Another officer, Lt. Pendleton's captain, named Kirby, I cannot quite make out. He doesn't make love; he discusses tactics with the colonel. Yet he comes quite regularly, and keeps me in sight. He seems grimmer, more tenacious than the others; I'm glad he gives his time to the Colonel rather than to me. His voice has a curious quality, a most unmilitary gentleness. Pendleton, when he gets you in a corner, purrs to you alone; yet you feel that he has claws. His voice rings on the parade ground; I'm sure of it. I can't make out what Captain Kirby's would sound like. There is a deceptive sympathy to it, deceptive because I feel in him much purpose. When an army officer can't flirt he either likes his profession too little or he likes it too much. * * * * * Sep. 14. This morning, on our little porch, I was sitting sewing behind the vines when Captain Kirby came marching his company onto the parade ground before the house. And then I learned what his voice was like, my dear. Not gentle at all; very deep, very strong, curiously resonant, as if he were shouting through a trumpet. And how do you suppose he treated his men, so many of whom are gentlemen, or older than he, or earning bigger salaries. Like schoolboys! I first saw him when he was standing out in front of them, holding in his hand, swinging by the strap, a rifle that he must have taken from one of them. Said he: "When you're at route step, I want you not to carry your guns like suit-cases. You aren't a gang of porters. If I had the money I'd tip you all; but cut out this red-cap stuff. And don't carry it _so_." He put it across his shoulders, pointing right and left. "You'll put out the eye of the man on your right, and bash the ear of the man on your left. Now remember, Nature is a great provider. She has made shoulders specially for the carrying of rifles. Carry your rifle on one shoulder or the other, or hang them by the straps from one shoulder or the other. And by no other way." As if they had to obey him in every little thing! Then he worked them! Nothing satisfied him. At each mistake, a blast of sarcasm. He spoke of the "accordion-pleated line." He gave a fling at a lost corporal: "As soon as we recover our derelict flanking squad, now about a hundred yards ahead." The men came slinking back. He withered one individual. "That belt is on exactly right. Except that it's upside down and inside out, it's exactly right." At whatever distance he went, I could hear every word. And whenever the company came close, I could hear the men in the ranks, murmur, murmur, murmur. You can't treat such men so. Of course they're disgusted with him. * * * * * Sep. 15.