CHAPTER XXXVII.
"BABY." A year had passed since Frank entered Fardale Military Academy--a year crowded with events and adventures such as made its memory both pleasant and painful.
The time of the June encampment had again arrived.
Frank was no longer a plebe, and the glistening chevrons on his sleeves told that the first year in the academy had not been wasted.

He was now Cadet Corporal Merriwell.
The graduates had departed, and the furlough men were away at their homes.
A new squad of plebes had been admitted to the school, and the yearlings, mad with joy at being released from plebedom themselves, were trying every scheme their fertile brains could devise for making miserable the lives of their successors.
During the first two weeks that the plebes had been in the academy the opportunities for hazing them had been few; but immediately on getting into camp the mischievous lads who had suffered the year before, not a few of whom had sworn that nothing in the wide world--nothing, nothing, nothing!--could tempt them to molest a fourth-class man, lost no time in "getting after" the "new stiffs," as the plebes were sometimes called at Fardale.
The yearlings were eager to find fags among the plebes, and they generally succeeded in inducing the new boys to bring buckets of water, sweep the tent floors, make beds, clean up, and do all sorts of work which the older cadets should have done themselves and were supposed to do.
While the penalty for exacting the performance of any menial or degrading task, as well as for hazing, was court-martial and possible dismissal, the yearling generally succeeded in getting the work done without giving orders or making demands, so the plebes could not say they had been coerced into doing those things against their will.
Each yearling sought to have a particular fag to attend to him and his wishes, and no cadet could demand service of another fellow's fag without danger of bringing about trouble.
At first, Frank had resolved to astonish his companions by attending to his own duties entirely by himself, and having no fag; but it was shortly after the new boys came to Fardale that he saw something that made him change his mind.
Among the plebes was a rather timid-looking, red-cheeked lad, who seemed even further out of his element than did his awkward companions.
He was shy and retiring, blushed easily, and, at times, had trouble in finding his voice.
Such a fellow was certain to attract attention at any school, and he was soon singled out as a particular object for chaffing by the yearlings.
He blushed to the roots of his hair on being called "Baby," "Mamma's Boy," "Little Tootsy-Wootsy," and other names of the sort applied to him by the cadets.
His real name was Fred Davis, and of the nicknames given him Baby seemed to stick the best, so it was not long before he came to be known by that almost altogether, the officers and instructors being the only ones who did not use it in addressing him.
At the outset Fred was unfortunate in being singled out for guying by Hugh Bascomb, who was a bully by nature, and whose ideas of fun were likely to be of a vicious order.
Bascomb saw he could plague Davis, and he kept at the little fellow, piling it on unmercifully.

In fact, he seemed to take a strong dislike to the boy with the pink cheeks, whom he derisively designated as "the dolly boy," and he lost no opportunity to humiliate Davis.
It happened that, on a certain occasion, Bascomb desired that Fred should lie for him, but, to his surprise, the timid plebe absolutely and firmly declined to lie.
"I--I can't do it, sir," stammered the little fellow.

"I'd do it if I could, but I can't." "Why not, pray ?" fiercely demanded Bascomb, towering above the shrinking lad and scowling blackly.

"That's what I want to know--why not ?" "Because I promised mother I would not lie, and she--she has confidence in me." "Oh, she--she has!" mocked Bascomb.