Page 45 - 1926 Gleaner

THE GLEANER
toon drill, with the signallers reeling off dozens of highly im- probable messages to each other while certain small boys and Mr. Stapleton stood by making critical and sarcastic remarks.
Finally the officers, feeling greatly encouraged by their suc- cess thus far, ordered a dress parade with hair cuts and boots shined 'n everything. Oh, day of glory for the young male of the species! The night before, uniforms having been issued, the budding Napoleons proceeded to drape them on their manly figures and revelled all day in the admiring glances of the sober sex. Of course, there were some glaring misfits, but on the whole the effect of the uniforms 'enmasse' was fair, and after Mr. Stapleton had personally rolled each first former's puttees the
drill proceeded in a snappy manner, although a rather stilted one as the self-conscious young lads had a hard time holding their aviation caps on at the proper military angle.
The days slipped by, as days will, and as inspection crept on the corps began to be licked into some sort of shape. The cadets had almost outgrown their embarrassment over their uniforms and had begun to grow into the proper shapes to fill them where they bagged, while the officers had dug up snappy suits with wing collars and a superfluity of brass buttons. In order to help the officers out in their drill, Mr. Stapleton offered
a treat to the corporal and men of the best section in each pla- toon and a private inspection was duly held a short time before the official one. This brought out much keen, though friendly, rivalry between the various sections, which greatly enhanced their soldier like quaiities. At the close of the drill the success- ful sections were named and the next day were marched to the nearest ice-cream parlor wherein Mr. Stapleton's health was
drunk in strawberry sundaes.
The day of the Inspection, for some unearthly reason, was neither too cold and stormy nor too hot and dry. At zero hour, one o'clock, the cadets with their officers par:aded at Community Park and were exposed to the admiring gaze of the fair spec- tators and the sergeant major who examined them for signs of ingrowing beards and prison bobs. All proving passable the command 'stand easy' was given until the Inspector, Lieut.-Col. W. A. McCrimmon, hove in view. Thereupon everyone sprang to
attention and went through their manoeuvres without a hitch. After the Colonel had satisfied himself that the cadets could make no more blunders, he had them drawn up and compliment- ed the boys on their smart display. This was responded to by three cheers for the Inspector, followed by three more for Mr. Stapleton, and a tiger, after which they all foregathered again
Page Forty-one