But to return to our plebe who makes his début in Academic work September the first. The evening before has been spent in earnest preparation for the lesson in mathematics, and he sets forth on this early autumn day to grapple with the hardest study of his course.
First call for recitation is sounded at seven minutes before eight o’clock. The trumpeter, an enlisted man of the Army, blows “school call” first in the area of barracks, then outside of the north sally-port, on the Plain side of the buildings. The call is repeated several times, and as its notes float out on the air, the barracks begin to disgorge the cadets, sometimes singly, but more often in groups of twos and threes. The more prompt ones pile out on the cement walk, standing near their places in the ranks to await the assembly. The majority are laughing and talking or discussing the lesson, while others, thirsting for knowledge until the last, keep their noses in their books. Their comrades sometimes tease them, calling them “tenth-boners” in good-natured derision, or steal up behind them and shut their books for them saying, “Oh, come off spec-ing tenths,” which means to desist from studying at the last moments to better the mark.
At one minute before assembly the cadet officer of the day, a straight young man in a red sash and red crossbelt (bound up, as Patsy O’Hara of 1904 wittily remarked, in his official red tape), takes his post in the center of the area and commands: “Form your sections!”
Instantly books are slammed, all noises, talking, laughing, skylarking, cease, and the scattered gray figures seem to magically form themselves into compact little squads under the direction of their section marchers who stand out in front counting them. The door of the Guardhouse opens and the O. C. (officer in charge) appears upon the “poop deck,” stern, implacable, almost sphinx-like, and surveys coldly the formation. For the brief space of a few seconds all is quiet except for the occasional shuffling of a section that has misjudged its proper space. Then the trumpeter sounds the assembly. A few belated men are tearing to their places in ranks, running a race with the fading notes of the trumpet and landing bang! into the rear rank just in time to keep from being reported absent. The kind-hearted trumpeter often takes a deeper breath (especially in winter when he sees the belated ones recklessly dashing across the icy walks), and holds on to those last notes of assembly in a way that was never intended by the composer. God bless him!