prosaic thing than blistered feet, raw, blistered feet at every step of which a sharp twinge of pain shot upward. Then he pictured the .drills on the terrace. Would he ever forget the burning pavement, and the stench of oozy, melting tar that was every- where! Once more he pulled a cutter in from the lighthouse, and even now he felt the bulky feel of the oar in his hand, while the pitiless sun drove out the sweat that rolled

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62d CONGRESS, 2d Session. Union Calendar No. 89. S. 3211. [Report No. 296.] IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. December 21, 1911. Referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs. February 3, 1912. Repotted with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole Souse on the state of the Union, and ordered to be printed. [Omit tile part struck throush-1 AN ACT Authorizing that commission of ensign be given lnidshiprnen upon graduation from the Naval Academy.. 1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 That the course at the Naval Academy shall he four years, 4 and ' midshipmen on graduation, shall he commissioned en- 5 signs : Provided, That midshipmen now perforating two 6 years ' service at sea in accordance with existing law shall be 7 commissioned forthwith as ensigns from the date of the 8 passage of this Act: And provided, That those midshipmen 9 of the class which was graduated in nineteen hundred and 10 nine, who have completed two years ' service afloat, and who 11 are due for promotion, shall be commissioned ensigns to take

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down his face in great drops. He thought of those stifling Sunday afternoons, when he poured out his troubles to one who understood, smiled cheerily, and urged him on — his Mother. Then the upper classes came back. Life was mean. There were things that he did, and had done to him, that rankled ; but these were hard to remember, for memory of such is short. He remembered pledging himself never to act that way when he was a youngster; and here he smiled a little. He was a youngster once more, a careless happy-go-lucky youngster with never a thought of the morrow. Those glorious rough-houses that began with a wild whoop on the corridor at evening gun-fire, and ended with an involuntary shower bath at taps — the delight of swaggering through the corridors in a bathrobe — those times when the fellows talked shop, sometimes gaily, and other times in a moody spirit — it was good to be one of them — and best of all, the growing ties of friendship that were binding him to his classmates — all came flooding back in memory. He thought of his cruises, and he did not remember the long stretches at sea, the niggardly liberty of one cruise, or its rotten food. No, he recalled the wonderful trip to London, and those never to be forgotten din- ners the ' old crowd had within a stone ' s throw of Trafalgar Square, when laughter and 10