Joy in the Morning

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Ti­tle: Joy in the Morn­ing The Ditch; Her Coun­try Too; The Swal­low; On­ly One of Them; The V.C.; He That Los­eth His Life Shall Find It; The Sil­ver Stir­rup; The Rus­sian; Robi­na's Doll; Dun­don­ald's De­stroy­er

Au­thor: Mary Ray­mond Ship­man An­drews

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JOY IN THE MORN­ING

by

MARY RAY­MOND SHIP­MAN AN­DREWS

New York Charles Scrib­ner's Sons

1919

[Il­lus­tra­tion: He pinned the thing men die for on the shab­by coat of the guide. [_Page_ 135]]

* * * * * *

By MARY R.S. AN­DREWS

JOY IN THE MORN­ING THE ETER­NAL FEM­ININE AU­GUST FIRST THE ETER­NAL MAS­CU­LINE THE MIL­ITANTS BOB AND THE GUIDES CROSS­ES OF WAR HER COUN­TRY OLD GLO­RY THE COUN­SEL AS­SIGNED THE COURAGE OF THE COM­MON­PLACE THE LIFT­ED BAN­DAGE THE PER­FECT TRIB­UTE

Charles Scrib­ner's Sons

* * * * * *

DED­ICA­TION

To the two stars of a ser­vice flag, to a broth­er and a son who served in France, this book is ded­icat­ed. No book, to my think­ing, were one Shakespere and Isa­iah rolled to­geth­er, might fit­ting­ly an­swer the hon­or which they, with four mil­lion more Amer­ican sol­diers, have brought to their own. So that the sto­ries march out very proud­ly, head­ed by the names of

CHAP­LAIN HER­BERT SHIP­MAN

AND

CAP­TAIN PAUL SHIP­MAN AN­DREWS

NOTE

Now that the tide of Kha­ki has set to­ward our shores in­stead of away; now that the streets are filled with splen­did boys with gold chevrons of for­eign ser­vice or no less hon­or­able sil­ver chevrons of ser­vice here; now that the dear lads who sleep in France know that the “torch was caught” from their hands, and that faith with them was kept; now that--thank God, who, af­ter all, rules--the war is over, there is an old word close to the thought of the na­tion. “Heav­iness may en­dure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn­ing.” A whole coun­try is so think­ing. For pos­si­bly ten cen­turies the Great War will be a back­ground for fic­tion. To us, who have lived those years, any tale of them is a per­son­al af­fair. Ev­ery-​day wom­en and men whom one meets in the street may well say to us: “My boy was in the Ar­gonne,” or: “My broth­er fought at St. Mi­hiel.” Over and over, un­phrased, our minds echo lines of that verse found in the pock­et of the sol­dier dead at Gal­lipoli:

“_We_ saw the pow­ers of dark­ness put to flight, _We_ saw the morn­ing break.”

Crushed and glo­ri­fied be­yond all gen­er­ations of the plan­et, war sto­ries prick this gen­er­ation like fam­ily records. It is from us of to-​day that the load is lift­ed. We have weath­ered the heav­iness of the night; to us “Joy cometh in the morn­ing.”

M.R.S.A.

CON­TENTS

I. The Ditch

II. Her Coun­try Too

III. The Swal­low

IV. On­ly One of Them

V. The V.C.

VI. He That Los­eth His Life Shall Find It

VII. The Sil­ver Stir­rup

VI­II. The Rus­sian

IX. Robi­na's Doll

X. Dun­don­ald's De­stroy­er

THE DITCH

PER­SONS

THE BOY an Amer­ican sol­dier

THE BOY'S DREAM OF HIS MOTH­ER

ANGÉLIQUE } } French chil­dren JEAN-​BAP­TISTE }

THE TEACH­ER

THE ONE SCHOOL­GIRL WITH IMAG­INA­TION

THE THREE SCHOOL­GIRLS WITH­OUT IMAG­INA­TION

HE

SHE

THE AMER­ICAN GEN­ER­AL

THE EN­GLISH STATES­MAN

The Time.--A sum­mer day in 1918 and a sum­mer day in 2018

FIRST ACT

_The time is a sum­mer day in 1918. The scene is the first-​line trench of the Ger­mans--held late­ly by the Prus­sian Im­pe­ri­al Guard--half an hour af­ter it had been tak­en by a charge of men from the Blank_th _Reg­iment, Unit­ed States Army. There has been a mis­take and the charge was not pre­ced­ed by ar­tillery prepa­ra­tion as usu­al. How­ev­er, the Amer­icans have tak­en the trench by the un­ex­pect­ed­ness of their at­tack, and the Prus­sian Guard has been rout­ed in con­fu­sion. But the Ger­man ar­tillery has at once opened fire on the Amer­icans, and al­so a Ger­man ma­chine gun has en­filad­ed the trench. Nine­ty-​nine Amer­icans have been killed in the trench. One is alive, but dy­ing. He speaks, be­ing part of the time deliri­ous._

_The Boy_. Why can't I stand? What--is it? I'm wound­ed. The sand-​bags roll when I try--to hold to them. I'm--bad­ly wound­ed. (_Sinks down. Si­lence._) How still it is! We--we took the trench. Glo­ry be! We took it! (_Shouts weak­ly as he lies in the trench._) (_Sits up and stares, shad­ing his eyes_.) It's hor­rid still. Why--they're here! Jack--you! What makes you--lie there? You beg­gar--oh, my God! They're dead. Jack Arnold, and Mar­tin and--Cram and Ben­nett and Em­met and--Drag­amore--Oh--God, God! All the boys! Good Amer­ican boys. The whole blamed bunch--dead in a ditch. On­ly me. Dy­ing, in a ditch filled with dead men. What's the sense? (_Si­lence_.) This damned sil­ly war. This dev­il­ish--killing. When we ought to be home, do­ing man's work--and play. Get­ting some ten­nis, maybe, this hot af­ter­noon; com­ing in sweaty and dirty--and hap­py--to a tub--and din­ner--with moth­er. (_Groans_.) It be­gins to hurt--oh, it hurts con­found­ed­ly. (_Be­comes deliri­ous_.) Ca­noe­ing on the riv­er. With lit­tle Jim. See that trout jump, Jim­mie? Cast now. Un­der the log at the edge of the trees. That's it! Good--oh! (_Groans_.) It hurts--bad­ly. Why, how can I stand it? How can any­body? I'm bad­ly wound­ed. Jim­mie--tell moth­er. Oh--good boy--you've hooked him. Now play him; lead him away from the lily-​pads. (_Groans_.) Oh, moth­er! Won't you come? I'm wound­ed. You nev­er failed me be­fore. I need you--if I die. You went away down--to the gate of life, to bring me in­side. Now--it's the gate of death--you won't fail? You'll bring me through to that oth­er life? You and I, moth­er--and I won't be scared. You're the first--and the last. (_Puts out his arm search­ing and folds a hand, still warm, of a dead sol­dier_.) Ah--moth­er, my dear. I knew--you'd come. Your hand is warm--com­fort­ing. You al­ways--are there when I need you. All my life. Things are get­ting--hazy. (_He laughs_.) When I was a kid and came down in an el­eva­tor--I was all right, I didn't mind the drop if I might hang on to your hand. Re­mem­ber? (_Pats dead sol­dier's hand, then clutch­es it again tight­ly_.) You come with me when I go across and let me--hang on--to your hand. And I won't be scared. (_Si­lence_.) This damned--damned--sil­ly war! All the good Amer­ican boys. We charged the Fritzes. How they ran! But--there was a mis­take. No ar­tillery prepa­ra­tion. There ought to be cross­es and medals go­ing for that charge, for the boys--(_Laughs_.) Why, they're all dead. And me--I'm dy­ing, in a ditch. Twen­ty years old. Done out of six­ty years by--by the sil­ly war. What's it for? Moth­er, what's it about? I'm ill a bit. I can't think what good it is. Slaugh­ter­ing boys--all the na­tions' boys--hon­est, hard-​work­ing boys most­ly. Junk. Fine chaps an hour ago. What's the good? I'm dy­ing--for the flag. But--what's the good? It'll go on--wars. Again. Peace some­times, but noth­ing gained. And all of us--dead. Cheat­ed out of our lives. Wouldn't the world have done as well if this long ditch of good fel­lows had been let live? Moth­er?

_The Boy's Dream of His Moth­er_. (_Seems to speak_.) My very dear­est--no. It takes this great burnt-​of­fer­ing to free the world. The world will be free. This is the cri­sis of hu­man­ity; you are bend­ing the lever that lifts the race. Be glad, dear­est life of the world, to be part of that glo­ry. Think back to your school-​days, to a sen­tence you learned. Lin­coln spoke it. “These dead shall not have died in vain, and gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple, shall not per­ish from the earth.”

_The Boy_. (_Whis­pers_.) I re­mem­ber. It's good. “Shall not have died in vain”--“The peo­ple--shall not per­ish”--where's your hand, moth­er? It's taps for me. The lights are go­ing out. Come with me--moth­er. (_Dies_.)

SEC­OND ACT

_The scene it the same trench one hun­dred years lat­er, in the year 2018. It is ten o'clock of a sum­mer morn­ing. Two French chil­dren have come to the trench to pick flow­ers. The lit­tle girl of sev­en is gen­tle and soft-​heart­ed; her old­er broth­er is a man of near­ly ten years, and feels his pa­tri­otism and his re­spon­si­bil­ities_.

_Angélique_. (_The lit­tle French girl_.) Here's where they grow, Jean-​B'tiste.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_The lit­tle French boy_.) I know. They bloom big­ger blooms in the Amer­ican ditch.

_Angélique_. (_Climbs in­to the ditch and picks flow­ers busi­ly_.) Why do peo­ple call it the 'Mer­ican ditch, Jean-​B'tiste? What's 'Mer­ican?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_Rip­ples laugh­ter_.) One's lit­tle sis­ter doesn't know much! Nev­er mind. One is so young--three years younger than I am. I'm ten, you know.

_Angélique. Tiens_, Jean-​B'tiste. Not ten till next month.

Jean-​Bap­tiste. Oh, but--but--next month!

_Angélique_. What's 'Mer­ican?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. Droll _p'tite_. Why, ev­ery­body in all France knows that name. Of Amer­ican.

_Angélique_. (_Unashamed_.) Do they? What is it?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. It's the peo­ple that live in the so large coun­try across the ocean. They came over and saved all our lives, and France.

_Angélique_. (_Sur­prised_.) Did they save my life, Jean-​B'tiste?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. Lit­tle _drôle_. You weren't born.

_Angélique_. Oh! Whose life did they then save? Ma­man's?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. But no. She was not born ei­ther.

_Angélique_. Whose life, then--the grand­fa­ther's?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. But--even he was not born. (_Dis­con­cert­ed by Angélique's di­rect tac­tics_.) One sees they could not save the lives of peo­ple who were not here. But--they were brave--but yes--and friends to France. And they came across the ocean to fight for France. Big, strong young sol­diers in brown uni­forms--the grand­fa­ther told me about it yes­ter­day. I know it all. His fa­ther told him, and he was here. In this field. (_Jean-​Bap­tiste looks about the mead­ow, where the wind blows flow­ers and wheat._) There was a large bat­tle--a fight very im­mense. It was not like this then. It was digged over with ditch­es and the sol­diers stood in the ditch­es and shot at the wicked Ger­mans in the oth­er ditch­es. Lots and lots of sol­diers died.

_Angélique_. (_Lips trem­bling_.) Died--in ditch­es?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_Grim­ly._) Yes, it is true.

_Angélique_. (_Breaks in­to sobs._) I can't bear you to tell me that. I can't bear the sol­diers to--die--in ditch­es.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_Pats her shoul­der._) I'm sor­ry I told you if it makes you cry. You are so lit­tle. But it was one hun­dred years ago. They're dead now.

_Angélique_. (_Rubs her eyes with her dress and smiles_.) Yes, they're quite dead now. So--tell me some more.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. But I don't want to make you cry more, _p'tite_. You're so lit­tle.

_Angélique._ I'm not _very_ lit­tle. I'm big­ger than Anne-​Marie Dupont, and she's eight.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. But no. She's not eight till next month. She told me.

_Angélique_. Oh, well--next month. Me, I want to hear about the brave 'Mer­icans. Did they make this ditch to stand in and shoot the wicked Ger­mans?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. They didn't make it, but they fought the wicked Ger­mans in a brave, won­der­ful charge, the bravest sort, the grand­fa­ther said. And they took the ditch away from the wicked Ger­mans, and then--maybe you'll cry.

_Angélique_. I won't. I promise you I won't.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. Then, when the ditch--on­ly they called it a trench--was well full of Amer­ican sol­diers, the wicked Ger­mans got a ma­chine gun at the end of it and fired all the way along--the grand­fa­ther called it en­filad­ed--and killed ev­ery Amer­ican in the whole long ditch.

_Angélique_. (_Bursts in­to tears again; buries her face in her skirt_.) I--I'm sor­ry I cry, but the 'Mer­icans were so brave and fought--for France--and it was cru­el of the wicked Ger­mans to--to shoot them.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. The wicked Ger­mans were al­ways cru­el. But the grand­fa­ther says it's quite right now, and as it should be, for they are now a small and weak na­tion, and scorned and watched by oth­er na­tions, so that they shall nev­er be strong again. For the grand­fa­ther says they are not such as can be trust­ed--no, nev­er the wicked Ger­mans. The world will not be­lieve their word again. They speak not the truth. Once they near­ly smashed the world, when they had pow­er. So it is looked to by all na­tions that nev­er again shall Ger­many be pow­er­ful. For they are sly, and cru­el as wolves, and on­ly in­tel­li­gent to be wicked. That is what the grand­fa­ther says.

_Angélique_. Me, I'm sor­ry for the poor wicked Ger­mans that they are so bad. It is not nice to be bad. One is pun­ished.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_Stern­ly_.) It is the truth. One is al­ways pun­ished. As long as the world lasts it will be a pun­ish­ment to be a Ger­man. But as long as France lasts there will be a na­tion to love the name of Amer­ica, one sees. For the Amer­icans were gen­er­ous and brave. They left their dear land and came and died for us, to keep us free in France from the wicked Ger­mans.

_Angélique_. (_Lip trem­bles_.) I'm sor­ry--they died.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. But, _p'tite!_ That was one hun­dred years ago. It is nec­es­sary that they would have been dead by now in ev­ery case. It was more glo­ri­ous to die fight­ing for free­dom and France than just to die--fifty years lat­er. Me, I'd en­joy very much to die fight­ing. But look! You pulled up the roots. And what is that thing hang­ing to the roots--not a rock?

_Angélique_. No, I think not a rock. (She takes the ob­ject in her hands and knocks dirt from it.) But what is it, Jean-​B'tiste?

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. It's--but nev­er mind. I can't al­ways know ev­ery­thing, don't you see, Angélique? It's just some­thing of one of the Amer­icans who died in the ditch. One is al­ways find­ing some­thing in these old bat­tle-​fields.

_Angélique_. (_Rubs the ob­ject with her dress. Takes a hand­ful of sand and rubs it on the ob­ject. Spits on it and rubs the sand_.) _V'là_, Jean-​B'tiste--it shines.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. (_Lofti­ly_.) Yes. It is noth­ing, that. One finds such things.

_Angélique._ (_Rub­bing more_.) And there are let­ters on it.

_Jean-​Bap­tiste_. Yes. It is noth­ing, that. One has flow­ers _en masse_ now, and it is time to go home. Come then, _p'tite_, drop the dirty bit of brass and pick up your pret­ty flow­ers. _Tiens!_ Give me your hand. I'll pull you up the side of the ditch. (_Jean-​Bap­tiste turns as they start_.) I for­got the thing which the grand­fa­ther told me I must do al­ways. (_He stands at at­ten­tion_.) _Au revoir_, brave Amer­icans. One salutes your im­mor­tal glo­ry. (_Ex­it Jean-​Bap­tiste and Angélique_.)

THIRD ACT

_The scene is the same trench in the year 2018. It is eleven o'clock of the same sum­mer morn­ing. Four Amer­ican school­girls, of from fif­teen to sev­en­teen years, have been brought to see the trench, a rel­ic of the Great War, in charge of their teach­er. The teach­er, a worn and el­der­ly per­son, has imag­ina­tion, and is stirred, as far as her tired nerves may be, by the hero­ic sto­ry of the old ditch. One of the school­girls al­so has imag­ina­tion and is al­so stirred. The oth­er three are “young bar­bar­ians at play.” Two out of five is pos­si­bly a large pro­por­tion to be blessed with imag­ina­tion, but the Amer­ican race has im­proved in a hun­dred years_.

_Teach­er_. This, girls, is an im­por­tant bit of our sight-​see­ing. It is the last of the old trench­es of the Great War to re­main in­tact in all north­ern France. It was left un­touched out of the rev­er­ence of the peo­ple of the coun­try for one hun­dred Amer­icans of the Blank_th_ Reg­iment, who died here--in this old ditch. The reg­iment had charged too soon, by a mis­tak­en or­der, across what was called No-​Man's Land, from their own front trench, about (_con­sults guide-​book_)--about thir­ty-​five yards away--that would be near where you see the red pop­pies so thick in the wheat. They took the trench from the Ger­mans, and were then wiped out part­ly by ar­tillery fire, part­ly by a Ger­man ma­chine gun which was placed, dis­guised, at the end of the trench and en­filad­ed the en­tire length. Three-​quar­ters of the reg­iment, over two thou­sand men, were killed in this bat­tle. Since then the reg­iment has been known as the “Charg­ing Blank_th_.”

_First School­girl_. Wouldn't those pop­pies be love­ly on a yel­low hat?

_Sec­ond School­girl_. Ssh! The Eye is on you. How aw­ful, Miss Hadley! And were they all killed? Quite a tragedy!

_Third School­girl_. Not a yel­low hat! Stupid! A corn-​col­ored one--just the shade of the grain with the sun on it. Wouldn't it be love­ly! When we get back to Paris--

_Fourth School­girl (the one with imag­ina­tion_). You id­iots! You poor kit­tens!

_First School­girl_. If we ev­er do get back to Paris!

_Teach­er_. (_Weari­ly_.) Please pay at­ten­tion. This is one of the world's most sa­cred spots. It is the scene of a great hero­ism. It is the place where many of our fel­low coun­try­men laid down their lives. How can you stand on this solemn ground and chat­ter about hats?

_Third School­girl_. Well, you see, Miss Hadley, we're fed up with solemn grounds. You can't ex­pect us to go in­to rap­tures at this stage over an old ditch. And, to be se­ri­ous, wouldn't some of those field flow­ers make a love­ly com­bi­na­tion for hats? With the French touch, don't you know? You'd be dar­ling in one--so _in­génue!_

_Sec­ond School­girl_. Ssh! She'll kill you. (_Three girls turn their backs and sti­fle a gig­gle_.)

_Teach­er_. Girls, you may be past your youth your­selves one day.

_First School­girl_. (_Air­ily._) But we're well pre­served so far, Miss Hadley.

_Fourth School­girl_. (_Has wan­dered away a few yards. She bends and picks a flow­er from the ditch. She speaks to her­self_.) The flag float­ed here. There were shells burst­ing and guns thun­der­ing and groans and blood--here. Amer­ican boys were dy­ing where I stand safe. That's what they did. They made me safe. They kept Amer­ica free. They made the “world safe for free­dom,” (_She bends and speaks in­to the ditch_.) Boy, you who lay just there in suf­fer­ing and gave your good life away that long-​ago sum­mer day--thank you. You died for us. Amer­ica re­mem­bers. Be­cause of you there will be no more wars, and girls such as we are may wan­der across bat­tle-​fields, and na­tions are hap­py and well gov­erned, and kings and mas­ters are gone. You did that, you boys. You lost fifty years of life, but you gained our love for­ev­er. Your deaths were not in rain. Good-​by, dear, dead boys.

_Teach­er_. (_Calls_). Child, come! We must catch the train.

FOURTH ACT

_The scene is the same trench in the year 2018. It is three o'clock of the af­ter­noon, of the same sum­mer day. A new­ly mar­ried cou­ple have come to see the trench. He is jour­ney­ing as to a shrine; she has al­lowed im­per­son­al in­ter­ests, such as his­to­ry, to lapse un­der the in­flu­ence of love and a trousseau. She is, how­ev­er, amenable to pa­tri­otism, and, her hus­band ap­ply­ing the match, she takes fire--she al­so, from the sto­ry of the trench_.

_He_. This must be the place.

_She_. It is noth­ing but a ditch filled with flow­ers.

_He_. The old trench. (_Takes off his hat_.)

_She_. Was it--it was--in the Great War?

_He_. My dear!

_She_. You're hor­ri­fied. But I re­al­ly--don't know.

_He_. Don't know? You must.

_She_. You've gone and mar­ried a per­son who hasn't a glim­mer of his­to­ry. What will you do about it?

_He_. I'll be brave and stick to my bar­gain. Do you mean that you've for­got­ten the charge of the Blank_th_ Amer­icans against the Prus­sian Guard? The charge that prac­ti­cal­ly end­ed the war?

_She_. End­ed the war? How could one charge end the war?

_He_. There was fight­ing af­ter. But the last crit­ical bat­tle was here (_looks about_) in these mead­ows, and for miles along. And it was just here that the Blank_th_ Unit­ed States Reg­iment made its his­toric dash. In that ditch--filled with flow­ers--a hun­dred of our lads were mown down in three min­utes. About two thou­sand more fol­lowed them to death.

_She_. Oh--I do know. It was _that_ charge. I learned about it in school; it thrilled me al­ways.

_He_. Cer­tain­ly. Ev­ery Amer­ican child knows the sto­ry. I mem­orized the list of the one hun­dred sol­diers' names of my own free will when I was ten. I can say them now. “Arnold--Ashe--Ben­nett--Em­met--Drag­more--”

_She_. Don't say the rest, Ted--tell me about it as it hap­pened. (_She slips her hand in­to his_.) We two, stand­ing here young and hap­py, look­ing for­ward to a, life­time to­geth­er, will do hon­or, that way, to those sol­diers who gave up their hap­py youth and their lives for Amer­ica.

_He_. (_Puts his arm around her_.) We will. We'll make a lit­tle memo­ri­al ser­vice and I'll preach a ser­mon about how glo­ri­ous­ly they fell and how, un­know­ing­ly, they won the war--and so much more!

_She_. Tell me.

_He_. It was a hun­dred years ago about now--sum­mer. A crit­ical bat­tle raged along a stretch of many miles. About the cen­tre of the line--here--the Prus­sian Im­pe­ri­al Guards, the crack sol­diers of the Ger­man army, held the first trench--this ditch. Amer­ican forces faced them, but in weeks of fight­ing had not been able to make much im­pres­sion. Then, on a day, the or­der came down the lines that the Blank_th_ Unit­ed States Reg­iment, op­posed to the Guard, was to charge and take the Ger­man front trench. Of course the ar­tillery was to pre­pare for their charge as usu­al, but there was some mis­take. There was no cur­tain of fire be­fore them, no ar­tillery prepa­ra­tion to help them. And the or­der to charge came. So, right in­to the Ger­man guns, in the face of those ter­ri­ble Prus­sian Guards, our lads went “over the top” with a great shout, and poured like a flame, like a cat­apult, across the space be­tween them--No-​Man's Land, they called it then--it was on­ly thir­ty-​five yards--to the Ger­man trench. So fast they rushed, and so un­ex­pect­ed was their com­ing, with no cur­tain of ar­tillery to shield them, that the Ger­mans were for a mo­ment tak­en aback. Not a shot was fired for a space of time al­most long enough to let the Amer­icans reach the trench, and then the ri­fles broke out and the brown uni­forms fell like leaves in au­tumn. But not all. They rushed on pell-​mell, cut­ting wire, pour­ing ir­re­sistibly in­to the Ger­man trench. And the Guards, such as were not mown down, lost courage at the as­tound­ing im­pe­tus of the dash, and scram­bled and ran from their trench. They took it--our boys took that trench--this old ditch. But then the big Ger­man guns opened a fire like hail and a ma­chine gun at the end--down there it must have been--en­filad­ed the trench, and ev­ery man in it was killed. But the charge end­ed the war. Oth­er Amer­icans, mad with the glo­ry of it, poured in a sea af­ter their com­rades and held the trench, and poured on and on, and wiped out that day the Prus­sian Guard. The Ger­man morale was bro­ken from then; with­in four months the war was over.

_She_. (_Turns and hides her face on his shoul­der and shakes with sobs_.) I'm not--cry­ing for sor­row--for them. I'm cry­ing--for the glo­ry of it. Be­cause--I'm so proud and glad--that it's too much for me. To be­long to such a na­tion--to such men. I'm cry­ing for know­ing, it was my na­tion--my men. And Amer­ica is--the same to­day. I know it. If she need­ed you to­day, Ted, you would fight like that. You would go over the top with the charg­ing Blank_th_, with a shout, if the or­der came--wouldn't you, my own man?

_He_. (_Look­ing in­to the old ditch with his head bent rev­er­ent­ly_.) I hope so.

_She_. And I hope I would send you with all my heart. Death like that is more than life.

_He_. I've made you cry.

_She_. Not you. What they did--those boys.

_He_. It's fit­ting that Amer­icans should come here, as they do come, as to a Mec­ca, a holy place. For it was here that Amer­ica was saved. That's what they did, the boys who made that charge. They saved Amer­ica from the most sav­age and bar­barous en­emy of all time. As sure as France and Eng­land were at the end of their rope--and they were--so sure­ly Ger­many, the vic­tor, would have in­vad­ed Amer­ica, and Bel­gium would have hap­pened in our coun­try. A hun­dred years wouldn't have been enough to free us again, if that had hap­pened. You and I, dear­est, owe it to those sol­diers that we are here to­geth­er, free, pros­per­ous cit­izens of an ev­er greater coun­try.

_She_. (_Drops on her knees by the ditch_.) It's a shrine. Men of my land, I own my debt. I thank you for all I have and am. God bless you in your heav­en. (_Si­lence_.)

_He_. (_Tears in his eyes. His arm around her neck as he bends to her_.) You'll not for­get the sto­ry of the Charg­ing Blank_th_?

_She_. Nev­er again. In my life. (_Ris­ing_.) I think their spir­its must be here of­ten. Per­haps they're hap­py when Amer­icans are here. It's a holy place, as you said. Come away now. I love to leave it in sun­shine and flow­ers with the dear ghosts of the boys. (_Ex­it He and She_.)

FIFTH ACT

_The scene it the same trench in the year 2018. It is five o'clock of the same sum­mer af­ter­noon. An of­fi­cer of the Amer­ican Army and an En­glish cab­inet mem­ber come, to­geth­er, to vis­it the old trench. The Amer­ican has a par­tic­ular rea­son for his in­ter­est; the En­glish­man ac­com­pa­nies the dis­tin­guished Amer­ican. The two re­view the sto­ry of the trench and speak of oth­er things con­nect­ed, and it is hoped that they set forth the far-​reach­ing work of the sol­diers who died, not re­al­iz­ing their work, in the great fight of the Charg­ing Blank_th.

_En­glish­man_. It's a peace­ful scene.

_Amer­ican_. (_Ad­vances to the side of the ditch. Looks down. Takes off his cap_.) I came across the ocean to see it. (_He looks over the fields_.) It's qui­et.

_En­glish­man_. The trench­es were filled in all over the in­vad­ed ter­ri­to­ry with­in twen­ty-​five years af­ter the war. Ex­cept a very few kept as a man­ner of mon­ument. Ob­ject-​lessons, don't you know, in what the thing meant. Even those are get­ting oblit­er­at­ed. They say this is quite the best spec­imen in all France.

_Amer­ican_. It doesn't look war­like. What a lot of flow­ers!

_En­glish­man_. Yes. The folk about here have a tra­di­tion, don't you know, that pop­pies mark the places where blood flowed most.

_Amer­ican_. Ah! (_Gazes in­to the ditch_.) Pop­pies there. A hun­dred of our sol­diers died at once down there. Mere lads most­ly. Their names and ages are on a tablet in the capi­tol at Wash­ing­ton, and un­der­neath is a sen­tence from Lin­coln's Get­tys­burg speech: “These dead shall not have died in vain, and gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple shall not per­ish from the earth.”

_En­glish­man_. Those are undy­ing words.

_Amer­ican_. And undy­ing names--the lads' names.

_En­glish­man_. What they and the oth­er Amer­icans did can nev­er die. Not while the plan­et en­dures. No na­tion at that time re­al­ized how vi­tal was your coun­try's en­trance in­to the war. Three months lat­er it would have been too late. Your young, un­tried forces lift­ed worn-​out France and Eng­land and swept us to-​vic­to­ry. It was Amer­ica's vic­to­ry at the last. It is our glo­ry to con­fess that, for from then on Amer­ica has been our kin.

_Amer­ican_. (_Smiles_.) Eng­land is our well-​beloved el­der sis­ter for all time now.

_En­glish­man_. The sol­diers who died there (_ges­tures to the ditch_) and their like did that al­so. They tied the na­tions to­geth­er with a bond of com­mon grat­itude, com­mon suf­fer­ing, com­mon glo­ry.

_Amer­ican_. You say well that there was com­mon grat­itude. Eng­land and France had fought our bat­tle for three years at the time we en­tered the war. We had nes­tled be­hind the En­glish fleet. Those grim gray ships of yours stood be­tween us and the bar­bar­ians very lit­er­al­ly.

_En­glish­man_. With­out doubt Ger­many would have been hap­py to in­vade the on­ly coun­try on earth rich enough to pay her war debt. And you were as­ton­ish­ing­ly open to in­va­sion. It is one of the his­tor­ical facts that a stu­dent of his­to­ry of this twen­ty-​first cen­tu­ry finds dif­fi­cult to re­al­ize.

_Amer­ican_. The Great War made rev­olu­tion­ary changes. That con­di­tion of un­pre­pared­ness was one. That there will nev­er be an­oth­er war is the be­lief of all gov­ern­ments. But if all gov­ern­ments should be mis­tak­en, not again would my coun­try, or yours, be caught un­pre­pared. A gen­er­al staff built of sol­diers and free of civil­ians ham­per­ing is one ad­van­tage we have drawn from our or­deal of 1917.

_En­glish­man_. Your army is mag­nif­icent­ly ef­fi­cient.

_Amer­ican_. And yours. Heav­en grant nei­ther may ev­er be need­ed! Our mil­itary ef­fi­cien­cy is the pride of an un­mil­itary na­tion. One Congress, since the Great War and its lessons, has vied with an­oth­er to keep our high place.

_En­glish­man_. Ah! Your Congress. That has changed since the old days--since La Fol­lette.

_Amer­ican_. The name is a shame and a warn­ing to us. Our chil­dren are taught to re­mem­ber it so. The “lit­tle group of wil­ful men,” the eleven who came near to ship­wreck­ing the coun­try, were equal­ly bad, per­haps, but they are for­got­ten. La Fol­lette stands for them and bears the curs­es of his coun­try­men, which they all earned.

_En­glish­man_. Their ig­nominy served Amer­ica; it roused the coun­try to clean its Augean sta­bles.

_Amer­ican_. The war pu­ri­fied with fire the leg­isla­tive soul.

_En­glish­man_. Ex­act­ly. Men are hu­man still, cer­tain­ly, yet gen­uine pa­tri­otism ap­pears to be a _sine qua non_ now, where bom­bast an­swered in the old day. Cor­rup­tion is no longer ac­cept­ed. Pub­lic men then were sur­pris­ing­ly sim­ple, sur­pris­ing­ly cheap and lim­it­ed in their meth­ods. There were two rules for pub­lic and pri­vate life. It was thought quixot­ic, I gath­er from study­ing the doc­uments of the time, to ex­pect any­thing dif­fer­ent. And how eas­ily the change came!

_Amer­ican_. The na­tion rose and de­mand­ed hon­esty, and hon­esty was there. The enor­mous ma­jor­ity of de­cent peo­ple woke from a dis­con­tent­ed ap­athy and took charge. Men sprang in­to place nat­ural­ly and served the na­tion. The old log-​rolling, brain­less, greedy pub­lic of­fi­cials were thrown in­to the junk-​heap. As if by mag­ic the stress of the war wrung out the rins­ings and the scour­ings and left the fab­ric clean.

_En­glish­man_. The stress of the war af­fect­ed more than in­ter­nal pol­itics. You and I, Gen­er­al, are used to a stan­dard of con­duct be­tween re­spon­si­ble na­tions as high as that tak­en for grant­ed be­tween re­spon­si­ble per­sons. But, if one con­sid­ers, that was far from the case a hun­dred years ago. It was in 1914, that von Beth­mann-​Holl­weg spoke of “a scrap of pa­per.”

_Amer­ican_. Ah--Ger­mans!

_En­glish­man_. Cer­tain­ly one does not ex­pect hon­or or sin­cer­ity from Ger­man psy­chol­ogy. Even the lit­tle Teu­ton­ic Re­pub­lic of to-​day is tricky, schem­ing al­ways to get a foothold for pow­er, a be­gin­ning for the army they will nev­er again be al­lowed to have. Even af­ter the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and the oth­er ras­cals were pun­ished they tried to cheat us, if you re­mem­ber. Yet it is not that which I had in mind. The point I was mak­ing was that to­day it would be out of draw­ing for a gov­ern­ment even of char­la­tans, like the Prus­sians, to ad­vance the sort of claims which they did. In com­mon­place words, it was ex­pect­ed then that gov­ern­ments, as against each oth­er, would be self-​seek­ing. To-​day de­cen­cy de­mands that they should be, as men must be, un­selfish.

_Amer­ica_. (_Mus­ing­ly_.) It's odd how long it took the world--gov­ern­ments--hu­man be­ings--to find the truth of the very old phrase that “he who find­eth his life must lose it.”

_En­glish­man_. The sim­ple fact of that phrase be­fore the Great War was not com­mon­ly grasped. Peo­ple thought it pure­ly re­li­gious and re­served for saints and church ser­vices. As a work­ing hy­poth­esis it was not gen­er­al­ly known. The ev­ery-​day ide­als of our gen­er­ation, the friend­ships and broth­er­hoods of na­tions as we know them would have been thought Utopi­an.

_Amer­ican_. Utopi­an? Per­haps our civ­iliza­tion is bet­ter than Utopi­an. The race has grown with a bound since we all went through hell to­geth­er. How far the civ­iliza­tion of 1914 stood above that of 1614! The dif­fer­ence be­tween gal­ley-​slaves and able-​bod­ied sea­men, of your and our navy! Greater yet than the change in that three hun­dred years is the change in the last one hun­dred. I look at it with a sol­dier's some­what di­rect view. Hu­man­ity went help­less and alone in­to a fiery fur­nace and came through hold­ing on to God's hand. We have clung close­ly to that pow­er­ful grasp since.

_En­glish­man_. Cer­tain­ly the race has emerged from an epoch of in­tel­lect to an epoch of spir­itu­al­ity--which com­pre­hends and ex­tends in­tel­lect. There have nev­er been in­ven­tions such as those of our era. And the in­ven­tors have been, as it were, men in­spired. Some­thing be­yond them­selves has worked through them for the world. A force like that was known on­ly spo­rad­ical­ly be­fore our time.

_Amer­ican_. (_Looks in­to old ditch_.) It would be strange to the lads who charged through hor­ror across this flow­ery field to hear our talk and to know that to them and their deeds we owe the hap­pi­ness and the great­ness of the world we now live in.

_En­glish­man_. Their short, Home­ric episode of life ad­mit­ted few gen­er­al­iza­tions, I fan­cy. To be ready and strong and brave--there was scant time for more than that in those stren­uous days. Yet un­der that sim­ple for­mu­la lay a sea of pa­tri­otism and self-​sac­ri­fice, from which sprang their sol­diers' force. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” It was their love--love of coun­try, of hu­man­ity, of free­dom--which si­lenced in the end the great en­gine of evil--Prus­sian­ism. The mo­tive pow­er of life is proved, through those dead sol­diers, to be not hate, as the Prus­sians taught, but love.

_Amer­ican_. Do you see some­thing shin­ing among the flow­ers at the bot­tom of the ditch?

_En­glish­man_. Why, yes. Is it--a leaf which catch­es the light?

_Amer­ican_. (_Step­ping down_.) I'll see. (_He picks up a met­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion disk worn by a sol­dier. Angélique has rubbed it so that the let­ters may most­ly be read_.) This is rather won­der­ful. (_He reads aloud_.) “R.V.H. Ran­dolph--Blank_th_ Reg­iment--U.S.” I can't make out the rest.

_En­glish­man_. (_Takes the disk_.) Ex­traor­di­nary! The name and reg­iment are plain. The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion disk, ev­ident­ly, of a sol­dier who died in the trench here. Your own man, Gen­er­al.

_Amer­ican_. (_Much stirred_.) And--my own reg­iment. Two years ago I was the colonel of “The Charg­ing Blank_th_.”

HER COUN­TRY TOO

David Lance sat won­der­ing. He was not due at the of­fice till ten this Sat­ur­day night and he was putting in a long and thor­ough won­der. About the ser­vice in all its branch­es; about fi­nance; about the new Lib­er­ty Loan. First, how was he to stop be­ing a peace­ful re­porter on the _Day­break_ and get in­to uni­form; that won­der cov­ered a class in­clud­ing the army, navy and air-​ser­vice, for he had been re­fused by all three; he won­dered how a small limp from ap­ple-​tree ac­ro­bat­ics at ten might be so ex­plained away that he might pass; re­luc­tant­ly he won­dered al­so about the Y.M.C.A. But he was a fight­ing man _par ex­cel­lence_. For him it would feel like slack­ing to go in­to any but fight­ing ser­vice. Six feet two and weigh­ing a hun­dred and nine­ty, ev­ery ounce pos­si­ble to be mus­cle was mus­cle; easy, joy­ful twen­ty-​four-​year-​old mus­cle which knew noth­ing of fa­tigue. He was cer­tain he would make a fit sol­dier for Un­cle Sam, and how, how he want­ed to be Un­cle Sam's sol­dier!

He was get­ting des­per­ate. Ev­ery man he knew in the twen­ties and many a one un­der and over, was in uni­form; bit­ter­ly he en­vied the proud peace in their eyes when he met them. He could not bear to ex­plain things once more as he had ex­plained to­day to Tom Arnold and “Beef” John­son, and “Ser­aph” Ol­cott, home on leave be­fore sail­ing for France. He had suf­fered while they lis­tened cour­te­ous­ly and hur­ried to say that they un­der­stood, that it was a shame, and that: “You'll make it yet, old son.” And they had then turned to each oth­er com­par­ing notes of camps. It made lit­tle im­pres­sion that he had toiled and sweat­ed ear­ly and late in this strug­gle to get in some­where--army, navy, air-​ser­vice--any­thing to fol­low the flag. He wasn't al­lowed. He was still a re­porter on the _Day­break_ while the biggest do­ings of hu­man­ity were get­ting done, and ev­ery young son of Amer­ica had his chance to help. With a strong, tire­less body aching for sol­dier's work, Amer­ica, his moth­er, re­fused him work. He wasn't al­lowed.

Lance groaned, sit­ting in his one big chair in his one small room. There were oth­er prob­lems. A Lib­er­ty Loan drive was on, and where could he lay hands on mon­ey for bonds? He had plunged on the last loan and there was yet some­thing to pay on the $200 sub­scrip­tion. And there was no one and noth­ing to fall back on ex­cept his salary as re­porter for the _Day­break._ His fa­ther had died when he was six, and his moth­er eight years ago; his small cap­ital had gone for his four years, at Yale. There was no one--ex­cept a leg­end of cousins in the South. Nev­er was any one poor­er or more alone. Yet he must take a bond or two. How might he hold up his head not to fight and not to buy bonds. A knock at the door.

“Come in,” growled Lance.

The door opened, and a pic­ture out of a sto­ry­book stood framed and smil­ing. One sel­dom sees to­day in the North the gen­uine old-​fash­ioned ne­gro-​wom­an. A sam­ple was here in Lance's door­way. A ban­dan­na of red and yel­low made a tur­ban for her head; a clean brown­ish cal­ico dress stood crisply about a sol­id and waist­less fig­ure, and a fresh white apron cov­ered it vo­lu­mi­nous­ly in front; a fold­ed white hand­ker­chief lay, fichu-​wise, around the creas­es of a fat black neck; a bas­ket cov­ered with a cloth was on her arm. She stood and smiled as if to give the treat time to have its ef­fect on Lance. “Look who's here!” was in large print all over her. And she ra­di­at­ed peace and good-​will.

Lance was on his feet with a shout. “Bless your fat heart, Aunt Basha--I'm glad to see you,” he flung at her, and seized the bas­ket and slung it half across the room to a so­fa with a ca­su­al­ness, alarm­ing to Aunt Basha--chris­tened Bathshe­ba sev­en­ty-​five years ago, but “right­ly known,” she had so in­struct­ed Lance, as “Aunt Basha.”

“Young marse, don' you ru­inate the washin', please sir,” she ad­jured in liq­uid tones.

“Nev­er you mind. It's the last one you'll do for me,” re­tort­ed Lance. “Did I tell you you couldn't have the hon­or of wash­ing for me any­more, Aunt Basha?”

Aunt Basha was wreathed in smiles.

“Yas­sir, young marse. You tole me dat mo'n tree times be­fo', a'ready, sir.”

“Well--it's fi­nal this time. Can't stand your prices. I _can't_ stand your ex­or­bi­tant prices. Now what do you have the heart to charge for dust­ing off those three old shirts and two and a half col­lars? Hey?”

Aunt Basha, en­tire­ly serene, was en­joy­ing the game. “What does I charges, sir? Fo' dat wash, which you slung 'round acrost de room, sir? Well, sir, young marse, I charges fo' dol­lars 'n sev'nty fo' cents, sir, dis week. Fo' dat wash.”

Lance let loose a howl and flung him­self in­to his chair as if pros­trat­ed, long legs out and arms hang­ing to the floor. Aunt Basha shook with laugh­ter. This was a splen­did joke and she nev­er, nev­er tired of it. “You see!” he threw out, be­tween gasps. “Look at that! _Fo'_ dol­lars 'n sev'nty _fo'_ cents.” He sat up sud­den­ly and point­ed a big fin­ger, “Aunt Basha,” he whis­pered, “some­body's been kid­ding you. Some­body's lied. This pala­tial apart­ment, much as it looks like it, is not the home of John D. Rock­efeller.” He sprung up, drew an imag­inary man­tle about him, grasped one el­bow with the oth­er hand, dropped his head in­to the free palm and was Cas­sius or Ham­let or Faust--all one to Aunt Basha. His left eye­brow screwed up and his right down, and he glow­ered. “List to her,” he be­gan, and shot out a hand, im­me­di­ate­ly to re­place it where it was most need­ed, un­der his el­bow. “But list, ye Heav­ens and pro­tect the lamb from this raven­ing wolf. She char­geth--oh high Heav­ens above!--she ex­pecteth me to pay”--he gulped sobs--“the ex­tor­tion­er, the she-​wolf--ex­pecteth me to pay her--_fo_' dol­lars 'n sev'nty _fo_' cents!”

Aunt Basha, en­tranced with this dra­ma, quaked silent­ly like a large cof­fee jel­ly, and with that there hap­pened a high, rich, pro­tract­ed sound which was laugh­ter, but laugh­ter not to be im­itat­ed of any vo­cal chords of a white race. The de­li­cious note soared high­er, high­er it seemed than the scale of hu­man­ity, and was ri­otous vel­vet and cream, with no ef­fort or un­cer­tain­ty. Lance dropped his Mephistophe­les pose and grinned.

“It's Q sharp!” he com­ment­ed. “How­ev­er does she do it!”

“Naw, sir, young marse,” Aunt Basha be­gan, de­scend­ing to speech. “De she-​wolf, she don' ex­pecteth you to pay no fo' dol­lars 'n sev'nty fo' cents, sir. Dat's thes what I _charges_. Dat ain' what you _pay_. You thes pay me sev'nty fo' cents sir. Dat's all.”

“Oh!” Lance let it out like a ten-​year-​old. It was hard to say which en­joyed this week­ly in­ter­view more, the boy or the old wom­an. The boy was lone­ly and the hu­man­ity unashamed of her race and per­son­al­ity made an at­mo­sphere which de­light­ed him. “Oh!” gasped Lance. “That's a re­lief. I thought it was good­bye to my Sun­day trousers.”

Aunt Basha, com­fort­able and ef­fi­cient, was un­pack­ing the bas­ket and putting away the wash in the few bu­reau draw­ers which eas­ily held the boy's be­long­ings. “Dey's all mend­ed nice,” she an­nounced. “Young marse, sir, you bet­ter wa' out dese yer ole' un­der­clos­es right now, en­durin' de warm weath­er, 'caze dey ain' gwine do you fo' de col'. You 'bleeged to buy some new ones sir, when it comes off right cool.”

Lance smiled, for there was no one but this old black wom­an to take care of him and ad­vise his hap­haz­ard house­keep­ing, and he liked it. “Can't buy new ones,” he made an­swer. “There you go again, mix­ing me up with Rock­efeller. I'm not even the Duke of West­min­ster, do you see. I haven't got any mon­ey. On­ly sev'nty fo' cents for the she-​wolf.”

Aunt Basha chuck­led. Long ago there had been a house­hold of young peo­ple in the South whose clothes she, a very young wom­an then, had mend­ed; there had been a boy who talked non­sense to her much as this boy--Marse Pendle­ton. But trou­ble had come; ev­ery­thing had bro­ken like a card-​house un­der an ocean wave. “De fam­bly” was lost, and she and her young hus­band, old Un­cle Jeems of to­day, had drift­ed by de­vi­ous ways to this North­ern city. “Ef you ain't got de mon­ey handy dis week, young marse, you kin pay me nex' week thes as well,” sug­gest­ed the she-​wolf.

Then the big boy was stand­ing over her, and she was be­ing pat­ted on the shoul­der with a touch that all but brought tears to the black, dim eyes. “Don't you dare pay at­ten­tion to my drool, or I'll nev­er talk to you again,” Lance or­dered. “Your sev'nty fo' cents is all right, and lots more. I've got heaps of cash that size, Aunt Basha. But I want to buy Lib­er­ty Bonds, and I don't know how in hell I'm go­ing to get big mon­ey.” The boy was think­ing aloud. “How am I to raise two hun­dred for a cou­ple of bonds, Aunt Basha? Tell me that?” He scratched in­to his thatch of hair and made a puz­zled face.

“What fo' you want big mon­ey, young marse?”

“Bonds. Lib­er­ty Bonds. You know what that is?”

“Naw, sir.”

“You don't? Well you ought to,” said Lance. “There isn't a soul in this coun­try who oughtn't to have a bond. It's this way. You know we're fight­ing a war?”

“Yas­sir. Young Ana­nias John­son, he's Sist' Aman­da's boy, he done tole his Unk Jeems 'bout dat war. And Jeems, he done tole me.”

Lance re­gard­ed her. Was it pos­si­ble that the ocean up­heaval had stirred even the qui­etest back­wa­ter so lit­tle? “Well, any­how, it's the biggest war that ev­er was on earth.”

Aunt Basha shook her head. “You ain't nev­er seed de War of de Re­bul­li­um,” she stat­ed with su­pe­ri­or­ity. “You's too young. Well, I reck­on dis yer war ain't much on to dat war. Naw, sir! Dat ar was a sure 'nough war--yas, sir!”

Lance con­sid­ered. He de­cid­ed not to con­test the point. “Any­how Aunt Basha, this is an aw­ful­ly big war. And if we don't win it the Ger­mans will come over here and mur­der the most of us, and make you and Un­cle Jeems work in the fields from day­light till dark.”

“Dem low down white trash!” com­ment­ed Aunt Basha.

“Yes, and worse. And Un­cle Sam can't beat the Ger­mans un­less we all help. He needs mon­ey to buy guns for the sol­diers, and food and clothes. So he's ask­ing ev­ery­body--just ev­ery­body--to lend him mon­ey--ev­ery cent they can raise to buy things to win the war. He gives each per­son who lends him any, a piece of pa­per which is a promise to pay it back, and that piece of pa­per is called a bond--Un­cle Sam's promise to pay. Ev­ery­body ought to help by giv­ing up ev­ery cent they have. The sol­diers are giv­ing their lives to save us from the hor­ri­ble Ger­mans. They're go­ing over there to live in mud and wa­ter and sleep in holes of the earth, to be shot and wound­ed and tor­tured and killed. They're fac­ing that for our sakes, to save us from worse than death, for you and Un­cle Jeems and me, Aunt Basha. Now, oughtn't we to give all we've got to take care of those boys--our sol­diers?”

Lance had for­got­ten his au­di­ence, ex­cept that he was word­ing his speech care­ful­ly in the sim­plest En­glish. It went home.

“Oh, my Lawd!” moaned Aunt Basha, sit­ting down and rock­ing hard. “Does dey sleep in de col' yeth? Oh, my Lawd have mer­cy!” It was the first re­al­iza­tion she had had of the de­tails of the war. “You ain't gwine over dar, is you young marse, hon­ey?” she asked anx­ious­ly.

“I wish to God I was,” spoke Lance through set teeth. “No, Aunt Basha, they won't take me. Be­cause I'm lame. I'd give my life to go. And be­cause I can't fight I _must_ buy bonds. Do you see? I must. I'd sell my soul to get mon­ey for Lib­er­ty Bonds. Oh, God!” Lance was as if alone, with on­ly that anx­ious old black face gaz­ing up at him. “Oh, God--it's my coun­try!”

Sud­den­ly the rich flow­ing voice spoke. “Young marse, it's my coun­try too, sir,” said Aunt Basha.

Lance turned and stared. How much did the words mean to the old wom­an? In a mo­ment he knew.

“Yas, my young marseter, dis yer Amer­ica's de ole black 'oman's coun­try, thes like it's fine young white man's, like you, sir. I gwine give my las' cent, like you say. Yas, I gwine do dat. I got two hun'erd dol­lars, sir; I b'en a-​savin' and a-​savin' for Jeems 'n me 'ginst when we git ole, but I gwine give dat to my coun­try. I want Unc' Sam to buy good food for dem boys in the mud­dy wa­ter. Ba­con 'n hominy, sir--'n corn bread, what's nour­ishin'. 'N I want you to git de--de Lib­er­ty what-​je-​call-'ems. Yas­sir. 'Caze you ain't got no ma to he'ep you out, 'n de ole black 'oman's gwine to be de bes' ma she know how to her young marse. I got de mon­ey tied up--” she leaned for­ward and whis­pered--“in a stockin' in de bot­tom draw' ob de chist un­ner Jeem's good coat. To­mor­row I gwine fetch it, 'n you go buy yo' what-​je-​calls-'ems.”

Lance went across and knelt on the floor be­side her and put his arms around the stout fig­ure. He had been brought up with a col­ored mam­my and this af­fec­tion seemed nat­ural and home­like. “Aunt Basha, you're one of the saints,” he said. “And I love you for it. But I wouldn't take your blessed two hun­dred, not for any­thing on earth. I'd be a hound to take it. If you want some bonds”--it flashed to him that the mon­ey would be safer so than in the stock­ing un­der Jeem's coat--“why, I'll get them for you. Come in­to the _Day­break_ of­fice and ask for me, say--Mon­day. And I'll go with you to the bank and get bonds. Here's my card. Show any­body that at the of­fice.” And he gave di­rec­tions.

Five min­utes lat­er the old wom­an went off down the street talk­ing half aloud to her­self in frag­ments of sen­tences about “Lib­er­ty what-​je-​call-'ems” and “my coun­try too.” In the lit­tle shack up­town that was home for her and her hus­band she be­gan at once to set forth her new light. Jeems, who added to the fam­ily in­come by tak­ing care of fur­naces and do­ing odd jobs, was griz­zled and hob­bling of body, but ar­gu­men­ta­tive of soul.

“'Oman,” he ad­dressed Aunt Basha, “Unc' Sam got lots o' mon­ey. What use he gwine have, great big rich man lak Unc' Sam, fo' yo' two hun'erd? But we got mighty lot o' use fo' dat mon­ey, we'uns. An' you gwine gib dat away? Thes lak a 'oman!” which, in oth­er forms, is an ar­gu­ment used by male peo­ple of many class­es.

Aunt Basha sug­gest­ed that Young Marse David said some­thing about a piece of pa­per and Un­cle Sam pay­ing back, but Jeems pooh-​poohed that.

“Naw, sir. When big rich folks goes round col­lectin' po' folk­ses mon­ey, is dey li­able to pay back? What good piece o' pa­per gwine do you? Is dey aimin' to let you see de col­or ob dat mon­ey agin? Naw, sir. Dey am not.” He pro­ceed­ed to an­oth­er branch of the sub­ject. "War ain' gwine las' long, no­how. Young Ana­nias he gwine to Franch right soon, an' de yether col­ored broth­ers. De Ger­mans dey ain't gwine las' long, once ef dey see us An­glo-​Sax­ons in de scrablin'. Naw, sir.

“White man what come hy­er yether day, he say how dey ain't gwine 'low de col­ored so­jers to fight,” sug­gest­ed Aunt Basha. Ger­man pro­pa­gan­da reach­es far and takes strange shapes.

“Don' jer go to b'lieve dat white man, 'oman,” thun­dered Jeems, thump­ing with his fist. “He dun­no nawthin', an' I reck­on he's a liar. Unc' Sam he say we kin fight an' we _gwine_ fight. An' de war ain't las' long at­ter we git to fight­in' good.”

Aunt Basha, her hands fold­ed on the round­ed vol­ume of apron con­sid­ered deeply. Af­ter a time she ar­rived at a de­ci­sion.

“Jeems,” she be­gan, “yo' cert'nly is a strong rea­son­er. Yas­sir. But I got it bo'ne in up­on me pow­er­ful dat I got­ter give dese yer savin's to Unc' Sam. It's my coun­try too, Jeems, same as dem so­jers what's fight­in', dem boys in de mud what ain' got a soul to wash fo' 'em. An' lak as not dey mas not dere. Dem boys is fight­in', and git­tin' wet and hunt­ed up lak young marse say, fo' Aunt Basha and--bress dere hearts”--Aunt Basha broke down, and the up­shot was that Jeems washed his hands of an ob­sti­nate fe­male and--the sav­ings not be­ing his in any case--gave un­will­ing con­sent.

Youth of the stern­er set is apt to be ca­su­al in mak­ing ap­point­ments. It had not en­tered Lance's head to ar­range in case he was not at the of­fice. As for Aunt Basha, her the­ory was that he reigned there over an army of sub­or­di­nates from morn­ing till evening. So that she was tak­en aback when told that Mr. Lance was out and no one could say when he would be in. She had risen at dawn and done her house­work and much of the fine wash­ing which she “took in,” and had then ar­rayed her­self in her best cal­ico dress and newest tur­ban and apron for the great oc­ca­sion and had re­port­ed at the _Day­break_ of­fice at nine-​thir­ty. And young marse wasn't there.

“I'll set and rest on­twell he comes in,” she an­nounced, and re­tired to a chair against the wall.

There she fold­ed her hands statelily and sat erect, mo­tion­less, an im­age of fine old dig­ni­ty. But much think­ing was go­ing on in­side the calm ex­te­ri­or. What was she go­ing to do if young marse did not come back? She had the $200 with her, care­ful­ly pinned and dou­ble pinned in­to a pock­et in her pur­ple al­paca pet­ti­coat. She did not want to take it home. Jeems had sub­mit­ted this morn­ing, but with mut­ter­ings, and a sec­ond time there might be trou­ble. The sav­ings were in­deed hers, but a re­bel­lious hus­band in high fi­nance is an em­bar­rass­ment. Deeply Aunt Basha con­sid­ered, and mem­ory whis­pered some­thing about a bank. Young marse was go­ing to the bank with her to give her mon­ey to Un­cle Sam. She had just passed a bank. Why could she not go alone? Some­body cer­tain­ly would tell her what to do. Pos­si­bly Un­cle Sam was there him­self--for Aunt Basha's con­cep­tion of our na­tion­al myth was half mys­ti­cal, half prac­ti­cal--as a child with San­ta Claus. In any case banks were re­spon­si­ble places, and some­body would look af­ter her. She crossed to the desk where two or three young men ap­peared to be do­ing most of the world's busi­ness.

“Marsters!”

The three looked up.

“Good mawnin', young marsters. I'm 'bleeged to go now. I cert'nly thank you-​all fo' let­tin' me set in de cheer. I won't wait fo' marse David Lance no mo', sir. Good mawnin', marsters.”

A smil­ing cour­tesy dropped, and she was gone.

“I'll be darned!” re­marked re­porter num­ber one.

“Where did that blow in from?” added re­porter num­ber two.

But re­porter num­ber three had imag­ina­tion. “The dear­est old soul I've seen in a blue moon,” said he.

Aunt Basha pro­ceed­ed down the street and more than one in the crowd glanced twice at the erect, stout fig­ure swing­ing, like a quaint and state­ly ship in full sail, among the steam-​tug­gery of up-​to-​date hu­man­ity. There were high steps lead­ing to the bank en­trance, im­pres­sive and alarm­ing to Aunt Basha. She paused to take breath for this ad­ven­ture. Was a hum­ble old col­ored wom­an per­mit­ted to walk freely in at those grand doors, open iron-​work and enor­mous of size? She did not know. She stood a mo­ment, sud­den­ly fright­ened and help­less, not dar­ing to go on, look­ing about for a friend­ly face. And be­hold! there it was--the friendli­est face in the world, it seemed to the lost old soul--a vi­sion of love­li­ness. It was the face of a beau­ti­ful young white la­dy in beau­ti­ful clothes who had stepped from a huge limou­sine. She was com­ing up the steps, straight to Aunt Basha. She saw the old wom­an, saw her anx­ious hes­ita­tion, and halt­ed. The next event was a heav­en­ly smile. Aunt Basha knew the repar­tee to that, and the smile that shone in an­swer was as heav­en­ly in its way as the girl's.

“Is there any­thing I can do for you?” spoke a voice of gen­tle­ness.

And the world had turned over and come up right side on top. “Mawnin', Miss. Yas'm, I was fix­in' to go in dat big do' yan­der, but I dun­no as I'm 'lowed. Is I 'lowed, young miss, to go in dar an' gib my two hun'erd to Unc' Sam?”

“What?” The tone was kind­ness it­self, but be­wil­dered.

Aunt Basha elu­ci­dat­ed. “I got two hun'erd, young miss, and I cert'nly want to gib it to Unc' Sam to buy clo'se for dem boys what's fight­in' for us in Franch.”

“I won­der,” spoke the girl, gaz­ing thought­ful­ly, “if you want to get a Lib­er­ty Bond?”

“Yas'm--yas, miss. Dat's sho' it, a what­jer-​ma-​call-'em. I know'd 'twas some cu'is name lak dat.” The vi­sion nod­ded her head.

“I'm go­ing in to do that very thing my­self,” she said. “Come with me. I'll help you get yours.”

Aunt Basha fol­lowed joy­ful­ly in the wake, and be­hold, ev­ery­thing was easy. Ready at­ten­tion met them and short­ly they sat in a pri­vate of­fice car­pet­ed in vel­vet and up­hol­stered in grandeur. A per­son­age gave grave at­ten­tion to what the vi­sion was say­ing.

“I met--I don't know your name,” she in­ter­rupt­ed her­self, turn­ing to the old ne­gro wom­an.

Aunt Basha rose and curt­sied. “Dey chris­tened me Bathshe­ba Jeptha, young miss,” she stat­ed. “But I'se right­ly known as Aunt Basha. Jes' Aunt Basha, young miss. And marster.”

A sur­name was dis­in­terred by the ef­forts of the per­son­age which ap­peared to star­tle the vi­sion.

“Why, it's our name, Mr. David­son,” she ex­claimed. “She said Ca­bell.”

Aunt Basha turned in­quir­ing, vague eyes. “Is it, hon­ey? Is yo' a Ca­bell?”

And then the per­son­age, who was, af­ter all, cashier of the Ninth Na­tion­al Bank and very busy, cut in. “Ah, yes! A well known South­ern name. Doubt­less a large con­nec­tion. And now Mrs.--ah--Ca­bell--”

“I'd be 'bleeged ef yo' jis' name me Aunt Basha, marster.”

And marster, rather _in­trigué_ be­cause he, be­ing a New Eng­lan­der, had nev­er in his life ad­dressed as “aunt” a per­son who was not sis­ter to his moth­er or his fa­ther, nev­er­the­less be­came hu­man and smiled. “Well, then, Aunt Basha.”

At a point a bit lat­er he was again jolt­ed when he asked the amount which his new­ly adopt­ed “aunt” want­ed to in­vest. For an an­swer she hauled high the folds of her frock, un­con­scious of his gasp or of the vi­sion's re­pressed laugh­ter, and went on to at­tack the clean pur­ple al­paca pet­ti­coat which was next in rank, Mr. David­son thought it wise at this point to make an er­rand across the room. He need not have both­ered as far as Aunt Basha was con­cerned. When he came back she was again _à la mode_ and held an an­cient bead­ed purse at which she gazed. Out of a less re­mote pock­et she drew steel spec­ta­cles, which were put on. Mr. David­son re­peat­ed his ques­tion of how much.

“It's all hy­er, marster. It's two hun'erd dol­lars, sir. I ben savin' up fo' twen­ty years an' mo', and me'n Jeems, we ben countin' it ev­ery mont, so I reck­on I knows.”

The man and the girl re­gard­ed the old wom­an a mo­ment. “It's a large sum for you to in­vest,” Mr. David­son said.

“Yas­sir. Yas, marster. It's right smart mon­ey. But I sho' am glad to gib dis hy­er to Unc' Sam for dem boys.”

The cashier of the Ninth Na­tion­al Bank lift­ed his eyes from the blank he was fill­ing out and looked at Aunt Basha thought­ful­ly. “You un­der­stand, of course, that the Gov­ern­ment--Un­cle Sam--is on­ly bor­row­ing your mon­ey. That you may have it back any time you wish.”

Aunt Basha drew her­self up. “I don' wish it, sir. I'm gib­in' dis hy­er gif,' a free gif' to my coun­try. Yas­sir. It's de on­li­est coun­try I got, an' I reck­on I got a right to gib dis hy­er what I earned doin' fine washin' and i'nin. I gibs it to my coun­try. I don't wan' to hy­er any talk 'bout payin' back. Naw, sir.”

It took Mr. David­son and the vi­sion at least ten min­utes to make clear to Aunt Basha the char­ac­ter and habits of a Lib­er­ty Bond, and then, though grat­ified with the own­er­ship of what seemed a brand new $200 and a valu­able slip of pa­per--which me­an­dered, shame­less­ly in­to the pur­ple al­paca pet­ti­coat--yet she was dis­ap­point­ed.

“White folks sho' am cu'is,” she re­flect­ed, “Now who'd 'a thought 'bout dat way ob raisin' mon­ey! Not me--no, Lawd! It do beat me.” With that she threw an earnest glance at Mr. David­son, lean and tall and gray, with a clipped point­ed beard. “'Scuse me, marster,” said Aunt Basha, “mout I ask a quexshun?”

“Sure­ly,” agreed Mr. David­son bland­ly.

“Is you'--'scuse de ole 'oman, sir--is you' Unc' Sam?”

The “quexshun” left the per­son­age too stag­gered to laugh. But the girl filled the staid place with gay peals. Then she leaned over and pat­ted the wrin­kled and bony worn black knuck­les. “Bless your dear heart,” she said; “no, he isn't, Aunt Basha. He's aw­ful­ly im­por­tant and good to us all, and he knows ev­ery­thing. But he's not Un­cle Sam.”

The be­wil­der­ment of the old face melt­ed to smiles. “Dar, now,” she brought out; “I mout 'a know'd, be­caze he didn't have no red striped pants. An' de whiskers is diff'ent, too. 'Scuse me, sir, and thank you kind­ly, marster. Thank you, young miss. De Lawd bress you fo' helpin' de ole 'oman.” She had risen and she dropped her old time curt­sey at this point. “Mawnin' to yo', marster and young miss.”

But the girl sprang up. “You can't go,” she said. “I'm go­ing to take you to my house to see my grand­moth­er. She's South­ern, and our name is Ca­bell, and like­ly--maybe--she knew your peo­ple down South.”

“Maybe, young miss. Dar's lots o' Ca­bells,” agreed Aunt Basha, and in three min­utes found her­self where she had nev­er thought to be, in­side a fine pri­vate car.

She was dumb with rap­ture and ex­cite­ment, and quite un­able to an­swer the girl's friend­ly words ex­cept with smiles and nods. The girl saw how it was and let her be, on­ly pat­ting the cal­ico arm once and again re­as­sur­ing­ly. “I won­der if she didn't want to come. I won­der if I've fright­ened her,” thought Eleanor Ca­bell. When in­to the si­lence broke sud­den­ly the rich, high, ir­re­sistible mu­sic which was Aunt Basha's laugh, and which David Lance had said was pitched on “Q sharp.” The girl joined the in­fec­tious sound and a mo­ment af­ter that the car stopped.

“This is home,” said Eleanor.

Aunt Basha ob­served, with the lik­ing for mag­nif­icence of a ser­vant trained in a large house, the fine façade and the huge size of “home.” In a mo­ment she was in­side, and “young miss” was care­ful­ly es­cort­ing her in­to a sun­shiny big room, where a wood fire burned, and a bird sang, and there were books and flow­ers.

“Wait here, Aunt Basha, dear,” Eleanor said, “and I'll get Grand­moth­er.” It was ex­act­ly like the loveli­est of dreams, Aunt Basha told Jeems an hour lat­er. It could not pos­si­bly have been true, ex­cept that it was. When “Grand­moth­er” came in, slen­der and white-​haired and a bit breath­less with this last sur­prise of a sur­pris­ing grand­daugh­ter, Aunt Basha stood and curt­sied her stateliest.

Then sud­den­ly she cried out, “Fo' God! Oh, my Miss Jin­ny!” and fell on her knees.

Mrs. Ca­bell gazed down, star­tled. “Who is it? Oh, whom have you brought me, Eleanor?” She bent to look more close­ly at Aunt Basha, kneel­ing, speech­less, tears stream­ing from the brave old eyes, hold­ing up clasped hand im­plor­ing. “It isn't--Oh, my dear, I be­lieve it _is_ our own old nurse, Basha, who took care of your fa­ther!”

“Yas'm. Yas, Miss Jin­ny,” en­dorsed Aunt Basha, climb­ing to her feet. “Yas, my Miss Jin­ny, bress de Lawd. It's Basha.” She turned to the girl. “Dis yer chile ain't neb­ber my young Marse Pendle­ton's chile!”

But it was; and there was ex­pla­na­tion and laugh­ter and tears, too, but tears of hap­pi­ness. Then it was told how, af­ter that crash of dis­as­ter was over; the fam­ily had tried in vain to find Basha and Jeems; had tried al­ways. It was told how a great for­tune had come to them in the turn of a hand by the dis­cov­ery of an un­sus­pect­ed salt mine on the old es­tate; how “young Marse Pendle­ton,” a fa­mous sur­geon now, had by that time made for him­self a ca­reer and a home in this North­ern state; how his wife had died young, and his moth­er, “Miss Jin­ny,” had come to live with him and take care of his one child, the vi­sion. And then the sim­ple an­nals of Aunt Basha and Un­cle Jeems were al­so told, the long strug­gle to keep re­spectable, on­ly re­spectable; the years of toil and fru­gal­ity and sav­ing--sav­ing the two hun­dred dol­lars which she had of­fered this morn­ing as a “free gif” to her coun­try. In these an­nals loomed large for some time past the fig­ure of a “young marse” who had been good to her and helped her much and of­ten in spite of his own “_res au­gus­ta do­mi_,”--which was not Aunt Basha's ex­pres­sion. The sto­ry was told of his ora­tion in the lit­tle hall bed­room about Lib­er­ty “what­jer-​m'-call-'ems,” and of how the boy had stirred the soul of the old wom­an with his pic­ture of the sol­diers in the trench­es.

“So it come to me, Miss Jin­ny, how ez me'n Jeems was thes two wuth­less ole nig­gers, an' hadn't fur to tra­bble on de road any­ways, an' de Lawd would per­vide, an' ef He didn't we could scratch grab­ble some ways. An' dat boy, dat young Marse David, he tole me ever­body ought to gib dey las' cent fo' Unc' Sam an' de so­jers. So”--Aunt Basha's high, in­ex­press­ibly sweet laugh­ter of pure glee filled the room--“so I thes up'n hand­ed over my two hun'erd.”

“It was the most beau­ti­ful and won­der­ful thing that's been done in all won­der­ful Amer­ica,” pro­nounced Eleanor Ca­bell as one hav­ing au­thor­ity. She went on. “But that young man, your young Marse David, why doesn't he fight if he's such a pa­tri­ot?”

“Bress gra­cious, hon­ey,” Aunt Basha hur­ried to ex­plain, “he's a-​honin' to fight. But he cayn't. He's lame. He goes a-​limpin'. Dey won't took him.”

“Oh!” re­tract­ed Eleanor. Then: “What's his name? Maybe fa­ther could cure him.”

“He name Lance. Marse David Lance.”

Why should Miss Jin­ny jump? “David Lance? It can't be, Aunt Basha.”

With no words Aunt Basha be­gan haul­ing up her skirts and Eleanor, re­mem­ber­ing Mr. David­son's face, went in­to gales of laugh­ter. Aunt Basha bait­ed, looked at her with an in­quir­ing gaze of ado­ra­tion. “Yas'm, my young miss. He name dat. I done put the cyard in my ridicule. Yas'm, it's here.” The an­tique bead purse was opened and Lance's card was pre­sent­ed to Miss Jin­ny.

“Eleanor! This is too won­der­ful--look!”

Eleanor looked, and read: “Mr. David Pendle­ton Lance.” “Why, Grand­moth­er, it's Dad's name--David Pendle­ton Ca­bell. And the Lance--”

Mrs. Ca­bell, stronger on ge­neal­ogy than the younger gen­er­ation, took up the wan­der­ing thread. “The 'Lance' is my moth­er's maid­en name--Vir­ginia Lance she was. And her broth­er was David Pendle­ton Lance. I named your fa­ther for him be­cause he was born on the day my young un­cle was killed, in the bat­tle of Shiloh.”

“Well, then--who's this sail­ing around with our fam­ily name?”

“Who is he? But he must be our close kin, Eleanor. My Un­cle David left--that's it. His wife came from Cal­ifor­nia and she went out there again to live with her ba­by. I hadn't heard of them for years. Why, Eleanor, this boy's fa­ther must have been--my first cousin. My young Un­cle David's ba­by. Those years of trou­ble af­ter we left home wiped out so much. I lost track--but that doesn't mat­ter now. Aunt Basha,” spoke Miss Jin­ny in a quick, ef­fi­cient voice, which sud­den­ly re­called the bloom­ing and busi­nesslike moth­er of the young brood of years ago, “Aunt Basha, where can I find your young Marse David?”

Aunt Basha smiled ra­di­ant­ly and shook her head. “Cayn't fin' him, hon­ey? I done tried, and he warn't dar.”

“Wasn't where?”

“At de or­fice, Miss Jin­ny.”

“At what of­fice?”

“Why, de _Day­break_ or­fice, cose, Miss Jin­ny. What yether or­fice he gwine be at?”

“Oh!” Miss Jin­ny fol­lowed with ease the wind­ings of the African mind. “He's a re­porter on the _Day­break_ then.”

“'Cose he is, Miss Jin­ny, ma'am. What­jer reck­on?”

Miss Jin­ny re­flect­ed. Then: “Eleanor, call up the _Day­break_ of­fice and ask if Mr. Lance is there and if he will speak to me.”

But Aunt Basha was right. Mr. Lance was not at the _Day­break_ of­fice. Mrs. Ca­bell was as grieved as a child.

“We'll find him, Grand­moth­er,” Eleanor as­sert­ed. “Why, of course--it's a morn­ing pa­per. He's home sleep­ing. I'll get his num­ber.” She caught up the tele­phone book.

Aunt Basha chuck­led mu­si­cal­ly. “He ain't got no tul­laphome, hon­ey chile. No, my Lawd! Whar dat boy gwine git mon­ey for tul­laphome and con­trap­tions? No, my Lawd!”

“How will we get him?” de­spaired Mrs. Ca­bell. The end of the coun­cil was a cryp­tic note in the hand of Jack­son, the chauf­feur, and or­ders to bring back the ad­dressee at any cost.

Mean­while, as Jack­son stood in his smart dark liv­ery tak­ing or­ders with the calm­ness of ef­fi­cien­cy, feel­ing him­self ca­pa­ble of get­ting that young man, how­so­ev­er hid­den, the young man him­self was wast­ing valu­able hours off in day-​dreams. In the one shab­by big chair of the hall bed­room he sat and smoked a pipe, and stared at a mi­cro­scop­ic fire in a toy grate. It was ex­trav­agant of David Lance to have a fire at all, but as long as he gave up meals to do it like­ly it was his own af­fair. The lux­uries mean more than the ne­ces­si­ties to plen­ty of us. With com­fort in this, his small lux­ury, he watched the play of light and shad­ow, and the puls­ing of the live scar­let and or­ange in the heart of the coals. He need­ed com­fort to­day, the lone­ly boy. Two men of the of­fice force who had got­ten their com­mis­sions late­ly at an of­fi­cer's train­ing-​camp had come in last night be­fore leav­ing for Camp De­vens; ev­ery­body had crowd­ed about and praised them and en­vied them. They had been joked about the sweaters, and socks made by moth­ers and sweet­hearts, and about the trou­ble Un­cle Sam would have with their mass of mail. The men in the of­fice had joined to give each a good­bye present. Pride in them, the hon­or of them to all the force was shown at ev­ery turn; and be­yond it all there was the look of grave con­tent­ment in their eyes which is the mark of the men who have count­ed the cost and giv­en up ev­ery­thing for their coun­try. Most of all sol­diers, per­haps, in this great war, the Amer­ican fights for an ide­al. Al­so he knows it; down to the most ig­no­rant draft­ed man, that in­spi­ra­tion has lift­ed the army and giv­en it a star in the East to fol­low. The Amer­ican fights for an ide­al; the sign of it is in the faces of the men in uni­form whom one meets ev­ery­where in the street.

David Lance, splen­did­ly pow­er­ful and fit ex­cept for the small limp which was his un­do­ing, suf­fered as he joined, whole-​heart­ed, in the glo­ry of those who were go­ing. Back in his room alone, smok­ing, star­ing in­to his dy­ing fire, he was dream­ing how it would feel if he were the one who was to march off in uni­form to take his man's share of the hard­ship and com­rade­ship and ad­ven­ture and suf­fer­ing, and of the sal­va­tion of the world. With that, he took his pipe from his mouth and grinned broad­ly in­to the fire as an­oth­er phase of the ques­tion ap­peared. How would it feel if he was some­body's spe­cial sol­dier, like both of those boys, sent off by a moth­er or a sweet­heart, by both pos­si­bly, over­stocked with things knit­ted for him, with all the ne­ces­si­ties and lux­uries of a sol­dier's out­fit that could be thought of. He re­mem­bered how Jarvis, the ar­tillery cap­tain, had showed them, proud and mod­est, his field glass.

“It's a good one,” he had said. “My moth­er gave it to me. It has the Mills scale.”

And An­nes­ley, the kid, who had made his lieu­tenant's com­mis­sion so un­ex­pect­ed­ly, had bro­ken in: “That's no shakes to the socks I've got on. If some­body'll pull off my boots I'll show you. Made in Pough­keep­sie. A dozen pairs. _Not_ my moth­er.”

Lance smiled wist­ful­ly. Since his own moth­er died, eight years ago, he had drift­ed about unan­chored, and though wom­en had in­evitably held out hands to the tall and beau­ti­ful lad, they were not the sort he cared for, and there had been none of his own sort in his life. Fate might so eas­ily have giv­en him a chance to serve his coun­try, with al­so, maybe, just the com­mon sweet things added which ut­most ev­ery fel­low had, and a wom­an or two to give him a send­off and to write him let­ters over there some­times. To be a sol­dier--and to be some­body's sol­dier! Why, these two things would mean Heav­en! And hun­dreds of thou­sands of Amer­ican boys had these and thought noth­ing of it. Fate cer­tain­ly had been a bit stingy with a chap, con­sid­ered David Lance, smil­ing in­to his lit­tle fire with a touch of wist­ful self-​pity.

At this mo­ment Fate, in smart, dark liv­ery, knocked at his door. “Come in,” shout­ed Lance cheer­ful­ly.

The door opened and he stared. Some­body had lost the way. Chauf­feurs in ex­pen­sive liv­ery did not come to his hall bed­room. “Is dis yer Mr. Lance?” in­quired Jack­son.

Lance ad­mit­ted it and got the note and read it while Jack­son, know­ing his Fam­ily in­ti­mate­ly, knew that some­thing pleas­ant and sur­pris­ing was afoot and as­sist­ed with a dis­creet re­gard. When he saw that the note was fin­ished, Jack­son con­fi­dent­ly put in his word. “Cyar's wait­in', sir. Or­ders is I was to tote you to de house.”

Lance's eyes glow­ered as he looked up. “Tell me one thing,” he de­mand­ed.

“Yes, sir,” grinned Jack­son, pleased with this young gen­tle­man from a very poor neigh­bor­hood, who quite ev­ident­ly was, all the same, “qual­ity.”

“Are you,” in­quired Lance, “are you any re­la­tion to Aunt Basha?”

Jack­son, for all his ef­fi­cien­cy a friend­ly soul, for­got the dig­ni­ty of his liv­ery and broke in­to chuck­les. “Naw, sir; naw, sir. I dun­no de la­dy, sir; I reck­on I ain't, sir,” an­swered Jack­son.

“All right, then, but it's the mis­take of your life not to be. She's the best on earth. Wait till I brush my hair,” said Lance, and did it.

In­side three min­utes he was in the big Pierce-​Ar­row, al­most as un­fa­mil­iar, al­most as de­light­ful to him as to Aunt Basha, and speed­ing glo­ri­ous­ly through the streets. The note had said that some kins­peo­ple had just dis­cov­ered him, and would he come straight to them for lunch.

Mrs. Ca­bell and Eleanor crowd­ed frankly to the win­dow when the car stopped.

“I can't wait to see David's boy,” cried Mrs. Ca­bell, and Eleanor, wise of her gen­er­ation, fol­lowed with:

“Now, don't ex­pect much; he may be dead­ly.”

And out of the limou­sine stepped, un­con­scious, the beau­ti­ful David, and hand­ed Jack­son a dol­lar.

“Oh!” gasped Mrs. Ca­bell.

“It was sil­ly, but I love it,” added Eleanor; and David limped swift­ly up the steps, and one heard Ebenez­er, the but­ler, open­ing the door with sus­pi­cious prompt­ness. Ev­ery­one in the house knew, mys­te­ri­ous­ly, that un­com­mon things were do­ing.

“Pendle­ton,” spoke Mrs. Ca­bell, ly­ing in wait for her son, the great doc­tor, as he came from his of­fice at lunch time, “Pen, dear, let me tell you some­thing ex­traor­di­nary.” She told, him, con­dens­ing as might be, and end­ed with; “And oh, Pen, he's the most adorable boy I ev­er saw. And so lone­ly and so poor and so plucky. Heart­bro­ken be­cause he's lame and can't serve. You'll cure him. Pen, dear, won't you, for his coun­try?”

The tall, tired man bent down and kissed his moth­er. “Mum­my, I'm not God Almighty. But I'll do my damdest for any­thing you want. Show me the paragon.”

The paragon shot up, with the small un­even­ness which was his limp, and faced the big doc­tor on a lev­el. The two pairs of eyes from their un­com­mon height, looked in­quir­ing­ly in­to each oth­er.

“I hear you have my name,” spoke Dr. Ca­bell terse­ly.

“Yes, sir,” said David, “And I'm glad.” And the doc­tor knew that he al­so liked the paragon.

Lunch was an epic meal above and be­low stairs. Jeems had been fetched by that black Mer­cury Jack­son, mes­sen­ger to­day of the gods of joy. And the two old souls had been told by Mrs. Ca­bell that nev­er again should they work hard or be anx­ious or want for any­thing. The sen­sa­tion-​lov­ing col­ored ser­vants re­joiced in the events as a per­son­al ju­bilee, and made much of Aunt Basha and Unc' Jeems till their old heads reeled. Above stairs the scroll un­rolled more or loss deco­rous­ly, yet in mag­ic col­ors un­be­liev­able. Some­how David had told about An­nes­ley and Jarvis last night.

“Some­body knit­ted him a whole dozen pairs of socks!” he com­ment­ed, “Re­al­ly she did. He said so. Think of a girl be­ing as good to a chap as that.”

“I'll knit you a dozen,” Miss Eleanor Ca­bell capped his sen­tence, like the Amen at the end of a High Church prayer. “I'll be­gin this af­ter­noon.”

“And, David,” said Mrs. Ca­bell--for it had got to be “David” and “Cousin Vir­ginia” by now--“David, when you get your com­mis­sion, I'll have your field glass ready, and a few oth­er things.”

Dr. Ca­bell lift­ed his eyes from his chop. “You'll spoil that boy,” he stat­ed. “And, moth­er, I point­ed out that I'm not the Almighty, even on joints, I haven't looked at that game leg yet. I said it _might_ be cur­able.”

“That boy” looked up, smil­ing, with long years of lone­li­ness and lame­ness writ­ten in the back of his glance. “Please don't make 'em stop, doc­tor,” he begged. “I won't spoil eas­ily. I haven't any start. And this is a fairy-​sto­ry to me--won­der­ful peo­ple like you let­ting me--let­ting me be­long. I can't be­lieve I won't wake up. Don't you imag­ine it will go to my head. It won't. I'm just so blamed--grate­ful.”

The deep young voice trailed, and the doc­tor made haste to an­swer. “You're all right, my lad,” he said, “As soon as lunch is over you come in­to the surgery and I'll have a glance at the leg.” Which was done.

Af­ter half an hour David came out, limp­ing, pale and ra­di­ant. “I can't be­lieve it,” he spoke breath­less. “He says--it's a sim­ple--op­er­ation. I'll walk--like oth­er men. I'll be right for--the ser­vice.” He choked.

At that Mrs. Ca­bell sped across the room and put up hands ei­ther side of the young face and drew it down and kissed the lad whom she did not, this morn­ing, know to be in ex­is­tence. “You blessed boy,” she whis­pered, “you shall fight for Amer­ica, and you'll be our sol­dier, and we'll be your peo­ple.” And David, kiss­ing her again, looked over her head and saw Eleanor glow­ing like a rose, and with a swift, un­phrased shock of hap­pi­ness felt in his soul the won­der of a heav­en that might hap­pen. Then they were all about the fire, half-​cry­ing, laugh­ing, as peo­ple do on top of strong feel­ings.

“Aunt Basha did it all,” said David. “If Aunt Basha hadn't been the most mag­nif­icent old black wom­an who ev­er car­ried a snow-​white soul, if she hadn't been the truest pa­tri­ot in all Amer­ica, if she hadn't giv­en ev­ery­thing for her coun­try--I'd like­ly nev­er have--found you.” His eyes went to the two kind and smil­ing faces, and his last word was a whis­per. It was so much to have found. All he had dreamed, peo­ple of his own, a straight leg--and--his heart's de­sire--ser­vice to Amer­ica.

Mrs. Ca­bell spoke soft­ly, “I've lived a long time and I've seen over and over that a good deed spreads hap­pi­ness like a peb­ble thrown in­to wa­ter, more than a bad one spreads evil, for good is stronger and more con­ta­gious. We've gained this dear kins­man to­day be­cause of the no­bil­ity of an old ne­gro wom­an.”

David Lance lift­ed his head quick­ly. “It was no small no­bil­ity,” he said. “As Miss Ca­bell was say­ing--”

“I'm your cousin Eleanor,” in­ter­rupt­ed Miss Ca­bell.

David lin­gered over the name. “Thank you, my cousin Eleanor. It's as you said, noth­ing more beau­ti­ful and won­der­ful has been done in won­der­ful Amer­ica than this thing Aunt Basha did. It was as gal­lant as a sol­dier at the front, for she of­fered what meant pos­si­bly her life.”

“Her lit­tle two hun­dred,” Eleanor spoke gen­tly. “And so cross at the idea of be­ing paid back! She want­ed to _give_ it.”

David's face gleamed with a thought as he stared in­to the fire­light, “You see,” he worked out his idea, “by the stan­dards of the an­gels a gift must be big not ac­cord­ing to its size but ac­cord­ing to what's left. If you have mil­lions and give a few thou­sand you prac­ti­cal­ly give noth­ing, for you have mil­lions left. But Aunt Basha had noth­ing left. The an­gels must have beat­en drums and blown trum­pets and raised Cain all over Par­adise while you sat in the bank, my cousin Eleanor, for the glo­ry of that record gift. No plu­to­crat in the land has touched what Aunt Basha did for her coun­try.”

Eleanor's eyes, send­ing out not on­ly clear vi­sion but a brown light as of the light of stars, shone on the boy. She bent for­ward, and her slen­der arms were about her knee. She gazed at David, mar­veling. How could it be that a hu­man be­ing might have all that David ap­peared to her to have--clear brain, crys­tal sim­plic­ity, man­li­ness, charm of per­son­al­ity, and such strength and beau­ty be­sides!

“Yes,” she said, “Aunt Basha gave the most. She has more right than any of us to say that it's her coun­try.” She was silent a mo­ment and then spoke soft­ly a sin­gle word. “Amer­ica!” said Eleanor rev­er­ent­ly.

Amer­ica! Her sound has gone out in­to all lands and her words in­to the end of the world. Amer­ica, who in a year took four mil­lion of sons un­tried, un­trained, and made them in­to a mighty army; who ad­just­ed a na­tion of a hun­dred mil­lion souls in a turn of the hand to un­known and un­heard of con­di­tions. Amer­ica, whose great­est glo­ry yet is not these things. Amer­ica, of whom schol­ars and states­men and gen­er­als and mul­ti-​mil­lion­aires say with throb­bing pride to­day: “This is my coun­try,” but of whom the least in the land, hav­ing brought what they may, how­ev­er small, to lay on that flam­ing al­tar of the world's safe­ty--of whom the least in the land may say as tru­ly as the great­est, “This is my coun­try, too.”

THE SWAL­LOW

The Château Fron­tenac at Que­bec is a tur­ret­ed pile of ma­son­ry wan­der­ing down a cliff over the very cel­lars of the an­cient Cas­tle of St. Louis. A twen­ti­eth-​cen­tu­ry ho­tel, it sim­ulates well a mediæ­val fortress and lifts against the cold blue north­ern sky an at­mo­sphere of his­to­ry. Old voic­es whis­per about its tow­ers and above the clang­ing hoofs in its paved court; death­less names are in the wind which blows from the “fleuve,” the great St. Lawrence Riv­er far be­low. Jacques Carti­er's voice was heard here­abouts away back in 1539, and af­ter him oth­ers, Cham­plain and Fron­tenac, and Fa­ther Jogues and Moth­er Marie of the Con­cep­tion and Mont­calm--up­stand­ing fight­ing men and hero­ic wom­en and hardy dis­cov­er­ers of New France walked about here once, on the “Rock” of Que­bec; there is ro­mance here if any­where on earth. To­day a new knight­hood hails that past. Uni­forms are thick in steep streets; men are wear­ing them with emp­ty sleeves, on crutch­es, or maybe whole of body yet with racked faces which reg­is­ter a hell lived through. Cana­da guards hero­ism of many vin­tages, from four hun­dred years back through the years to Wolfe's time, and now a new har­vest. Cen­turies from now chil­dren will be told, with the sto­ry of Carti­er, the tale of Vimy Ridge, and while the Rock stands the records of French­men in Cana­da, of Cana­di­ans in France will not die.

Al­ways when I go to the Château I get a ta­ble, if I can, in the small­er din­ing-​room. There the il­lu­sion of an­tiq­ui­ty holds through mod­ern lux­ury; there they have hung about the walls por­traits of the wor­thies of old Que­bec; there Samuel Cham­plain him­self, made in­to bronze and hero­ic of size, aloft on his pedestal on the ter­race out­side, lifts his plumed hat and stares in at the nar­row win­dows, turn­ing his back on riv­er and low­er city. One dis­re­gards wait­ers in evening clothes and up-​to-​date ta­ble ap­point­ments, and one looks at Cham­plain and the “fleuve,” and the Isle d'Or­léans ly­ing long and low, and one thinks of lit­tle ships, storm-​beat­en, creep­ing up to this grim big­ness ig­no­rant of con­ti­nen­tal events trail­ing in their wake.

I was on my way to camp in a club a hun­dred miles north of the gray-​walled town when I drift­ed in­to the lit­tle din­ing-​room for din­ner one night in ear­ly Septem­ber in 1918. The head-​wait­er was an old friend; he came to meet me and pi­lot­ed me past a table­ful of mil­itary col­or, four men in ser­vice uni­forms.

“Some high of­fi­cers, sir,” spoke the head wait­er. “In con­fer­ence here, I be­lieve. There's a French of­fi­cer, and an En­glish, and our Cana­di­an Gen­er­al Samp­son, and one of your gen­er­als, sir.”

I gave my or­der and sat back to study the group. The wait­er had it straight; there was the hori­zon blue of France; there was the En­glish­man tall and lean and rud­dy and ex­pres­sion­less and hand­some; there was the Cana­di­an, more of our own cut, with a mo­bile, alert face. The Amer­ican had his back to me and all I could see was an erect car­riage, a brown head go­ing to gray, and the one star of a brigadier-​gen­er­al on his shoul­ders. The be­gin­nings of my din­ner went fast, but af­ter soup there was a lull be­fore greater food, and I paid at­ten­tion again to my neigh­bors. They were talk­ing in En­glish.

“A Huron of Lorette--does that mean a full-​blood­ed In­di­an of the Huron tribe, such as one reads of in Park­man?” It was the En­glish­man who asked, re­spond­ing to some­thing I had not heard.

“There's no such an­imal as a full-​blood­ed Huron,” stat­ed the Cana­di­an. “They're all French-​In­di­an half-​breeds now. Lorette's an in­ter­est­ing scrap of his­to­ry, just the same. You know your Park­man? You re­mem­ber how the Iro­quois fol­lowed the de­feat­ed Hurons as far as the Isle d'Or­léans, out there?” He nod­ded to­ward where the big is­land lay in the dark­ness of the St. Lawrence. “Well, what was left af­ter that chase took refuge fif­teen miles north of Que­bec, and found­ed what be­came and has stayed the vil­lage of In­di­an Lorette. There are now about five or six hun­dred peo­ple, and it's a na­tion. Un­der its own laws, deal­ing by treaty with Cana­da, not sub­ject to draft, for in­stance. Queer, isn't it? They guard their iden­ti­ty vig­ilant­ly. Ev­ery one, man or wom­an, who mar­ries in­to the tribe, as they re­li­gious­ly call it, is from then on a Huron. And on­ly those who have Huron blood may own land in Lorette. The Hurons were, as Park­man put it, 'the gen­tle­men of the sav­ages,' and the tra­di­tion lasts. The half-​breed of to­day is a good sort, self-​re­spect­ing and brave, not pro­gres­sive, but in­tel­li­gent, with pride in his in­her­itance, his courage, and his wood­scraft.”

The Cana­di­an, fac­ing me, spoke dis­tinct­ly and much as Amer­icans speak; I caught ev­ery word. But I missed what the French gen­er­al threw back rapid­ly. I won­dered why the French­man should be ex­cit­ed. I my­self was in­ter­est­ed be­cause my guides, due to meet me at the club sta­tion to­mor­row, were all half-​breed Hurons. But why the French of­fi­cer? What should a French­man of France know about back­wa­ters of Cana­di­an his­to­ry? And with that he sud­den­ly spoke slow­ly, and I caught sev­er­al sen­tences of in­ci­sive if halt­ing En­glish.

“Zey are to as­ton­ish, ze In­di­an Hurong. For ze sort of work spe­cial-​ment, as like scout­ing on a stom­ach. Qu-​vick, ver' qu-​vick, and ver' qui­et. By dark places of dan­ger. One sees zat nozzing at all af-​fright­ens zose Hurong. Al­so zey are alike snakes, one can­not catch zem--zey slide; zey are slip­py. To me it is to ad­mire zat courage most--per­son­nel--self­eesh--be­cause an Hurong safe my life dere is six mont', when ze Boches make ze drive of ze mont' of March.”

At this mo­ment food ar­rived in a flur­ry, and I lost what came af­ter. But I had for­got­ten the Château Fron­tenac; I had for­got­ten the group of of­fi­cers, se­ri­ous and re­spon­si­ble, who sat on at the next ta­ble. I had for­got­ten even the war. A word had sent my mind roam­ing. “Huron!” Mem­ory and hope at that re­peat­ed word rose and flew away with me. Hope first. To­mor­row I was due to drop civ­iliza­tion and its teth­ers.

“Al­lah does not count the days spent out of doors.” In Wal­ter Pa­ter's sto­ry of “Mar­ius the Epi­cure­an” one reads of a Ro­man coun­try-​seat called “Ad Vig­ilias Al­bas,” “White Nights.” A sense of dream­less sleep dis­tils from the name. One re­mem­bers such nights, and the fresh world of the awak­en­ing in the morn­ing. There are such days. There are days which rip­ple past as a night of sleep and leave a worn brain at the end with the same sat­is­fac­tion of re­new­al; white days. Crys­tal they are, like the wa­ter of streams, as mu­si­cal and event­less; as elu­sive of de­scrip­tion as the rip­ple over rocks or brown pools foam­ing.

The days and months and years of a life race with ac­cel­er­at­ing pace and youth goes and age comes as the days race, but one is not old­er for the white days. The clock stops, the blood runs faster, fur­rows in gray mat­ter smooth out, time for­gets to put in tiny crow's-​feet and the ex­tra gray hair a week, or to with­draw by the hun­dredth of an ounce the oxy­gen from the veins; one grows no old­er for the days spent out of doors. Al­lah does not count them.

It was days like these which hope held ahead as I paid earnest at­ten­tion to the good food set be­fore me. And be­hold, be­side the pleas­ant vi­sion of hope rose a hap­py-​mind­ed sis­ter called mem­ory. She took the word “Huron,” this kind­ly spir­it, and played mag­ic with it, and the walls of the Château rolled in­to rustling trees and run­ning wa­ter.

I was sit­ting, in my vi­sion, in flan­nel shirt and knicker­bock­ers, on a log by a lit­tle riv­er, putting to­geth­er fish­ing tack­le and cast­ing an eye, off and on, where rapids broke cold over rocks and whirled in­to foam-​flecked, shad­owy pools. There should be trout in those shad­ows.

“Take the butt, Rafael, while I string the line.”

Rafael slipped across--still in my vi­sion of mem­ory--and was hold­ing my rod as a rod should be held, not too high or too low, or too far or too near--right. He was an old Huron, a chief of In­di­an Lorette, and woods craft was to him as breath­ing.

“A var­ry light rod,” com­ment­ed Rafael in his low voice which held no tones out of har­mo­ny with wa­ter in streams or wind in trees. “A var­ry light, good rod,” pay­ing mean­while strict at­ten­tion to his job. “M'sieu go haf a luck to­day. I t'ink M'sieu go catch a beeg fish on dat riv­er. Wa­ter high enough--not too high. And cold.” He shiv­ered a lit­tle. “Cold last night--var­ry cold nights be­gin now. Good hun-​ting wed­der.”

“Have you got a moose ready for me on the lit­tle lake, Rafael? It's the 1st of Septem­ber next week and I ex­pect you to give me a shot be­fore the 3d.”

Rafael nod­ded. “Oui, m'sieur. First day.” The keen-​eyed, aquiline old face was as of a prophet. “We go get moose first day. I show you.” With that the laugh­ter-​lov­ing French­man in him flood­ed over the In­di­an hunter; for a sec­ond the two in­her­itances played like col­ors in shot silk, pro­duc­ing an elu­sive fab­ric, Rafael's charm. “If nights get so cold­er, m'sieur go need moose skin kip him warm.”

I was look­ing over my flies now, the book open be­fore me, its fas­ci­nat­ing pages of col­or more bril­liant than an old missal, and maybe as filled with re­li­gion--the peace of God, char­ity which en­dureth, love to one's neigh­bor. I chose a Par­ma­ch­ene Belle for hand-​fly, al­ways good in Cana­di­an wa­ters. “A moose-​skin hasn't much warmth, has it, Rafael?”

The hunter was back, hawk-​eyed. “But yes, m'sieu. Moose skin one time safe me so I don' freeze to death. But it hol' me so tight so I near­ly don' get loose in de morn­ing.”

“What do you mean?” I was on­ly half lis­ten­ing, for a brown hack­le and a Mon­tre­al were com­pet­ing for the mid­dle place on my cast, and it was a vi­tal point. But Rafael liked to tell a sto­ry, and had come by now to a con­fi­dence in my lik­ing to hear him. He flashed a glance to gath­er up my at­ten­tion, and cleared his throat and be­gan: “Dat was one time--I go on de woods--hunt wid my fad­er-​in-​law--_mon beau-​père_. It was mont' of March--and col'--but ver' col' and wet. So it hap­pen we sep­arate, my fador-​in-​law and me, to hunt on both side of large enough riv­er. And I kill moose. What, m'sieur? What sort of gun? Yes. It was ri­fle--what one call flint-​lock. Large round bore. I cast dat beeg ball my­self, what I kill dat moose. Al­so it was col'. And so it hap­pen my match­es got wet, but yes, ev-​very one. So I couldn' buil' fire. I was tired, yes, and much col'. I t'ink in my head to hur­ry and skin dat moose and wrap my­self in dat skin and go sleep on de snow be­cause if not I would die, I was so col' and so tired. I do dat. I skin heem--_je le plumait_--de beeg moose--beeg skin. Skin all warm off moose; I wrap all aroun' me and dig hole and lie down on deep snow and draw skin over head and over feet, and fol' arms, so”--Rafael il­lus­trat­ed--“and I hol' it aroun' wid my hands. And I get warm right away, warm, as bread toast. So I been slip­py, and heavy wid tired, and I got com­fort­able in dat moose skin and I go aslip quick. I wake ear­ly on morn­ing, and dat skin got froze tight, like box made on wood, and I hol' in dat wid my arms fol' so, and my head down so”--il­lus­tra­tions again--“and I can't move, not one inch. No. What, m'sieur? Yes, I was enough warm, me. But I lie lak dat and can't move, and I t'ink somet'ing. I t'ink I got die lak dat, in moose-​skin. If no sun come, I did got die. But dat day sun come and be warm, and moose skin melt lil' bit, slow, and I push lil' bit wid shoul­der, and af­ter while I got ice broke, on moose skin, and I crawl out. Yes. I don' die yet.”

Rafael's chuck­le was an amen to his saga, and at once, with one of his light­ning-​changes, he was aus­tere.

“M'sieur go need beeg trout tonight; not go need moose skin till nex' wik. Ze rod is ready take feesh, I see feesh jump by ole log. Not much room to cast, but m'sieur can do it. Shall I car­ry rod down to riv­er for m'sieur?”

In not so many words as I have writ­ten, but in clear pic­tures which com­pre­hend­ed the words, Mem­ory, that tem­per­amen­tal god­dess of moods, had, at the prick of the word “Huron,” shak­en out this soft-​col­ored tapestry of the for­est, and held it be­fore my eyes. And as she with­drew this one, oth­ers took its place and at length I was mus­ing pro­found­ly, as I put more of some­thing on my plate and tucked it away in­to my anato­my. I mused about Rafael, the guide of six­ty, who had be­gun a life of con­tin­ued la­bor at eight years; I con­sid­ered the undy­ing In­di­an in him; how with the fa­ther who was “French of Pi­cardy”--the white blood be­ing a pride to Rafael--he him­self, yes, and the fa­ther al­so, for he had mar­ried a “_sauvagess_,” a Huron wom­an--had be­longed to the tribe and were ac­count­ed Hurons; I con­sid­ered Rafael's proud car­riage, his clas­sic head and carved fea­tures, his In­di­an aus­ter­ity and his French mirth weav­ing in and out of each oth­er; I con­sid­ered the fine­ness and the fear­less­ness of his spir­it, which long hard­ship had not blunt­ed; I re­flect­ed on the tales he had told me of a youth forced to fight the world. “_On a vu de le mis­ère_,” Rafael had said: “One has seen trou­ble”--shak­ing his head, with lines of old suf­fer­ing emerg­ing from the re­serve of his face like writ­ing in sym­pa­thet­ic ink un­der heat. And I mar­velled that through such fire, out of such ne­glect, out of lack of op­por­tu­ni­ty and bit­ter pres­sure, the steel of a char­ac­ter should have been tem­pered to gen­tle­ness and brav­ery and hon­or.

For it was a very splen­did old boy who was cook­ing for me and greas­ing my boots and go­ing off with me af­ter moose; putting his keen an­ces­tral in­stincts of three thou­sand years at my ser­vice for three dol­lars a day. With my chances would not Rafael have been a big­ger man than I? At least nev­er could I achieve that grand air, that aus­tere re­pose of man­ner which he had got with no trou­ble at all from a line of un­washed but coura­geous old bucks, think­ing high­ly of them­selves for un­told gen­er­ations, and killing ev­ery­thing which thought oth­er­wise. I laughed all but aloud at this spot in my med­ita­tions, as a spe­cial vi­sion of Rafael rose sud­den­ly, when he had stat­ed, on a day, his views of the great war. He talked plain lan­guage about the Ger­mans. He spec­ified why he con­sid­ered the na­tion a dis­grace to hu­man­ity--most peo­ple, not Ger­man, agree on the the­sis and its spec­ifi­ca­tions. Then the fire of his an­cient fight­ing blood blazed through re­straint of man­ner. He drew up his tall fig­ure, slim-​waist­ed, deep-​shoul­dered, ev­ery inch slid­ing mus­cle. “I am too old to go on first call to army,” said Rafael. “Zey will not take me. Yes, and on sec­ond call. Maybe zird time. But if time come when army take me--I go. If I may kill four Ger­mans I will be con­tent,” stat­ed Rafael con­cise­ly. And his war­rior fore­bears would have been proud of him as he stat­ed it.

My re­flec­tions were dis­turbed here by the Amer­ican gen­er­al at the next ta­ble. He was spo­ken to by his wait­er and shot up and left the room, car­ry­ing, how­ev­er, his nap­kin in his hand, so that I knew he was due to come back. A half sen­tence sug­gest­ed a tele­phone. I watched the sol­dier­ly back with plen­ty of pa­tri­ot­ic pride; this was the sort of war­rior my coun­try turned out now by tens of thou­sands. With that he re­turned, and as I looked up in­to his face, be­hold it was Fitzhugh.

My chair went bang­ing as I sprang to­ward him. “Jim!”

And the gen­er­al's calm dig­ni­ty sud­den­ly was the ra­di­ant grin of the boy who had played and gone to school and stolen ap­ples with me for a long bright child­hood--the boy lost sight of these last years of his in the army. “Dave!” he cried out. “Old Davy Cram!” And his arm went around my shoul­der re­gard­less of the pub­lic. “My word, but I'm glad!” he sput­tered. And then: “Come and have din­ner--fin­ish hav­ing it. Come to our ta­ble.” He slewed me about and pre­sent­ed me to the three oth­ers.

In a minute I was in­stalled, to the pride of my friend the head wait­er, at mil­itary head­quar­ters, next to Fitzhugh and the French­man. A cam­pact ré­sumé of per­son­al his­to­ry be­tween Fitzhugh and my­self over, I turned to the blue fig­ure on my left hand, Colonel Raf­fré, of the French, army. On his broad chest hung thrilling bits of col­or, not on­ly the bronze war cross, with its green wa­tered rib­bon striped with red, but the blood-​red rib­bon of the “Great Cross” it­self--the cross of the Le­gion of Hon­or. I spoke to him in French, which hap­pens to be my sec­ond moth­er tongue, and he met the sound with a beam­ing wel­come.

“I don't do En­glish as one should,” he ex­plained in beau­ti­ful Parisian. “No gift of tongues in my kit, I fear; al­so I'm a bit em­bar­rassed at prac­tis­ing on my friends. It's a re­lief to meet some one who speaks per­fect­ly French, as m'sieur.”

M'sieur was grat­ified not to have lost his fa­cil­ity. “But my ear is get­ting slow­er,” I said. “For in­stance, I eaves­dropped a while ago when you were talk­ing about your Huron sol­diers, and I got most of what you said be­cause you spoke En­glish. I doubt if I could if you'd been speak­ing French.”

The colonel shrugged mas­sive shoul­ders. “My En­glish is de­fec­tive but dis­tinct,” he ex­plained. “One is forced to speak slow­ly when one speaks bad­ly. Al­so the Colonel Chichely”--the British­er--“it is he at whom I talk care­ful­ly. The En­glish ear, it is not imag­ina­tive. One must make things clear. You know the Hurons, then?”

I spec­ified how.

“Ah!” he breathed out. “The men in my com­mand had been, some of them, what you call guides. They got across to France in charge of troop hors­es on the ships; then they stayed and en­list­ed. Fine sol­dier stuff. Hardy, and of re­source and of fi­nesse. Quick and fear­less as wild­cats. They fit in­to one niche of the war bet­ter than any oth­er ma­te­ri­al. You heard the sto­ry of my res­cue?”

I had not. At that point food had in­ter­fered, and I asked if it was too much that the colonel should re­peat.

“By no means,” agreed the po­lite colonel, ready, more­over, I guessed, for any amount of talk in his na­tive tongue. He launched an epic episode. “I was hit lead­ing, in a charge, two bat­tal­ions. I need not have done that,” an­oth­er shrug--“but what will you? It was snow­ing; it was go­ing to be bad work; one could per­haps put courage in­to the men by be­ing at their head. It is of­ten the du­ty of an of­fi­cer to do more than, his du­ty--_n'est-​ce-​pas?_ So that I was hit in the right knee and the left shoul­der _par ex­em­ple_, and fell about six yards from the Ger­man trench­es. A place un­healthy, and one sees I could not run away, be­ing shot on the bias. I shammed dead. An alive French of­fi­cer would have been too in­ter­est­ing in that scenery. I as­sure m'sieur that the _en­tr'actes_ are far too long in No Man's Land. I be­came more and more dis­pleased with the man­age­ment of that play as I lay, very bad­ly amused with my wounds, and afraid to blink an eye, be­ing a corpse. The Huns de­mand a high state of im­mo­bil­ity in corpses. But I fell hap­pi­ly side­wise, and out of the ex­treme cor­ner of the left eye I caught a glimpse of our sand-​bags. One blessed that twist, though it be­came enough _en­nuyant_, and one would have giv­en a year of good life to turn over. Mere­ly to turn over. Am I fa­tigu­ing m'sieur?” the colonel broke in.

I prod­ded him back ea­ger­ly in­to his tale.

“M'sieur is ami­able. The long and short of it is that when it be­came dark my good lads be­gan to try to res­cue my body. Four or five times that one-​twen­ti­eth of eye saw a wrig­gling form work through sand-​bags and start slow­ly, flat to the earth, to­ward me. But the ground was snow-​cov­ered and the Ger­mans saw too the dark uni­form. Each time a fusil­lade of shots broke out, and the mov­ing fig­ure dropped hasti­ly be­hind the sand-​bags. And each time--” the colonel stopped to light a cigarette, his face rud­dy in the glare of the match. “Each time I was--dis­ap­point­ed. I be­came dis­gust­ed with the man­age­ment of that the­atre, till at last the af­fair seemed be­yond hope, and I had about de­ter­mined to turn over and draw up my bad leg with my good hand for a bit of ease­ment and be shot com­fort­ably, when I was aware that the sur­face of the ground near by was heav­ing--the white, snowy ground heav­ing. I was close enough to mad­ness be­tween cold and pain, and I re­gard­ed the phe­nomenon as a dream. But with that hands came out of the heav­ing ground, eyes gleamed. A rope was lashed about my mid­dle and I was drawn to­ward our trench­es.” The cigarette puffed vig­or­ous­ly at this point. “M'sieur sees?”

I did not.

The colonel laughed. “One of my Hurons had the in­spi­ra­tion to run to a farm­house not far away and req­ui­si­tion a sheet. He wrapped him­self in it, head and all, and, be­ing In­di­an, it was a bagatelle to him to crawl out on his stom­ach. They were pleased enough, my good fel­lows, when they found they had got not on­ly my body but al­so me in it.”

“I can imag­ine, know­ing Hurons, how that Huron en­joyed his suc­cess,” I said. “It's in their blood to be swift and silent and ad­ven­tur­ous. But they're su­per­sti­tious; they're afraid of any­thing su­per­nat­ural.” I hes­itat­ed, with a laugh in my mind at a mem­ory. “It's not fit­ting that I should swap sto­ries with a hero of the Great War, yet--I be­lieve you might be amused with an ad­ven­ture of one of my guides.” The French­man, all civ­il in­ter­est, dis­claimed his hero­ism with hands and shoul­ders, but smil­ing too--for he had small chance at dis­claim­ing with those two cross­es on his breast.

“I shall be en­chant­ed to hear m'sieur's tale of his guide. For the rest I am my­self quite mad over the 'sport.' I love to in­san­ity the out of doors and shoot­ing and fish­ing. It is a re­gret that the ser­vice has giv­en me no op­por­tu­ni­ty these four years for a breath­ing spell in the woods. M'sieur will tell me the tale of his guide's su­per­sti­tion?”

A scheme be­gan to form in my brain at that in­stant too de­light­ful, it seemed, to come true. I put it aside and went on with my sto­ry. “I have one guide, a Huron half-​breed,” I said, “whom I par­tic­ular­ly like. He's an old fel­low--six­ty--but light and quick and pow­er­ful as a boy. More in­ter­est­ing than a boy, be­cause he's full of ex­pe­ri­ences. Two years ago a bear swam across the lake where my camp is, and I went out in a ca­noe with this Rafael and got him.”

Colonel Raf­fré made of this fact an event larg­er than--I am sure--he would have made of his win­ning of the war cross.

“You shame me, colonel,” I said, and went on hur­ried­ly. “Rafael, the guide, was pleased about the bear. 'When gen­tle­mens kill t'in­gs, guides is more hap­py,' he ex­plained to me, and he pro­ceed­ed to tell an anec­dote. He pref­aced it by in­form­ing me that one time he hunt bear and he see dev­il. He had been hunt­ing, it seemed, two or three win­ters be­fore with his broth­er-​in-​law at the head­wa­ters of the St. Mau­rice Riv­er, up north there,” I elu­ci­dat­ed, point­ing through the win­dow to­ward the “long white street of Beau­port,” across the St. Lawrence. “It's very lone­ly coun­try, en­tire­ly wild, In­di­an hunt­ing-​ground yet. These two Hurons, Rafael and his broth­er-​in-​law, were on a two months' trip to hunt and trap, hav­ing their mea­gre be­long­ings and pro­vi­sions on sleds which they dragged across the snow. They de­pend­ed for food most­ly on what they could trap or shoot--moose, cari­bou, beaver, and small an­imals. But they had bad luck. They set many traps but caught noth­ing, and they saw no game to shoot. So that in a month they were hard pressed. One cold day they went two miles to vis­it a beaver trap, where they had seen signs. They hoped to find an an­imal caught and to feast on beaver tail, which is good eat­ing.”

Here I had to stop and ex­plain much about beaver tails, and the rest of beavers, to the French­man, who was in­ter­est­ed like a boy in this new, al­most un­heard-​of beast. At length:

"Rafael and his broth­er-​in-​law were dis­ap­point­ed. A beaver had been close and eat­en the bark off a birch stick which the men had left, but noth­ing was in the trap. They turned and be­gan a weary walk through the des­olate coun­try back to their lit­tle tent. Small com­fort wait­ed for them there, as their pro­vi­sions were low, on­ly flour and ba­con left. And they dared not ex­pend much of that. They were down-​heart­ed, and to add to it a snow-​storm came on and they lost their way. Al­most a hope­less sit­ua­tion--an un­in­hab­it­ed coun­try, win­ter, snow, hunger. And they were lost. '_Egaré. Per­du_,' Rafael said. But the Huron was far from giv­ing up. He peered through the falling snow, not thick yet, and spied a moun­tain across a val­ley. He knew that moun­tain. He had worked near it for two years, log­ging--the '_chantier_,' they call it. He knew there was a good camp on a riv­er near the moun­tain, and he knew there would be a stove in the camp and, as Rafael said, 'Mebbe we haf a luck and some­body done gone and lef' somet'ing to eat,' Rafael prefers to talk En­glish to me. He told me all this in bro­ken En­glish.

“It was three miles to the hy­po­thet­ical camp, but the two tired, hun­gry men in their rather wretched clothes start­ed hope­ful­ly. And af­ter a hard tramp through un­bro­ken for­est they came in sight of a log shan­ty and their spir­its rose. 'Pret­ty tired work,' Rafael said it was. When they got close to the shan­ty they hoard a noise in­side. They halt­ed and looked at each oth­er. Rafael knew there were no log­gers in these parts now, and you'll re­mem­ber it was ab­so­lute­ly wild coun­try. Then some­thing came to the win­dow and looked out.”

“_Some­thing_?” re­peat­ed the French­man in ital­ics. His eyes were wide and he was as in­tent on Rafael's sto­ry as heart could de­sire.

“They couldn't tell what it was,” I went on. "A form­less ap­pari­tion, not ex­act­ly white or black, and huge and un­known of like­ness. The In­di­ans were fright­ened by a man­ner of un­earth­li­ness about the thing, and the broth­er-​in-​law fell on his knees and be­gan to pray. 'It is the dev­il,' he mur­mured to Rafael. 'He will eat us, or car­ry us to hell.' And he prayed more.

"But old Rafael, scared to death, too, be­cause the thing seemed not to be of this world, yet had his courage with him. 'Mebbe it dev­il,' he said--such was his re­port to me--'any­how I'm cold and hun­gry, me. I want dat camp. I go shoot dat dev­il.'

“He crept up to the camp alone, the broth­er still pray­ing in the bush. Rafael was rather con­vinced, mind you, that he was go­ing to face the pow­ers of dark­ness, but he had his ri­fle load­ed and was ready for busi­ness. The door was open and he stepped in­side. Some­thing--'great beeg somet'ing' he put it--rose up and came at him, and he fired. And down fell the dev­il.”

“In the name of a sa­cred pig, what was it?” de­mand­ed my French­man.

“That was what I asked. It was a bear. The men who had been log­ging in the camp two months back had left a keg of maple-​syrup and a half bar­rel of flour, and the bear broke in­to both--suc­ces­sive­ly--and al­ter­nate­ly. He prob­ably thought he was in bear-​heav­en for a while, but it must have got­ten irk­some. For his head was eigh­teen inch­es wide when they found him, white, with black touch­es. They soaked him in the riv­er two days, and sold his skin for twen­ty dol­lars. 'Pret­ty good for dev­il skin,' Rafael said.”

The French­man stared at me a mo­ment and then leaned back in his chair and shout­ed laugh­ter. The greedy bear's fin­ish had hit his fun­ny-​bone. And the three oth­ers stopped talk­ing and de­mand­ed the sto­ry told over, which I did, con­dens­ing.

“I like zat Hurong for my sol­dier,” Colonel Raf­fré stat­ed hearti­ly. “Ze man what are not afraid of man _or_ of dev­il--zat is ze man to fight ze Boches.” He was talk­ing En­glish now be­cause Colonel Chichely was lis­ten­ing. He went on. “Zere is hu­man dev­ils--oh, but plen­tee--what we fight in France. I haf not heard of ozzers. But I be­lieve well ze man who pull me out in sheet would be as your guide Rafael--he al­so would crip up wiz his ri­fle on re­al dev­il out of hell. But yes. I haf not told you how my In­di­an sol­dier bring in pris­on­ers--no?”

We all agreed no, and put in a re­quest.

“He brings zem in not one by one al­ways--not al­ways.” The colonel grinned. He went on to tell this tale, which I shift in­to the ver­nac­ular from his la­bo­ri­ous En­glish.

It ap­pears that he had dis­cerned the ap­ti­tude of his Hurons for re­con­nais­sance work. If he need­ed in­for­ma­tion out of the dan­ger­ous coun­try ly­ing in front, if he need­ed a pris­on­er to ques­tion, these men were ea­ger to go and get ei­ther, get any­thing. The more haz­ardous the job the bet­ter, and for a long time they came out of it un­touched. In the group one man--nick­named by the poilus, his com­rades--Hi­ron­delle--the Swal­low--sup­pos­ed­ly be­cause of his light­ness and swift­ness, was eas­ily chief. He had a fault, how­ev­er, his dis­like to bring in pris­on­ers alive. Four times he had haled a Ger­man corpse be­fore the colonel, seem­ing not right­ly to un­der­stand that a dead en­emy was use­less for in­for­ma­tion.

“The Boches are good killing,” he had elu­ci­dat­ed to his of­fi­cer. And fi­nal­ly: “It is well, m'sieur, the colonel. One failed to un­der­stand that the colonel prefers a live Boche to a dead one. Me, I am oth­er­wise. It ap­pears a pity to let live such ver­min. Has the colonel, by chance, heard the things these sav­ages did in Bel­gium? Yes? But then--Yet I will bring to m'sieur, the colonel, all there is to be de­sired of Ger­man pris­on­ers alive--_en vie_; fat ones; _en masse_.”

That night Hi­ron­delle was sent out with four of his fel­low Hurons to get, if pos­si­ble, a pris­on­er. Pret­ty soon he was sep­arat­ed from the oth­ers; all but him­self re­turn­ing emp­ty-​hand­ed in a cou­ple of hours. No Ger­mans seemed to be abroad. But Hi­ron­delle did not re­turn.

“He risks too far,” grum­bled his cap­tain. “He has been cap­tured at last. I al­ways knew they would get him, one night.”

But that was not the night. At one o'clock there was sud­den­ly a sound of lamen­ta­tion in the front trench of the French on that sec­tor. The sol­diers who were sleep­ing crawled out of their holes in the sides of the trench walls, and crowd­ed around the zigzag, nar­row way and rubbed their eyes and lis­tened to the laugh­ter of of­fi­cers and sol­diers on du­ty. There was Hi­ron­delle, solemn as a church, yet with a danc­ing light in his eyes. There, around him, crowd­ed as sheep to a shep­herd, twen­ty fig­ures in Ger­man uni­form stood with hands up and wet tears run­ning down pasty cheeks. And they were fat, it was no­tice­able that all of them were bulging of fig­ure be­yond even the Ger­man av­er­age. They wailed “Kam­er­ad! Gut Kam­er­ad!” in a cho­rus that was sick­en­ing to the plucky poilu make-​up. Hi­ron­delle, in­ter­ro­gat­ed of many, kept his lips shut till the first ex­cite­ment qui­et­ed. Then: “I re­port to my colonel,” he stat­ed, and fi­nal­ly he and his twen­ty were led back to the wind­ing trench and the colonel was waked to re­ceive them. This was what had hap­pened: Hi­ron­delle had wan­dered about, most­ly on his stom­ach, through the dark­ness and per­il of No Man's Land, en­joy­ing him­self hearti­ly; when sud­den­ly he missed his com­pan­ions and re­al­ized that he had had no sign of them for some time. That did not trou­ble him. He ex­plained to the colonel that he felt “more free.” Al­so that if he pulled off a suc­cess he would have “more glo­ry.” Af­ter two hours of this mid­night amuse­ment, in dead­ly dan­ger ev­ery sec­ond, Hi­ron­delle heard steps. He froze to the earth, as he had learned from wild things in North Amer­ican forests. The steps came near­er. A star-​shell away down the line light­ed the scene so that Hi­ron­delle, mo­tion­less on the ground, all keen eyes, saw two Ger­mans com­ing to­ward him. In­stant­ly he had a scheme. In a sub­dued growl, yet dis­tinct­ly, he threw over his shoul­der an or­der that eight men should go to the right and eight to the left. Then, on his feet, he sent in­to the dark­ness a stern “Halt!” In­stant­ly there was a sput­ter, arms thrown up, the in­evitable “Kam­er­ad!” and Hi­ron­delle or­dered the first Ger­man to pass him, then a sec­ond. Out of the dark­ness emerged a third. Hi­ron­delle waved him on, and with that there was a fourth. And a fifth. Be­hold a sixth. About then Hi­ron­delle judged it wise to give more or­ders to his imag­inary squad of six­teen. But such a pan­ic had seized this Ger­man mob; that lit­tle act­ing was nec­es­sary. Dark fig­ure fol­lowed dark fig­ure out of the dark­er night--arms up. They whim­pered as they came, and on and on they came out of shad­ows. Hi­ron­delle stat­ed that he be­gan to think the Crown Prince's army was sur­ren­der­ing to him. At last, when the pro­ces­sion stopped, he--and his myth­ical six­teen--marched the en­tire cov­ey, with­out any ob­jec­tion from them, on­ly ab­ject obe­di­ence, to the French trench­es.

The colonel, with this whin­ing crowd weep­ing about him, with Hi­ron­delle's erect fig­ure con­fronting him, his black eyes re­gard­ing the cow­ards with scorn as he made his re­port--the colonel sim­ply could not un­der­stand the sit­ua­tion. All these men! “What are you--sol­diers?” he flung at the wretched group. And one an­swered, “No, my of­fi­cer. We are not sol­diers, we are the cooks.” At that there was a wail. “Ach! Who, then, will the break­fast cook for my gen­er­al? He will _schreck­lich_ an­gry be for his sausage and his sauerkraut.”

By de­grees the colonel got the sto­ry. A num­ber of cooks had com­bined to protest against new reg­ula­tions, and the gen­er­al, to pun­ish this as­tound­ing in­sub­or­di­na­tion, had sent them out un­armed, pet­ri­fied with, ter­ror, in­to No Man's Land for an hour. They had there en­coun­tered Hi­ron­delle. Hi­ron­delle drew the at­ten­tion of the colonel to the fact that he had promised pris­on­ers, fat ones. “Will my colonel re­gard the shape of these pigs,” sug­gest­ed Hi­ron­delle. “And al­so that they are twen­ty in num­ber. Enough _en masse_ for one man to take, is it not, my colonel?”

The lit­tle din­ner-​par­ty at the Fron­tenac dis­cussed this episode. “Al­most too good to be true, colonel,” I ob­ject­ed. “You're sure it _is_ true? Bring out your Hi­ron­delle. He ought to be home wound­ed, with a war cross on his breast, by now.”

The colonel smiled and shook his head. “It is that which I can­not do--show you my Hi­ron­delle. Not here, and not in France, by _mal­heur_. For he ven­tured once too of­ten and too far, as the cap­tain proph­esied, and he is dead. God rest the brave! Al­so a Croix de Guerre is in­deed his, but no Hi­ron­delle is there to claim it.”

The si­lence of a mo­ment was a salute to the soul of a war­rior passed to the hap­py hunt­ing-​grounds. And then I be­gan on an­oth­er sto­ry of my Rafael's ad­ven­tures which some­thing in the colonel's tale sug­gest­ed.

The colonel, his win­ning face all a smile, in­ter­rupt­ed. “Does one be­lieve, then, in this Rafael of m'sieur who caps me each time my tales of my Huron Hi­ron­delle? It ap­pears to me that m'sieur has the brain, of a sto­ry-​teller and hangs good sto­ries on a fig­ure which he has built and named so--Rafael. Me, I can­not be­lieve there ex­ists this Rafael. I be­lieve there is on­ly one such gal­lant d'Artag­nan of the Hurons, and it is--it was--my Hi­ron­delle. Show me your Rafael, then!” de­mand­ed the colonel.

At that chal­lenge the scheme which had flashed in­to my mind an hour ago gath­ered shape and pow­er. “I will show him to you, colonel,” I took up the chal­lenge, “if you will al­low me.” I turned to in­clude the oth­ers. “Isn't it pos­si­ble for you all to call a truce and come up to­mor­row to my club to be my guests for as long or as short a time as you will? I can't say how much plea­sure it would give me, and I be­lieve I could give you some­thing al­so--great fish­ing, shoot­ing, a moose, like­ly, or at least a cari­bou--and Rafael. I promise Rafael. It's not un­like­ly, colonel, that he may have known the Hi­ron­delle. The Hurons are few. Do come,” I threw at them.

They took it af­ter their kind. The En­glish­man stared and mur­mured: “Aw­ful­ly kind, I'm sure, but quite im­pos­si­ble.” The Cana­di­an, our next of kin, smiled, shak­ing his head like a broth­er. Fitzhugh put his arm of brawn about me again till that glo­ri­ous star gleamed al­most on my own shoul­der, and pat­ted me lov­ing­ly as he said: “Old son, I'd give my eyes to go, if I wasn't up to my ears in job.”

But the French­man's face shone, and he lift­ed a fin­ger that was a sen­tence. It em­bod­ied re­flec­tion and ea­ger­ness and sus­pense. The rest of us gazed at that fin­ger as if it were about to ad­dress us. And the colonel spoke. “I t'ink,” brought out the colonel em­phat­ical­ly, “I t'ink I damn go.”

And I snatched the fin­ger and the hand of steel to which it grew, and wrung both. This was a de­light­ful French­man. “Good!” I cried out. “Glo­ri­ous! I want you all, but I'm might­ily pleased to get one. Colonel, you're a sport.”

“But, yes,” agreed the colonel hap­pi­ly, “I am sport. Why not? I haf four days to wait till my sheep sail. Why not kip--how you say?--kip in my hand for shoot­ing--go kill moose? I may talk im­mense­ly of zat moose in France--hein? Much more _chic_ as to kill Ger­mans, _n'est çe pas_? Ev­ery­body kill Ger­mans.”

At one o'clock next day the out-​of-​breath lit­tle train which had gasped up moun­tains for five hours from Que­bec ut­tered a re­lieved shriek and stopped at a doll-​house club sta­tion sit­ting by it­self in the wilder­ness. Four or five men in worn but clean clothes--they al­ways start clean--wait­ed on the plat­form, and there was a rapid fire of “_Bon jour_, m'sieur,” as we alight­ed. Then ten quick eyes took in my colonel in his hori­zon-​blue uni­form. I was aware of a throb of in­ter­est. At once there was a scur­ry for lug­gage be­cause the train must be held till it was off, and the guides ran for­ward to the bag­gage-​car to help. I bun­dled the colonel down a sharp, short hill to the riv­er, while smil­ing, ob­ser­vant Hurons, miss­ing not a line of braid or a glit­ter of but­ton, passed with bags and _pac­que­tons_ as we de­scend­ed. The blue and black and gold was load­ed in­to a ca­noe with an In­di­an at bow and stern for the three-​mile pad­dle to the club-​house. He was al­ready a school­boy on a hol­iday with unashamed en­thu­si­asm.

“But it is fun--fun, zis,” he shout­ed to me from his ca­noe. “And _lequel_, m'sieur, which is Rafael?”

Rafael, in the bow of my boat, missed a beat of his pad­dle. It seemed to me he looked old­er than two years back, when I last saw him. His shoul­ders were bent, and his mer­ry and state­ly per­son­al­ity was less in ev­idence. He ap­peared sub­dued. He did not turn with a smile or a grave glance of in­quiry at the ques­tion, as I had ex­pect­ed. I nod­ded to­ward him.

“_Mais oui_,” cried out the colonel. “One has heard of you, _mon ami_. One will talk to you lat­er of shoot­ing.”

Rafael, not lift­ing his head, an­swered qui­et­ly, “_C'est bi­en, m'sieur._”

Just then the ca­noes slipped past a sandy bar dec­orat­ed with a fresh moose track; the ex­cite­ment of the colonel set us laugh­ing. This man was cer­tain­ly a joy! And with that, af­ter a long pad­dle down the wind­ing riv­er and across two breezy lakes, we were at the club-​house. We lunched, and in short or­der--for we want­ed to make camp that night--I dug in­to my _pac­que­tons_ and trans­formed my of­fi­cer in­to a sports­man, his huge de­light in Aber­nethy & Flitch's cre­ations be­ing a part of the game. Then we were off.

One has small chance for as­so­ci­at­ing with guides while trav­el­ling in the woods. One sits in a ca­noe be­tween two, but if there is a wind and the boat is _chargé_ their hands are full with the small craft and its heavy load; when the land­ing is made and the “messieurs” are _débar­qués_, in­stant­ly the men are busy lift­ing ca­noes on their heads and packs on their backs in bizarre, piled-​up mass­es to be car­ried from a leather tump-​line, a strap of two inch­es wide go­ing around the fore­head. The whole length of the spine helps in the car­ry­ing. My colonel watched Del­phise, a husky spec­imen, load. With a grunt he swung up a can­vas U.S. mail­bag stuffed with _butin_, which in­cludes clothes and books and shoes and to­bac­co and car­tridges and more. With a half-​syl­la­ble Del­phise in­di­cat­ed to Lau­rent a bag of pota­toes weigh­ing eighty pounds, a box of tinned bis­cuit, a wood­en pack­age of cans of con­densed milk, a rod case, and a rain­coat. These Lau­rent added to the spine of Del­phise.

“How many pounds?” I asked, as the dark head bent for­ward to equal­ize the strain.

Del­phise shift­ed weight with an­oth­er grunt to gauge the pull. “About a hun­dred and eighty pounds, m'sieur--quite heavy--_as­sez pe­sant_.” Off he trot­ted up­hill, head bent for­ward.

The colonel was en­tranced. “Hardy fel­lows--the mak­ing of fine sol­diers,” he com­ment­ed, toss­ing his cigarette away to stare.

That night af­ter din­ner--but it was called sup­per--the colonel and I went in­to the big, airy log kitchen with the lake look­ing in at three win­dows and the for­est at two doors. We gunned over with the men plans for the next day, for the most must be made of ev­ery minute of this pre­cious mil­itary hol­iday. I ex­plained how pre­cious it was, and then I spoke a few words about the hon­or of hav­ing as our guest a sol­dier who had come from the front, and who was go­ing back to the front. For the life of me I could not re­sist a sen­tence more about the two cross­es they had seen on his uni­form that day. The Cross of War, the Le­gion of Hon­or! I could not let my men miss that! Rafael had been qui­et and col­or­less, and I was dis­ap­point­ed in the show qual­ities of my show guide. But the colonel beamed with sat­is­fac­tion, in ev­ery­thing and ev­ery­body, and re­ceived my small in­tro­duc­tion with a bow and a flour­ish wor­thy of Carnegie Hall.

“I am hap­py to be in this so charm­ing camp, in this for­est mag­nif­icent, on these an­cient moun­tains,” orat­ed the colonel florid­ly. “I am most pleased of all to have Huron In­di­ans as my guides, be­cause be­tween Hurons and me there are mem­ories.” The men were lis­ten­ing spell-​bound. “But yes. I had Huron sol­diers serv­ing in my reg­iment, just now at the west­ern front, of whom I thought high­ly. They were all that there is, those Hurons of mine, of most fear­less, most skil­ful. One among them was pre-​em­inent. Some of you may have known him. I re­gret to say that I nev­er knew his re­al name, but among his com­rades he went by the name of l'Hi­ron­delle. From that name one guess­es his qual­ities--swift as a swal­low, un­tam­able, gay, brave to fool­ish­ness, mov­ing in dash­es not to be fol­lowed--such was my Hi­ron­delle. And yet this swift bird was in the end shot down.”

At this point in the colonel's speech. I hap­pened to look at Rafael, back in the shad­ows of the half-​light­ed big room. His eyes glit­tered out of the dim­ness like disks of fire, his face was strained, and his fig­ure bent for­ward. “He must have known this chap, the Swal­low,” I thought to my­self. “Just pos­si­bly a son or broth­er or nephew of his.” The colonel was go­ing on, telling in flu­ent, beau­ti­ful French the sto­ry of how Hi­ron­delle, wrapped in a sheet, had res­cued him. The men drank it in. “When those guides are old, old fel­lows, they'll talk about this night and the colonel's speech to their great-​grand­chil­dren,” I con­sid­ered, and again the colonel went on.

“Have I m'sieur's per­mis­sion to _racon­ter_ a short sto­ry of the most amus­ing which was the last es­capade of my Hi­ron­delle be­fore he was killed?”

M'sieur gave per­mis­sion ea­ger­ly, and the low mur­mur of the voic­es of the hyp­no­tized guides, stand­ing in a group be­fore the colonel, added to its force and set him smil­ing.

“It was like this,” he stat­ed. "My Hi­ron­delle was out in No Man's Land of a night, strict­ly charged to be­have in a man­ner _comme il faut_, for he was of a rash­ness, and we did not wish to lose him. He was valu­able to us, and be­yond that the reg­iment had an af­fec­tion for him. For such rea­sons his cap­tain tried--but, yes--to keep him with­in bounds. As I say, on this night he had re­ceived par­tic­ular or­ders to be _sage_. So that the first thing the fel­low does is to lose his com­rades, for which he had a _pen­chant_, one knows. Af­ter that he crawls over that ac­cursed coun­try, in and out of shell­holes, ri­fle in his teeth like­ly--the good God knows where else, for one need be all hands and feet for such crawl­ing. He crawled in that fash­ion till at last he lost him­self. And then he was con­cerned to find out where might be our lines till in time he heard a sound of snor­ing and was well con­tent. Home at last. He tum­bled in­to a dark trench, re­mark­ing on­ly that it was filled with men since he left, and so tired he was with his ad­ven­ture that he pushed away the man next, who was at the end, to gain space, and he rolled over to sleep. But that trou­ble­some man next took too much room. Our Hi­ron­delle plant­ed him a kick in the mid­dle of the back. At which the man half waked and swore at him--in Ger­man. And dropped off to sleep again with his leg of a pig slung across Hi­ron­delle's chest. At that sec­ond a star-​shell light­ed up the af­fair, and Hi­ron­delle, star­ing with much in­ter­est, be­lieve me, saw a trench filled with sleep­ing Boches. To get out of that as qui­et­ly as might be was the game--_n'est-​ce-​pas, mes amis_? But not for Hi­ron­delle.

"'My colonel has a lik­ing for pris­on­ers,' he re­port­ed lat­er. 'My cap­tain's or­ders were to con­duct one­self _très comme il faut_. It is al­ways _comme il faut_ to please the colonel. There­fore it seemed _en re­gle_ to take a pris­on­er. I took him. _Le v'la_.'

“What the fel­low did was to wait till the Boche next door was well asleep, then slow­ly re­move his ri­fle, then fas­ten on his throat with a grip which Hi­ron­delle un­der­stood, and fi­nal­ly to over­pow­er the Boche till he was ready enough to crawl out at the muz­zle of Hi­ron­delle's ri­fle.”

There was a stir in the lit­tle group of guides, and from the shad­ows Rafael's voice spoke.

“Mon colonel--par­don!”

The colonel turned sharply. “Who is that?”

“There were two Ger­mans,” spoke the voice out of the shad­ows.

The colonel, too as­ton­ished to an­swer, stared. The voice, trem­bling, old, went on. “The sec­ond man waked and one was obliged to stran­gle him al­so. One brought the brace to the cap­tain at the end of the cara­bine--ri­fle.”

“In heav­en's name who are you?” de­mand­ed the colonel.

From where old Rafael had been, bowed and limp in his hum­ble, worn clothes, stepped at a stride a sol­dier, head up, shoul­ders squared, glit­ter­ing eyes for­ward, and stood at at­ten­tion. It was like mag­ic. One hand snapped up in a smart salute.

“Who are you?” whis­pered the colonel.

“If the colonel pleas­es--l'Hi­ron­delle.”

I heard the colonel's breath come and go as he peered, lean­ing for­ward to the sol­dier­ly fig­ure. “_Nom de Ciel_,” he mur­mured, “I be­lieve it is.” Then in sharp sen­tences: “You were re­port­ed killed. Are you a de­sert­er?”

The steady im­age of a sol­dier dropped back a step.

“My colonel--no.”

“Ex­plain this.”

Rafael--l'Hi­ron­delle--ex­plained. He had not been killed, but cap­tured and sent to a Ger­man prison-​camp.

“You es­caped?” the colonel threw in.

“But yes, my colonel.”

The colonel laughed. “One would know it. The clum­sy Boches could not hold the Swal­low.”

“But no, my colonel.”

“Go on.”

“One went to work be­fore light, my colonel, in that ac­cursed prison-​camp. One was out of sight from the guard for a mo­ment, turn­ing a cor­ner, so that on a morn­ing I slipped in­to some bush­es and hid in a dugout--for it was an old camp--all day. That night I walked. I walked for sev­en nights and lay hid for sev­en days, eat­ing, my colonel, very lit­tle. Then, _v'la_, I was in front of the French lines.”

“You ran across to our lines?”

“But not ex­act­ly. One sees that I was yet in dirty Ger­man prison clothes, and looked like an in­fantry­man of the Boches, so that a poilu rushed at me with a bay­onet. I be­lieved, then, that I had come up­on a Ger­man pa­trol. Each thought the oth­er a Hun. I man­aged to wrest from the poilu his ri­fle with the bay­onet, but as we fought an­oth­er shot me--in the side.”

“You were wound­ed?”

“Yes, my colonel.”

“In hos­pi­tal?”

“Yes, my colonel.”

“How long?”

“Three months, my colonel.”

“Why are you not again in the army?”

The face of the erect sol­dier, Hi­ron­delle, the dare-​dev­il, was sud­den­ly the face of a man grown old, ill, and bro­ken-​heart­ed. He stared at the stal­wart French of­fi­cer, gath­er­ing him­self with an ef­fort. “I--was dis­charged, my colonel, as--un­fit.” His head in its old felt hat dropped in­to his hands sud­den­ly, and he broke be­yond con­trol in­to sobs that shook not on­ly him but ev­ery man there.

The colonel stepped for­ward and put an arm around the bent shoul­ders. “_Mon héros!_” said the colonel.

With that Rafael found words, nev­er a hard task for him. Yet they came with gasps be­tween. “To be cast out as an old horse--at the mo­ment of glo­ry! I had dreamed all my life--of fight­ing. And I had it--oh, my colonel--I had it! The glo­ry came when I was old and knew how to be hap­py in it. Not as a boy who laughs and takes all as his right. I was old, yes, but I was good to kill the ver­min. I avenged the chil­dren and the wom­en whom those sav­ages--My peo­ple, the sav­ages of the wood, knew no bet­ter, yet they have not done things as bad as these vile ones who were ed­ucat­ed, who knew. There­fore I killed them. I was old, but I was strong, my colonel knows. Not for noth­ing have I lived a hard life. _On a vu de la mis­ère_. I have hunt­ed moose and bear and kept my mus­cles of steel and my eyes of a hawk. It is in my blood to be a fight­ing man. I fought with plea­sure, and I was trou­bled with no fear. I was old, but I could have killed many dev­ils more. And so I was shot down by my own friend af­ter sev­en days of hard life. And the young sol­dier doc­tor dis­charged me as un­fit to fight. And so I am come home very fast to hide my­self, for I am ashamed. I am fin­ished. The fight­ing and the glo­ry are for me no more.”

The colonel stepped back a bit and his face flamed. “Glo­ry!” he whis­pered. “Glo­ry no more for the Hi­ron­delle? What of the Croix de Guerre?”

Rafael shook his head. “I haf heard my colonel who said they would have giv­en me--me, the Hi­ron­delle--the war cross. That now is lost too.”

“Lost!” The colonel's deep tone was full of the vi­bra­tion which on­ly a French voice car­ries. With a quick move­ment he un­fas­tened the catch that held the green rib­bon, red-​striped, of his own cross of war. He turned and pinned the thing which men die for on the shab­by coat of the guide. Then he kissed him on ei­ther cheek. “My com­rade,” he said, “your glo­ry will nev­er be old.”

There was deep si­lence in the camp kitchen. The crack­ling of wood that fell apart, the splash­ing of the waves of the lake on the peb­bles by the shore were the on­ly sounds on earth. For a long minute the men stood as if root­ed; the colonel, poised and dra­mat­ic, and, I stirred to the depths of my soul by this great cer­emo­ny which had come out of the skies to its hum­ble set­ting in the for­est--the men and the colonel and I, we all watched Rafael.

And Rafael slow­ly, yet with the iron tenac­ity of his race, got back his con­trol. “My colonel,” he be­gan, and then failed. The Swal­low did not dare trust his bro­ken wings. It could not be done--to speak his thanks. He looked up with black eyes shin­ing through tears which spoke ev­ery­thing.

“To­mor­row,” he stat­ed bro­ken­ly, “if we haf a luck, my colonel and I go kill a moose.”

They had a luck.

ON­LY ONE OF THEM

It was noon on a Sat­ur­day. Out of the many build­ings of the great elec­tri­cal man­ufac­tur­ing plant at Sch­enec­tady poured em­ploy­ees by hun­dreds. Thir­ty trol­ley-​cars were run on spe­cial tracks to the place and stood ready to re­ceive the sea stream­ing to­wards them. Massed mo­tor-​cars wait­ed be­yond the trol­leys for their own­ers, of­fi­cials of the works. The girl in blue serge, stand­ing at a spe­cial door of a spe­cial build­ing count­ed, keep­ing watch mean­time of the crowd, the cars. A hun­dred and twen­ty-​five she made it; it came to her mind that State Street in Al­bany on a day of some gi­ant pa­rade was not un­like this, not less a throng. The girl, who was sec­re­tary to an as­sis­tant man­ag­er, was used to the sight, but it was an im­pres­sive sight and she was im­pres­sion­able and found each Sat­ur­day's pageant a won­der. The pageant was more in­ter­est­ing it may be be­cause it fo­cussed al­ways on one fig­ure--and here he was.

“Did you wait, long?” he asked as he came up, broad-​shoul­dered and ath­let­ic of build, boy­ish and hon­est of face, as good look­ing a young Amer­ican as one may see in any crowd.

“I was ear­ly.” She smiled up at him as they swung off to­wards the trol­leys; her eyes flashed a glance which said frankly that she found him sat­is­fac­to­ry to look up­on.

They sped past oth­ers, many oth­ers, and made a trol­ley car and a seat to­geth­er, which was the goal. They al­ways made it, ev­ery Sat­ur­day, yet it was al­ways a game. Ex­hil­arat­ed by the win­ning of the game they set­tled in­to the scat for the three-​quar­ters of an hour run; it was quite a worth-​while world, the smil­ing glances said one to the oth­er.

The girl gazed, not see­ing them par­tic­ular­ly, at the slow­er peo­ple fill­ing the seats and the pas­sage of the car. Then: “Oh,” she spoke, “what was it you were go­ing to tell me?”

The man's face grew sober, a bit trou­bled. “Well,” he said, “I've de­cid­ed. I'm go­ing to en­list.”

She was still for a sec­ond. Then: “I think that's splen­did,” she brought out. “Splen­did. Of course, I knew you'd do it. It's the on­ly thing that could be. I'm glad.”

“Yes,” the man spoke slow­ly. “It's the on­ly thing that could be. There's noth­ing to keep me. My moth­er's dead. My fa­ther's husky and not old and my sis­ters are with him. There's no­body to suf­fer by my go­ing.”

“N-​no,” the girl agreed. “But--it's the fine thing to do just the same. You're thir­ty-​two you see, and couldn't be draft­ed. That makes it rather great of you to go.”

“Well,” the man an­swered, “not so very great, I sup­pose, as it's what all young Amer­icans are do­ing. I rather think it's one of those things, like spelling, which are no par­tic­ular cred­it if you do them, but a dis­grace if you don't.”

“What a gray way of look­ing at it!” the girl ob­ject­ed. “As if all the coun­try wasn't glo­ry­ing in the boys who go! As if we didn't all stand back of you and crowd the side lines to watch you, burst­ing with pride. You know we all love you.”

“Do you love me, Mary? Enough to mar­ry me be­fore I go?” His voice was low, but the girl missed no syl­la­ble. She had heard those words or some like them in his voice be­fore.

“Oh, Jim,” she begged, “don't ask me now. I'm not cer­tain--yet. I--I couldn't get along very well with­out you. I care a lot. But--I'm not just sure it's--the way I ought to care to mar­ry you.”

As alone in the packed car as in a wood, the lit­tle dra­ma went on and no one no­ticed. “I'm sor­ry, Mary.” The tone was dispir­it­ed. “I could go with a lot lighter heart if we be­longed to each oth­er.”

“Don't say that, Jim,” she plead­ed. “You make me out--a slack­er. You don't want me to mar­ry you as a du­ty?”

“Good Lord, no!”

“I know that. And I--do care. There's no­body like you. I ad­mire you so for go­ing--but you're not afraid of any­thing. It's easy for you, that part. I sup­pose a good many are re­al­ly--afraid. Of the guns and the hor­ror--all that. You're lucky, Jim. You don't give that a thought.”

The man flashed an odd look, and then re­gard­ed his hands joined on his knee.

“I do ap­pre­ci­ate your courage. I ad­mire that a lot. But some­how Jim there's a doubt that holds me back. I can't be sure I--love you enough; that it's the right way--for that.”

The man sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I see. Maybe some time. Heav­ens knows I wouldn't want you un­less it was whole-​heart­ed. I wouldn't risk your re­gret­ting it, not if I want­ed you ten times more. Which is im­pos­si­ble.” He put out his big hand with a swift touch on hers. “Maybe some time. Don't wor­ry,” he said. “I'm yours.” And went on in a com­mon­place tone, “I think I'll show up at the re­cruit­ing of­fice this af­ter­noon, and I'll come to your house in the evening as usu­al. Is that all right?”

The car sped in­to Al­bany and the man went to her door with the girl and left her with few words more and those about com­mon­place sub­jects. As he swung down the street he went over the episode in his mind, and dis­sect­ed it and dwelt on words and phras­es and glances, and drew con­clu­sions as lovers have done be­fore, each de­tail, each con­clu­sion might­ily im­por­tant, out­weigh­ing weeks of con­ver­sa­tion of the rest of the world to­geth­er. At last he shook his head and set his lips.

“It's not hon­est.” He formed the words with his lips now, a sum­ming up of many thoughts in his brain. The brain went on elab­orat­ing the text. “She thinks I'm brave; she thinks it's easy for me to face en­list­ing, and the rest. She thinks I'm the make­up which can meet hor­ror and suf­fer­ing light-​heart­ed­ly. And I'm not. She ad­mires me for that--she said so. I'm not it. I'm fool­ing her; it's not hon­est. Yet”--he groaned aloud. “Yet I may lose her if I tell her the truth. I'm afraid. I am. I hate it. I can't bear--I can't bear to leave my job and my fu­ture, just when it's open­ing out. But I could do that. On­ly I'm--Oh, damna­tion--I'm afraid. Hor­ror and dan­ger, agony of men and hors­es, my­self wound­ed maybe, out on No Man's Land--left there--hours. To die like a dog. Oh, my God--must I? If I tell it will break the lit­tle hold I have on her. Must I go to this dev­il's dance that I hate--and give up her love be­sides? But yet--it isn't hon­est to fool her. Oh, God, what will I do?” Peo­ple walk­ing up State Street, meet­ing a sober-​faced young man, glanced at him with no par­tic­ular in­ter­est. A wom­an wait­ing on a doorstep re­gard­ed him idly.

“Why isn't he in uni­form?” she won­dered as one does won­der in these days at a strong chap in mufti. Then she re­buked her thought. “Un­doubt­ed­ly there's a good rea­son; Amer­ican boys are not slack­ers.”

His slow steps car­ried him be­yond her vi­sion and ca­su­al thought. The peo­ple in the street and the wom­an on the doorstep did not think or care that what they saw was a man fight­ing his way through the cri­sis of his life, fight­ing alone “per as­pera ad as­tra--” through thorns to the stars.

He lunched with a man at a club and af­ter that took his way to the build­ing on Broad­way where were the re­cruit­ing head­quar­ters. He had told her that he was go­ing to en­list. As he walked he stared at the peo­ple in the streets as a man might stare go­ing to his ex­ecu­tion. These peo­ple went about their af­fairs, he con­sid­ered, as if he--who was about to die--did not, in pass­ing their friend­ly com­mon­place, salute them. He did salute them. Out of his trou­bled soul he sent a silent greet­ing to each or­di­nary Amer­ican hur­ry­ing along, each stand­ing to him for pleas­ant and peace­ful Amer­ica, Amer­ica of all his days up to now. Was he to toss away this com­fort­able com­rade­ship, his life to be, ev­ery­thing he cared for on earth, to go in­to hell, and like­ly nev­er come back? Why? Why must he? There seemed to be plen­ty who want­ed to fight--why not let them? It was the old slack­er's ar­gu­ment; the man was ashamed as he caught him­self us­ing it; he had the grace to see its self­ish­ness and cow­ardice. Yet his soul was in re­volt as he drove his body to the re­cruit­ing of­fice, and the thoughts that filled him were not of the joy of giv­ing but of the pain of giv­ing up. With that he stood on the steps of the build­ing and here was Char­lie Thurston hur­ry­ing by on the side­walk.

“Hel­lo, Jim! Go­ing in to en­list? So long till you come back with one leg and an eye out.”

It was Thurston's idea of a joke. He would have been star­tled if he had known in­to what a trem­bling bal­ance his sledge-​hum­mer wit cast its un­lucky weight. The bal­ance quiv­ered at the blow, shook back and forth an in­stant and fell heav­ily. Jim Bar­low wheeled, sprang down the stone steps and bolt­ed up the street, pant­ing as one who has es­caped a wild beast. Thurston had said it. That was what was due to hap­pen. It was now three o'clock; Bar­low fled up State Street to the big ho­tel and took a room and locked his door and threw him­self on the bed. What was he to do? Af­ter weeks of hes­ita­tion he had come to the de­ci­sion that he would of­fer him­self to his coun­try. He saw--none plain­er--the rea­sons why it was fit and right so to do. Oth­er men were giv­ing up homes and ca­reers and the whole bright and easy side of life--why not he? It was the great­est cause to fight for in the world's his­to­ry--should he not fight for it? How, af­ter the war, might he meet friends, his own peo­ple, his chil­dren to come, if he alone of his sort had no hon­or­able record to show? Such ar­gu­ments, known to all, he re­peat­ed, even aloud he re­peat­ed them, toss­ing mis­er­ably about the bed in his ho­tel room. And his mind at once ac­cept­ed them, but that was all. His spir­it failed to spring to his mind's sup­port with the throb of emo­tion which is the spark that makes the en­gine go. The wheels went around over and over but the con­nec­tion was not made. The hu­man mind is use­ful ma­chin­ery, but it is on­ly the ma­chine's mas­ter, the soul, which can use it. Over and over he got to his feet and spoke aloud: “Now I will go.” Over and over a re­pul­sion seized him so strong­ly that his knees gave way and he fell back on the bed. If he had a moth­er, he thought, she might have helped, but there was no one. Mary--but he could not risk Mary's be­lief in his courage. On­ly a moth­er would have un­der­stood en­tire­ly.

With that, sick at heart, the hideous sea of counter ar­gu­ments, ar­gu­ments of a slack­er, surged up­on him. What would it all mat­ter a hun­dred years from now? Wasn't he more use­ful in his place keep­ing up the in­dus­tries of the na­tion? Wasn't he a big­ger as­set to Amer­ica as an alive en­gi­neer, an ex­pert in his work, than as mere can­non fod­der, one of thou­sands to be shot in­to junk in a morn­ing's “ac­tiv­ity”--just one of them? Be­cause the Ger­mans were dev­ils why should he let them reach over here, away over here, and drag him out of a de­cent and hap­py life and throw him like dirt in­to the hor­ri­ble mess they had made, and leave him dead or worse--man­gled and use­less. Then, again--there were plen­ty of men mad to fight; why not let them? Through a long af­ter­noon he fought with the beasts, and din­ner-​time came and he did not no­tice, and at last he rose and, tele­phon­ing first to Mary a terse mes­sage that he would not be able to come this evening, he went out, hard­ly know­ing what he did, and wan­dered up town.

There was a hum­ble church in a qui­et street where a ser­vice flag hung, thick with dark stars, and the con­gre­ga­tion were pass­ing out from a spe­cial ser­vice for its boys who were go­ing off to camp. The boys were there on the steps, sur­round­ed by peo­ple ea­ger to touch their hands, a lit­tle group of eight or ten with se­ri­ous bright faces, and a look in their eyes which stabbed in­to Bar­low. One may see that look any day in any town, meet­ing the erect stal­wart lads in kha­ki who are about our streets. It is the look of those who have made a vi­tal sac­ri­fice and know the price, and whose minds are at peace. Bar­low, lin­ger­ing on the cor­ner across the way, stared hun­gri­ly. How had they got that look, that peace? If on­ly he might talk to one of them! Yet he knew how dumb an an­imal is a boy, and how help­less these would be to give him the mas­ter word.

The mas­ter-​word, he need­ed that; he need­ed it des­per­ate­ly. He must go; he must. Life would be un­en­durable with­out self-​re­spect; no amount of ex­plain­ing could cov­er the stain on his soul if he failed in the an­swer to the call of hon­or. That was it, it was in a nut-​shell, the call. Yet he could not hear it as his call. He wan­dered un­hap­pi­ly away and left the church and its dis­solv­ing con­gre­ga­tion, and the boys, the pride of the church, the boys who were now, they al­so, sep­arat­ing and go­ing back each to his home for the last evening per­haps, to be loved and made much of. Bar­low vague­ly pic­tured the scenes in those lit­tle homes--eyes bright with un­shed tears, love and laugh­ter and courage, pa­tri­otism as fine as in any great house in Amer­ica, de­ter­mi­na­tion that in giv­ing to Amer­ica what was dear­est it should be giv­en with high spir­it--that the boys should have smil­ing faces to re­mem­ber, over there. And then again--love and ten­der words. He was miss­ing all that. He, too, might go back to his fa­ther's house an en­list­ed man, and meet his fa­ther's eyes of pride and see his sis­ters gaze at him with a new re­spect, feel their new hon­or of him in the touch of arms about his neck. All these things were for him too, if he would but take them. With that there was the sound of singing, shrill, fresh voic­es singing down the street. He wheeled about. A com­pa­ny of lit­tle girls were march­ing to­wards him and he smiled, look­ing at them, think­ing the sight as pret­ty as a gar­den of flow­ers. They were from eight to ten or eleven years old and in the brav­ery of fresh white dress­es; each had a big but­ter­fly of pink or blue or yel­low or white rib­bon perched on each lit­tle fair or dark head, and each car­ried over her shoul­der a flag. Quite ev­ident­ly they were com­ing from the cel­ebra­tion at the church, where in some ca­pac­ity they had fig­ured. Not mil­lion­aires chil­dren these; the lit­tle sis­ters like­ly of the boys who were go­ing to be sol­diers; just dear things that bloom all over Amer­ica, the flow­er­ing of the land, com­mon to rich and poor. As they sprang along two by two, in un­mar­tial ranks, they sang with all their might “The Long, Long Trail.”

“There's a long, long trail that's lead­ing To No Man's Land in France Where the shrap­nel shells are burst­ing And we must ad­vance.”

* * * * *

And then:

We're go­ing to show old Kaiser Bill What our Yan­kee boys can do.

Jim Bar­low, his hands in his pock­ets, backed up against a house and lis­tened to the clear, high, lit­tle voic­es. “No Man's Land in France--We must ad­vance--What our Yan­kee boys can do.”

As if his throat were gripped by a quick hand, a storm of emo­tion swept him. The lit­tle girls--lit­tle girls who were the joy, each one, of some home! Such lit­tle things as the Ger­mans--in Bel­gium--“Oh, my God!” The words burst aloud from his lips. These were trust­ing--in­no­cent, ig­no­rant--to “What our Yan­kee boys can do.” With­out that, with­out the Yan­kee boys, such as these would be in the pow­er of wild beasts. It was his af­fair. Sud­den­ly he felt that stab through him.

“God,” he prayed, whis­per­ing it as the lit­tle girls passed on singing, “help me to pro­tect them; help me to for­get my­self.” And the mir­acle that sends an an­swer some­times, even in this twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, to true prayer hap­pened to Jim Bar­low. Be­hold he had for­got­ten him­self. With his head up and peace in his breast, and the look in his face al­ready, though he did not know it, that our sol­dier boys wear, he turned and start­ed at a great pace down the street to the re­cruit­ing of­fice.

“Why, you did come.”

It was nine o'clock and he stood with light­ed face in the mid­dle of the lit­tle li­brary. And she came in; it was an event to which he nev­er got used, Mary's com­ing in­to a room. The room changed al­ways in­to such an as­ton­ish­ing place.

“Mary, I've done it. I'm--” his voice choked a bit--“I'm a sol­dier.” He laughed at that. “Well not so you'd no­tice it, yet. But I've tak­en the first step.”

“I knew, Jim. You said you were go­ing to en­list. Why did you tele­phone you couldn't come?”

He stared down at her, hold­ing her hands yet. He felt, un­phrased, strong, the over­whelm­ing con­vic­tion that she was the most de­sir­able thing on earth. And di­rect­ly on top of that con­vic­tion an­oth­er, that he would be do­ing her de­sir­able­ness, her love­li­ness less than the high­est hon­or if he posed be­fore her in false col­ors. At what­ev­er cost to him­self he must be hon­est with her. Al­so--he was some­thing more now than his own man; he was a sol­dier of Amer­ica, and in­side and out he would be, for Amer­ica's sake, the best that was in him to be.

“Mary, I've got a thing to tell you.”

“Yes?” The sure way in which she smiled up at him made the ef­fort hard­er.

“I fooled you. You think I'm a hero. And I'm not. I'm a--” for the life of him he could not get out the word “cow­ard.” He went on: “I'm a blamed ba­by.” And he told her in a few words, yet plain­ly enough what he had gone through in the long af­ter­noon. “It was the kid­dies who clinched it, with their flags and their hair rib­bons--and their Yan­kee boys. I couldn't stand for--not play­ing square with them.”

Sud­den­ly he gripped her hands so that it hurt. “Mary, God help me, I'll try to fight the dev­ils over there so that kid­dies like that, and--you, and all the blessed peo­ple, the whole dear shoot­ing-​match will be safe over here. I'm glad--I'm so glad I'm go­ing to have a hand in it. Mary, it's queer, but I'm hap­pi­er than I've been in months. On­ly”--his brows drew anx­ious­ly. “On­ly I'm scared stiff for fear you think me--a cow­ard.”

He had the word out now. Thee taste wasn't so bad af­ter all; it seemed odd­ly to have noth­ing to do with him­self. “Mary, dear, couldn't you--for­get that in time? When I've been over there and be­haved de­cent­ly--and I think I will. Some­how I'm not afraid of be­ing afraid now. It feels like a thing that couldn't be done--by a sol­dier of Un­cle Sam's. I'll just look at the oth­er chaps--all heroes, you know--and be so proud I'm with them and so keen to fin­ish our job that I know--some­how I _know_ I'll nev­er think about my bloom­ing self at all. It's queer to say it, Mary, but the way it looks now I'm in it, it's not just coun­try even. It's re­li­gion. See, Mary?”

There was no sound, no glance from Mary. But he went on, un­aware, so rapt was he in his new il­lu­mi­na­tion.

“And when I come back, Mary, with a de­cent record--just pos­si­bly with a war-​cross--oh, my word! Think of me! Then, couldn't you for­get this busi­ness I've been telling you? Do you think you could mar­ry me then?”

What was the mat­ter? Why did she stand so still with her head bend­ing low­er and low­er, the col­or deep­en­ing on the bit of cheek that his anx­ious eyes could see.

“Mary!”

Sud­den­ly she was clutch­ing his col­lar as if in dead­ly fear.

“Mary, what's the mat­ter? I'm such a fool, but--oh, Mary, dear!”

With that Mary-​dear straight­ened and, slip­ping her clutch to the lapel of his old coat, spoke. She looked in­to his eyes with a smile that was sweet­er--oh, much sweet­er!--for tears that dimmed it, and she choked most aw­ful­ly be­tween words. “Jim”--and a choke. “Jim, I'm ter­ri­fied to think I near­ly let you get away. You. And me not wor­thy to lace your shoes--” (“Oh, gra­cious, Mary--don't!”) “me--the id­iot, back­ing and fill­ing when I had the chance of my life at--at a hero. Oh, Jim!”

“Here! Mary, don't you un­der­stand? I've been telling you I was scared blue. I hat­ed to tell you Mary, and it's the dev­il to tell you twice--”

What was this? Did Heav­en then some­times come down un­awares on the head of an ev­ery-​day cit­izen with great laps­es of char­ac­ter? Jim Bar­low, en­tranced, doubt­ed his sens­es yet could not doubt the touch of soft hands clasped in his neck. He held his head back a lit­tle to be sure that they were re­al. Yes, they were there, the hands--Bar­low's next re­mark was long, but un­trans­lat­able. Min­utes lat­er. “Mary, tell me what you mean. Not that I care much if--if this.” Lan­guage grows el­lip­ti­cal un­der stress. “But--did you get me? I'm--a cow­ard.” A hand flashed across his mouth.

“Don't you dare, Jim, you're the bravest--bravest--”

The words died in a sharp break. “Why, Jim it was a hun­dred thou­sand times pluck­ier to be afraid and then go. Can't you see that, you big stupid?”

“But, Mary, you said you ad­mired it when--when you thought I was a li­on of courage.”

“Of course. I ad­mired you. Now I adore you.”

“Well,” summed up, Bar­low be­wil­dered, “if wom­en aren't the blamedest!”

And Mary squealed laugh­ter. She put hands each side of his face. “Jim--lis­ten. I'll try to ex­plain be­cause you have a right to un­der­stand.”

“Well, yes,” agreed Jim.

“It's like this. I thought you'd en­list and I nev­er dreamed you were balky. I didn't know you hat­ed it so. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Go on,” urged Jim.

“I thought you were mad to be go­ing, like--like these light-​head­ed boys. That you didn't mind leav­ing me com­pared to the ad­ven­ture. That you didn't care for dan­ger. But now--now.” She cov­ered his eyes with her fin­gers, “Now Jim, you need me. A wom­an can't love a man her best un­less she can help him. Against ev­ery­thing--sor­row, mosquitoes, bad food--drink--any old both­er. That's the al­lur­ing side of tip­plers. Wom­en want to help them. So, now I know you need me,” the soft, un­steady voice wan­dered on, and Jim, an­chored be­tween, the hands, drank in her look with his eyes and her tones with his ears and prayed that the sit­ua­tion might last a week. “You need me so, to tell you how much fin­er you are than if you'd gone off with­out a quiver.”

Bar­low sighed in con­tent­ment. “And me think­ing I was the soli­tary 'fraid-​cat of Amer­ica!”

“Soli­tary! Why, Jim, there must be at least ten hun­dred thou­sand men go­ing through this same bat­tle. All the ones old enough to think, prob­ably. Why Jim--you're on­ly one of them. In that speech the oth­er night the man said this war was giv­ing men their souls. I think it's your kind he meant, the kind that re­al­izes the bad things over there and the good things over here and goes just the same. The kind--you are.”

“I'm a hero from Hero-​ville,” mur­mured Bar­low. “But lit­tle Mary, when I come back man­gled will you feel the same? Will you mar­ry me then, Mary?”

“I'll mar­ry you any minute,” stat­ed Mary, “and when you come back I'll love you one ex­tra for ev­ery man­gle.”

“Any minute,” re­peat­ed Bar­low dra­mat­ical­ly. “To­mor­row?”

And summed up again the heav­en that he could not un­der­stand and did not want to, “Search me,” he ad­jured the skies in good Amer­icanese, “if girls aren't the blamedest.”

THE V.C.

I had for­got­ten that I or­dered frogs' legs. When mine were placed be­fore me I laughed. I al­ways laugh at the sight of frogs' legs be­cause of the per­son and the day of which they re­mind me. No­body no­ticed that I laughed or asked the rea­son why, though it was an au­di­ble chuck­le, and though I sat at the head of my own din­ner-​par­ty at the Cos­mic Club.

The man for whom the din­ner was giv­en, Colonel Robert Thorn­ton, my cousin, a Cana­di­an, who got his leg shot off at Vimy Ridge, was mak­ing ora­tion about the Ger­man Crown Prince's tac­tics at Ver­dun, and that was the rea­son that ten men were not pay­ing at­ten­tion to me and that I was not pay­ing at­ten­tion to Bob­by. When the good chap talks hu­man talk, tells what hap­pened to peo­ple and what their psy­cho­log­ical pro­cess­es seemed to be, he is en­ter­tain­ing. He has a gen­uine gift of sym­pa­thy and a pow­er to lead oth­ers in the path he treads; in short, he tells a good sto­ry. But like most peo­ple who do one thing par­tic­ular­ly well he is al­ways prid­ing him­self on the way he does some­thing else. He likes to look at Colonel Thorn­ton as a stu­dent of the war, and he has the time of his life when he can get peo­ple to lis­ten to what he knows Jof­fre and Foch and Haig and Hin­den­berg ought to have done. So at this mo­ment he was en­joy­ing his evening, for the men I had asked to meet him, all strangers to him, ig­no­rant of his re­al pow­ers, were hang­ing on his words, part­ly be­cause no one can help lik­ing him what­ev­er he talks about, and part­ly be­cause, with that pa­thet­ic emp­ty trous­er-​leg and the crutch hooked over his chair, he was an un­doubt­ed hero. So I heard the sen­tences am­bling, and re­flect­ed that Hi­laire Bel­loc with maps and a qui­et evening would do my tac­ti­cal ed­uca­tion more good than Bob­by Thorn­ton's dis­cur­sions. And about then I chuck­led un­no­ticed, over the sil­ly frogs' legs.

“Tell me, Colonel Thorn­ton, do you con­sid­er that the French made a mis­take in con­cen­trat­ing so much of their re­serve--” It was the Gov­er­nor him­self who was de­mand­ing this earnest­ly of Bob­by. And I saw that the Gov­er­nor and the rest were hyp­no­tized, and did not need me.

So I sat at the head of the ta­ble, and wait­ers brood­ed over us, and cu­cum­bers and the usu­al trash hap­pened, and Bob­by held forth while the ten who were bid­den lis­tened as to one sent from heav­en. And, be­ing su­per­flu­ous, I with­drew men­tal­ly to a ca­noe in a lone­ly lake and went frog­ging.

Vi­car­ious­ly. I do not like frog­ging in per­son. The crea­ture smiles. Al­so he ap­peals be­cause he is ug­ly and com­pla­cent. But for the grace of God I might have looked so. He sits in supreme hideous­ness frozen to the end of a wet log, with his de­sir­able hind legs spread in view, and smiles his bronze smile of con­fi­dence in his own charm and my friend­ship. It is more than I can do to be­tray that smile. So, hat­ing to de­stroy the beast yet lik­ing to eat the leg, about once in my sum­mer va­ca­tion in camp I go frog­ging, and make the guides do it.

It would not be eti­quette to send them out alone, for in our club guides are sup­posed to do no fish­ing or shoot­ing--no sport. There­fore, I sit in a ca­noe and pre­tend to take a frog in a land­ing-​net and miss two or three and short­ly hand over the net to Josef. We have de­cid­ed on land­ing-​nets as our tack­le. I once shot the an­imals with a .22 Flobert ri­fle, but al­most in­vari­ably they dropped, like a larg­er bul­let, off the log and in­to the mud, and that was the end. We nev­er could re­trieve them. Al­so at one time we fished them with a many-​pronged hook and a bit of red flan­nel. But that seemed too bit­ter a re­turn for the bronze smile, and I dis­liked the method, be­sides be­ing bad at it. We took to the land­ing-​net.

To see Josef, en­rap­tured with the del­icate sport, ap­proach a net care­ful­ly till with­in an inch of the smile, and then give the old graven im­age a smart rap on the legs in ques­tion to make him leap head­long in­to the snare--to see that and Josef's black In­di­an eyes glit­ter with joy at the chase is amus­ing. I make him slaugh­ter the game in­stant­ly, which ap­pears su­pereroga­to­ry to Josef who would ex­act­ly as soon have a col­lec­tion of slimy ones leap­ing around the ca­noe. But I have them dead and done for prompt­ly, and piled un­der the stern seat. And on we pad­dle to the next.

The day to which I had re­tired from my din­ner-​par­ty and the tac­ti­cal lec­ture of my dis­tin­guished cousin was a late Au­gust day of two years be­fore. The frog­ging fleet in­clud­ed two ca­noes, that of young John Dud­ley who was do­ing his va­ca­tion with me, and my own. In each ca­noe, as is Hoyle for ca­noe­ing in Cana­da, were two guides and a “m'sieur.” The oth­er boat, John's, was some­where on the op­po­site shore of Lac des Pass­es, the Lake of the Pass­es, crawl­ing along edges of bays and spe­cial­iz­ing in old logs and sub­merged rocks, af­ter frogs with a land­ing-​net, the same as us. But John--to my mind coars­er--was do­ing his own frog­ging. The oth­er boat was noth­ing to us ex­cept for an oc­ca­sion­al yell when ge­og­ra­phy brought us near enough, of “How many?” and en­vy and mal­ice and all un­char­ita­ble­ness if the count was more, and hoots of tri­umph if less.

In my craft sailed, be­sides Josef and my­self, as bow pad­dler, The Tin Lizzie. We called him that ex­cept when he could hear us, and I think it would have done small harm to call him so then, as he had the brain of a jack-​rab­bit and man­aged not to know any En­glish, even when soaked in it dai­ly. John Dud­ley had named him be­cause of the ple­beian and re­li­able way in which he plugged along Cana­di­an trails. He set forth the queer­est walk I have ev­er seen--a hu­man Ford, John said. He was al­so quite mad about John. There had been a week in which Dud­ley, much of a doc­tor, had treat­ed, with cheer­ful pa­tience and skill, an in­fect­ed and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eter­nal of our Tin Lizzie. Lit­tle John Dud­ley thought, as he made jokes to dis­tract the boy, and worked over his big throb­bing fist, the fist which meant dai­ly bread--lit­tle John thought where the plant of love spring­ing from that seed of grat­itude would at last blos­som. Lit­tle he thought as the two sat on the gallery of the camp, and the placid lake broke in sil­ver on peb­bles be­low, through what hell of fire and smoke and dan­ger the kind­li­ness he gave to the stupid young guide would be giv­en back to him. Which is get­ting ahead of the sto­ry.

I sug­gest­ed that the Lizzie might like a turn at frog­ging, and Josef, with In­di­an word­less­ness, hand­ed the net to him. Where­upon, with his flab­by mouth wide and his large gray eyes gleam­ing, he pro­ceed­ed to miss four easy ones in suc­ces­sion. And with that Josef, in a gib­ber­ish which is French-​Cana­di­an pa­tois of the in­ner cir­cles, ad­dressed the Tin Lizzie and took away the net from him, ask­ing no or­ders from me. The Lizzie, pipe in mouth as al­ways, smiled just as pleas­ant­ly un­der this pun­ish­ment as in the hour of his op­por­tu­ni­ties. He would have been a very hand­some boy, with his huge eyes and bril­liant brown and red col­or and his splen­did shoul­ders and slim waist of an ath­lete if on­ly he had pos­sessed a ray of sense. Yet he was a good enough guide to fill in, for he was strong and will­ing and took or­ders ami­ably from any­body and did his rou­tine of work, such as chop­ping wood and fill­ing lamps and bring­ing wa­ter and car­ry­ing boats, with en­tire ef­fi­cien­cy. That he had no ini­tia­tive at all and by no chance did any­thing he was not told to, even when most ob­vi­ous, that he was lack­ing in any char­ac­ter­is­tic of in­ter­est, that he was more­over a supreme cow­ard, afraid to be left alone in the woods--these things were af­ter all im­ma­te­ri­al, for, as John point­ed out, we didn't re­al­ly need to love our guides.

John al­so point­ed out that the Lizzie--his name was, in­ci­den­tal­ly, Aristophe--had one nice qual­ity. Of course, it was a qual­ity which ap­pealed most to the ben­efi­cia­ry, yet it seemed well to me al­so to have my guests sur­round­ed with mer­cy and lov­ing kind­ness. John had but to sug­gest build­ing a fire or greas­ing his boots or car­ry­ing a ca­noe over any portage to any lake, and the Lizzie at once leaped with a bright smile as who should say that this was in­deed a plea­sure. “C'est bi­en, M'sieur,” was his for­mu­la. He would gaze at John for sec­tions of an hour, with his flab­by mouth open in speech­less sur­prise as if at the un­be­liev­able glo­ry and mag­nif­icence of M'sieur. A nice lad, John Dud­ley was, but no sub­tle en­chanter; a stocky and well-​set-​up young man with a whole-​souled, gar­ru­lous and breezy way, and a gift of slang and a bril­liant grin. What called forth hero-​wor­ship to­wards him I nev­er un­der­stood; but no more had I un­der­stood why Mil­dred Thorn­ton, Colonel Thorn­ton's young sis­ter, my very beau­ti­ful cousin, should have se­lect­ed him, from a large as­sort­ment of suit­ors, to mar­ry. In­deed I did not en­tire­ly un­der­stand why I liked hav­ing John in camp bet­ter than any­one else; prob­ably it was es­sen­tial­ly the same charm which im­pelled Mil­dred to want to live with him, and the Tin Lizzie to fall down and wor­ship. In any case the Lizzie wor­shipped with a prim­itive and unashamed and en­dur­ing ado­ra­tion, which stood even the test of fear. That was the supreme test for the Tin Lizzie, who was a cow­ard of cow­ards. Rather cru­el­ly I bet John on a day that his satel­lite did not love him enough to go out to the club-​house alone for him, and the next day John was in sore need of to­bac­co, not to be got near­er than the club.

“Aristophe will go out and get it for me,” he an­nounced as Aristophe--the Lizzie--trot­ted about the ta­ble at lunch-​time pur­vey­ing us flap­jacks.

The Tin Lizzie stood root­ed a sec­ond, pet­ri­fied at the rev­olu­tion­ary scheme of his go­ing to the club, com­pan­ions un­men­tioned. There one saw as if through glass an idea seek­ing a road through his smooth gray mat­ter. One had al­ways gone to the club with Josef, or Maxime or Pierre--cer­tain­ly M'sieur meant that; one would of course be glad to go--with Josef or Maxime or Pierre--to get to­bac­co for M'sieur John. Of course, the idea slid through the old road in the al­most un­wrin­kled gray mat­ter, and came safe­ly to head­quar­ters.

“C'est bi­en, M'sieur,” an­swered the Lizzie smil­ing bright­ly.

And with that I knocked the sil­ly lit­tle smile in­to a cocked hat. “You may start ear­ly to­mor­row, Aristophe,” I said, “and get back by dark, go­ing light, I can't spare any oth­er men to go with you. But you will cer­tain­ly not mind go­ing alone--to get to­bac­co for M'sieur John.”

The poor Tin Lizzie turned red and then white, and his weak mouth fell open and his eye­brows lift­ed till the whites of his eyes showed above the gray iris­es. And one saw again, through the crys­tal of his un­ex­er­cised brain, the op­er­ation of a painful and new thought. M'sieur John--a day alone in the woods--love, ver­sus fear--which would win. John and I watched the strug­gle a bit mer­ci­less­ly. A grown man gets small sym­pa­thy for be­ing a cow­ard. And yet few forms of suf­fer­ing are keen­er. We watched; and the Tin Lizzie stood and gasped in the play of his emo­tions. No­body had ev­er giv­en this son of the soil ide­als to hold to through sud­den dan­ger; no sense of in­her­it­ed hon­or to be guard­ed came to help the Lizzie; he had been taught to work hard and save his skin--lit­tle else. The great ado­ra­tion for John which had swept him off his com­mon­place feet--was it go­ing to make good against life-​long self­ish cau­tion? We won­dered. It was cu­ri­ous to watch the new big feel­ing fight the long-​es­tab­lished pet­ty one. And it was with a glow of tri­umph quite out of draw­ing that we saw the gen­er­ous in­stinct win the bat­tle.

“Oui, M'sieur,” spoke Aristophe, un­con­scious of sub­tleties or watch­ing. “I go to­mor­row--alone. _C'est bi­en, M'sieur_.”

It was about the on­ly re­mark I ev­er heard him make, that gra­cious: “_C'est bi­en, M'sieur_!” But he made it re­mark­ably well. Al­most he per­suad­ed me to re­spect him with that hearty re­sponse to the call of du­ty, that hum­ble and high gift of gra­cious­ness. One re­mem­bers him as his dol­ly face light­ed at John's or­der to go and clean trout or car­ry in logs, and one does not for­get the ab­surd, queer lit­tle fast trot at which his pow­er­ful young legs would in­stan­ta­neous­ly swing off to obey the be­hest. Such was the Tin Lizzie, the guide who pad­dled bow in my can­vas ca­noe on the day of the cel­ebrat­ed frog hunt.

That the frog hunt was cel­ebrat­ed was ow­ing to the Lizzie. He should have been in John's boat, as one of John's guides, but at the last mo­ment, there was a con­fu­sion of tongues and Lizzie was shipped aboard my ca­noe. In the ex­cite­ment of the chase Josef, stern man, had faced about to ma­nip­ulate his land­ing-​net; Aristophe al­so slewed around and, sit­ting on the gun­wale, be­came stern pad­dler. I was in the mid­dle screwed any­how, watch­ing the frog fish­ing and en­joy­ing the en­joy­ment of the men. Poor chaps, it was the on­ly bit of per­son­al play they got out of our month of play. Aristophe, the Tin Lizzie, was quite mad with the ex­cite­ment even from his very sec­ond fid­dle stand­point of pad­dler to Josef's frog­ging. His enor­mous gray eyes snapped, his teeth showed white and gold around his pipe--which he near­ly bit off--and he even used lan­guage.

“_Tiens! En­core un!_” hissed the Lizzie in a blood-​cur­dling whis­per as a new pair of pop eyes lift­ed from the edge of a rot­ten log.

And Josef, who had al­ways seen the frog first, fired a gut­tural sen­tence, full of con­tempt, full of friend­li­ness, for he sized up the Lizzie, his virtues and his lim­ita­tions, ac­cu­rate­ly. And then the boat was pushed and pulled in the shal­low wa­ter till Josef and the net were with­in range. With, that came the slow ap­proach of the net to the smile, the swift tap on the eat­able legs, and head­long in­to his fin­ish leaped M. Cra­paud. Which is rot his cor­rect name, Josef tells me, in these parts, but M. Guar­ron. And that, be­ing trans­lat­ed, means Mr. Very-​Big-​Bull-​Frog.

Busi­ness had pros­pered to four­teen or fif­teen head of frogs, and we cal­cu­lat­ed that the oth­er boat might have a dozen when, fac­ing to­wards Aristophe, I saw his dull, fresh face sud­den­ly change. My pulse missed a beat at that ex­pres­sion. It was ad­equate to an earth­quake or sud­den death. How the fatu­ous doll-​like fea­tures could have been made to reg­is­ter that stare of a soul in hor­ror I can't guess. But they did. The whites of his eyes showed an eighth of an inch above the iris­es and his black eye­brows were shot up to the roots of his glossy black hair. In the gleam­ing white and gold of his teeth the pipe was still gripped. And while I gazed, as­ton­ished, his un­fit­ting deep voice is­sued from that mask of fear:

“_Tiens! En­core un!_” And I screwed about and saw that the Lizzie was run­ning the boat on top of an enor­mous frog which he had not spied till the last sec­ond. With that Josef ex­plod­ed throaty lan­guage and lean­ing side­wise made a dive at the frog. Aristophe, un­bal­anced with emo­tion and Josef's swift move­ment shot from his poise at the end of the lit­tle craft, and land­ed, in a foot of wa­ter, flat on his buck, and the frog seized that sec­ond to jump on his stom­ach.

I nev­er heard an In­di­an re­al­ly laugh be­fore that day. The hills re­sound­ed with Josef's shouts. We laughed, Josef and I, till we were weak, and for a good minute Aristophe sprawled in the lake, with the frog an­chored as if till King­dom come on his mid­dle, and howled lusty howls while we laughed. Then Josef fished the frog and got him off the Tin Lizzie's lungs. And Aristophe, weep­ing, scram­bled in­to the boat. And as we went home in the cool for­est twi­light, up the portage by the rush­ing, noisy rapids, Josef, walk­ing be­fore us, car­ry­ing the land­ing-​net full of frogs' legs, shook with laugh­ter ev­ery lit­tle while again, as Aristophe, his wet strong young legs, the on­ly sec­tion of him show­ing, toiled ahead up the wind­ing thread of a trail, car­ry­ing the in­vert­ed ca­noe on his head.

It was this ad­ven­ture which came to me and seized me and car­ried me a thou­sand miles north­ward in­to Cana­di­an for­est as I looked at the frogs' legs on my plate at the Cos­mic Club, and did not lis­ten to my cousin, the Colonel, talk­ing mil­itary tac­tics.

The men­tal re­view took an eighth of the time it has tak­en me to tell it. But as I shook off my dream of the woods, I re­al­ized that, while Thorn­ton still talked, he had got out of his un­in­ter­est­ing rut in­to his in­ter­est­ing one. With­out hear­ing what he said I knew that from the look of the men's faces. Each man's eyes were bright, through a man­ner of mist­iness, and there was a sud­den si­lence which was per­haps what had re­called me.

“It's a war which is mak­ing a new stan­dard of courage,” spoke the young Gov­er­nor in the gen­tle tone which goes so odd­ly and so pleas­ant­ly with his bull-​dog jaw. “It looks as if we were go­ing to be left with a world where hero­ism is the nor­mal thing,” spoke the Gov­er­nor.

“Hero­ism--yes,” said Bob­by, and I knew with sat­is­fac­tion that he was off on his own line, the line he does not fan­cy, the line where few can dis­tance him. “Hero­ism!” re­peat­ed Bob­by, “It's all around out there. And it crops out--” he be­gun to smile--“in un­sus­pect­ed places, from var­ied im­puls­es.”

He was work­ing his way to an anec­dote. The men at the ta­ble, their chairs twist­ed to­wards him, sat very still.

“What I mean to say is,” Bob­by be­gan, “that this war, hor­ri­ble as it is, is mak­ing over hu­man, na­ture for the bet­ter. It's burn­ing out self­ish­ness and cow­ardice and a lot of faults from mil­lions of men, and it's hold­ing up the no­bil­ity of what some of them do to the en­tire world. It takes a char­ac­ter, this débâ­cle, and smash­es out the lit­tle­ness. An­oth­er thing is cu­ri­ous. If a small char­ac­ter has one good point on which to hang hero­ism, the bat­tle-​spir­it search­es out that point and plants on it the hero­ism. There was a stupid young pri­vate in my com­mand who--but I'm afraid I'm telling too many war sto­ries,” Bob­by ap­pealed, in­ter­rupt­ing him­self. “I'm full of it, you see, and when peo­ple are so good, and lis­ten--” He stopped, in a con­fu­sion which is not his least at­trac­tive man­ner.

From down the ta­ble came a quick mur­mur of voic­es. I saw more than one glance halt at the crutch on the back of the sol­dier's chair.

“Thank you. I'd re­al­ly like to tell about this man. It's in­ter­est­ing, psy­cho­log­ical­ly to me,” he went on, smil­ing con­tent­ed­ly. He is a lov­able chap, my cousin Robert Thorn­ton. “The lad whom I speak of, a French-​Cana­di­an from Que­bec Province, was my ser­vant, my bat­man, as the In­di­an army called them and as we re­fer to them of­ten now. He was so brain­less that I just missed fir­ing him the first day I had him. But John Dud­ley, my broth­er-​in-​law and lieu­tenant, want­ed me to give him a chance, and al­so there was some­thing in his man­ner when I gave him or­ders which at­tract­ed me. He ap­peared to have a plea­sure in serv­ing, and an ide­al of du­ty. Dud­ley had used him as a guide, and the man had a dog-​like de­vo­tion to 'the lieu­tenant' which count­ed with me. Al­so he didn't talk. I think he knew on­ly four words. I flung or­ders at him and there would be first a shock of ex­cite­ment, then a sec­ond of tense anx­iety, then a ra­di­ant smile and the four words: '_C'est bi­en, Mon Cap­itaine_.' I was cap­tain then.”

At that point I dropped my knife and fork and stared at my cousin. He went on.

"'_C'est bi­en, Mon Cap­itaine_.' That was the slo­gan. And when the pro­cess was ac­com­plished, off he would trot, ea­ger to do my will. He was pow­er­ful and well-​built, but he had the odd­est man­ner of lo­co­mo­tion ev­er I saw, a trot like--like a Ford car. I dis­cov­ered pret­ty soon that the poor wretch was a born cow­ard. I've seen him start at the dis­tant sound of guns long be­fore we got near the front, and he was ner­vous at go­ing out alone at night about the camp. The men ragged him, but he was such a friend­ly ras­cal and so will­ing to take over oth­ers' work that he got along with a frac­tion of the per­se­cu­tion most of his sort would have had. I won­dered some­times what would hap­pen to the poor lit­tle dev­il when ac­tu­al fight­ing came. Would it be '_C'est bi­en, Mon Cap­itaine_,' at the or­der to go over the top, or would the ter­ri­ble force of fear be too much for him and land him at last with his back to a wall and a fir­ing squad in front--a de­sert­er? Mean­time he im­proved and I got de­pen­dent on his ra­di­ant good will. Be­ing John Dud­ley's broth­er-​in-​law sanc­ti­fied me with him, and noth­ing was too much trou­ble if I'd give him a chance some­times to clean John's boots. I have a man now who shows no ec­sta­cy at be­ing or­dered to do my jobs, and I don't like him.

"We were moved up to­wards the front, and, though Mr. Win­ston Churchill has made a row about the O.S.--the of­fi­cers' ser­vants who are re­moved from the fir­ing line, I know that a large pro­por­tion of them do their share in the trench­es. I saw to it that mine did.

"One night there was a dig­ging ex­pe­di­tion. An ad­vance trench was to be made in No Man's Land about a hun­dred and fifty yards from the Ger­mans. I was in com­mand of the cov­er­ing par­ty of thir­ty-​five men; I was a cap­tain. We, of course, went out ahead. Beau­ramé was in the par­ty. It was his first fight­ing. We had ri­fles, with bay­onets, and bombs, and a cou­ple of Lewis guns. We came up to the trench­es by a road, then went in­to the zigzag com­mu­ni­ca­tion trench­es up to the front, the fire-​trench. Then, very cau­tious­ly, over the top in­to No Man's Land. It was ner­vous work, for at any sec­ond they might dis­cov­er us and open fire. It suit­ed us all to be as qui­et as hu­man men could be, and when once in a while a star-​shell, a Very light, was sent up from the Ger­man lines we froze in our tracks till the white glare died out.

“The par­ty had been dig­ging for per­haps an hour when hell broke loose. They'd seen us. All about was a storm of ma­chine-​gun and ri­fle bul­lets, and we dropped on our faces, the dig­gers in their trench--pret­ty shal­low it was. As for the cov­er­ing par­ty, we sim­ply took our medicine. And then the shrap­nel joined the mu­sic. Word was passed to get back to the trench­es, and we start­ed prompt­ly. We stooped low as we ran over No Man's Land, but there were plen­ty of ca­su­al­ties. I got mine in the foot, but not the wound which rung in this--” Thorn­ton nod­ded his head at the crutch­es with a smile. "It was from a bit of shrap­nel just as I made the trench, and as I fell in I caught at the sand bags and whirled about fac­ing out over No Man's Land; as I whirled I saw, close by, Beau­ramé's face in a shaft of light. I don't know why I made con­ver­sa­tion at that mo­ment--I did. I said:

“When did you get back?”

And his an­swer came as if clicked on a type­writ­er. “Me, I stayed, _Mon Cap­itaine_. It had an air too dan­ger­ous, out there.”

I stared in a white rage. You'll imag­ine--one of my men to dare tell me that! And at that sec­ond, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, came the flare of a shell star and a shout of a man struck down, and I knew the voice--John Dud­ley. He was out there, the tail end of the par­ty, wound­ed. I saw him as he fell, on the far­ther side of the new trench. Of course, one's in­stinct was to dash back and bring him in, and I start­ed. And I found my foot gone--I couldn't walk. Quick­er than I can tell it I turned to Beau­ramé, the cow­ard, who'd been afraid to go over the top, and I said in French, be­cause, though I hadn't time to think it out, I yet re­al­ized that it would get to him faster so--I said:

“Get over there, you de­sert­er. Save the lieu­tenant--Lieu­tenant Dud­ley. Go.”

For one in­stant I thought it was no good and I was due to have him shot, if we both lived through the night. And then--I nev­er in my life saw such a face of ab­ject fear as the one he turned first to me and then across that hor­ror of No Man's Land. The whites of his eyes showed, it seemed, an eighth of an inch above the iris­es; his black eye­brows were half way up his fore­head, and his teeth, lux­uri­ous­ly up­hol­stered with fill­ings, shone white and gold in the un­earth­ly light. It was such a mad ter­ror as I'd nev­er seen be­fore, and nev­er since. And in­to it I, mad too with the thought of my sis­ter if I let young John Dud­ley die be­fore my eyes--I bombed again the or­der to go out and bring in Dud­ley. I re­mem­ber the fad­ing and com­ing ex­pres­sions on that French­man's face like the changes on a mov­ing pic­ture film. I sup­pose it was half a minute. And here was the cow­ard face gaz­ing in­to mine, trans­fig­ured in­to the face of a man who cared about an­oth­er man more than him­self--a com­mon man whose one high qual­ity was love.

“_C'est bi­en, Mon Cap­itaine_,” Beau­ramé spoke, through still click­ing teeth, and with his reg­ula­tion smile of good will he had sprung over the para­pet in one lithe move­ment, and I saw him crouch­ing, trot­ting that ab­surd, pow­er­ful fast trot through the lane in our barbed wire, like light­ning, to the shal­low new trench, to Dud­ley. I saw him--for the Ger­mans had the stretch light­ed--I saw the man pick up my broth­er-​in-​law and toss him over his shoul­ders and start trot­ting back. Then I saw him fall, both of them fall, and I knew that he'd stopped a bul­let. And then, as I groaned, some­how Beau­ramé was on his feet again. I ex­pect­ed, that he'd bolt for cov­er, but he didn't. He bent over de­lib­er­ate­ly as if he had been a fear­less hero--and maybe he was--and he picked up Dud­ley again and start­ed on, la­bor­ing, this time in walk­ing. He was hit bad­ly. But he made the trench; he brought in Dud­ley.

Then such a howl of hur­rahs greet­ed him from the men who watched the res­cue as poor lit­tle Aristophe Beau­ramé--"

“Ah!” I in­ter­ject­ed, and Bob­by turned and stared--“as the poor lit­tle scared rat had not dreamed, or had any right to dream would ev­er greet his con­duct on earth. He dropped Dud­ley at my feet and turned with his flab­by mouth open and his great stupid eyes like saucers, to­wards the men who rushed to shake his hand and throw at him words of ad­mi­ra­tion that choked them to get out. And then he keeled over. So you see. It was an equal chance at one sec­ond, whether a man should be shot for a de­sert­er or--win the Vic­to­ria Cross.”

“What!” I shout­ed at my guest. “What! Not the Vic­to­ria Cross! Not Aristophe!”

Bob­by looked at me in sur­prise. “You're a great claque for me,” he said. “You seem to take an in­ter­est in my hero. Yes, he got it. He was bad­ly hurt. One hand near­ly gone and a wound in his side. I was lucky enough to be in Lon­don on a day three months lat­er, and to be present at the cer­emo­ny, when the young French-​Cana­di­an, spoiled for a sol­dier, but splen­did stuff now for a hero, stood out in the open be­fore the troops in front of Buck­ing­ham Palace and King George pinned the V.C. on his breast. They say that he's back in his vil­lage, and the whole show. I hear that he tells over and over the sto­ry of his hero­ism and the res­cue of '_Mon Lieu­tenant_.' to nev­er fail­ing au­di­ences. Of course, John is look­ing af­ter him, for the hand which John saved was the hand that was shot to pieces in sav­ing John, and the Tin Lizzie can nev­er make his liv­ing with that hand again. A de­sert­er, a cow­ard--dec­orat­ed by the King with the Vic­to­ria Cross! Queer things hap­pen in war!” There was a stir, a mur­mur as of voic­es, of ques­tions be­gin­ning, but Bob­by was not quite through.

“War takes the best of the best men, and the best of the cheap­est, and trans­fig­ures both. War doesn't need heroes for hero­ism. She pins it on any­where if there's one spot of great­ness in a char­ac­ter. War does strange things with hu­man­ity,” said Bob­by.

And I, gasp­ing, broke out crude­ly in three words: “Our Tin Lizzie!” I said, and no­body knew in the least what I meant, or with what mem­ories I said it.

HE THAT LOS­ETH HIS LIFE SHALL FIND IT

The Red Cross wom­en had gone home. Half an hour be­fore, the large li­brary had been filled with white-​clad, white-​veiled fig­ures. Two long ta­bles full, forty of them to­day, had been work­ing; three thou­sand sur­gi­cal dress­ings had been cut and fold­ed and put away in large box­es on shelves be­hind glass doors where the most valu­able books had held their state­ly ex­is­tence for years. The books were stowed now in trunks in the at­tic. These were war days; lux­uries such as first edi­tions must wait their time. The great liv­ing-​room it­self, the cen­ter of home for this fam­ily since the two boys were born and ev­er this fam­ily had been, the dear big room with its dark carved oak, and tapestries, and stained glass, and books, and mem­ories was giv­en over now to war re­lief work.

Some­times, as the mis­tress walked in­to the spa­cious, low-​ceilinged, bright place, pres­ences long past seemed to fill it in­tol­er­ably. Brock and Hugh, lit­tle chaps, roared in un­tidy and tu­mul­tuous from foot­ball, or came, deco­rous and groomed, hand­some, smart lit­tle lads, to be pre­sent­ed to guests. Her own Hugh, her hus­band, proud of the beau­ti­ful new house, smiled from the hearth to her as he had smiled twen­ty-​six years back, the night they came in, a young Hugh, younger than Brock was now. Her fa­ther and moth­er, long gone over “to the ma­jor­ity,” and the exquisite old ivory beau­ty of a beau­ti­ful grand­moth­er--such ghosts rose and faced the wom­an as she stepped in­to the room where they had moved in life, the room with its love­li­ness marred by two long ta­bles cov­ered with green oil­cloth, by four rows of cheap chairs, by rows and rows of box­es on shelves where soft and bright and dark col­ors of books had glowed. She felt of­ten that she should ex­plain mat­ters to the room, should tell the walls which had shel­tered peace and hos­pi­tal­ity that she had con­se­crat­ed them to yet high­er ser­vice. Nev­er for one in­stant, while her soul ached for the fa­mil­iar set­ting, had she re­gret­ted its sac­ri­fice. That her soul did ache made it worth while.

And the wom­en gath­ered for this branch Red Cross or­ga­ni­za­tion, her neigh­bors on the edge of the great city, wives and daugh­ters and moth­ers of clerks, and de­liv­ery-​wag­on drivers, and ice­men, and night-​watch­men, wom­en who had not known how to take their part in the war work in the city or had found it too far to go, these came to her house glad­ly and all found plea­sure in her beau­ti­ful room. That made it a joy to give it up to them. She stood in the door­way, feel­ing an em­pha­sis in the qui­et of the Ju­ly af­ter­noon be­cause of the forty voic­es which had late­ly gone out of the sun­shiny si­lence, of the forty busy fig­ures in long, white aprons and white, sweep­ing veils, the tiny red cross gleam­ing over the fore­head of each one, each face love­ly in the uni­form of ser­vice, all odd­ly equal­ized and alike un­der their veils and cross­es. She spoke aloud as she tossed out her hands to the room:

“War will be over some day, and you will be our own again, but for­ev­er holy be­cause of this. You will be a room of his­to­ry when you go to Brock--”

Brock! Would Brock ev­er come home to the room, to this place which he loved? Brock, in France! She turned sharply and went out through the long hall and across the ter­race, and sat down where the steps dropped to the gar­den, on the broad top step, with her head against the pil­lar of the balustrade. Above her the smell of box in a stone vase on the pil­lar punc­tured the mild air with its def­inite, rem­inis­cent fra­grance. Box is a plant of an­tecedents of sen­ti­ment, of mem­ories. The wom­an in­hal­ing its del­icate sharp­ness, was caught back in­to days past. She con­sid­ered, in rapid jumps of thought, events, episodes, epochs. The day Brock was born, on her own twen­ti­eth birth­day, up-​stairs where the rosy chintz cur­tains blew now out of the win­dow; the first day she had come down to the ter­race--it was June--and the ba­by lay in his bassinet by the balustrade in that spot--she looked at the spot--the ba­by, her big Brock, a bun­dle of flan­nel and fine, white stuff in lacy frills of the bassinet. And she loved him; she re­mem­bered how she had loved that ba­by, how, laugh­ing at her­self, she had whis­pered sil­ly words over the stol­id, pink head; how the girl's heart of her had all but burst with the as­ton­ish­ing new tide of a feel­ing which seemed the great­est of which she was ca­pa­ble. Yet it was a small thing to the way she loved Brock now. A vi­sion came of lit­tle Hugh, three years younger, and the two tod­dling about the ter­race to­geth­er, Hugh al­ways Brock's satel­lite and ador­er, as was fit­ting; less stur­dy, less dar­ing than Brock, yet ready to go any­where if on­ly the old­er ba­by led. She thought of the day when Hugh, four years old, had tak­en fright at a black log among the bush­es un­der the trees.

“It's a bear!” lit­tle Hugh had whis­pered, shak­ing, and Brock, brave but not too cer­tain, had looked at her, in­quir­ing.

“No, love, it's not a bear; it's an old log of wood. Go and put your hand on it, Hughie.”

Lit­tle Hugh had cried out and shrunk back. “I'm afraid!” cried lit­tle Hugh.

And Brock, not en­tire­ly clear as to the no-​bear the­ory, had yet bluffed man­ful­ly. “Come on, Hughie; let's go and bang 'um,” said Brock.

Which in­vi­ta­tion Hugh ac­cept­ed re­luc­tant­ly with a con­di­tion, “If you'll hold my hand, B'ocky.”

The wom­an turned her head to see the place where the black log had lain, there in the old high bush­es. And be­hold! Two strong lit­tle fig­ures in white marched along--she could all but see them to­day--and the big­ger lit­tle fig­ure was drag­ging the oth­er a bit, hold­ing a hand with mas­ter­ful grip. She could hear lit­tle Hugh's laugh­ter as they ar­rived at the ter­ri­ble log and found it tru­ly a log. Even now Hugh's laugh was mu­sic.

“Why, it's nuf­fin but an old log o' wood!” lit­tle Hugh had squealed, as brave as a li­on.

As she sat see­ing vi­sions, old Mavourneen, Brock's Irish wolf-​hound, came and laid her muz­zle on the wom­an's shoul­der, cry­ing a bit, as was Mavourneen's Irish way, for plea­sure at find­ing the mis­tress. And with that there was a brown rip­ple and a pat­ter of many soft feet, and a bro­ken wave of dogs came around the cor­ner, sev­en lit­tle cairn-​ter­ri­ers. Sticky and Sandy and their off­spring. The wom­an let Sticky set­tle in her lap and drew Sandy un­der her arm, and the pup­pies looked up at her from the step be­low with ten se­ri­ous, anx­ious eyes and then fell to chas­ing quite imag­inary game up and down the stone steps. Mavourneen sighed deeply and dropped with a heavy thud, a great paw on the edge of the white dress and her beau­ti­ful head rest­ing on her paws, the topaz, watch­ful eyes gaz­ing over the city. The wom­an put her free hand back and touched the rough head.

“Dear dog!” she spoke.

An­oth­er mem­ory came: how they had bought Mavourneen, she and Hugh and the boys, at the ken­nels in Ire­land, eight years ago; how the huge ba­by had been sent to them at Liv­er­pool in a ham­per; the up­roar­ious drive the four of them--Hugh, the two boys, and her­self--and Mavourneen had tak­en in a taxi across the city. The pup­py, as­ton­ished and in­ves­ti­gat­ing through­out the whole pro­ceed­ing, had mount­ed all of them, sep­arate­ly and to­geth­er, and in­sist­ed on ly­ing in big Hugh's lap, cry­ing bro­ken-​heart­ed­ly at not be­ing al­lowed. How they had shout­ed laugh­ter, the four and the boy taxi-​driv­er, all the jour­ney, till they ached! What good times they had al­ways had to­geth­er, the young fa­ther and moth­er and the two big sons! She re­flect­ed how she had not been at all the con­ven­tion­al moth­er of sons. She had not been sat­is­fied to be gen­tle and benev­olent and look af­ter their clothes and morals. She had lived their lives with them, she had rid­den and gone swim­ming with them, and played ten­nis and golf, and fished and shot and skat­ed and walked with them, yes, and stud­ied and read with them, all their lives.

“I haven't any re­spect for my moth­er,” young Hugh told her one day. “I like her like a sis­ter.”

She was deeply pleased at this at­ti­tude; she did not wish their re­spect as a vis­ible qual­ity. Vi­sion af­ter vi­sion came of the old times and care-​free days while the four, as hap­py and nor­mal a fam­ily as lived in the world, passed their alert, full days to­geth­er be­fore the war. Mem­ory af­ter mem­ory took form in the brain of the wom­an, the cen­ter of that light-​heart­ed life so late­ly changed, so en­tire­ly now a mem­ory. War had come.

At first, in 1914, there had been ex­cite­ment, as­ton­ish­ment. Then the hor­ror of Bel­gium. One re­fused to be­lieve that at first; it was a lurid slan­der on the kind­ly Ger­man peo­ple; then one be­lieved with the brain; one's spir­it could not grasp it. Un­speak­able deeds such as the Ger­mans' deeds--it was like a state­ment made con­cern­ing a fourth di­men­sion of space; civ­ilized mod­ern folk were not so or­ga­nized as to re­al­ize the facts of that bes­tial­ity.

“Aren't you thank­ful we're Amer­icans?” the wom­an had said over and over.

One day her hus­band, an­swer­ing usu­al­ly with a shake of the head, an­swered in words. “We may be in it yet,” he said. “I'm not sure but we ought to be.”

Brock, twen­ty-​one then, had flashed at her: “I want to be in it. I may just have to be, moth­er.”

Young Hugh yawned a bit at that, and stretch­ing his long arm, he pat­ted his broth­er's shoul­der. “Good old hero, Brock! I'll beat you a set of ten­nis. Come on.”

That sud­den speech of Brock's had star­tled her, had brought the war, in a jump which was like a stab, close. The war and Lin­dow--their place--how was it pos­si­ble that this night­mare in Eu­rope could touch the peace of the gar­den, the sun­lit view of the riv­er, the trees with birds singing in them, the scam­per­ing of the dogs down the drive? The dis­tant hint of any con­nec­tion be­tween the great hor­ror and her own was pain; she put the thought away.

Then the _Lusi­ta­nia_ was sunk. All Amer­ica shout­ed shame through sobs of rage. The Pres­ident wrote a beau­ti­ful and en­tire­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry note.

“It should be war--war. It should be war to­day,” Hugh had said, her hus­band. “We on­ly waste time. We'll have to fight soon­er or lat­er. The soon­er we be­gin, the soon­er we'll fin­ish.”

“Fight!” young Hugh threw at him. “What with? We can just about make faces at 'em, fa­ther.”

The boy's fa­ther did not laugh. “We had bet­ter get ready to do more than make faces; we've got to get ready.” He ham­mered his hand on the stone balustrade. “I'm go­ing to Platts­burg this sum­mer, Eve­lyn.”

“I'm go­ing with you.” Brock's voice was low and his mouth set, and the wom­an, look­ing at him, saw sud­den­ly that her boy was a man.

“Well, then, as man pow­er is get­ting low at Lin­dow, I'll stay and take care of Mum­my. Won't I? We'll do aw­ful­ly well with­out them, won't we, Mum? You can drive Dad's Rolls-​Royce road­ster, and if you leave on the hand­brake up-​hill, I'll nev­er tell.”

Fa­ther and son had gone off for the month in camp, and, glad as she was to have the younger boy with her, there was yet an un­easy, an al­most sub­con­scious feel­ing about him, which she in­dig­nant­ly de­nied each time that it raised its head. It nev­er quite phrased it­self, this fear, this won­der if Hugh were al­to­geth­er as Amer­ican as his fa­ther and broth­er. Ques­tion the courage and pa­tri­otism of her own boy? She flung the thought from her as again and yet again it came. Peo­ple of the same blood were wide­ly dif­fer­ent. To Brock and his fa­ther it had come eas­ily to do the ob­vi­ous thing, to go to Platts­burg. It had not so come to young Hugh, but that in good time he would see his du­ty and do it she would not for an in­stant doubt. She would not break faith with the lad in thought. With a per­fect del­ica­cy she avoid­ed any word that would in­flu­ence him. He knew. All his life he had breathed loy­al­ty. It was she her­self, read­ing to them night af­ter night through years, who had taught the boys hero wor­ship--above all, wor­ship of Amer­ican heroes, Wash­ing­ton, Paul Jones, Per­ry, Far­ragut, Lee; how Dewey had said, “You may fire now, Gri­dley, if you are ready”; how Clark had brought the _Ore­gon_ around the con­ti­nent; how Scott had gone alone among an­gry In­di­ans. She had taught them such names, names which will not die while Amer­ica lives. It was she who had told the lit­tle lads, lis­ten­ing wide-​eyed, that as these men had held life light­ly for the glo­ry of Amer­ica, so her sons, if need came, must be ready to of­fer their lives for their coun­try. She re­mem­bered how Brock, his round face sud­den­ly scar­let, had stam­mered out:

“I _am_ ready, Mum­my. I'd die this minute for--for Amer­ica. Wouldn't you, Hughie?”

And young Hugh, a slim, blond an­gel of a boy, of curly, gold­en hair and un­ex­pect­ed an­swers, had ducked be­neath the hero, up­set­ting him in­to a hedge to his in­fi­nite anger. “I wouldn't die right now, Brocky,” said Hugh. “There's go­ing to be choco­late cake for lunch.”

One could nev­er count on Hugh's ways of do­ing things, but Brock was a stone wall of re­li­abil­ity. She smiled, think­ing of his youth and beau­ty and en­tire boy­ish­ness, to think yet of the say­ing from the Bible which al­ways sug­gest­ed Brock, “Thou shalt keep him in per­fect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” It was so with the lad; through the gay heart and ea­ger in­ter­est in life pulsed an at­mo­sphere of deep re­li­gious­ness. He was al­ways “in per­fect peace,” and his moth­er, less bal­anced, had stayed her mind on that qui­et and right young mind from its very baby­hood. The lad had seen his re­spon­si­bil­ities and lift­ed them all his life. It came to her how, when her own moth­er, very dear to Brock, had died, she had not let the lads go with her to the house of death for fear of sad­den­ing their youth, and how, when she and their fa­ther came home from the hard, ter­ri­ble busi­ness of the fu­ner­al, they met lit­tle Hugh on the drive, rap­tur­ous at see­ing them again, rather ab­sorbed in his new dog. But Brock, then four­teen, was in the house alone, qui­et, his fresh, dear face red with tears, and a black neck­tie of his fa­ther's, too large for him, tied un­der his col­lar. Of all the mem­ories of her boys, that grotesque black tie was the most poignant and most pre­cious. It said much. It said: “I al­so, O, my moth­er, am of my peo­ple. I have a right to their sor­rows as well as to their joys, and if you do not give me my place in trou­ble, I shall do what I can alone, be­ing but a boy. I shall give up play, and I shall wear mourn­ing as I can, not know­ing how very well, but pushed by all my be­ing to be with my own in their mourn­ing.”

Quick­ly af­fec­tion for the oth­er lad as­sert­ed it­self. Brock and Hugh were dif­fer­ent, but Hugh was a dear boy, too--un­de­vel­oped, that was all. He had nev­er tak­en life se­ri­ous­ly, lit­tle Hugh, and now that this war-​cloud hung over the world, he sim­ply re­fused to look at it; he turned away his face. That was all, a tem­per­ament which loved har­mo­ny and shrank from ug­li­ness; these things were young Hugh's lim­ita­tions, and no ig­no­ble qual­ity.

In a long dream, yet much faster than the words have told it, in com­pre­hen­sive flash­es of mem­ory, her el­bows on her knees and her face, in her slen­der hands, look­ing out over the gar­den with its arched way of ros­es, with its high hedge, look­ing past the love­li­ness that was home to the city puls­ing in sum­mer heat, to the shin­ing zigzag of riv­er be­yond the city, the wom­an re­viewed her boys' lives. Boys were not now mere­ly one phase of hu­man­ity; they had sud­den­ly be­come the na­tion. They stood in the fore­ground of a world cri­sis; back of them Amer­ica was ranged, or­der­ly, liv­ing and mov­ing to feed, clothe, and keep hap­py these mil­lions of lads hold­ing in their hands the fate of the earth. Her boys were but two, yet nec­es­sary. She owed them to the coun­try, as oth­er moth­ers of men.

There was a whis­tle un­der the arch­way, a fly­ing step, and young Hugh shot from be­neath the rosi­ness of Dorothy Perkins vines and took the stone steps in four bounds. All the dogs fell in­to a com­mu­ni­ty cho­rus of barks and whines and pat­ter­ings about, and Hugh's hands were on this one and that as he bent over the wom­an.

“A _good_ kiss, Mum­my; that's cold baked pota­to,” he com­plained, and she laughed and hugged him.

“Not cold; I was just think­ing. Your knee, Hughie? You came up like a bird.”

Hugh made a face. “Bad break, that,” he grinned, and limped across the ter­race and back. “Mum­my, it doesn't hurt much now, and I do for­get,” he ex­plained, and his col­or deep­ened. With that: “Tom Arthur is wait­ing for me in town. We're go­ing to pick up Whit­ney, the ten­nis cham­pi­on, at the Cross­roads Club. May I take Dad's road­ster?”

“Yes, Hughie. And, Hugh, meet the train, the sev­en-​five. Dad's com­ing to-​night, you know.”

The boy took her hand, looked at her un­easi­ly. “Mum­my, dear, don't be think­ing sin­ful thoughts about me. And don't let Dad. Hold your fire, Mum­my.”

She lift­ed her face, and her eyes were the eyes of faith he had known all his life. “You blessed boy of mine, I will hold my fire.” And then Hugh had all but knocked her over with a vi­olent kiss again, and he slammed hap­pi­ly through the screen doors and was leap­ing up the stairs. Ten min­utes lat­er she heard the car purring down the drive.

The dogs set­tled about her with long dog-​sighs again. She looked at her wrist--on­ly five-​thir­ty. She went back with a new un­rest to her thoughts. Hugh's knee--it was odd; it had last­ed a long time, ev­er since--she shud­dered a bit, so that old Mavourneen lift­ed her head and ob­ject­ed soft­ly--ev­er since war was de­clared. Over a year! To be sure, he had hurt it again bad­ly, slip­ping on the ice in De­cem­ber, just as it was get­ting strong. She wished that his fa­ther would not be so grim when Hugh's bad knee was men­tioned. What did he mean? Did he dare to think her boy--the word was dif­fi­cult even men­tal­ly--a slack­er? With that her mind raced back to the days just be­fore Hugh had hurt this knee. It was in Febru­ary that Ger­many had pro­claimed the oceans closed ex­cept along Ger­man paths, at Ger­man times. “This is war at last,” her hus­band had said, and she knew the in­evitable had come.

Night af­ter night she had lain awake fac­ing it, some­times break­ing down ut­ter­ly and shak­ing her soul out in sobs, some­times try­ing to see ways around the hor­ror, try­ing to be­lieve that war must end be­fore our troops could get ready, of­ten with high­er courage glo­ry­ing that she might give so much for coun­try and hu­man­ity. Then, in the nights, things that she had read far back, un­re­al­iz­ing, rose and con­front­ed her with aw­ful re­al­ity. Bru­tal­ities, atroc­ities, wounds, bar­barous cap­tiv­ity--night­mares which the Ger­mans had dug out of the grave of sav­agery and sent stalk­ing over the earth--such rose and stood be­fore the wom­an ly­ing awake night af­ter night. At first her soul hid its face in ter­ror at the grue­some thoughts; at first her mind turned and fled and re­fused to be­lieve. Her boys, Brock and Hugh! It was not cred­ible, it was not rea­son­able, it was out of draw­ing that her good boys, her pre­cious boys trained to be hap­py and help the world, to live use­ful, peace­ful lives, should be snatched from home, here in Amer­ica, and pitched in­to the ghast­ly strug­gle of Eu­rope. Push back the ocean as she might, the ocean surged ev­ery day near­er.

Day­times she was as brave as the best. She could say: “If we had done it the day af­ter the _Lusi­ta­nia_, that would have been right. It would have been all over now.” She could say: “My boys? They will do their du­ty like oth­er wom­en's boys.” But nights, when she crept in­to bed and the things she had read of Bel­gium, of Ser­bia, came and stood about her, she knew that hers were the on­ly boys in the world who could not, _could_ not be spared. Brock and Hugh! It seemed as if it would be ap­par­ent to the dullest that Brock and Hugh were dif­fer­ent from all oth­ers. She could suf­fer; she could have gone over there light-​heart­ed and faced any dan­ger to save _them_. Of course! That was nat­ural! But--Brock and Hugh! The lit­tle heads that had lain in the hol­low of her arm; the noisy lit­tle boys who had mud­died their white clothes, and bro­ken fur­ni­ture, and spilled ink; the tall, beau­ti­ful lads who had been her pride and her ev­er­last­ing joy, her play­mates, her lovers--Brock and Hugh! Why, there had nev­er been on earth love and friend­ship in any fam­ily close and un­fail­ing like that of the four.

Night af­ter night, near­er and near­er, the ghosts from Bel­gium and Ser­bia and Poland stood about her bed, and she fought with them as one had fought with the beasts at Eph­esus. Day af­ter day she cheered Brock and the two Hughs and filled them with fresh pa­tri­otism. Of course, she would not have her own fail in a hair's breadth of ea­ger ser­vice to their flag. Of course! And as she lift­ed up, for their sakes, her heart, be­hold a mir­acle, for her heart grew high! She be­gan to feel the words she said. It came to her in very truth that to have the world as one want­ed it was not now the point; the point was a greater goal which she had nev­er in her hap­py life even vi­su­al­ized. It be­gan to rise be­fore her, a dis­tant pic­ture glo­ri­ous through a mist of suf­fer­ing, some­thing built of the sac­ri­fice, and the hon­or, and the death­less brav­ery of mil­lions of sol­diers in bat­tle, of mil­lions of moth­ers at home. The ed­uca­tion of a na­tion to high­er ide­als was reach­ing the qui­et back­wa­ter of this one wom­an's soul. There were love­li­er things than life; there were hard­er things than death. Ser­vice is the mea­sure of liv­ing. If the boys were to com­press years of good liv­ing in­to a flame of serv­ing hu­man­ity for six months, who was she, what was life here, that she should be re­luc­tant? To play the game, for her­self and her sons, this was the one thing worth while. More and more en­tire­ly, as the stress of the strange, hard vi­sion crowd­ed out self­ish­ness, this wom­an, as thou­sands and tens of thou­sands all over Amer­ica, lift­ed up her heart--the dear things that filled and were her heart--un­to the Lord.

And with that she was aware of a re­cur­ring un­rest. She was aware that there was some­thing her hus­band did not say to her about the boys, about young Hugh. Brock had been hard to hold for near­ly two years now, but his fa­ther had thought for rea­sons, that he should not serve un­til his own flag called him. Now it would soon be call­ing, and Brock would go in­stant­ly. But young Hugh? What did the boy's at­ti­tude mean?

“I can't make out Hughie,” his fa­ther had said to her in March, 1917, when it was cer­tain that war was com­ing. “What does this dev­il-​may-​care pose about the war mean?”

And she an­swered: “Let Hughie work it out, Hugh. He's in trou­ble in his mind, but he'll come through. We'll give him time.”

“Oh, very well,” Hugh the el­der had agreed, “but young Amer­icans will have to take their stand short­ly. I couldn't bear it if a son of mine were a slack­er.”

She tossed out her hands. “Slack­er! Don't dare say it of my boy!”

The hideous word fol­lowed her. That night, when she lay in bed and looked out in­to the moon­lit wood, and saw the pines sway­ing like gi­ant fans across a puls­ing, pale sky, and lis­tened to the sum­mer wind blow­ing through the tall heads of them, again through the peace of it the word stabbed. A slack­er! She set to work to fan­cy how it would be if Brock and Hugh both went to war and were both killed. She faced the thought. Life--years of it--with­out Brock and Hugh! She reg­is­tered that steadi­ly in her mind. Then she paint­ed to her­self an­oth­er pic­ture, Brock and Hugh not go­ing to war, at home ig­no­min­ious­ly safe. Oth­er wom­en's sons march­ing out in­to the dan­ger--men, heroes! Brock and Hugh ex­plain­ing, steadi­ly ex­plain­ing why they had not gone! Brock and Hugh af­ter the war, ma­ture men, meet­ing re­turn­ing sol­diers, old friends who had borne the bur­den and heat, them­selves with no mem­ories of hideous, in­finite­ly pre­cious days, of hard­ships, and squalid trench life, and dead­ly pain--for Amer­ica! Brock and Hugh go­ing on through life in­to old age ashamed to hold up their heads and look their com­rades in the eye! Or else--it might be--Brock and Hugh ly­ing next year, this year, in un­known, hon­ored graves in France! Which was worse? And the aching heart of the wom­an did not wait to an­swer. Bet­ter a thou­sand times brave death than a cow­ard's life. She would choose so if she knew cer­tain­ly that she sent them both to death. The ed­uca­tion of the war, the new glo­ry of pa­tri­otism, had al­ready gone far in this one wom­an.

And then the thought stabbed again--a slack­er--Hugh! How did his fa­ther dare say it? A poi­sonous ter­ror, cold­er than the fear of death, crawled in­to her soul and hid there. Was it pos­si­ble that Hugh, bril­liant, buoy­ant, tem­per­amen­tal Hugh was--that? The days went on, and the cold, vile thing stayed coiled in her soul. It was on the very day war was de­clared that young Hugh in­jured his knee, a bad in­jury. When he was car­ried home, when the doc­tor cut away his clothes and bent over the swollen leg and said wise things about the “bur­sa,” the boy's eyes were hard to meet. They con­stant­ly sought hers with a look ques­tion­ing and anx­ious. Words were im­pos­si­ble, but she tried to make her glance and man­ner say: “I trust you. Not for worlds would I be­lieve you did it on pur­pose.”

And fi­nal­ly the lad caught her hand and with his mouth against it spoke. “_You_ know I didn't do it on pur­pose, Mum­my.”

And the cold hor­ror fled out of her heart, and a great re­lief flood­ed her.

On a day af­ter that Brock came home from camp, and, though he might not tell it in words, she knew that he would sail short­ly for France. She kept the house full of bright­ness and move­ment for the three days he had at home, yet the four--young Hugh on crutch­es now--clung to each oth­er, and on the last af­ter­noon she and Brock were alone for an hour. They had sat just here af­ter ten­nis, in the hazy Oc­to­ber weath­er, and pink-​brown leaves had float­ed down with a thin, pun­gent fra­grance and lay on the stone steps in vague pat­terns. Scar­let gera­ni­ums bloomed back of Brock's head and made a sat­is­fy­ing har­mo­ny with the cop­per of his tanned face. They fell to si­lence af­ter much talk­ing, and fi­nal­ly she got out some­thing which had been in her mind but which it had been hard to say.

“Brocky,” she be­gan, and jabbed the end of her rack­et in­to her foot so that it hurt, be­cause phys­ical pain will dis­tract and steady a mind. “Brocky, I want to ask you to do some­thing.”

“Yes'm,” an­swered Brock.

“It's this. Of course, I know you're go­ing soon, over there.”

Brock looked at her grave­ly.

“Yes, I know, I want to ask you if--if _it_ hap­pens--will you come and tell me your­self? If it's al­lowed.”

Brock did not even touch her hand; he knew well she could not bear it. He an­swered qui­et­ly, with a sweet, com­mon­place man­ner as if that oth­er world to which he might be go­ing was a place too fa­mil­iar in his thoughts for any great strain in speak­ing of it. “Yes, Mum­my,” he said. “Of course I will. I'd have want­ed to any­way, even if you hadn't said it. It seems to me--” He lift­ed his young face, square-​jawed, fresh-​col­ored, and there was a vi­sion-​see­ing look in his eyes which his moth­er had known at times be­fore. He looked across the city ly­ing at their feet, and the riv­er, and the blue hills be­yond, and he spoke slow­ly, as if shap­ing a thought. “So many fel­lows have 'gone west' late­ly that there must he some way. It seems as if all that mass of love and--and de­sire to reach back and touch--the ones left--as if all that must have built a sort of bridge over the riv­er--so that a fel­low might prob­ably come back and--and tell his moth­er--”

Brock's voice stopped, and sud­den­ly she was in his arms, his face was against hers, and hot tears not her own were on her cheek. Then he was shak­ing his head as if to shake off the strong emo­tion.

“It's not like­ly to hap­pen, dear. The ca­su­al­ties in this war are tremen­dous­ly low­er than in--”

“I know,” she in­ter­rupt­ed. “Of course, they are. Of course, you're com­ing home with­out a scratch, and like­ly a gen­er­al, and con­ceit­ed be­yond words. How will we stand you!”

Brock laughed de­light­ed­ly. “You're a peach,” he stat­ed. “That's the sort. Laugh­ing moth­ers to send us off--it makes a whale of a dif­fer­ence.”

That Oc­to­ber af­ter­noon had now dropped eight months back, and still the house seemed lost with­out Brock, es­pe­cial­ly on this June twen­ti­eth, the day that was his and hers, the day when there had al­ways been “do­ings” sec­ond on­ly to Christ­mas at Lin­dow. But she gath­ered up her courage like a wom­an. Hugh the el­der was com­ing tonight from his dol­lar-​a-​year work in Wash­ing­ton, her man who had moved heav­en and earth to get in­to ac­tive ser­vice, and who, when fi­nal­ly re­fused be­cause of his forty-​nine years and a de­fec­tive eye, had left his great busi­ness as if it were a joke, and had put his whole time, and strength, and ex­pe­ri­ence, and for­tune at the ser­vice of the Gov­ern­ment--as plen­ty of oth­er Amer­ican men were do­ing. Hugh was com­ing in time for her birth­day din­ner, and young Hugh was with them--Her heart shrank as if a sharp thing touched it. How would it be when they rose to drink Brock's health? She knew pret­ty well what her cousin, the judge, would say:

“The sol­dier in France! God bring him home well and glo­ri­ous!”

How would it be for her oth­er boy then, the boy who was not in France? Un­phrased, a thought flashed, “I hope, I do hope Hughie will be very lame tonight.”

The lit­tle dog slipped from her and barked in re­mon­strance as she threw out her hands and stood up. Old Mavourneen pulled her­self to her feet, too, a huge, beau­ti­ful beast, and the wom­an stooped and put her arm lov­ing­ly about the fur­ry neck. “Mavourneen, you know a lot. You know our Brock's away.” At the name the big dog whined and looked up anx­ious, in­quir­ing. “And you know--do you know, dear dog, that Hughie ought to go? Do you? Mavourneen, it's like the prayer-​book says, 'The bur­den of it is in­tol­er­able.' I can't bear to lose him, and I can't, O God! I can't bear to keep him.” She straight­ened. “As you say, Mavourneen, it's time to dress for din­ner.”

The birth­day par­ty went bet­ter than one could have hoped. No­body broke down at Brock's name; ev­ery­body ex­ult­ed in the splen­did episode of his hero­ism, months back, which had won him the war cross. The let­ter from Jim Colledge and his own birth­day let­ter, gar­ru­lous and gay, were read. Brock had known well that the day would be hard to get through and had made that let­ter out of bru­tal cheer­ful­ness. Yet ev­ery one felt his long­ing to be at the cel­ebra­tion, missed for the first time in his life, puls­ing through the words. Young Hugh read it and made it sweet with a love­ly de­vo­tion to and pride in his broth­er. A heart of stone could not have re­sist­ed Hugh that night. And then the par­ty was over, and the wom­an and her man, see­ing each oth­er sel­dom now, talked over things for an hour. Af­ter, through her open door, she saw a bar of light un­der the door of the den, Brock's and Hugh's den.

“Hughie,” she spoke, and on the in­stant the dark pan­el flashed in­to light.

“Come in, Mum­my, I've been wait­ing to talk to you.”

“Wait­ing, my lamb?”

Hugh pushed her, as a boy shoves a sis­ter, in­to the end of the so­fa. There was a wood fire on the hearth in front of her, for the June evening was cool, and lux­uri­ous Hugh liked a fire. A read­ing lamp was light­ed above Brock's deep chair, and there were pa­pers on the floor by it, and more low lights. There were mag­azines about, and etch­ings on the walls, and bits of uni­ver­si­ty plun­der, and the glow of rugs and of books. It was as fas­ci­nat­ing a place as there was in all the beau­ti­ful house. In the midst of the bright peace Hugh stood hag­gard.

“Hughie! What is it?”

“Moth­er,” he whis­pered, “help me!”

“With my last drop of blood, Hugh.”

“I can't go on--alone--moth­er.” His eyes were wild, and his words la­bored in­to ut­ter­ance. “I--I don't know what to do--moth­er.”

“The war, Hughie?”

“Of course! What else is there?” he flung at her.

“But your knee?”

“Oh, Mum­my, you know as well as I that my knee is well enough. Dad knows it, too. The way he looks at me--or dodges look­ing! Mum­my--I've got to tell you--you'll have to know--and maybe you'll stop lov­ing me. I'm--” He threw out his arms with a ges­ture of de­spair. “I'm--afraid to go.” With that he was on his knees be­side her, and his arms gripped her, and his head was hid­den in her lap. For a long minute there was on­ly si­lence, and the wom­an held the young head tight.

Hugh lift­ed his face and stared from blurred eyes. “A man might bet­ter be dead than a cow­ard--you're think­ing that? That's it.” A sob stopped his voice, the young, dear voice. His face, drawn in­to lines of age, hurt her un­bear­ably. She caught him against her and hid the beloved, im­pos­si­ble face.

“Hugh--I--judg­ing you--I? Why, Hughie, I _love_ you--I on­ly love you. I don't stand off and think, when it's you and Brock. I'm in­side your hearts, feel­ing it with you. I don't know if it's good or bad. It's--my own. Cow­ard--Hughie! I don't think such things of my dar­ling.”

“'There's no--friend like a moth­er,'” stam­mered young Hugh, and tears fell unashamed. His moth­er had not seen the boy cry since he was ten years old. He went on. “Dad didn't say a word, be­cause he wouldn't spoil your birth­day, but the way he dodged--my knee--” He laughed mis­er­ably and swabbed away tears with the cor­ner of his pa­ja­ma coat. “I wish I had a han­ky,” he com­plained. The wom­an dried the tear-​stained cheeks hasti­ly with her own. “Dad's got it in for me,” said Hugh. “I can tell. He'll make me go--now. He--he sus­pects I went skat­ing that day hop­ing I'd fall--and--I know it wasn't so darned un­like­ly. Yes--I did--not the first time--when I smashed it; that was en­tire­ly--luck.” He laughed again, a laugh that was a sob. “And now--oh, Mum­my, have I _got_ to go in­to that night­mare? I hate it so. I am--I _am_--afraid. If--if I should be there and--and sent in­to some ter­ri­ble job--shell-​fire--dirt--smells--dead men and hors­es--filth--tor­ture--moth­er, I might run. I don't feel sure. I can't trust Hugh Lang­don--he might run. Any­how”--the lad sprang to his feet and stood be­fore her--“any­how--why am _I_ bound to get in­to this? I didn't start it. My Gov­ern­ment didn't. And I've ev­ery­thing, _ev­ery­thing_ be­fore me here. I didn't tell you, but that ed­itor said--he said I'd be one of the great writ­ers of the time. And I love it, I love that job. I can do it. I can be use­ful, and suc­cess­ful, and an hon­or to you--and hap­py, oh, so hap­py! If on­ly I may do as Arnold said, be one of Amer­ica's big writ­ers! I've ev­ery­thing to gain here; I've ev­ery­thing to lose there.” He stopped and stood be­fore her like a flame.

And from the wom­an's mouth came words which she had not thought, as if oth­er than her­self spoke them. “'What shall it prof­it a man,'” she spoke, “'if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'”

At that the boy plunged on his knees in col­lapse and sobbed mis­er­ably. “Moth­er, moth­er! Don't be mer­ci­less.”

“Mer­ci­less! My own lad­die!” There seemed no words pos­si­ble as she stroked the blond head with shak­ing hand. “Hughie,” she spoke when his sobs qui­et­ed. “Hughie, it's not how you feel; it's what you do. I be­lieve thou­sands and thou­sands of boys in this un­war­like coun­try have gone--are go­ing--through suf­fer­ing like yours.”

Hugh lift­ed wet eyes. “Do you think so, Mum­my?”

“In­deed I do. In­deed I do. And I pray that the wom­en who love them are--faith­ful. For I know, I _know_ that if a wom­an lets her men, if a moth­er let her sons fail their coun­try now, those sons will nev­er for­give her. It's your hon­or I'm hold­ing to, Hughie, against hu­man in­stinct. Af­ter this war, those to be pitied won't be the son­less moth­ers or the crip­pled sol­diers--it will be the men of fight­ing age who have not fought. Even if they could not, even at the best, they will spend the rest of their lives ex­plain­ing why.”

Hugh sat on the so­fa now, close to her, and his head dropped on her shoul­der. “Mum­my, that's some com­fort, that dope about oth­er fel­lows tak­ing it as I do. I felt lone­ly. I thought I was the on­ly cow­ard in Amer­ica. Dad's con­demn­ing me; he can't speak to me nat­ural­ly. I felt as if”--his voice fal­tered--“as if I couldn't stand it if you hat­ed me, too.”

The wom­an laughed a lit­tle. “Hughie, you know well that not any­thing to be imag­ined could stop my lov­ing you.”

He went on, breath­ing heav­ily but calmed. “You think that even if I am a blamed fool, if I went any­how--that I'd rank as a de­cent white man? In your eyes--Dad's--my own?”

“I know it, Hughie. It's what you do, not how you feel do­ing it.”

“If Brock would hold my hand!” The eyes of the two met with a dim smile and a mem­ory of the child­hood so near, so ut­ter­ly gone. “I'd like Dad to re­spect me again,” the boy spoke in a wist­ful, un­cer­tain voice. “It's darned wretched to have your fa­ther de­spise you.” He looked at her then. “Mum­my, you're tired out; your face is gray. I'm a beast to keep you up. Go to bed, dear.”

He kissed her, and with his arm around her waist led her through the dark hall to the door of her room, and kissed her again. And again, as she stood and watched there, he turned on the thresh­old of the den and threw one more kiss across the dark­ness, and his face shone with a smile that sent her to bed, smil­ing through her tears. She lay in the dark­ness, fra­grant of hon­ey­suck­le out­side, and her sore heart was full of the boys--of Hugh strug­gling in his cri­sis; still more, per­haps, of Brock whose birth­day it was, Brock in France, in the midst of “many and great dan­gers,” yet--she knew--serene and buoy­ant among them be­cause his mind was “stayed.” Not long these thoughts held her; for she was so dead­ened with the stress of many emo­tions that na­ture as­sert­ed it­self and short­ly she feel asleep.

It may have been two or three hours she slept. She knew af­ter­ward that it must have been at about three of the sum­mer morn­ing when a dream came which, de­tailed and vivid as it was, prob­ably filled in time on­ly the last minute or so be­fore awak­en­ing. It seemed to her that glo­ry sud­den­ly flood­ed the trou­bled world; the in­fi­nite, in­ti­mate joy, im­pos­si­ble to put in­to words, was yet a de­fined and long first chap­ter of her dream. Af­ter that she stood on the bank of a riv­er, a riv­er per­haps miles wide, and with the new light-​heart­ed­ness fill­ing her she looked and saw a mighty bridge which ran bril­liant with many-​col­ored lights, from her to the misty fur­ther shore of the riv­er. Over the bridge passed a throng of ra­di­ant young men, boys, all in uni­form. “How glo­ri­ous!” she seemed to cry out in de­light, and with that she saw Brock.

Very far off, among the crowd of oth­ers, she saw him, thread­ing his way through the throng. He came, un­hur­ried yet swift, and on his face was an amused, lov­ing smile which was per­haps the look of him which she re­mem­bered best. By his side walked old Mavourneen, the wolf-​hound, Brock's hand on the shag­gy head. The two swung steadi­ly to­ward her, Brock smil­ing in­to her eyes, hold­ing her eyes with his, and as they were clos­er, she heard Mavourneen cry­ing in word­less dumb joy, cry­ing as she had not done since the day when Brock came home the last time. Above the sound Brock's voice spoke, ev­ery trick of in­flec­tion so fa­mil­iar, so sweet, that the joy of it was sharp, like pain.

“Moth­er, I'm com­ing to take Hughie's hand--to take Hughie's hand,” he re­peat­ed.

And with that Mavourneen's great cry rose above his voice. And sud­den­ly she was awake. Some­where out­side the house, yet near, the dog was loud­ly, joy­ful­ly cry­ing. Out of the deep still­ness of the night burst the sound of the joy­ful cry­ing.

The wom­an shot from her bed and ran bare­foot­ed, her heart beat­ing mad­ly, in­to the dark­ness of the hall to the land­ing on the stair­way. Some­thing halt­ed her. There was a broad, un­cur­tained pane of glass in the front door of the house. From the land­ing one might look down the stone steps out­side and see clear­ly in the bright moon­light as far as the be­gin­ning of the rose arch­way. As she stood gasp­ing, from be­neath the flow­ers Brock stepped in­to the moon­light and be­gan, un­hur­ried, buoy­ant, as she had but now seen him in her dream, to mount the steps. Mavourneen pressed at his side, and his hand was on the dog's head. As he came, he lift­ed his face to his moth­er with the ac­cus­tomed, ev­ery-​day smile which she knew, as if he were com­ing home, as he had come home on many a moon­lit evening from a dance in town to talk the day over with her. As she stared, stand­ing in the dark on the land­ing, her pulse rac­ing, yet still with the still­ness of in­fin­ity, an arm came around her, a hand gripped her shoul­der, and young Hugh's voice spoke.

“Moth­er! It's Brock!” he whis­pered.

At the words she fled head­long down to the door and caught at the han­dle. It was fas­tened, and for a mo­ment she could not think of the bolt. Brock stood close out­side; she saw the light on his brown head and the bend in the long, strong fin­gers that ca­ressed Mavourneen's fur. He smiled at her hap­pi­ly--Brock--three feet away. Just as the bolt loos­ened, with an in­ex­pli­ca­ble, swift im­pulse she was cold with ter­ror. For the half of a sec­ond, per­haps, she halt­ed, pos­sessed by some form­less fear stronger than her­self--hu­man­ity dread­ing some­thing not hu­man, some­thing un­known, over­whelm­ing. She halt­ed not a whole sec­ond--for it was Brock. Brock! Wide open she flung the door and sprang out.

There was no one there. On­ly Mavourneen stood in the cold moon­light, and cried, and looked up, puz­zled, at emp­ty air.

“Oh, Brock, Brock! Oh, dear Brock!” the wom­an called and flung out her arms. “Brock--Brock--don't leave me. Don't go!”

Mavourneen sniffed about the dark hall, in­ves­ti­gat­ing to find the mas­ter who had come home and gone away so swift­ly. With that young Hugh was lift­ing her in his arms, car­ry­ing her up the broad stairs in­to his room. “You're bare­foot­ed,” he spoke bro­ken­ly.

She caught his hand as he wrapped her in a rug on the so­fa. “Hugh--you saw--it was Brock?”

“Yes, dear­est, it was our Brock,” an­swered Hugh stum­bling­ly.

“You saw--and I--and Mavourneen.”

“Mavon­rneen is Irish,” young Hugh said. “She has the sec­ond sight,” and the big old dog laid her nose on the wom­an's knee and lift­ed topaz eyes, ask­ing ques­tions, and whim­pered bro­ken-​heart­ed­ly.

“Dear dog,” mur­mured the wom­an and drew the love­ly head to her. “You saw him.” And then; “Hughie--he came to tell us. He is--dead.”

“I think so,” whis­pered young Hugh with bent head.

Then, fight­ing for breath, she told what had hap­pened--the dream, the in­tense hap­pi­ness of it, how Brock had come smil­ing. “And Hugh, the on­ly thing he said, two or three times over, was, 'I'm com­ing to take Hughie's hand.'”

The lad turned up­on her a shin­ing look. “I know, moth­er. I didn't hear, of course, but I knew, when I saw him, it was for me, too. And I'm ready. I see my way now. Moth­er, get Dad.”

Hugh, the el­der, still sleep­ing in his room at the far side of the house, opened heavy eyes. Then he sprang up. “Eve­lyn! What is it?”

“Oh, Hugh--come! Oh, Hugh! Brock--Brock--” She could not say the words; there was no need. Brock's fa­ther caught her hands. In bare words then she told him.

“My dear,” urged the man, “you've had a vivid dream. That's all. You were think­ing about the boys; you were on­ly half awake; Mavourneen be­gan to cry--the dog means Brock. It was easy--” his voice fal­tered--“to--to be­lieve the rest.”

“Hugh, I _know_, dear. Brock came to tell me. He said he would.” Lat­er, that day, when a tele­gram ar­rived from the War Of­fice there was no new shock, no added cer­tain­ty to her as­sur­ance. She went on: “Hughie saw him. And Mavourneen. But I can't ar­gue. We still have a boy, Hugh, and he needs us--he's wait­ing. Oh, my dear, Hughie is go­ing to France!”

“Thank God!” spoke Hugh's fa­ther.

Hand tight in hand like young lovers the two came across to the room where their boy wait­ed, tense. “Fa­ther--Dad--you'll give me back your re­spect, won't you?” The strong young hand held out was shak­ing. “Be­cause I'm go­ing, Dad. But you have to know that I was--a cow­ard.”

“_No_, Hugh.”

“Yes. And Dad, I'm afraid--now. But I've got the hang of things, and noth­ing could keep me. Will you, do you de­spise me--now--that I still hate it--if--if I go just the same?”

The big young chap shook so that his moth­er, his tall moth­er, put her arms about him to steady him. He clutched her hand hard and re­peat­ed, through quiv­er­ing lips, “Would you de­spise me still, Dad?”

For a mo­ment the fa­ther could not an­swer. Then dif­fi­cult tears of man­hood and ma­tu­ri­ty forced their way from his eyes and un­heed­ed rolled down his cheeks. With a step he put his arms about the boy as if the boy were a child, and the boy threw his about his fa­ther's shoul­ders.

For a long sec­ond the two tall men stood so. The wom­an, stand­ing apart, through the ship­wreck of her earth­ly life was aware on­ly of hap­pi­ness safe where sor­row and loss could not touch it. What was sep­ara­tion, death it­self, when love stronger than death held peo­ple to­geth­er as it held Hugh and her boys and her­self? Then the old­er Hugh stood away, still clutch­ing the lad's hand, smil­ing through unashamed tears.

“Hugh,” he said, “in all Amer­ica there's not a man proud­er of his son than I am of you. There's not a braver sol­dier in our armies than the sol­dier who's to take my name in­to France.” He stopped and stead­ied him­self; he went on: “It would have bro­ken my heart, boy, if you had failed--failed Amer­ica. And your moth­er--and Brock and me. Failed your own hon­or. It would have meant for us shame and would have bowed our heads; it would have meant for you dis­as­ter. Don't fear for your courage, Hugh; the Lord won't for­sake the man who car­ries the Lord's col­ors.”

Young Hugh turned sud­den­ly to his moth­er. “I'm at peace now. You and Dad--hon­or me. I'll de­serve re­spect from--my coun­try. It will be a wall around me--And--” he caught her to him and crushed his mouth to hers--“dear­est--Brock will hold my hand.”

THE SIL­VER STIR­RUP

In the most un­ex­pect­ed spots vi­tal sparks of his­to­ry blaze out. Time seems, once in a while, pow­er­less to kill a great mem­ory. Ro­mance blooms some­times un­tar­nished across cen­turies of com­mon­place. In a new world old France lives.

* * * * *

It is com­put­ed that about one-​sev­enth of the French-​Cana­di­an pop­ula­tion of Cana­da en­list­ed in the great war. The stam­pede of hero­ism seems to have left them cold. A Gospel of the Province first con­gealed the none too fiery blood of the _habi­tants_, small farm­ers, very poor, think­ing in terms of nar­row­est econ­omy, of one pig and ten chil­dren, of painstak­ing thrift and a bare mar­gin to sub­sis­tence. Such con­di­tions sti­fle world in­ter­ests. The earth­quake which threat­ened civ­iliza­tion dis­turbed the _habi­tant_ mere­ly be­cause it haz­ard­ed his crit­ical bal­ance on the edge of want. The cat­aclysm over the ocean was none of his af­fair. And his af­fairs pressed. What about the pig if one went to war? And could Alphonse, who is four­teen, man­age the farm so that there would be veg­eta­bles for win­ter? Tell me that.

When in Septem­ber, 1914, I went to Cana­da for two weeks of camp­ing I had heard of this point of view. Dick Lind­sley and I were met at the Club Sta­tion on the ca­su­al rail­way which climbs the moun­tains through Que­bec Province, by four guides, men from twen­ty to thir­ty-​five, pow­er­ful­ly built chaps, deep-​shoul­dered and slim-​waist­ed, lithe as wild-​cats. It was a treat to see their mus­cles, like ma­chines in the pink of or­der, ad­just to the heavy _pac­que­tons_, send a ca­noe whip­ping through the wa­ter. There was one ex­cep­tion to the gen­er­al phys­ical per­fec­tion; one of Dick's men, a young­ster of per­haps twen­ty-​two, limped. He cov­ered ground as well as the oth­ers, for all of that; he picked the heav­iest load and portaged it at an un­even trot, faster than his com­rades; he was what the _habi­tants_ call “am­bi­tion­né.” Dick's ca­noe was load­ed first, ow­ing to the fel­low's ef­fi­cien­cy, and I wait­ed while it got away and watched the lame boy. He had an in­ter­est­ing face, aquiline and dark, set with vivid light-​blue eyes, shoot­ing rest­less fire. I reg­is­tered an in­ten­tion to get at this lad's per­son­al­ity. The chance came two days lat­er. My men were off chop­ping on a day, and I sud­den­ly need­ed to go fish­ing.

“Take Philippe,” of­fered Dick. “He han­dles a boat bet­ter than any of them.”

Philippe and I short­ly slipped in­to the Guardian's Pool, at the low­er end of the long lake of the Pass­es. “It is here, M'sieur,” Philippe an­nounced, “that it is the cus­tom to take large ones.”

By which state­ment the re­spon­si­bil­ity of land­ing record trout was on my shoul­ders. I thought I would have a re­turn whack. My hands in the snarly flies and my back to Philippe I spoke around my pipe, yet spoke dis­tinct­ly.

“Why aren't you in France fight­ing?”

The ca­noe shiv­ered down its length as if the man at its stern had jumped. There was a si­lence. Then Philippe's deep, boy­ish voice an­swered.

“As M'sieur sees, one is lame.”

I felt a hot­ness emerg­ing from my flan­nel col­lar and rush­ing up my face as I bent over that damned Sil­ver Doc­tor that wouldn't loose its grip on the Black Hack­le. I didn't see the Black Hack­le or the Sil­ver Doc­tor for a mo­ment. “Beg par­don,” I growled. “I for­got.” I mum­bled plat­itudes.

“M'sieur le Doc­teur has right,” Philippe an­nounced un­ruf­fled. “One should fight for France. I have tried to en­list, there are three times, ex­plain­ing that I am '_ca­pa­ble_' though I walk not even­ly. But one will not have me. There­fore I have shame, me. I have, nat­ural­ly, more shame than an­oth­er be­cause of Jeanne.”

“Be­cause of Jeanne?” I re­peat­ed. “Who is Jeanne?”

There was a pause; a queer feel­ing made me slew around. Philippe's old felt hat was be­ing pulled off as if he were en­ter­ing a church.

“But--Jeanne, M'sieur,” he stat­ed as if I must un­der­stand. “Jeanne d'Arc. _Tiens_--the Maid of France.”

“The Maid of France!” I was puz­zled. “What has she to do with it?”

“But ev­ery­thing, M'sieur.” The vivid eyes flamed. “M'sieur does not know, per­haps, that my grand­fa­ther fought un­der Jeanne?”

“Your grand­fa­ther!” I flung it at him in scorn. The man was a poor lu­natic.

“But yes, M'sieur. My grand­fa­ther, lui-​même.”

“But, Philippe, the Maid of Or­leans died in 1431.” I re­mem­bered that date. The Maid is one of my hero­ic fig­ures.

Philippe shrugged his shoul­ders. “Oh--as for a _grand­père_! But not the _grand­père à present_, he who keeps the gro­cery shop in St. Ray­mond. Cer­tain­ly not that grand­fa­ther. It is to say the _grand­père_ of that _grand­père_. Per­haps an­oth­er yet, or even two or three more. What does it mat­ter? One goes back a few times of grand­fa­thers and be­hold one ar­rives at him who was ar­mor­er for the Maid--to whom she gave the sil­ver stir­rup.”

“The sil­ver stir­rup.” My Leonard rod bumped along the bow; my flies tan­gled again in the cur­rent. I squirmed about till I faced the guide in the stern. “Philippe, what in hell do you mean by this drool of grand­fa­thers and sil­ver stir­rups?”

The boy, per­fect­ly re­spect­ful, not for­get­ting for a sec­ond his af­fair of keep­ing the ca­noe away from the fish-​hole, looked at me square­ly, and his un­com­mon light eyes gleamed out of his face like the eyes of a prophet. “M'sieur, it is a tale doubt­less which seems strange to you, but to us oth­ers it is not strange. M'sieur lives in New York, and there are au­to­mo­biles and trol­ley-​cars and large build­ings _en masse_, and to M'sieur the world is made of such things. But there are oth­er things. We who live in qui­et places, know. One has not too much of ex­cite­ment, we oth­ers, so that one re­mem­bers a great event which has hap­pened to one's fam­ily many years. Yes, in­deed, M'sieur, cen­turies. If one has not much one guards as a sou­venir the tale of the sil­ver stir­rup of Jeanne. Yes, for sev­er­al gen­er­ations.”

The boy was ap­par­ent­ly un­con­scious that his re­marks were pe­cu­liar. “Philippe, will you tell me what you mean by a sil­ver stir­rup which Jeanne d'Arc gave to your an­ces­tors?”

“But with plea­sure, M'sieur,” he an­swered read­ily, with the gra­cious French po­lite­ness which one meets among the _habi­tants_ side by side with sad laps­es of eti­quette. "It is all-​sim­ple that the old grand­fa­ther, the an­cient, he who lived in France when the Maid fought her wars, was an ar­mor­er. '_Ça fait que_'--_sa fak_, Philippe pro­nounced it--'so it hap­pened that on a day the stir­rup of the Maid broke as her horse plunged, and my grand­fa­ther, the an­cient, he ran quick­ly and caught the horse's head. And so it hap­pened--_çe fait que_--that my grand­fa­ther was work­ing at that mo­ment on a fine stir­rup of gold for her har­ness, for though they burned her af­ter­wards, they gave her then all that there was of mag­nif­icence. And the old fol­low--_le vieux_--whipped out the gold­en stir­rup from his pock­et, quite pre­pared for use, so it hap­pened--and he put it quick­ly in the place of the sil­ver one which she had been us­ing. And Jeanne smiled. 'You are ready to serve France, Ar­mor­er.'

"She bent then and looked _le vieux_ in the face--but he was young at the time.

"'Are you not Bap­tiste's son, of Dore­my?' asked the Maid.

"'Yes, Jeanne,' said my _grand­père_.

“'Then keep the sil­ver stir­rup to re­mem­ber our vil­lage, and God's ser­vant Jeanne,' she said, and gave it to him with her hand.”

If a square of Go­belin tapestry had emerged from the woods and hung it­self across the gun­wale of my can­vas ca­noe it would not have been more sur­pris­ing. I got my breath. “And the stir­rup, what be­came of it?”

The boy shrugged his shoul­ders. “_Sais pas_,” he an­swered with French non­cha­lance. “One does not know that. It is a long time, M'sieur le Doc­teur. It was lost, that stir­rup, some years ago. It may be a hun­dred years. It may be two hun­dred. My grand­fa­ther, he who keeps the gro­cery shop, has told me that there is a say­ing that a Mar­tel must go to France to find the sil­ver stir­rup. In ev­ery case I do not know. It is my wish to fight for France, but as for the stir­rup or Jeanne--_sais pas_.” An­oth­er shrug. With that he was mak­ing ora­tion, his light eyes flash­ing, his dark face work­ing with feel­ing, about the bit­ter­ness of be­ing a crip­ple, and un­able to go in­to the army.

“It is not _comme il faut_, M'sieur le Doc­teur, that a man whose very grand­fa­ther fought for Jeanne should fail France now in her need. Jeanne, one knows, was the saviour of France. Is it not?” I agreed. “It is my in­her­itance, there­fore, to fight as my an­cient grand­fa­ther fought.” I looked at the lame boy, not know­ing the repar­tee. He be­gan again. “Al­so I am the on­ly one of the fam­ily prop­er to go, ex­cept Adolphe, who is not very prop­er, hav­ing had a tree to fall on the lungs and leave him li­able to fits; and al­so Jacques and Louis are too young, and Jean Bap­tiste he is blind of one eye, God knows. So it is I who fail! I fail! Je­sus Christ! To stay at home like a cow­ard when France needs men!”

“But you are Cana­di­an, Philippe. Your peo­ple have been here two hun­dred years.”

“M'sieur, I am of France. I be­long there with the fight­ing men.” His look was a flame, and sud­den­ly I know why he was fir­ing off hot shot at me. I am a sur­geon.

“What's the mat­ter with your leg?” I asked.

The bril­liant eyes flashed. “Ah!” he brought out, “One hoped--If M'sieur le Doc­teur would but see. I may be cured. To be straight--to march!” He was trem­bling.

Lat­er, in the shift­ing sun­shine at the camp door, with the odors of hem­locks and bal­sams about us, the lake rip­pling be­low, I had an ex­am­ina­tion. I found that the lad's lame­ness was a trou­ble to be cured eas­ily by an op­er­ation. I hes­itat­ed. Was it my af­fair to root this young­ster out of safe­ty and send him to death in the _débâ­cle_ over there? Yet what right had I to set lim­its? He want­ed to of­fer his life; how could I know what I might be block­ing if I with­held the cure? My job was to give strength to all I could reach.

“Philippe,” I said, “if you'll come to New York next month I'll set you up with a good leg.”

In Septem­ber, 1915, Dick and I came up for our year­ly trip, but Philippe was not with us. Philippe, af­ter drilling at Val­carti­er, was drilling in Eng­land. I had lurid post cards off and on; af­ter a while I knew that he was “some­where in France.” A grim gray card came with no post-​mark, no writ­ing but the ad­dress and Philippe's la­bored sig­na­ture; for the rest there were print­ed sen­tences: “I am well. I am wound­ed. I am in hos­pi­tal. I have had no let­ter from you late­ly.” All of which was struck out but the wel­come words, “I am well.” So far then I had not cured the lad to be killed. Then for weeks noth­ing. It came to be time again to go to Cana­da for the hunt­ing. I wrote the stew­ard to get us four men, as usu­al, and Lind­sley and I alight­ed from the rat­tling train at the club sta­tion in Septem­ber, 1916, with a mild cu­rios­ity to see what Fate had pro­vid­ed as guides, philoso­phers and friends to us for two weeks. Paul Sioui--that was nice--a good fel­low Paul; and Josef--I shook hands with Josef; the next face was a new one--ah, Pierre Beau­ramé--one calls one's self that--_on s'ap­pelle comme ça. Bon jour!_ I turned, and got a shock. The fourth face, at which I looked, was the face of Philippe Mar­tel. I looked, speech­less. And with that the boy laughed. “It is that M'sieur can­not again cure my leg,” an­swered Philippe, and tapped proud­ly on a calf which echoed with a wood­en sound.

“You young cuss,” I ad­dressed him sav­age­ly. “Do you mean to say you have gone and got shot in that very leg I fixed up for you?”

Philippe rip­pled more laugh­ter--of pure joy--of sat­is­fac­tion. “But, yes, M'sieur le Doc­teur, that leg _même_. It­self. In a bat­tle, M'sieur le Doc­teur gave me the good leg for a long enough time to serve France. It was all that there was of nec­es­sary. As for now I may not fight again, but I can walk and portage _comme il faut_. I am _ca­pa­ble_ as a guide. Is it not, Josef?” He ap­pealed, and the men crowd­ed around to back him up with deep, se­ri­ous voic­es.

“Ah, yes, M'sieur.”

“_B'en ca­pa­ble!_”

“He can walk like us oth­ers--the same!” they as­sured me im­pres­sive­ly.

Philippe was my guide this year. It was the morn­ing af­ter we reached camp. “Would M'sieur le Doc­teur be too busy to look at some­thing?”

I was not. Philippe stood in the camp door­way in the patch of sun­light where he had sat two years be­fore when I looked over his leg. He sat down again, in the shift­ing sun­shine, the wood­en leg stick­ing out straight and pa­thet­ic, and be­gan to take the cov­ers off a pack­age. There were many cov­ers; the pack­age was ap­par­ent­ly valu­able. As he worked at it the odors of hem­lock and bal­sam, dis­tilled by hot sun­light, rose sweet and strong, and the lake splashed on peb­bles, and peace that pass­es un­der­stand­ing was about us.

“It was in a bad bat­tle in Lor­raine,” spoke Philippe in­to the sun­shiny peace, "that I lost M'sieur le Doc­teur's leg. One was in the front trench and there was word passed to have the wire cut­ters ready, and al­so bay­onets, for we were to charge across the open to­wards the trench­es of the Ger­mans--per­haps one hun­dred and fifty yards, eight _ar­pents_--acres--as we say in Cana­da. Our big guns back did the prepa­ra­tion, mak­ing what M'sieur le Doc­teur well knows is called a _rideau_--a fire cur­tain. We climbed out of our trench with a shout and fol­lowed the fire cur­tain; so close­ly we fol­lowed that it seemed we should be killed by our own guns. And then it stopped--too soon, M'sieur le Doc­teur. Very many Boches were left alive in that trench in front, and they fired as we came, so that some of us were hit, and so ter­ri­ble was the fire that the rest were forced back to our own trench which we had left. It is so some­times in a fight, M'sieur le Doc­teur. The big guns make a lit­tle mis­take, and many men have to die. Yet it is for France. And as I ran with the oth­ers for the shel­ter of the trench, and as the Boches streamed out of their trench to make a counter at­tack with hand-​grenades I tripped on some­thing. It was lit­tle Réné Du­mont, whom M'sieur le Doc­teur re­mem­bers. He guid­ed for our camp when Josef was ill in the hand two years ago. In any case he lay there, and I could not let him lie to be shot to pieces. So I caught up the child and ran with him across my shoul­ders and threw him in the trench, and as he went in there was a cry be­hind me, 'Philippe!'

“I turned, and one waved arms at me--a com­rade whom I did not know very well--but he lay in the open and cried for help. So I thought of Jeanne d'Arc, and how she had no fear, and was kind, and with that, back I trot­ted to get the com­rade. But at that sec­ond--pouf!--a big noise, and I fell down and could not get up. It was the good new leg of M'sieur le Doc­teur which those _sacrés_ Boches had blown off with a hand-​grenade. So that I lay dead enough. And when I came alive it was dark, and al­so the leg hurt--but yes! I was an­noyed to have ru­ined that leg which you gave me--M'sieur le Doc­teur.”

I grinned, and some­thing ached in­side of me.

Philippe went on. "It was then, when I was with­out much hope and weak and in pain and al­so thirsty, that a thing hap­pened. It is a busi­ness with­out plea­sure, M'sieur le Doc­teur, that--to lie on a bat­tle-​field with a leg shot off, and around one men dead, piled up--yes, and some not dead yet, which is worse. They groan. One feels un­able to bear it. It grows cold al­so, and the search­lights of the Boches play so as to pre­vent res­cue by com­rades. They seem quite hor­ri­ble, those lights. One lives, but one wish­es much to die. So it hap­pened that, as I lay there, I heard a step com­ing, not crawl­ing along as the res­cuers crawl and stop­ping when the lights flare, but a steady step com­ing freely. And with that I was lift­ed and car­ried quick­ly in­to a wood. There was a hole in the ground there, torn by a shell deeply, and the friend laid me there and put a flask to my lips, and I was warm and com­fort­ed. I looked up and I saw a fig­ure in sol­dier's cloth­ing of an old time, such as one sees in books--ar­mor of white. And the face smiled down at me. 'You will be saved,' a voice said; and the words sound­ed home­ly, al­most like the words of my grand­fa­ther who keeps the gro­cery shop. 'You will be saved.' It seemed to me that the voice was young and gen­tle and like a wom­an's.

“'Who are you?' I asked, and I had a strange feel­ing, afraid a lit­tle M'sieur, yet glad to a mar­vel. I got no an­swer to my ques­tion, but I felt some­thing pressed in­to my hand, and then I spoke, but I sup­pose I was a lit­tle deliri­ous, M'sieur, for I heard my­self say a thing I had not been think­ing. 'A Mar­tel must re­turn to France to find the sil­ver stir­rup'--I said that, M'sieur. Why I do not know. They were the words I had heard my grand­fa­ther speak. Per­haps the hard feel­ing in my hand--but I can­not ex­plain, M'sieur le Doc­teur. In any case, there was all at once a great thrill through my body, such as I have nev­er known. I sat up quick­ly and stared at the fig­ure. It stood there. M'sieur will prob­ably not be­lieve me--the fig­ure stood there in white ar­mor, with a sword--and I knew it for Jeanne--the Maid. With that I knew no more. When I woke it was day. I was still ly­ing in the crater of the shell which had torn up the earth of a very old bat­tle-​field, but in my hand I held tight--this.”

Philippe drew off the last cov­er with a dra­mat­ic flour­ish and opened the box which had been wrapped so care­ful­ly. I bent over him. In the box, be­fore my eyes, lay an an­cient worn and bat­tered sil­ver stir­rup. There were no words to say. I stared at the boy. And with that sud­den­ly he had slewed around clum­si­ly--be­cause of his poor wood­en leg--and was on his knees at my feet. He held out the stir­rup.

“M'sieur le Doc­teur, you gave me a man's chance and hon­or, and the joy of fight­ing for France. I can nev­er tell my thanks. I have noth­ing to give you--but this. Take it, M'sieur le Doc­teur. It is not much, yet to me the earth holds noth­ing so valu­able. It is the sil­ver stir­rup of Jeanne d'Arc. It is yours.”

* * * * *

In a glass case on the wall of my li­brary hangs an an­tique bit of har­ness which is my most pre­cious piece of prop­er­ty. How its sto­ry came about I do not even try to guess. As Philippe said the ac­tion of that day took place on a very old bat­tle-​field. The shell which made the shel­ter­ing crater doubt­less dug up earth un­touched for hun­dreds of years. That it should have dug up the very ob­ject which was a tra­di­tion in the Mar­tel fam­ily and should have laid it in the grasp of a Mar­tel fight­ing for France with that tra­di­tion at the bot­tom of his mind seems in­cred­ible. The sto­ry of the ap­pari­tion of the Maid is in­cred­ible to laugh­ter, or tears. No far­ther light is to be got from the boy, be­cause he be­lieves his sto­ry. I do not try to ex­plain, I place the episode in my mind along­side oth­er things in­cred­ible, things love­ly and spir­itu­al, and, to our view­point of five years ago, things mad. Many such have risen lu­mi­nous, un­de­sir­able, un­ex­plained, out of these last hor­ri­ble years, and wait hu­man thought, it may be hu­man de­vel­op­ment, to be clas­si­fied. I ac­cept and trea­sure the sil­ver stir­rup as a pledge of beau­ti­ful hu­man grat­itude. I hold it as a vis­ible sign that French blood keeps a loy­al­ty to France which ages and oceans may not weak­en.

THE RUS­SIAN

The lit­tle din­ner-​par­ty of griz­zled men strayed from the din­ing-​room and across the hall in­to the vast li­brary, ar­gu­ing might­ily.

“The great war didn't do it. World democ­ra­cy was on the way. The war held it back.”

It was the Unit­ed States Sen­ator, gar­ru­lous and in­ci­sive, who is­sued that state­ment. The Judge, the host, wast­ed not a mo­ment in con­tra­dict­ing. “You're mad, Joe,” he threw at him with a hand on the shoul­der of the man who was still to him that promis­ing young­ster, lit­tle Joe Bur­den of The School. “Held back democ­ra­cy! The war! Quite mad, my son.”

The guest of the evening, a Rus­sian Gen­er­al who had just fin­ished five stren­uous years in the Cab­inet of the Slav Re­pub­lic, dropped back a step to watch, with amused eyes, strolling through the door­way, the two splen­did old boys, the Judge's arm around the Sen­ator's shoul­ders, fight­ing, sput­ter­ing, ar­gu­ing with each oth­er as they had fought and ar­gued forty odd years up to date.

Two min­utes more and the par­ty of six had set­tled in­to deep chairs, in­to a mam­moth dav­en­port, be­fore a blaz­ing fire of spruce and birch. Cigars, liqueurs, cof­fee, the things men love af­ter din­ner, were there; one had the vaguest im­pres­sion of two van­ish­ing Japanese per­sons who might or might not have brought trays and touched the fire and placed tiny ta­bles at each right hand; an at­mo­sphere of com­plete­ness was present, one did not no­tice how. One set­tled with a sigh of sat­is­fac­tion in­to com­fort, and chose a cigar. One laughed to hear the Judge pound away at the Sen­ator.

“It's all a game.” Dr. Ruther­ford turned to the Rus­sian. “They're de­vot­ed old friends, not vi­olent en­emies, Gen­er­al. The Sen­ator stirs up the Judge by tak­ing im­pos­si­ble po­si­tions and de­fend­ing them sav­age­ly. The Judge in­vari­ably falls in­to the trap. Then a bat­tle. Their bat­tles are the joy of the Cen­tu­ry Club. The Sen­ator doesn't be­lieve for an in­stant that the war held back democ­ra­cy.”

At that the Sen­ator whirled. “I don't? But I do.--Don't _smoke_ that cigar, Ruther­ford, on your life. Pe­ter will have these atroc­ities. Here--Ka­ki, bring the doc­tor the oth­er box.--That's bet­ter.--I don't be­lieve what I said? Now lis­ten. How could the fact that the world was turned in­to a mil­itary camp, of­fi­cers com­mand­ing, pri­vates obey­ing, rank, rank, rank ev­ery­where through­out mankind, how could that fail to hin­der democ­ra­cy, which is in its essence the lev­el­ing of ranks? Tell me that!”

The doc­tor grinned at the Rus­sian. “What about it, Gen­er­al? What do you think?”

The Gen­er­al an­swered slow­ly, with a small ac­cent but in the won­der­ful­ly good En­glish of an ed­ucat­ed Rus­sian. “I do not agree with the Sena-​torr,” he stat­ed, and five heads turned to lis­ten. There was a qual­ity of large per­son­al­ity in the burr of the voice, in the poise and sol­dier­ly bear­ing, in the very si­lence of the man, which made his slow words of im­por­tance. “I be­lieve in­deed that the Sena-​torr is part­ly--shall I say speak­ing for ar­gu­ment?”

The Sen­ator laughed.

“The great war, in which all of us here had the hon­or to bear arms--that death grap­ple of tyran­ny against free­dom--it did not hold back the cause of hu­man­ity, of democ­ra­cy, that war. Else thou­sands up­on thou­sands of good lives were giv­en in vain.”

There was a hushed mo­ment. Each of the men, men now from fifty to six­ty years old, had been a young sol­dier in that Home­ric strug­gle. Each was caught back at the words of the Rus­sian to a vi­sion of ter­ri­ble places, of thun­der­ing of great guns, of young, gen­er­ous blood flow­ing like wa­ter. The deep, as­sured tones of the Rus­sian spoke in­to the solemn pause.

“There is an episode of the war which I re­mem­ber. It goes to show, so far as one in­ci­dent may, where ev­ery hour was crowd­ed with dra­ma, how forces worked to­geth­er for democ­ra­cy. It is the sto­ry of a com­mon man of my coun­try who was a pri­vate in the army of your coun­try, and who was lift­ed by an Amer­ican gen­tle­man to hope and op­por­tu­ni­ty, and, as God willed it, to hon­or. My old friend the Judge can tell that episode bet­ter than I. My ac­tive part in it was small. If you like”--the dark for­eign eyes flashed about the group--“if you like I should much en­joy hear­ing my old friend re­view that lit­tle sto­ry of democ­ra­cy.”

There was a mur­mur of ap­proval. One man spoke, a fight­ing par­son he had been. “It ar­gues democ­ra­cy in it­self, Gen­er­al, that a Rus­sian aris­to­crat, the broth­er of a Duke, should re­mem­ber so well the ad­ven­tures of a com­mon sol­dier.”

The smoul­der­ing eyes of the Slav turned to the speak­er and re­gard­ed him grave­ly. “I re­mem­ber those ad­ven­tures well,” he an­swered.

The Judge, flung back in a cor­ner of the dav­en­port, his knees crossed and rings from his cigar as­cend­ing, stared at the ceil­ing, “Come along, Pe­ter. You're due to en­ter­tain us,” the Sen­ator ad­jured him, and the Judge, star­ing up­wards, be­gan.

“This is the year 1947. It was in 1917 that the Unit­ed States went in­to war--thir­ty years ago. The fifth of June, 1917, was set, as you re­mem­ber, for the reg­is­tra­tion of all men in the coun­try over twen­ty-​one and un­der thir­ty-​one for the draft. I was twen­ty-​three, liv­ing in this house with my fa­ther and moth­er, both dead be­fore the war end­ed. Be­ing out­side of the city, the polling place where I was due to reg­is­ter was three miles off, at Hi­awatha. I reg­is­tered in the morn­ing; the polls were open from sev­en A.M. to nine P.M. My moth­er drove me over, and the road was be­ing mend­ed, and, as hap­pened in those days in the coun­try, half a mile of it was al­most im­pass­able. There were no ad­justable lift-​roads in­vent­ed then. We got through the ruts and stonework, but it was hard go­ing, and we came home by a de­tour through the city rather than pass again that beast­ly half mile. That night was dark and stormy, with rain at in­ter­vals, and as we sat in this room, read­ing, the three of us--” The Judge paused and gazed a mo­ment at the faces in the lamp­light, at the chairs where his guests sat. It was as if he called back to their old en­vi­ron­ment for a mo­ment the two fa­mil­iar fig­ures which had be­longed here, which had gone out of his life. “We sat in this room, the three of us,” he re­peat­ed, "and the but­ler came in.

"'If you please, sir, there's a young man here who wants to reg­is­ter,' he said.

"'Wants to reg­is­ter!' my fa­ther threw at him. 'What do you mean?'

"We all went out­side, and there we found not one, but five boys, Rus­sians. There was a mu­ni­tions plant a mile back of us and the lads worked there, and had wak­ened to the ne­ces­si­ty of reg­is­ter­ing at the last mo­ment, be­ing new in the coun­try and with lit­tle En­glish. They had di­rec­tions to go to the same polling place as mint, Hi­awatha, but had got­ten lost, and, see­ing our lights, brought up here. Hi­awatha, as I said, is three miles away. It was eight-​thir­ty and the polls closed at nine. We brought the young­sters in­side, and I dashed to the garage for the car and piled the de­light­ed lads in­to it and drove them across.

"At least I tried to. But when we came to the bad half mile the car re­belled at go­ing the bit twice in a day, and the mo­tor stalled. There we were--eight-​forty-​five P.M.--polls due to close at nine--a year's im­pris­on­ment for five well-​mean­ing boys for ne­glect­ing to reg­is­ter. I was in de­spair. Then sud­den­ly one of the boys saw a small red light ahead, the tail light of an au­to­mo­bile. We ran along and found a big car stand­ing in front of a house. As we got there, out from the car stepped a wom­an with a lantern, and as the light swung up­ward I saw that she was tall and fair and young and very love­ly. She stopped as the six of us loomed out of the dark­ness. I knew that a pro­fes­sor from the Uni­ver­si­ty in town had tak­en this house for the sum­mer, but I don't know the peo­ple or their name. It was no time to be shy. I gave my name and stat­ed the case.

"The girl looked at me. 'I've seen you,' she said. 'I know you are Mr. McLane. I'll drive you across. One mo­ment, till I tell my moth­er.'

"She was in the house and out again with­out wast­ing a sec­ond, and as she flashed in­to the car I heard a gasp, and I turned and saw in the glare of the head­lights as they sprang on one of my Rus­sians, a gi­gan­tic young­ster of six feet four or so, stand­ing with his cap off and his head bent, as he might have stood be­fore a shrine, star­ing at the spot where the girl had dis­ap­peared in­to the car. Then the en­gine purred and my squad tum­bled in.

"We made the polls on the tap of nine. Af­ter­wards we drove back to my car and among us, with the lantern, we got the mo­tor run­ning again, the girl help­ing ef­fi­cient­ly. The big fel­low, when we told her good-​night, as­ton­ished me by drop­ping on his knees and kiss­ing the edge of her skirt. But I put it down to Slav­ic tem­per­ament and took it ca­su­al­ly. I've learned since what Rus­sian depth of feel­ing means--and tenac­ity of pur­pose. There was one more in­ci­dent. When I fi­nal­ly drove the lads up to their vil­lage the big chap, who spoke rather good En­glish when he spoke at all, which was sel­dom, in­vit­ed me to have some beer. I was tired and want­ed to get home, so I didn't. Then the young gi­ant ex­ca­vat­ed in his pock­et and brought out a dol­lar bill.

"'You get beer to­mor­row.' And when I laughed and shoved it back he flushed. 'Ex­cuse--Mr. Sir,' he said. 'I make mis­take.' Sud­den­ly he drew him­self up--about to the tree­tops, it looked, for he was a huge, a mag­nif­icent lad. He tossed out his arm to me. 'Some day,' he stat­ed dra­mat­ical­ly, 'I do two things. Some day I give Mr. Sir some­things more than dol­lar--and he will take. And--some day I mar­ry--Miss An­gel!'

"You may be­lieve I was stag­gered. But I sim­ply stuck out my fist and shook his and said: 'Good. No rea­son on earth why a fel­low with the right stuff shouldn't get any­where. It's a free coun­try.' And the gi­ant drew his black brows to­geth­er and re­marked slow­ly: 'All coun­tries--world--is to be free. War will sweep up kings--and oth­er--rub­bish. I--shall be--a man.'

“Be­sides his im­pres­sive build, the boy had--had--” the Judge glanced at the Rus­sian Gen­er­al, whose eyes glowed at the fire. "The boy had a re­mark­able face. It was cut like a gran­ite hill, in sweep­ing mass­es. All strength. His eyes were coals. I went home thought­ful, and the Rus­sian boy's in­tense face was in my mind for days, and I told my­self many times that he not on­ly would be, but al­ready was, a man.

"Events quick­stepped af­ter that. I got to France with­in the year, and, as you re­mem­ber, work was ready. It was per­haps eigh­teen months af­ter that reg­is­tra­tion day, June fifth, which we keep so right­ly now as one of our sa­cred days, that one morn­ing I was in a fight. Our ar­tillery had de­mor­al­ized the en­emy at a point and sent them run­ning. There was one ma­chine gun left work­ing in the Hun trench­es--do­ing a lot of dam­age. Sud­den­ly it jammed. I was com­mand­ing my com­pa­ny, and I saw the chance, but al­so I saw a hor­rid mess of barbed wire. So I just ran for­ward a bit and up to the wire and start­ed clip­ping, while that ma­chine gun stayed jammed. Out of the cor­ner of an eye I could see men rush­ing to­wards it in the Ger­man trench, and I knew I had on­ly a mo­ment be­fore they got it fir­ing again. Then, as I leaped far for­ward to reach a bit of en­tan­gle­ment, my foot slipped in a pud­dle and as I sprawled I saw our uni­form and a dead Amer­ican boy's face un­der me, and I fell head­long in his blood over him and in­to a bunch of wire. And couldn't get up. The wire held like the dev­il. I got more tied up at ev­ery pull. And my clip­pers had fall­en from my hand and land­ed out of reach.

"'It's good night for me,' I thought, and was aware of a sharp re­gret. To be killed be­cause of a nasty bit of wire! I had want­ed to do a lot of things yet. With that some­thing leaped, and I saw clip­pers flash­ing close by. A big man was cut­ting me loose, drag­ging me out, set­ting me on my feet. Then the roar of an ex­plod­ing shell; the man fell--fell in­to the wire from which he had just saved me. There was no time to con­sid­er that; some­how I was back and lead­ing my men--and then we had the trench­es.

"The rest of that day was con­fu­sion, but we won a mile of earth­works, and at night I re­mem­bered the in­ci­dent of the wire and the man who res­cued me. By a mir­acle I found him in the field hos­pi­tal. His head was ban­daged, for the bit of shell had scraped his cheek and jaw, but his eyes were safe, and some­thing in the glance out of them was fa­mil­iar. Yet I didn't know him till he drew me over and whis­pered painful­ly, for it hurt him to talk:

"'Yester--day I did--give Mr. Sir some­things more than dol­lar. And he did--take it.'

“Then I know the big young Rus­sian of reg­is­tra­tion day who had tried to tip me. Bless him! I got him trans­ferred to my com­mand and--” the Judge hes­itat­ed a bit and glanced at his dis­tin­guished guest. One sur­mised em­bar­rass­ment in telling the sto­ry of the Gen­er­al's hum­ble com­pa­tri­ot.

The Gen­er­al rose to his feet and stood be­fore the fire fac­ing the hand­ful of men. “I can con­tin­ue this anec­dote from the point that is more eas­ily than my friend the Judge,” spoke the Gen­er­al. “I was in the con­fi­dence of that coun­try­man of mine. I know. It was so that af­ter he had been thus slight­ly use­ful to my friend the Judge, who was the Cap­tain McLane at that time--”

The Judge broke in with a shout of deep laugh­ter wor­thy of a boy of eigh­teen. “He 'slight­ly obliged me by sav­ing my life.” The Amer­ican, threw that in­to the Rus­sian's smooth sen­tences. “I put that fact be­fore the ju­ry.”

The four men lis­ten­ing laughed al­so, but the Rus­sian held up a hand and went on grave­ly: “It was quite sim­ple, that episode, and the man's plea­sure. I knew him well. But what fol­lowed was not or­di­nary. The Cap­tain McLane saw to it that the sol­dier had his chance. He be­came an of­fi­cer. He went alive through the war, and at the end the Cap­tain McLane made it pos­si­ble that he should be ed­ucat­ed. His ca­reer was a gift from the Cap­tain McLane--from my friend the Judge to that man, who is now--” the fin­ished sen­tence halt­ed a mere sec­ond--"who is now a re­spon­si­ble per­son of Rus­sia.

“And it is the in­ci­dent of that sort, it is that in­ci­dent it­self which I know, which leads me to com­bat--” he turned with a deep bow--“the po­si­tion of the Sena-​torr that the great war did not make for democ­ra­cy. Gen­tle­men, my com­pa­tri­ot was a peas­ant, a per­son of ig­no­rance, yet with a de­sire of ful­fill­ing his pos­si­bil­ities. He had been born in so­cial chains and tied to most sor­did life, be­yond hope, in old Rus­sia. To try to shake free he had gone to Amer­ica. But it was that cal­dron of fire, the war, which freed him, which fused his life and the life of the Cap­tain McLane, so dif­fer­ent in op­por­tu­ni­ty, and burned from them all triv­ial­ities and put them, stark-​naked of ad­van­tages and of draw­backs ar­ti­fi­cial, side by side, as two lives mere­ly. It made them--broth­ers. One gave and the oth­er took as broth­ers with­out thought of false pride. They came from the fur­nace men. Both. Which is democ­ra­cy--a chance for a tree to grow, for a flame to burn, for a riv­er to flow; a chance for a man to be­come a man and not rest a veg­etable an­chored to the earth as--Oh, God!--for many cen­turies the Rus­sian mu­jiks have rest­ed. It is that which I un­der­stand by democ­ra­cy. Free­dom of de­vel­op­ment for ev­ery­thing which wants to de­vel­op. It was the earth­quake of war which broke chains, loos­ened dams, cleared the land for young forests. It was war which made Rus­sia a re­pub­lic, which threw down the king­ships, which joined com­mon men and princes as com­rades. God bless that lib­er­at­ing war! God grant that nev­er in all cen­turies may this poor plan­et have an­oth­er! God save democ­ra­cy--hu­man­ity! Does the Sena-​torr yet be­lieve that the great war re­tard­ed democ­ra­cy?” The Rus­sian's bril­liant, smoul­der­ing eyes swept about, in­quir­ing.

There was a hush in the peace­ful, fire­lit, lamp-​lit room. And with that, as of one im­pulse, led by the Sen­ator, the five men broke in­to hand­clap­ping. Tears stood in eyes, faces were twist­ed with emo­tion; each of these men had seen what the thing was--war; each knew what a price hu­man­ity had paid for free­dom. Out of the stir­ring of emo­tion, out of the vi­sions of trench­es and charges and blood and agony and hero­ism and un­selfish­ness and stead­fast­ness, the fight­ing par­son, he who had bent, un­der fire, many a day over dy­ing men who wait­ed his voice to help them across the bor­der--the par­son led the lit­tle com­pa­ny from the in­tense mo­ment to com­mon­place.

“You haven't quite fin­ished the sto­ry, Gen­er­al. The boy promised to do two things. He did the first; he gave the Judge 'some­thing more than a dol­lar,' and the Judge took it--his life. But he said al­so he was go­ing to mar­ry--what did he call her?--Miss An­gel. How about that?”

The Rus­sian Gen­er­al, stand­ing on the hearthrug, ap­peared to draw him­self up sud­den­ly with an ac­cess of dig­ni­ty, and the Judge's boy­ish big laugh broke in­to the si­lence, “Tell them, Michael,” said the Judge. “You've gone so far with the fairy sto­ry that they have a right to know the crown­ing glo­ry of it. Tell them.”

And sud­den­ly the men sit­ting about no­ticed with one ac­cord what, lis­ten­ing to the Gen­er­al's voice, they had not thought about--that the Rus­sian was un­com­mon­ly tall--six feet four per­haps; that his face was carved in sweep­ing lines like a gran­ite hill­side, and that an old, long scar stretched from the vivid eyes to the mouth. The men stared, star­tled with a sud­den si­mul­ta­ne­ous thought. The Judge, watch­ing, smiled. Slow­ly the Gen­er­al put his hand in­to the breast pock­et of his evening coat; slow­ly he drew out a case of dark leather, tooled won­der­ful­ly, set with stones. He opened the case and looked down; the strong face changed as if a breeze and sun­shine passed over a moun­tain. He glanced up at the men wait­ing.

“I am no Duke's broth­er,” he said, smil­ing, sud­den­ly ra­di­ant. “That is a mis­take of the like­ness of a name, which all the world makes. I am born a mu­jik of Rus­sia. But you, sir,” and he turned to the par­son, “you wish an an­swer of 'Miss An­gel,' as the big peas­ant boy called that love­ly spir­it, so far above him in that night, so far above him still, and yet, God be thanked, so close to­day! Yes? Then this is my an­swer.” He held out the minia­ture set with jew­els.

ROBI­NA'S DOLL

Mas­sive, sprawl­ing, un­cer­tain writ­ing, two sen­tences to the page; a vi­olent slant in the sec­ond line, down right, bal­anced by a dras­tic less­en­ing of the let­ters, up right, in the line un­der­neath; spelling not as ad­vised in the Cen­tu­ry Dic­tio­nary--a let­ter from Robi­na, aged eight. Robi­na's Aunt Eve­lyn, sit­ting in her dress and cap of a Red Cross nurse in the big base hos­pi­tal in Paris, read the wan­der­ing, painstak­ing, very un­suc­cess­ful lit­er­ary ef­fort, laugh­ing, half-​cry­ing, and kissed it en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly.

“The dar­ling ba­by! She shall have her doll if it takes--” Aunt Eve­lyn stopped thought­ful­ly.

It would take some­thing se­ri­ous to buy and equip the doll that Robi­na, with eight-​year-​old def­inite­ness, had spec­ified. The girl in the Red Cross dress read the let­ter over.

“Dear Aunt Eve­lyn,” be­gan Robi­na and struck no snags so far. “I liked your post­card so much.” (The fa­cilis de­scen­sus to an av­erni of lit­er­ature be­gan with a swoop down here.) “Moth­er is wel. Fother is wel. The ba­by is wel. The dog has sevven kitens.” (Robi­na robbed Pe­ter to pay Paul ha­bit­ual­ly in her spelling.) “Fother sais they lukk like chok­lit eclares. I miss you, dere Aunt Eve­lyn, be­cause I lov you sew. I hope San­ta Claus wil bring me a doll. I want a very bigg bride doll with a vale and flours an a trunk of close, and all her un­der-​close to bu­ton and un­boton and to have pink ri­bons run in­to. I don't want anythig sode on. Come home, Aunt Eve­lyn, be­caus I miss you. But if the poor wun­dead sol­jers ned you then don't come. But as soone as you can come to yure lov­ing own girl--ROBI­NA.”

The dear an­gel! Ev­ery af­fec­tion­ate, la­bored word was from the warm lit­tle heart; Eve­lyn Bruce knew that. She sat, smil­ing, hold­ing the pa­per against her, see­ing a vi­sion of the far­away, beloved child who wrote it. She saw the danc­ing, hap­py brown eyes and the shin­ing, cropped head of pale gold­en brown, and the straight, strong lit­tle fig­ure; she heard the mer­ry, ready gig­gle and the soft, slow tones that were al­ways full of love to her. Robi­na, her sis­ter's child, her own god-​daugh­ter had been her close friend from baby­hood, and be­tween them there was a bond of un­der­stand­ing which made noth­ing of the dif­fer­ence in years. Dar­ling lit­tle Robi­na! Such a good, un­spoiled lit­tle girl, for all of the lux­ury and de­vo­tion that sur­round­ed her!

But--there was a dif­fi­cul­ty just there. Robi­na was un­spoiled in­deed, yet, as the chil­dren of the very rich, she was, even at eight, so­phis­ti­cat­ed in a ba­by way. She had been giv­en too many grand dolls not to know just the sort she want­ed. She did not know that what she want­ed cost mon­ey, but she knew the points de­sired--and they did cost mon­ey. Aunt Eve­lyn had not much mon­ey.

“This one ex­trav­agant thing I will do,” said Eve­lyn Bruce, “and I'll give up my trip to Eng­land next week, and I'll do it in style. Robi­na won't want dolls much longer and this time she's got to have her heart's de­sire.”

Which was doubt­less fool­ish, yet when one is sep­arat­ed by an ocean and a war from one's own, it is per­haps eas­ier to be fool­ish for a child's face and a child's voice, and love sent across the sea. So Eve­lyn Bruce wrote a let­ter to her cousin in Eng­land say­ing that she could not come to her till af­ter Christ­mas. Then she went out in­to Paris and or­dered the doll, and rev­eled in the or­der­ing, for a very gor­geous per­son in­deed it was, and wor­thy to jour­ney from Paris to a lit­tle Amer­ican. It was to be ready in just two weeks, and Miss Bruce was to come in and look over the fine la­dy and her equip­ment as of­ten as de­sired, be­fore she start­ed on her ocean voy­age.

“It would sim­ply break my heart if she were tor­pe­doed.”

Eve­lyn con­fid­ed that, child­like, to the black-​browed, stout French­wom­an who took a per­son­al in­ter­est in ev­ery “bu­ton,” and then she opened her bag and brought out Robi­na's pho­to­graph, stand­ing, in a ruf­fled bon­net, her solemn West High­land White ter­ri­er dog in her arms, on the gar­den path of “Gray­stones” be­tween tall fox­gloves. And the French­wom­an tossed up en­rap­tured hands at the beau­ty of the lit­tle girl who was to get the doll, and did not miss the great, splen­did house in the back­ground, or the fact that the dog was of a “_chic_” va­ri­ety.

The two weeks fled, ev­ery day full of the breath­less life--and death--of a hos­pi­tal in war-​torn France. Ev­ery day the girl saw sights and heard sounds which it seemed dif­fi­cult to see and hear and go on liv­ing, but she moved serene through such an en­vi­ron­ment, be­cause she could help. Ev­ery day she gave all that was in her to the suf­fer­ing boys who were car­ried, in a nev­er-​end­ing stream of stretch­ers, in­to the hos­pi­tal. And the strength she gave flowed back to her end­less­ly from, she could not but be­lieve it, the un­der­ly­ing source of all strength, which stretch­es be­neath and about us all, and from which those who give great­ly know how to draw.

Two or three times, dur­ing the two weeks, Eve­lyn had gone in to in­spect the progress of Robi­na's doll, and spent a hap­py and light-​heart­ed quar­ter of an hour with friend­ly Madame of the shop, de­cid­ing the col­or of the la­dy's par­ty coat, and of the rib­bons in her minute un­der­clothes, and pack­ing and repack­ing the trunk with en­chant­ing fairy fool­ish­ness­es. Again and again she smiled to her­self, in bed at night, go­ing about her work in the long days, as she thought of the lit­tle girl's rap­ture over the many and care­ful­ly planned de­tails. For, with all the presents show­ered on her, Robi­na's aunt knew that Robi­na had nev­er had any­thing as per­fect as this exquisite Paris doll and her trousseau.

The day came on which Eve­lyn was to make her fi­nal vis­it to “La Mar­quise,” as Madame called the doll, and the nurse was need­ed in the hos­pi­tal and could not go. But she tele­phoned Madame and made an ap­point­ment for to­mor­row.

“'La Mar­quise' finds her­self quite ready for the voy­age,” Madame spoke over the tele­phone. “She is all which there is of most love­ly; Paris it­self has nev­er seen a so rav­ish­ing doll. I say it. We wait anx­ious­ly to greet Made­moi­selle, I and La Mar­quise,” Madame as­sured her. Eve­lyn, laugh­ing with sheer plea­sure, made an en­gage­ment for the next day, with­out fail, and went back to her work.

There was a bad­ly wound­ed _poilu_ in her ward, whom the girl had come to know well. He was young, per­haps twen­ty-​sev­en, and his warm brown eyes were full of a qual­ity of gen­tle­ness which en­deared him to ev­ery­one who came near him. He was very grate­ful, very un­com­plain­ing, a sim­ple-​mind­ed, hon­est, com­mon, young peas­ant, with a charm un­com­mon. The un­end­ing bright courage with which he made light of cru­el pain, was al­most more than Eve­lyn, used as she was to brave men's pain, could bear. He could not get well--the doc­tors said that--and it seemed that he could not die.

“If Cor­po­ral Du­plessis might die,” Eve­lyn spoke to the sur­geon.

He an­swered, con­sid­er­ing: “I don't see what keeps him alive.”

“I be­lieve,” said Eve­lyn, “there's some­thing on his mind. He sighs con­stant­ly. Bro­ken-​heart­ed­ly. I be­lieve he can't die un­til his mind is re­lieved.”

“It may be that,” agreed Dr. Nor­ton. “You could help him if you could get him to tell you.” And moved on to the next shat­tered thing that had been, so late­ly, a strong, buoy­ant boy.

Eve­lyn went back to Du­plessis and bent over him and spoke cheer­ful words; he smiled up at her with quick French re­spon­sive­ness, and then sighed the heavy, anx­ious sigh which had come to be part of him. With that the girl took his one good hand and stroked it. “If you could tell the Amer­ican Sis­ter what it is,” she spoke soft­ly, “that trou­bles your mind, per­haps I might help you. We Amer­icans, you know,” and she smiled at him, “we are won­der­ful peo­ple. We can do all sorts of mag­ic--and I want to help you to rest, so much. I'd do any­thing to help you. Won't you tell me what it is that both­ers?” Eve­lyn Bruce's voice was win­ning, and Du­plessis' eyes rest­ed on her af­fec­tion­ate­ly.

“But how the Sis­ter un­der­stands one!” he said. “It is true that there is a trou­ble. It hin­ders me to die”--and the heavy sigh swept out again. “It would be a lux­ury for me--dy­ing. The pain is bad, at times. Yet the Sis­ter knows I am glad to have it, for France. Ah, yes! But--if I might be re­leased. Yet the thought of what I said to her keeps me from dy­ing al­ways.”

“What you said 'to her,' cor­po­ral?” re­peat­ed Eve­lyn. “Can't you tell me what it was? I would try so hard to help you. I might per­haps.”

“Who knows?” smiled the cor­po­ral, “It is true that Amer­icans work mag­ic. And the Sis­ter is of a good­ness! But yes. Yet the Sis­ter may laugh at me, for it is a thing en­tire­ly child­ish, my trou­ble.”

“I will not laugh at you, Cor­po­ral,” said Eve­lyn, grave­ly, and felt some­thing wring her heart.

“If--then--if the Sis­ter will not think it fool­ish--I will tell.” The Sis­ter's an­swer was to stroke his fin­gers. “It is my child, my lit­tle girl,” Du­plessis be­gan in his deep, weak tones. “It was to her I made the promise.”

“What promise?” prompt­ed Eve­lyn soft­ly, as he stopped.

“One sees,” the deep voice be­gan again, “that when I told them good­bye, the moth­er and Marie my wife, and the _pe­tite_, who has five years, then I start­ed away, and would not look back, be­cause I could not well bear it, Sis­ter. And sud­den­ly, as I strode to the street from our cot­tage, down the brick walk, where there are ros­es and al­so oth­er flow­ers, on both sides--sud­den­ly I heard a cry. And it was the voice of lit­tle Jeanne, the _pe­tite_. I turned at that sound, for I could not help it, Sis­ter, and be­tween the flow­ers the lit­tle one came run­ning, and as I bent she threw her arms about my neck and held me so tight, tight that I could not loosen the lit­tle hands, not with­out hurt­ing her. 'I will not let you go--I will not let you go.' She cried that again and again. Till my heart was bro­ken. But all the same, one had to go. One was due to join the com­rades at the sta­tion, and the time was short. So that, im­me­di­ate­ly, I had a thought. 'My most dear,' I spoke to her. 'If thou wilt let me go, then I promise to send thee a great, beau­ti­ful doll, all in white, as a bride, like the cousin An­nette at her wed­ding last week.' And then the cling­ing lit­tle hands loos­ened, and she said, won­der­ing--for she is but a ba­by--'Wilt thou promise, my fa­ther?' And I said, 'Yes,' and kissed her quick­ly, and went away. So that now that I am wound­ed and am to die, that promise which I can­not keep to my _pe­tite_, that promise hin­ders me to die.”

The deep, sad voice stopped and the hon­est eyes of the peas­ant boy looked up at Eve­lyn, burn­ing with the pain of his body and of his soul. And as Eve­lyn looked back, hold­ing his hand and stroking it, it was as if the fur­nace of the sol­dier's pain melt­ed to­geth­er all the things she had ev­er cared to do. Yet it was a minute be­fore she spoke.

“Cor­po­ral,” she said, “your lit­tle girl shall have her doll, I will take it to her and tell her that her fa­ther sent it. Will you lie very still while I go and get the doll?”

The brown eyes looked up at her as­tound­ed, ra­di­ant, and the man caught the hem of her white veil and kissed it. “But the Amer­icans--they do mag­ic. You shall see, Sis­ter, if I shall be still. I will not die be­fore the Sis­ter re­turns. It is a joy un­heard of.”

The girl ran out of the hos­pi­tal and away in­to Paris, and burst up­on Madame. Some­how she told the sto­ry in a few words, and Madame was cry­ing as she laid “La Mar­quise” in a box.

“It is Made­moi­selle who is an an­gel of the good God,” she whis­pered, and kissed Eve­lyn un­ex­pect­ed­ly on both cheeks.

Cor­po­ral Du­plessis lay, wax­en, star­ry-​eyed, as the Amer­ican Sis­ter came back in­to the ward. His look was on her as she en­tered the far-​away door, and he saw the box in her arms. The girl knelt and drew out the gor­geous play­thing and stood it by the side of the still, ban­daged fig­ure. An ex­pres­sion as of amazed ra­di­ance came in­to the fast-​dim­ming eyes--in­to those large, brown, child­like eyes which had seen so lit­tle of the gor­geous­ness of earth. His hand stirred a very lit­tle--enough, for Eve­lyn quick­ly moved the gleam­ing satin train of the doll un­der the grop­ing fin­gers. The eyes lift­ed to Eve­lyn's face and the smile in them was that of a pris­on­er who sud­den­ly sees the gate of his prison opened and the fields of home be­yond. It mat­tered lit­tle, one may be­lieve, to the wel­com­ing hosts of heav­en that the an­gel at the gate of re­lease for the child-​soul of Cor­po­ral Du­plessis, the poilu, was on­ly Robi­na's doll!

DUN­DON­ALD'S DE­STROY­ER

This is the year 1977. It will be ob­ject­ed that the episode I am go­ing to tell, hav­ing hap­pened in 1917, hav­ing been wit­nessed by twen­ty-​odd thou­sand peo­ple, must have been, if true, for six­ty years com­mon prop­er­ty and an old tale. But when Gen­er­al Cochrane--who saved Eng­land at the end of the great war--told me the Kitch­en­er in­ci­dent of the sto­ry last year, sit­ting in the rose-​gar­den of the White Hart Inn at Son­ning-​on-​Thames, I had nev­er heard of it.

I won­der why he told me. Prob­ably, as is the case in most things which most peo­ple do, from a mix­ture of im­puls­es. For one thing I am an Amer­ican girl, with a fresh­er zest to hear tales of those ti­tan­ic days than the peo­ple or the chil­dren of the peo­ple who lived through them. Al­so the great war of 1914 has stirred me since I was old enough to know about it, and I have read ev­ery­thing con­cern­ing it which I could lay hands on, and talked to ev­ery­one who had knowl­edge of it. Al­so, Gen­er­al Cochrane and I made friends from the first minute. I was a quite unim­por­tant per­son of twen­ty-​four years, he a mag­nif­icent hero of eighty, one of the proud fig­ures of Eng­land; it made me a bit dizzy when I saw that he liked me. One feels, once in a long time, an un­mis­tak­able dou­ble pull, and knows that one­self and an­oth­er are friends, and not age, col­or, race nor pre­vi­ous con­di­tion of servi­tude makes the slight­est dif­fer­ence. To have that hap­pen with a celebri­ty, a celebri­ty whom it would have been hon­or enough sim­ply to meet, is quite dizzy­ing. This was the way of it.

I was stay­ing with my cousin Mil­dred Ward, an At­lanta girl who mar­ried Sir Ce­cil Ward, an En­glish baronet of Ox­ford­shire. I reached Mar­tin-​Gor­ing on a day in Ju­ly just in time to dress for din­ner. When I came down, a bit ear­ly, Mil­ly looked me over and pro­nounced fa­vor­ably.

“You're not so hard to look at,” she pro­nounced. “It takes an Amer­ican re­al­ly to wear French clothes. I'm glad you're look­ing well tonight, be­cause one of your heroes--Oh!”

She had float­ed in­con­se­quent­ly against a book­case in a voy­age along the big room, and a spray of wild ros­es from a vase on the shelf caught in her pret­ty gold hair.

“Oh--why does Mid­dle­ton stick those catchy things up there?” she com­plained, sep­arat­ing the flow­ers from her hair, and I fol­lowed her eyes above the shelf.

“Why, that's a por­trait of Kitch­en­er--the old great Kitch­en­er, isn't it?” I asked. “Did he be­long to Ce­cil's peo­ple?”

“No,” an­swered Mil­ly, “on­ly Ce­cil's grand­fa­ther and Gen­er­al Cochrane--or some­thing--” her voice trailed. And then, “I've got some­body you'll be crazy about tonight, Gen­er­al Cochrane.”

“Gen­er­al Cochrane?”

“Oh! You pre­tend to know about the great war and don't know Gen­er­al Cochrane, who saved Eng­land when the fleet was wrecked. Don't know him!”

“Oh!” I said again. “Know him? Know him! I know ev­ery breath, he drew. On­ly I couldn't be­lieve my ears. The boy Don­ald Cochrane? It isn't true is it? How did you ev­er, ev­er--?”

“He lives five miles from us,” said Mil­ly, un­con­cerned­ly. “We see a lot of him. His wife was Ce­cil's great-​aunt. She's dead now. His daugh­ter is my best friend. 'The boy Don­ald Cochrane'!” She smiled a lit­tle. “He's no boy now. He's old. Even heroes do that--get old.”

And with that the foot­man at the door an­nounced “Gen­er­al Cochrane.”

I stared away up at a very tall, sol­dier­ly old man with a jagged scar across his fore­head. His wide-​open, black-​lashed gray eyes flashed a glance like a men­ace, like a sword, and then sud­den­ly smiled as if the sun had jumped from a bank of storm-​clouds. And I looked in­to those won­der­ful eyes and we were friends. As fast as that. Most peo­ple would think it non­sense, but it hap­pened so. A few peo­ple will un­der­stand. He took me out to din­ner, and it was as if no one else was at the ta­ble. I was aware on­ly of the one hero­ic per­son­al­ity. At first I dared not speak of his his­to­ry, and then, with­out plan­ning or in­ten­tion, my own voice as­ton­ished my own ears. I an­nounced to him:

“You have been my hero since I was ten years old.”

It was a mar­velous thing he did, the lad of twen­ty, even con­sid­er­ing that the se­cret was there at his hand, ready for him to use. The his­to­ries say that--that no mat­ter if he did not in­vent the de­vice, it was his ready wit which re­mem­bered it, and his per­sis­tence which forced the war de­part­ment to use it. Yes, and his hero­ism which led the ship and all but gave his life. And when he had ful­filled his mis­sion he stepped back in­to the place of a sub­al­tern; he was mod­est, even em­bar­rassed, at the great peo­ple who thronged to him. Eng­land was saved; that was all his af­fair; noth­ing, so the books say, could prod him in­to promi­nence--though he rose to be a Gen­er­al lat­er--af­ter that, af­ter be­ing the first man in Eng­land for those days. It was this per­son­age with whom I had gone out to din­ner, and to whom I dared make that sud­den speech: “You have been my hero, Gen­er­al Cochrane, since I was ten years old.”

He slued about with the men­ac­ing, shrap­nel look, and it seemed that there might be an ex­plo­sion of sharp-​point­ed small bul­lets over the din­ner-​ta­ble.

“Don't!” I begged. The sun came out; the ar­tillery at­tack was over; he looked at me with boy­ish shy­ness.

“D'you know, when peo­ple say things like that I feel as if I were steal­ing,” he told me con­fi­den­tial­ly. “Any­body else could have done all I did. In fact, it wasn't I at all,” he fin­ished.

“Not you? Who then? Weren't you the boy Don­ald Cochrane?”

“Yes,” he said, and stopped as if he were con­sid­er­ing it. “Yes,” he said qui­et­ly in the clean-​cut, terse En­glish man­ner of speak­ing, “I sup­pose I was the boy Don­ald Cochrane.” He gazed across the white lilacs and pink ros­es on the ta­ble as if dream­ing a bit. Then he turned with a long breath. “My child,” he said, “there is some­thing about you which gives me back my youth, and--the fresh­ness of a great ex­pe­ri­ence. I thank you.”

I gazed in­to those com­pelling eyes, gasp­ing like a fish with too much oxy­gen, I felt my­self, Vir­ginia Fox, meshed in the fringes of his­toric days, stirred by the rush­ing mighty wind of that Great Ex­pe­ri­ence. I was awestruck in­to si­lence. Just then Mil­ly got up, and eight wom­en flocked in­to the li­brary.

I was good for noth­ing there, sim­ply good for noth­ing at all. I tried to talk to the nice, sen­si­ble En­glish wom­en, and I could not. I knew Mil­ly was dis­pleased with me for not keep­ing up my end, but I was sod­den with thrills. I had sat through a din­ner next to Gen­er­al Cochrane, the Don­ald Cochrane who was the most dra­mat­ic fig­ure of the world war of six­ty years ago. It has al­ways moved me to meet per­sons who even ex­ist­ed at that time. I look at them and think what in­tense liv­ing it must have meant to pick up a pa­per and read--as the news of the day, mind you--that Ger­many had en­tered Bel­gium, that King Al­bert was fight­ing in the trench­es, that Von Kluck was with­in sev­en­teen miles of Paris, that Von Kluck was re­treat­ing--think of the rap­ture of that--Paris saved!--that the Ger­mans had tak­en Antwerp; that the _Lusi­ta­nia_ was sunk; that Kitch­en­er was drowned at sea! I won­der if the peo­ple who lived and went about their busi­ness in Amer­ica in those days re­al­ized that they were hav­ing a stage-​box for the great­est dra­ma of his­to­ry? I won­der. Ter­ror and hero­ism and cru­el­ty find self-​sac­ri­fice on a scale which had nev­er been dreamed, which will nev­er, God grant, need to be dreamed on this poor lit­tle racked plan­et again. Of course, there are plen­ty of those peo­ple alive yet, and I've talked to many and they re­mem­ber it, all of them re­mem­ber well, even those who were quite small. And it has stirred me sim­ply to look in­to the eyes of such an one and con­sid­er that those eyes read such things as morn­ing news. The great war has had a hold on me since I first heard of it, and I dis­tinct­ly re­mem­ber the day, from my fa­ther, at the age of sev­en.

“Can you re­mem­ber when it hap­pened, fa­ther?” I asked him. And then: “Can you re­mem­ber when they drove old peo­ple out of their hous­es--and killed them?”

“Yes,” said my fa­ther. And I burst in­to tears. And when I was not much old­er he told me about Don­ald Cochrane, the boy who saved Eng­land.

It was not strange to my own mind that I could not talk com­mon­places now, when I had just spent an hour tail­ing to the man who had been that his­toric boy--the very Don­ald Cochrane. I could not talk com­mon­places.

Mil­ly's leisure­ly voice broke my med­ita­tion. “I'm sor­ry that my cousin, Vir­ginia Fox, should have such bad man­ners, La­dy An­dover,” she was drawl­ing. “She was brought up to speak when spo­ken to, but I think it's the Gen­er­al who has hyp­no­tized her. Vir­ginia, did you know that La­dy An­dover asked you--” And I came to life.

“It was Miss Fox who hyp­no­tized the Gen­er­al, I fan­cy,” said La­dy An­dover most gra­cious­ly, con­sid­er­ing I had over­looked her ex­is­tence a sec­ond be­fore. “He had a word for no one else dur­ing din­ner.” I felt my­self go scar­let; it had pleased the Mar­velous Per­son, then, to like me a lit­tle, per­haps for the youth and en­thu­si­asm in me.

With that the men strag­gled in­to the room and the tall griz­zled head of my hero, his lined face con­spic­uous for the jagged, glo­ri­ous scar, tow­ered over the rest. I saw the vivid eyes flash about, and they met mine; I was star­ing at him, as I must, and my heart all but jumped out of me when he came straight to where I stood, my back against the book­case.

“I was look­ing for you,” he said sim­ply.

Then he glanced over my head and his hand shot up in a man­ner of salute; I turned to see why. I was in front of the por­trait of Lord Kitch­en­er.

“Did you know him, Gen­er­al Cochrane?” I asked.

“Know him?” he de­mand­ed, and the gray glance plunged out at me from un­der the thick lash­es.

“Don't do it,” I plead­ed, putting my hands over my eyes. “When you look at me so it's--bombs and bul­lets.” The look soft­ened, but the lean, wrin­kled face did not smile.

“You asked if I knew Kitch­en­er,” he stat­ed.

I spoke halt­ing­ly. “I didn't know. Ought I to have known?”

Gen­er­al Cochrane gazed down, all at once dreamy, as if he looked through me at some­thing miles and æons away.

“No,” he said. “There's no rea­son why you should. You have an un­com­mon knowl­edge of events of that time, an as­ton­ish­ing knowl­edge for a young thing, so that I for­get you can't know--all of it.” He stopped, as if con­sid­er­ing. “It is be­cause I am old that I have fan­cies,” he went on slow­ly. “And you have un­der­stand­ing eyes. I have had a fan­cy this evening that you and I were meant to be friends; that a sim­ilar­ity of in­ter­ests, a--a like­ness--oh, hang it all!” burst out the Gen­er­al like a col­lege boy. “I nev­er could talk ex­cept straight and hot. I mean I've a feel­ing of a bond be­tween us--you'll think me most pre­sum­ing--”

I in­ter­rupt­ed, breath­less. “It's so,” I whis­pered. “I felt it, on­ly I'd not have dared--” and I choked.

Old Gen­er­al Cochrane frowned thought­ful­ly. “Cu­ri­ous,” was what he said. “It's psy­chol­ogy of course, but I'm hanged if I know the ex­pla­na­tion. How­ev­er, since it's so, my child, I'm glad. A man as old as I makes few new friends. And a beau­ti­ful young wom­an--with a brain--and charm--and in­no­cent eyes--and French clothes!”

One may guess if I tried to stop this de­scrip­tion. I could have lis­tened all night. With that:

“'Did I know Kitch­en­er!' the child asked,” re­flect­ed the Gen­er­al, and threw back his splen­did head and laughed. I stared up, my heart pump­ing. Then, “Well, rather. Why, lit­tle Miss Fox--” and he stopped. “I've a mind to tell the child a fairy-​sto­ry,” he said. “A true fairy-​sto­ry which is so ex­traor­di­nary that few have been found to be­lieve it, even of those who saw it hap­pen.”

He halt­ed again.

“Tell me!”

Gen­er­al Co­ehrane looked about the room­ful of peo­ple and tossed out his hand. “In this mob?” he ob­ject­ed. “It's too long a sto­ry in any case. But why shouldn't you and I have a séance, to let a gar­ru­lous old fel­low talk about his youth?” he de­mand­ed in his lord­ly way. “Why not come out on the riv­er in my boat? They'll let you play about with an oc­to­ge­nar­ian, won't they?”

“I'll come,” I an­swered the Gen­er­al ea­ger­ly.

“Very good. To­mor­row. Oh, by George, no. That con­found­ed Prime Min­is­ter comes down to me to­mor­row. I de­test old men,” said Gen­er­al Cochrane. “Well, then, the day af­ter?”

The Thames was a pic­ture-​book riv­er that day, gay with row-​boats and punts and launch­es, yet serene for all its gai­ety; slip­ping be­tween grassy banks un­der im­memo­ri­al trees with the air of a pri­vate stream wan­der­ing, pro­tect­ed, through an es­tate. The En­glish have the gift above oth­er na­tions of pro­duc­ing an at­mo­sphere of leisure and seclu­sion, and sure­ly there is no lit­tle riv­er on earth so used and so unabused as the Thames. Of all the craft abroad that bright af­ter­noon, Gen­er­al Cochrane's white launch with its gold line above the wa­ter and its gleam­ing brass trim­mings was far and away the pret­ti­est, and I was burst­ing with pride as we passed the rank and file on the stream and they looked at us ad­mir­ing­ly. To be alive on such a day in Eng­land was some­thing; to be afloat on the sil­very Thames was en­chant­ment; to be in that love­ly boat with Gen­er­al Cochrane, the boy Don­ald Cochrane, was a rap­ture not to be be­lieved with­out one's head reel­ing. Yet here it was hap­pen­ing, the thing I should look back up­on fifty, six­ty years from now, an old gray wom­an, and tell my grand­chil­dren as the most in­ter­est­ing event of my life. It was hap­pen­ing, and I was en­joy­ing ev­ery sec­ond, and not in the least awed in­to mis­ery, as is of­ten the case with great mo­ments. For the old of­fi­cer was as per­fect a play­mate as any good-​for-​noth­ing young sub­al­tern in Eng­land, and that is putting it strong­ly.

“Wouldn't it be nicer to land at Son­ning and have our tea there?” he sug­gest­ed. We were drop­ping through the lock just high­er than the vil­lage; the wet, mossy walls were ris­ing above us on both sides and the tops of the lock-​keep­er's gor­geous pink snap­drag­ons were rapid­ly go­ing out of sight. My host went on: “There's rather a nice rose-​gar­den, and it's on the riv­er, and the plum-​cake's good. What do you think, that or on board?”

“The rose-​gar­den,” I de­cid­ed.

Son­ning is a vil­lage cut out of a book and past­ed on the earth. It can't be true, it's so pret­ty. And the lit­tle White Hart Inn is adorable.

“Is it re­al­ly three hun­dred years old?” I asked. “The stan­dard ros­es look like an il­lus­tra­tion out of 'Al­ice in Won­der­land.' Yes, please--tea in the White Hart gar­den.”

The old Gen­er­al heaved a sigh. “Thank Heav­en,” he said. “I was most aw­ful­ly anx­ious for fear you'd say on the boat, and I didn't or­der any.”

We slipped un­der an arch of the an­cient red bridge and were at the land­ing. I re­mem­ber the scene as we stood on shore and looked down the shin­ing way of the riv­er, the tall grass­es bend­ing on ei­ther side like green fur stroked by the breeze; I re­mem­ber the trim sea-​wall and vel­vet lawn, and the low, long house with lead­ed win­dows of the place next the inn. A house-​boat was moored to the shore be­low, white, with scar­let gera­ni­ums flow­ing the length of the up­per deck, and wil­low chairs and ta­bles; peo­ple were hav­ing tea up there; muslin cur­tains blew from the port­holes be­low. Some Amer­icans went past with two enor­mous Scotch deer-​hound pup­pies on leash. “Be qui­et, Jock,” one of them said, and the big, gen­tle-​faced beast turned on her with a gi­ant, ca­ress­ing bound, the last touch of beau­ty in the beau­ti­ful, qui­et scene.

It was ear­ly, so that we took the ta­ble which pleased us, one set a bit aside against a ten-​foot hedge, and guard­ed by a tall bush of tea-​ros­es. A plump maid hur­ried across the lawn and spread a cloth on our ta­ble and wait­ed, smil­ing, as if see­ing us had sim­ply made her day per­fect. And the Gen­er­al gave the or­ders.

“The plum-​cake is go­ing to be won­der­ful,” I said then, “and I'm hun­gry as a bear for tea. But the best thing I've been promised this af­ter­noon is a fairy-​sto­ry.”

The shrap­nel look flashed, keen and bright and afire, but I looked back steadi­ly, not afraid. I knew what sun­light was go­ing to break; and it broke.

“D'you know,” said he, “I'm re­al­ly quite mad to talk about my­self. Men al­ways are. You've heard the lit­tle tale of the man who said, 'Let's have a gar­den-​par­ty. Let's go out on the lawn and talk about me'? One be­comes a fright­ful bore quite eas­ily. So that I've made rules--I don't hec­tor peo­ple about--about things I've been con­cerned with. As to the in­ci­dent I said I'd tell you, that would be quite im­pos­si­ble to tell to--well, prac­ti­cal­ly any­one.”

My cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem did a prance; he could tell it prac­ti­cal­ly to no one, yet he was go­ing to tell it to me! I in­stant­ly said that. “But you're go­ing to tell it to me?” I was anx­ious.

“Child, you flat­ter well,” said the Mar­velous Per­son, who had brought me pic­nick­ing. “It's the Amer­ican touch; there's a way with Amer­ican wom­en quite ir­re­sistible.”

“Oh--Amer­ican wom­en!” I re­mon­strat­ed.

“Yes, in­deed. They're de­light­ful--you're witch­es, ev­ery moth­er's daugh­ter of you. But you--ah--that's dif­fer­ent, now. You and I, as we de­cid­ed long ago, on day be­fore yes­ter­day, have a bond. I can't help the con­vic­tion that you're the hun­dred-​thou­sandth per­son. You have un­der­stand­ing eyes. If I were a young man--And yet it's not just that; it's some­thing a bit rar­er. More­over, they tell me there's a chap back in Amer­ica.”

“Yes,” I owned. “There is a chap.” And I per­sist­ed: “I'm to have a fairy-​sto­ry?”

The black-​lashed gaze nar­rowed as it trav­eled across the vel­vet turf and the tall ros­es, down the path of the qui­et riv­er. He had a fine head, thick-​thatched and griz­zled, not white; his nose was of the straight, short En­glish type, slight­ly chopped up at the end--a good-​look­ing nose; his mouth was wide and not chis­eled, yet sen­si­tive as well as strong; the jaw was pow­er­ful and the chin square with a marked dim­ple in it; there was al­so col­or, the claret and hon­ey of En­glish tanned com­plex­ions. Of course his eyes, with the ex­ag­ger­at­ed­ly thick and long black lash­es, were the won­der­ful part of him, but there is no de­scrib­ing the eyes. It was the look from them, prob­ably, which made Gen­er­al Cochrane's face re­mark­able. I sup­pose it was part­ly that com­pelling look which had brought about his ca­reer. He was six feet four, lean and mil­itary, full of pres­ence, al­to­geth­er a con­spic­uous­ly beau­ti­ful old li­on in a land where ev­ery third man is beau­ti­ful.

“What are you look­ing mu­ni­tions-​of-​war at, Gen­er­al, down the in­no­cent lit­tle Thames Riv­er? You must be see­ing around cor­ners, past War­grave, as far as Hen­ley.”

“I didn't see the Thames Riv­er,” he shot at me in his mas­ter­ful way. “I was look­ing at things past, and peo­ple dead and gone. We an­cients do that. I saw Lon­don streets and crowds; I read the posters which told that Kitch­en­er was drowned at sea, and then I saw, a year lat­er, Eng­land in pan­ic; I saw an almighty meet­ing in Trafal­gar Square and I heard speech­es which burned my ears--men urg­ing En­glish­men to sur­ren­der Eng­land and make terms with the Huns. Good God!” His fist came down on the rat­tling lit­tle iron ta­ble.

“My blood boils now when I re­mem­ber. Child,” he de­mand­ed, “I can't see why your al­lur­ing ways should have set me talk­ing. Fan­cy, I've nev­er told this tale but twice, and I'm hold­ing forth to a lit­tle alien whom I haven't known two days, a young ne'er-​do-​well not born till forty years af­ter the tale hap­pened!”

“What dif­fer­ence does that make?” I asked. “Age means noth­ing to re­al peo­ple. And we've known each oth­er since--since we hunt­ed ptero­dactyls to­geth­er, pre-​his­tor­ical­ly. On­ly--I hate bats,” I ob­ject­ed to my own ar­range­ment. I went on: “If you knew how I want to hear! It's the most won­der­ful thing in my life, this af­ter­noon--you.”

“I know you are hon­est,” he said. “Dif­fer­ent from the ruck. I knew that the mo­ment I saw you.”

“Then,” I prod­ded, “do be­gin with the posters about Lord Kitch­en­er.”

“But that's not the be­gin­ning,” he protest­ed. “You'll spoil it all,” he said.

“Oh, no, then! Be­gin at the be­gin­ning. I didn't know. I want­ed to get you start­ed.”

The gray eyes dreamed down the placid riv­er wa­ter.

“The be­gin­ning was be­fore I was born. It be­gan when Kitch­en­er, a young gen­er­al, picked up a ma­raud­ing par­ty of black ras­cals on his way to Khar­toum. They had a cap­tive, a white girl, a la­dy. They had mur­dered her fa­ther and moth­er and young broth­er. The fa­ther was new­ly ap­point­ed Colonel of a reg­iment, trav­el­ing to his post with his fam­ily. The Arabs were sav­ing the girl for their dev­il­ish head chief­tain. Kitch­en­er had the lot ex­ecut­ed, and sent for the girl. She was--”

The old man's hand lift­ed to his head and he took off his hat and laid it on the ground.

“I can­not speak of that girl with­out un­cov­er­ing,” he said, qui­et­ly. “She was my moth­er.” There was an elec­tri­cal si­lence. I knew enough to know that no words fit­ted here. The old of­fi­cer went on: “She was one of the won­der­ful peo­ple. What she seemed to think of, af­ter the hor­rors she had gone through, was not her­self or her suf­fer­ing, but on­ly to show her grat­itude. It was a long jour­ney--weeks--through that land of hell, while she was in Kitch­en­er's hands, and not once did she lose courage. The Sir­dar told me that it was hav­ing an an­gel in camp--she held that rough sol­diery in the hol­low of her hand. She told Kitch­en­er her sto­ry, and af­ter that she would not talk of her­self. You've heard that he nev­er had a love af­fair? That's wrong. He was in love then, and for the rest of his life, with my moth­er.”

I gasped. The shrap­nel eyes men­aced me.

"She could not speak of her­self, d'you see? It was sal­va­tion to think on­ly of oth­ers, so that she'd not told him that she was en­gaged to my fa­ther. Love from any oth­er was the last thing she was think­ing of. Af­ter what had hap­pened she was liv­ing from one breath to an­oth­er and she dared not con­sid­er her own af­fairs. The night be­fore they reached Cairo, Kitch­en­er asked her to mar­ry him. He was over forty then; she was nine­teen. She told him of her en­gage­ment, of course--told him al­so that it might be she would nev­er mar­ry at all; a life of her own and hap­pi­ness seemed im­pos­si­ble now. She might go in­to a sis­ter­hood. Work for oth­ers was what she must have. Then, un­ex­pect­ed­ly, my fa­ther was at Cairo to meet her, and Kitch­en­er went to him and told him. From that on the two men were close friends. My peo­ple were not mar­ried till five years lat­er, and when I came to be bap­tized Gen­er­al Kitch­en­er was god­fa­ther. All my young days I was used to see­ing him about the house at in­ter­vals, as if he be­longed to us. I re­mem­ber his eyes fol­low­ing my moth­er. Tall and slight she was, with a haunt­ed look, from what she'd seen; she moved soft­ly, spoke soft­ly. It was no se­cret from the two, my fa­ther and moth­er, that he loved her al­ways. Yet, so loy­al, so crys­tal he was that my fa­ther had nev­er one mo­ment of jeal­ousy. On the con­trary they were like broth­ers. Then they died--my fa­ther and moth­er. The two al­most to­geth­er. I came in­to Kitch­en­er's hands, Lord Kitch­en­er by then. When he met me in Lon­don, a long lad of sev­en­teen, he held my fin­gers a sec­ond and looked hard at me.

“'You're very like her, Don­ald,' he said. And held on. And said it again. 'Your moth­er's dou­ble. I'd know you for her boy if I caught one look of your eyes, any­where,' he said. 'Her boy.'--Well--what? Do I want more tea? Of course, I do.”

For the smil­ing plump maid had long ago brought the steam­ing stuff, the bread and but­ter and jam and plum cake, I had of­fi­ci­at­ed and Gen­er­al Cochrane had been ab­sorb­ing his tea as an En­glish­man does, au­to­mat­ical­ly, while he talked.

About us the ta­bles were fill­ing up, all over the rose-​gar­den. The Amer­icans were there with the beau­ti­ful long-​legged gi­ant deer-​hound pup­py, Jock, and were hav­ing trou­ble with his ta­ble man­ners. Peo­ple came in by twos and threes and more, from the riv­er, with the glow of ex­er­cise on their faces; an el­der­ly coun­try par­son sat near, black-​coat­ed, white-​col­lared, with his el­der­ly daugh­ter and their dog, a well-​be­haved Scot­tie this one, big-​head­ed, with an age-​old, wise, black face. And a group of three pret­ty girls with their pret­ty pink-​cheeked moth­er and a young man or so were hav­ing a gay time with soft-​voiced laugh­ter and jokes, not far away. The breeze lift­ed the long pur­ple and rose-​col­ored mo­tor veils of moth­er and daugh­ters. The whole place was full of bright col­ors and low-​toned cheer­ful talk, yet so En­glish was the at­mo­sphere, that it was as if the Gen­er­al and I were shut in­to an en­chant­ed for­est. No one looked at us, no one seemed to know we were there. The Gen­er­al be­gan to talk again, un­con­scious as the rest of any­thing or any­body not his af­fair.

“I got my com­mis­sion in 1915 in K-1, Kitch­en­er's first hun­dred thou­sand, and I went off to the front in the sec­ond year of the war. I had a scratch and was slight­ly gassed once, but noth­ing much hap­pened for a long time. And in 1916, in May, came the news that my god­fa­ther, the per­son clos­est to me on earth, was drowned at sea. I was in Lon­don, just out of the hos­pi­tal and about to go back to France.”

The old Gen­er­al stopped and stared down at the grav­eled path with its trim turf bor­der ly­ing at his feet.

“It was to me as if the world, seething in its trou­bles, was sud­den­ly emp­ty--with that man gone. I drift­ed with the crowd about Lon­don town, and the crowd ap­peared to be like my­self, dazed. The streets were full and there was con­tin­ual­ly a pro­found, sor­row­ful sound, like the groan of a na­tion; faces were blank and gray. Those surg­ing, mourn­ful Lon­don streets, and the look of the posters with great let­ters on them--his name--that mem­ory isn't like­ly to leave me till I die. Of course, I got hold of ev­ery de­tail and tried to pic­ture the man­ner of it to my­self, but I couldn't get it that he was dead. Kitch­en­er, the heart of the na­tion; I couldn't com­pre­hend that he had stopped breath­ing. I couldn't get my­self sat­is­fied that I wasn't to see him again. It seemed there must be some way out. You'll re­mem­ber, per­haps, that four boats were seen to put off from the _Hamp­shire_ as she sank? I tried to trace those boats. I trav­eled up there and in­ter­viewed peo­ple who had seen them. I got no good from it. But it kept com­ing to me that it was not a mine that had sunk the ship, that it was a tor­pe­do from a Ger­man sub­ma­rine, and that Kitch­en­er was on one of the boats that put off and that he had been tak­en pris­on­er by the en­emy. God knows why that thought per­sist­ed--there were rea­sons against it--it was a boy's the­ory. But it per­sist­ed; I couldn't get it out of my head. I was in St. Paul's at the Memo­ri­al Ser­vice; I heard the 'Last Post' played for him, and I saw the King and Queen in tears; all that didn't set­tle my mind. I went back to the front, heavy-​heart­ed, and tried to be­have my­self as I be­lieved he'd have had me--the Sir­dar. My peo­ple had called him the Sir­dar al­ways. Luck was with me in France; I had chances, and did a bit of work, and got ad­vance­ment.”

“I know,” I nod­ded. “I've read his­to­ry. A few tri­fles like the res­cue of the ri­fles and hold­ing that trench and--”

The old sol­dier in­ter­rupt­ed, look­ing thun­der­ous. “It has a bear­ing on the episode I'm about to tell you. That's why I re­fer to it.”

I didn't mind his haugh­ti­ness. It was giv­en me to see the boy's shy­ness with­in that grim old hero.

"So that when I land­ed in Lon­don in 1917, hav­ing been stupid enough to get my right arm pot­ted, it hap­pened that my name was known. They picked me out to make a do­ing over. I was most un­com­mon­ly con­spic­uous for noth­ing more than thou­sands of oth­er lads had done. They'd giv­en their lives like wa­ter, thou­sands of them--it made me sick with shame, when I thought of those oth­ers, to have my name ring­ing through the land. But so it was, and it served a pur­pose, right enough, I saw lat­er.

"Then, as I be­gan to crawl about, came the cri­sis of the war. Ill news piled on ill news; the army in France was down with an epi­dem­ic; each day's news was worse than the last; to top all, the Ger­mans found the fleet. It was in let­ters a foot long about Lon­don--news­boys cry­ing aw­ful words:

"'Fleet dis­cov­ered--Ger­man sub­marines and Zep­pelins ap­proach­ing.'

"A bit lat­er, still worse. 'The _Bellerophon_ sunk by Ger­man tor­pe­do--ten dread­noughts sunk--' There were the names of the big ships, the _Queen Eliz­abeth_, the _War­spite_, the _Thun­der­er_, the _Agamem­non_, the _King Ed­ward_--a lot more, bat­tle cruis­ers, too--then ten more dread­noughts--and more and worse ev­ery hour. The Ger­man navy was said to be com­ing in­to the North Sea and ad­vanc­ing to our coast. And our navy was go­ing--gone--noth­ing to stand be­tween us and the fate of Bel­gium.

"Then Eng­land went mad! I thank God I'll not live through such days again. The land went mad with fear. You'll re­mem­ber that there had been a three-​year strain which hu­man nerves were not meant to bear. Well, there was a fac­tion who urged that the on­ly sane act now pos­si­ble was to sur­ren­der to Ger­many quick­ly and hope for a mer­cy which we couldn't get if we strug­gled. The gov­ern­ment, un­der enor­mous pres­sure, weak­ened. It's easy to cry 'Shame!' now, but how could it stand firm with the coun­try stam­ped­ing back of it?

"So things were the day of the mass meet­ing in Trafal­gar Square. I was tall, and so thin and gaunt that, with my uni­form and my arm in its sling, it was easy to get close to the front, straight un­der the speak­ers. And no soon­er had I got there than I was seized with a rest­less­ness, an un­con­trol­lable de­sire to see my god­fa­ther--Kitch­en­er. On­ly to see him, to lay eyes on him. I wish I might ex­press to you the push of that feel­ing. It was thirst in a desert. With that spell on me I stood down in front of the stone li­ons and stared up at Nel­son on his col­umn, and lis­tened to the speak­ers. They were mad, quite, those speak­ers. The crowd was mad, too. It over­flowed that great space, and there were few steady heads in the lot. You'll re­al­ize it looked a bit of a close shave, with the Ger­man navy com­ing and our fleet be­ing de­stroyed, no one knew how fast, and the army in France, and struck down by ill­ness. At that mo­ment it looked a mat­ter of three or four days be­fore the Huns would be land­ing. Nev­er be­fore in a thou­sand years was Eng­land as near the fin­ish. As I stood there fid­get­ing, with the star­va­tion on me for my god­fa­ther, it flashed to me that there's a leg­end in ev­ery na­tion about some one of its heroes, how in the hour of need he will come back to save the peo­ple--Charle­magne in France, don't you know, and Bar­barossa and King Arthur and--oh, a num­ber. And I spoke aloud, so that the chap next prod­ded me in the ribs and said: 'Stop that, will you? I can't hear'--I spoke aloud and said:

"'This is the hour. Come back and save us.'

"The speak­ers had been rant­ing along, urg­ing on the peo­ple to force the gov­ern­ment to give in and make terms with those dev­ils who'd crushed Bel­gium. Of course there were plen­ty there ready to die in the last ditch for hon­or and the coun­try, but the mob was with the speak­ers. Quite in­sane with ter­ror the mob was. And I spoke aloud to Kitch­en­er, like a mad­man of a sort al­so, beg­ging him to come from an­oth­er world and save his peo­ple.

"'This is the hour; come and save us,' said I, and said it as if my words could get through to Kitch­en­er in eter­ni­ty.

“With that a taxi­cab forced through the crowd, close to the plat­form, and it stopped and some­body got out. I could see an of­fi­cer's cap and the crowd press­ing. My eyes were riv­et­ed on that brown cap; my breath came queer­ly; there was a mur­mur, a hush and a mur­mur to­geth­er, where that tall of­fi­cer with the cap over his face pushed to­ward the speak­ers. I felt I should choke if I didn't see him--and I couldn't see him. Then he made the plat­form, and be­fore my eyes, be­fore the eyes of twen­ty thou­sand peo­ple, he stood there--Kitch­en­er!”

Gen­er­al Cochrane stared de­fi­ant­ly at me. “I'm not ask­ing you to be­lieve this,” he said. “I'm mere­ly telling you--what hap­pened.”

“Go on,” I whis­pered.

He went on: "A si­lence like death fell on that vast crowd. The voice of the speak­er scream­ing out wild cow­ardice about mer­cy from the Ger­mans kept on for a few words, and then the man caught the elec­tri­cal at­mo­sphere and was aware that some­thing was hap­pen­ing. He halt­ed half-​way in a word, and turned and faced the grim, mo­tion­less fig­ure--Kitch­en­er. The man stared a half minute and shot his hands up and howled, and ran in­to the throng. All over the great place, by then, was a whis­per swelling in­to a bass mur­mur, in­to a roar, his name.

"'Kitch­en­er--Kitch­en­er!' and 'K. of K.!' and 'Kitch­en­er of Khar­toum!'

"Nev­er in my life have I heard a vol­ume of sound like Lon­don shout­ing that day the name of Kitch­en­er. Af­ter a time he lift­ed his hand and stood, deep-​eyed and hag­gard, as the mass qui­et­ed. He spoke. I can't tell you what he said. I couldn't have told you the next hour. But he qui­et­ed us and lift­ed us, that crowd, fearstruck, sob­bing, in­to courage. He put his own steady dig­ni­ty in­to those cheap, fright­ened lit­tle John­nies. He gave us strength even if the worst came, and he held up En­glish pluck and dogged­ness for us to look at and to live by. As his voice stopped, as I stood down in front just un­der him, I flung up my arms, and I sup­pose I cried out some­thing; I was but a lad of twen­ty, and half crazed with the joy of see­ing him. And he swung for­ward a step to me as if he had seen me all the time--and I think he had. 'Do the turn, Don­ald,' he said, 'The time has come for a Cochrane to save Eng­land.'

"And with that he wheeled and with­out a look to right or left, in his own swift, silent, shy way he was gone.

“No­body saw where he went. I all but killed my­self for an hour try­ing to find him, but it was of no use. And with that, as I sat at my lunch, too fever­ish and stirred to eat food, de­mand­ing over and over what he meant, what the 'turn' was which I was to do, why a Cochrane should have a chance to save Eng­land--with that, sud­den­ly I knew.”

Gen­er­al Cochrane halt­ed again, and again he gazed down the lit­tle riv­er, the riv­er of Eng­land, the riv­er which he, more than any oth­er, had kept for En­glish folk and their peace­ful play-​times. I knew I must not hur­ry him; I wait­ed.

“The thing came to me like light­ning,” he went on, “and I had on­ly to go from one sim­ple step to an­oth­er; it seemed all thought out for me. It was some­thing, don't you see, which I'd known all my life­time, but hadn't once thought of since the war be­gan. I went di­rect to my bankers and got a box out of the safe and fetched it home in a cab. There I opened it and took out pa­pers and went over them.... This part of the tale is most­ly in print,” Gen­er­al Cochrane in­ter­rupt­ed him­self. “Have you read it? I don't want to bore you with rep­eti­tions.”

I an­swered hur­ried­ly, trem­bling for fear I might say the wrong thing: “I've read what's in print, but your telling it puts it in an­oth­er world. Please go on. Please don't short­en any­thing.”

The shad­ow of a smile played. “I rather like telling you a sto­ry, d'you know,” he spoke, half ab­sent-​mind­ed­ly--his re­al thoughts were with that huge past. He swept back to it. "You know, of course, about Dun­don­ald's De­stroy­er--the in­ven­tion of my great-​grand­fa­ther's kins­man, Thomas Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dun­don­ald? He was a good bit of an old chap in var­ious ways. He did things to the French fleet that put him as a naval of­fi­cer in the class with Nel­son and Drake. But he's re­mem­bered in his­to­ry by his in­ven­tion. It was a se­cret, of course, one of the puz­zles of the time and of years af­ter, up to 1917. It was known there was some­thing. He of­fered it to the gov­ern­ment in 1811, and the gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee to ex­am­ine in­to it. The chair­man was the Duke of York, com­man­der-​in-​chief of the army, said to be the ablest ad­min­is­tra­tor of mil­itary af­fairs of that time. Al­so there were Ad­mi­rals Lord Kei­th and Ex­mouth and the Con­greve broth­ers of the ord­nance de­part­ment. A more com­pe­tent com­mit­tee of five could not have been gath­ered in the world. This board would not rec­om­mend the adop­tion of the scheme. Why? They re­port­ed that there was no ques­tion that the in­ven­tion would do all which Dun­don­ald claimed, but it was so un­speak­ably dread­ful as to be im­pos­si­ble for civ­ilized men.

"There was not a shad­ow of doubt, the com­mit­tee re­port­ed, that Dun­don­ald's de­vice would not mere­ly de­feat but an­ni­hi­late and sweep out of ex­is­tence any hos­tile force, whole armies and navies. 'No pow­er on earth could stand against it,' said the old fel­low, and the five ex­perts backed him up. But they con­sid­ered that the dev­as­ta­tion would be in­hu­man be­yond per­mis­si­ble war­fare. Not war, an­ni­hi­la­tion. In fact, they shelved it be­cause it was too ef­fi­cient. There was great need of means for fight­ing Napoleon just then, so they gave it up re­luc­tant­ly, but it was a bit too shock­ing.

"The weak point of the busi­ness was, as Dun­don­ald him­self de­clared, that it was so sim­ple--as ev­ery­body knows now--that its first use would tell the se­cret and put it in the hands of oth­er na­tions. There­fore the com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed that this in­cip­ient de­struc­tion should be stowed away and kept se­cret, so that no pow­er more un­scrupu­lous than Eng­land should get it and use it for the an­ni­hi­la­tion of Eng­land and the con­quest of the world. Al­so the com­mit­tee per­suad­ed the Earl be­fore he went on his South Amer­ican ad­ven­ture to swear for­mal­ly that he would nev­er dis­close his de­vice ex­cept in the ser­vice of Eng­land. He kept that oath.

"Well, the for­mu­la for this af­fair was, of course, in pi­geon­holes or vaults in the British Ad­mi­ral­ty ev­er since the com­mit­tee in 1811 had ex­am­ined and re­fused it. But there was al­so, un­known to the pub­lic, an­oth­er copy. The Earl was with my great-​grand­fa­ther, his kins­man and life­long friend, short­ly be­fore his death, and he gave this copy to him with cer­tain con­di­tions. The old chap had an un­govern­able tem­per, quar­reled right and left, don't you know, his life long, and at this time and un­til he died he was not on speak­ing terms with his son Thomas, who suc­ceed­ed him as Earl, or in­deed with any of the three oth­er sons. Which ac­counts for his trust­ing to my great-​grand­fa­ther the fu­ture of his in­ven­tion. I found a quaint note with the pa­pers. He said in ef­fect that he had come to be­lieve with the com­mit­tee that it was quite too shock­ing for de­cent folk. Yet, he sug­gest­ed, the time might come when Eng­land was in straits and on­ly a sweep­ing blow could serve her. If that time should come it would be a joy to him in heav­en or in hell--he said--to think that a man of his name had used the work of his brains to save Eng­land.

"There­fore, the Earl asked my grand­fa­ther to guard this gi­gan­tic se­cret and to see to it that one man in each gen­er­ation of Cochranes should know it and have it at hand for use in an emer­gen­cy. My grand­fa­ther came in­to the pa­pers when he came of age, and af­ter him my fa­ther; I was due to read them when I should be twen­ty-​one. I was on­ly twen­ty in 1917. But the pa­pers were mine, and from the mo­ment it flashed to me what Kitch­en­er meant I didn't hes­itate. It was this enor­mous pow­er which was placed sud­den­ly in the hands of a lad of twen­ty. The Sir­dar placed it there.

"I went over the busi­ness in an hour--it was sim­ple, like most big things. You know what it was, of course; ev­ery­body knows now. Wasn't it ex­traor­di­nary that in five thou­sand years of fight­ing no one ev­er hit on it be­fore? I rushed to the War Of­fice.

“Well, the thing came off. At first they pooh-​poohed me as an un­bal­anced boy, but they looked up the doc­uments in the Ad­mi­ral­ty and there was no ques­tion. It isn't of­ten a young­ster is called in­to the coun­cils of the gov­ern­ment, and I've won­dered since how I held my own. I've come to be­lieve that I was mere­ly a body for Kitch­en­er's spir­it. I was con­scious of no fa­tigue, no un­cer­tain­ty. I did things as the Sir­dar might have done them, and it ap­pears to me on­ly de­cent to re­al­ize that he did do them, and not I. You prob­ably know the de­tails.”

I wait­ed, hop­ing that he would not stop. Then I said: “I know that the gov­ern­ment asked for twen­ty-​five vol­un­teers for a ser­vice which would de­stroy the Ger­man fleet, but which would mean al­most cer­tain death to the vol­un­teers. I know that you head­ed the list and that thou­sands of­fered.” My voice shook and I spoke with dif­fi­cul­ty as I re­al­ized to whom I was speak­ing. “I know that you were the on­ly one who came back alive, and that you were bare­ly saved.”

Gen­er­al Cochrane seemed not to hear me. He was liv­ing over enor­mous events.

“It was a bright morn­ing in the North Sea,” he talked on, but not to me now. “No­body but our­selves knew just what was to be done, but ev­ery­body hoped--they didn't know what. It was a des­per­ate Eng­land from which we sailed away. We hadn't long to wait--the sec­ond morn­ing. There were their ships, the tri­umphant long lines of the in­vad­er. There were their crowd­ed trans­ports, the sol­diers com­ing to cru­ci­fy Eng­land as they had cru­ci­fied Bel­gium--thou­sands and tens of thou­sands of them. Then--we did it. Ger­man pow­er was wiped off the face of the earth. Ger­man ar­ro­gance was end­ed for all time. And that was the last I knew,” said Gen­er­al Cochrane. “I was con­scious till it was known that the trick had worked. Of course it couldn't be oth­er­wise, yet it was so be­yond any­thing which mankind had dreamed that I couldn't be­lieve it till I knew. Then, nat­ural­ly, I didn't much care if I lived or died. I'd done the turn as the Sir­dar told me, and one life was a small thing to pay. I dropped in­to black­ness quite hap­pi­ly, and when I woke up to this good earth I was glad. Eng­land was right. The Sir­dar had saved her.”

“And the Sir­dar?” I asked him. “Was it--him­self?”

“Him­self? Most cer­tain­ly.”

“I mean--well--” I stam­mered. And then I plunged in. “I must know,” I said. “Was it Lord Kitch­en­er in flesh and blood? Had he been a pris­on­er in Ger­many and es­caped? Or was it--his ghost?”

The old li­on rubbed his cheek con­sid­er­ing­ly. “Ah, there you have me,” and he smiled. “Didn't I tell you this was a tale which could be told to few peo­ple?” he de­mand­ed. “'Flesh and blood'--ah, that's what I can't tell you. But--him­self? Those peo­ple, the im­mense crowd which saw him and rec­og­nized him, they knew. Af­ter­wards they begged the ques­tion. The pa­pers were full of a re­mark­able speech made by an un­known of­fi­cer who strik­ing­ly re­sem­bled Kitch­en­er. That's the way they got out of it. But those peo­ple knew, that day. There wasn't any doubt in their minds when that roar of his name went up. They knew! But peo­ple are ashamed to own to the su­per­nat­ural. And yet it's all around us,” mused Gen­er­al Cochrane.

“Could it have been--did you ev­er think--” I be­gan, and dared not go on.

“Did I ev­er think what, child?” re­peat­ed the old of­fi­cer, with his au­to­crat­ic friend­li­ness. “Out with it. You and I are hav­ing a truth-​feast.”

“Well, then,” I said, “if you won't be an­gry--”

“I won't. Come along.”

“Did you ev­er think that it might have been that--you were on­ly a boy, and wound­ed and weak and over­strained--and full of long­ing for your god­fa­ther. Did you ev­er think that you might have mis­tak­en the like­ness of the of­fi­cer for Kitch­en­er him­self? That the thought of Dun­don­ald's De­stroy­er was work­ing in your mind be­fore, and that it ma­te­ri­al­ized at that mo­ment and you--imag­ined the words he said. Per­haps imag­ined them af­ter­wards, as you searched for him over Lon­don. The two things might have sug­gest­ed each oth­er in your fever­ish boy's brain.”

I stopped, fright­ened, fear­ful that he might think me not ap­pre­cia­tive of the hon­or he had done me in telling this in­ti­mate ex­pe­ri­ence. But Gen­er­al Cochrane was in no wise dis­turbed.

“Yes, I've thought that,” he an­swered dis­pas­sion­ate­ly. “It may be that was the case. And yet--I can't see it. That thing hap­pened to me. I've not been able to ex­plain it away to my own sat­is­fac­tion. I've not been able to be­lieve oth­er­wise than that the Sir­dar, Eng­land's hero, came to save Eng­land in her per­il, and that he did it by breath­ing his thought in­to me. His spir­it got across some­how from over there--to me. I was the on­ly avail­able per­son alive. The copy in the archives was buried, dead and buried and for­got­ten for sev­en­ty years. So he did it--that way. And if your ex­pla­na­tion is the right one it isn't so much less won­der­ful, is it?” he de­mand­ed. “In these days psy­chol­ogy dares say more than in 1917. One knows that ghost sto­ries, as they called them in those ig­no­rant times, are not all su­per­sti­tion and imag­ina­tion. One knows that a soul lives be­yond the present, that a soul some­times strug­gles back from what we call the here­after to this lit­tle earth--makes the dif­fi­cult con­nec­tion be­tween an un­seen world of spir­it, un­con­di­tioned by mat­ter, and our present world of spir­it, con­di­tioned by mat­ter. When the pull is strong enough. And what pull could be stronger than Eng­land's dan­ger? To Kitch­en­er?” The black-​lashed, gray eyes flamed at me, un­blink­ing the rift of light through the cur­tain of eter­nal si­lences.

When I spoke again: “It's a sto­ry the world ought to own some day,” I said. “Love of coun­try, faith­ful­ness that death could not hin­der.”

“Well,” said old Gen­er­al Cochrane, “when I'm gone you may write it for the world if you like, lit­tle Amer­ican. And what I'll do will be to find the Sir­dar, the very first in­stant I'm over the bor­der, and say to him, 'I've known it was your work all along, sir, and how­ev­er did you get it across?'”

A month ago my cousin sent me some marked news­pa­pers. Gen­er­al Cochrane has gone over the bor­der, and I make no doubt that be­fore now he has found the Sir­dar and that the two sons and sav­iors of a beloved lit­tle land on a lit­tle plan­et have talked over that mo­ment, in the leisures and sim­plic­ities of eter­ni­ty, and have won­dered per­haps that any­one could won­der how he got it across.

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