For days and days groups of Army Service Corps men going around the Post clipping the trees, mowing the grass on the Plain, and daubing with black paint the cannon on Trophy Point have been heralding the approach of June. The odors of the fresh grass and of the tar in the gutters are exhilarating smells for every cadet in the Corps. There are buoyancy and hope in their manner and a decided note of anticipation in the air. This feeling of anticipation is the greatest charm of a cadet’s life. It really begins with the candidate before he enters the Academy. He anticipates his entrance; then as a plebe, he looks forward with even greater pleasure to the day of his “recognition” when he shall become an upper-classman. Words are too weak to express the eagerness with which, as a Yearling, he sees the spring slip by and June arrive bringing with it his long desired furlough. And then he has before his eyes the seeming El Dorado of graduation. Our plebe, Mr. Ducrot, is especially on the _qui vive_ for the passage of the days. Ever since the snow left the Plain and the surrounding hills, and the first little blades of grass began to peep through the boggy spring earth, his attitude toward life has somehow seemed different. For the past ten months he has led the life of an obscure being, like the silk worm in his cocoon spinning his silk. He has almost completed his work of the plebe year and is about to emerge from his shell. For a few weeks he is seized with the languor of spring. The drills while not irksome seem unduly long; the lessons harder to prepare. But as the days of May fly by he feels his wings growing stronger and stronger and the spring fever is forgotten in the anticipation of being a Yearling. At last the first of June arrives! At reveille even, everyone is happy. He tries his best to answer about a dozen upper-classmen who ask him all at once, “Mr. Ducrot, how many days until June?” “_No_ days until June, sir!” he replies in a voice that vibrates with joy. It is hard for Mr. Ducrot to believe that the day that he has so long anticipated is here. It has been so long coming. He cannot be mistaken, however, for all around him are cadets in fresh white trousers, the first time since the previous summer. He knows that for years and years it has been the custom for “the Battalion to go into white” on the first of June, at reveille. Only a few days now remain before he will put aside his humility and meekness and be received by the upper-classmen upon terms of equality.