THE BAYONET DRILL


It was a beautiful sunshiny day, and the girls felt their spirits soaring
happily as they ran down the steps of the Hostess House and started across
the parade.

Also the, what appeared to them, foolish objections of the boys to their
attending the bayonet drill lent spice to the adventure, and they hurried
on gaily over the parade.

Sergeant Mullins, who had unwittingly caused all the excitement, was, as
the girls had said, a tall, splendidly built fellow, good looking to an
unusual degree, but very silent and reserved.

He had seemed immensely attracted from the first by the girls from the
Hostess House, and had made overtures in a half-shy, half-humorous manner
that the girls themselves had found very attractive.

But to them he had been only one of many interesting soldier boys who had
come and gone and whose meetings and partings with dear ones they had
watched with swelling throats and tears in their own eyes.

But Sergeant Mullins was an expert with the bayonet and had been attached
to Camp Liberty for the purpose of giving the boys special drills in that
work.

He had proved so wonderfully successful that, much to his secret
chagrin--for Sergeant Mullins, like all the rest of our brave boys, had