Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home by Jackson, Gabrielle E.

CHAPTER X

A DOMESTIC EPISODE

In spite of the scare all had received the previous Saturday, the New Year's eve hop was thoroughly enjoyed, for neither Durand nor Peggy was the worse for the experience, and the old year was danced out upon light, happy toes, only one shadow resting upon the joyous evening.

For over a year, there had been an officer stationed at the Academy who had been a source of discord among his fellow-officers, and a martinet with the midshipmen. He was small, petty, unjust, and not above resorting to methods despised by his confreres. He was loathed by the midshipmen because they could never count upon what they termed "a square deal," and consequently never knew just where they stood.

There were several who seemed to have incurred his especial animosity, and Durand in particular he hated: hated because the boy's quick wits invariably got him out of the scrapes which his mischievous spirit prompted, and "Gumshoes," as the boys had dubbed the officer, owing to his habit of sneaking about "looking for trouble," was not clever enough to catch him.

And thus it came about that, being once more circumvented by Durand on New Year's eve in a trivial matter at which any other officer would have laughed, he resorted to ways and means which a man with a finer sense of honor would have despised and--again he failed. But his chance came on New Year's day, when Durand, led into one of the worst scrapes of his life by Blue, fell into his clutches and the outcome was so serious that the entire brigade was restricted to the Yard's limits for three months, and gloom descended not only upon the Academy but upon all its friends.

Naturally, with her boys debarred from Middies' Haven, Mrs. Harold could do little for the girls, and their only sources of pleasure lay in such amusements as the town afforded and these were extremely limited. So much time was spent at Severndale with Peggy, and it was during one of these visits that Mrs. Harold figured in one of the domestic episodes of Severndale. They were not new to Peggy for she was Southern-born and used to the vagaries and childlike outbreaks of the colored people. But even though Mrs. Harold had lived among them a great deal, and thought she understood them pretty thoroughly, she had yet to learn some of the African's eccentricities.