The long railway journey to East Point was full of interest to the
young traveler, who had never been away from home before. His mind was
full of military things, but he saw no uniforms, no arms, no
fortifications anywhere. How could people live in such a careless,
unnatural fashion? He blushed with shame as he thought to himself that
a foreigner might apparently journey through the country from one end
to the other without knowing that there was such a thing as a soldier
in the land. What a travesty this was on civilization! How baseless the
proud boasts of national greatness when only an insignificant and
almost invisible few paid any attention to the claims of military
glory! The outlook was indeed dismal, but Sam was no pessimist.
Obstacles were in his dictionary "things to be removed." "I shall have
a hand in changing all this," he muttered aloud. "When I come home a
conquering general with the grateful country at my feet, these wretched
toilers in the field and at the desk will have learned that there is a
nobler activity, and uniforms will spring up like flowers before the
sun." Where Sam acquired his command of the English language and his
poetic sensibility it would be difficult to say. It is enough to know
that these faculties endeavored, not without success, to keep pace with
his growing ambition for glory.
Sam's first weeks at East Point were among the happiest in his life.
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