olding the candle, while
Ellis stopped crowing, to bring a little three-cornered fragment of a
broken mirror, by which Frank was shown the artistic burnt-cork work on
his face. He could hardly help laughing himself at his own hideousness,
now that the first disagreeable sense of being the sport of his friends
had passed.

"I hope you have had fun enough to pay for waking me up out of the
queerest dream any body ever had," he said. And he told all about the
barber, and the epaulets that became roosters, and the red-hot sword for
a razor, etc. Then, looking at himself again in the piece of glass, he
called out, "Give me those shears;" and taking them, he manfully cut off
his mutilated curls. "There, that isn't exactly the fighting-cut, Jack,
but 'twill do. Now, boys, tell some more of those dull stories, and I
guess I can go to sleep again."

And he lay down once more, declining to accept an urgent invitation to
preach.

"There, boys," said stout Abram Atwater, who had sat all the time
cross-legged, a silent, gravely-smiling spectator of the scene, "you
shan't fool him any more. He has got pluck; he has shown it. And now let
him alone."

IV.

THE OLD DRUMMER AND THE NEW DRUM.

As yet, Frank had no drum. Neither had he any scientific knowledge of the
instrument. He was ambitious of entering upon his novel occupation, and
was elated to learn, the next morning, that he was to begin his
acquaintance with the noble art of drumming that very day.

"The sergeant is inquiring for you," said Abram Atwater, with his mild,
pleasant smile, calling him out of the tent.

Frank, who was writing a letter to his mother, on his knapsack, jumped up
with alacrity, hid his paper, and ran out to see what was wanted.

"This way, Manly," said the sergeant. "Here's the man that's to give you
lessons. Go with him."

The teacher was a veteran drummer, with a twinkling gray eye, a long,
thick, gray mustache, and a rather cynical way of showing his teeth under
it. He had some drumsticks thrust into his pocket, but no drum.

"I suppose," thought Frank, "we shall find our drums in the woods;" into
which his instructor straightway conducted him in order to be away from
the diversions and noises of the camp.

Frank was disappointed. The veteran gave him his first exercise--on a
board!

"I thought I was to learn on a drum," he ventured to suggest, looking up,
not without awe, at t