Kitabı oku: «Georgina's Service Stars», sayfa 7
"I'll try it some day on the typewriter," I resolved. Then I thought Father was right when he said "shod goes sure." Knowing how to use the typewriter will be a help in my literary career. It begins to look as if every road I happen to take leads into the one of my great ambition.
CHAPTER XIII
A WORK-A-DAY VACATION
It was late in the afternoon when we crossed the sandy court and went through the picket gate into Uncle Darcy's grassy dooryard. As usual the old yellow-nosed cat was curled up in one of the seats in the wooden swing, and the place was so quiet and cool after the glare of the sun and sand we had tramped through, that Father took off his hat with a sigh of relief.
Belle and Dan live next door now in the cottage where Mrs. Saggs used to live. We could see little Elspeth's flaxen head bobbing up and down as she played in the sandpile on the other side of the fence. I was just thinking that I was no bigger than she is now when I first began coming down to Fishburn Court, when Father startled me by saying the same thing. He was just Elspeth's size when he began tagging after Uncle Darcy all day long.
Aunt Elspeth sat dozing in her wheeled chair inside the screen door. When we went in she didn't recognize Father. Had to be told who he was. But when she got it through her head that it was "Judson, grown up and come back from sea," she was fairly childish in her welcome of him. She wanted him to hide as he used to do when he was a boy and let "Dan'l" guess who was there when he came home. And Father humored her, and we went out into the kitchen when we heard Uncle Darcy click the gate-latch. Then in her childish delight at his home-coming she forgot everything else. She even forgot we were in the house, so, of course, couldn't ask him to guess who was there.
He came in breathing hard, for the length of the town is a long walk when one is "eighty odd." He had been crying a church supper, and was so tired his feet could scarcely drag him along. But he didn't sit down – just put the big bell on the mantel and went over to Aunt Elspeth. And then, somehow, the tenderness of a lifetime seemed expressed in the way he bent down and laid his weatherbeaten old cheek against her wrinkled one for a moment, and took her helpless old hands in his, feeling them anxiously and trying to warm them between his rough palms.
There was something so touching in his unspoken devotion and the way she clung to him, as if the brief separation of a few hours had been one of days, that I felt a lump in my throat and glanced up to see that the little scene seemed to affect Father in the same way.
Then Uncle Darcy fumbled in his pocket and brought out a paper bag and laid it in her lap, watching her with a pleased twinkle in his dim eyes, while she eagerly untwisted the neck and peered in to find a big, sugary cinnamon bun.
"You're so good to me, Dan'l," she said quaveringly. "Always so good. You're the best man the Lord ever made."
And he patted her shoulder and pulled the cushions up behind her, saying, "Tut, lass! You'll spoil me, talking that way."
Then Father cleared his throat and went into the room, and Uncle Darcy's delight at seeing him was worth going far to see. You'd have thought it was his own son come home again. But even in the midst of all they had to say to each other it was plain that his mind was on Aunt Elspeth's comfort. Twice he got up to slap at a fly which had found its way in through the screens to her annoyance, and another time to change the position of her chair when the shifting sunlight reached her face.
On the way home I asked, "Did you ever see such devotion?" I was so sure that Father would answer that he never had, that I was surprised and somewhat taken aback by his emphatic yes. His face looked so stern and sad that I couldn't understand it. We walked nearly a block before he added,
"It was an old, old couple, just like Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth. I kept thinking of them all the time I was at Fishburn Court. Their home was just as peaceful, their devotion to each other as absolute. It was in Belgium. The Huns came and tore them apart. Bayoneted her right before the old man's agonized eyes, and drove him off with the other villagers like frightened, helpless sheep, to die in the open. When he wandered back weeks afterward, dazed and half-starved, he found every home in the village in ruins. His was burned to the ground. Only the well was left, but when he drank of it he nearly died. It had been poisoned. He's in an asylum now, near Paris. Fortunately, his memory is gone."
When I cried out at the hideousness of it, Father put his arm across my shoulder a moment saying, "Forgive me, dear. I wish I might keep the knowledge of such horrors from you, but we are at a place now where even the youngest must be made to realize that the only thing in the world worth while is the winning of this war. Sometimes I feel that I must stop every one I meet and tell them of the horrors I have seen, till they feel and see as I do."
I understood what was in his mind when a little farther along we met two young Portuguese fishermen. They were Joseph and Manuel Fayal. He had known them ever since the days when they used to go past our place dragging their puppy in a rusty tin pan tied to a string, and using such shocking language that I was forbidden to play with them. They are big, handsome men now, with black mustaches and such a flashing of white teeth and black eyes when they smile that the sudden illumination of their faces makes me think of a lightning-bug.
They flashed that kind of a smile at Father, when he stopped to shake hands with them, plainly flattered at his remembering their names. I could see them eyeing his uniform admiringly, and they seemed much impressed when he said, "We need you in the navy, boys," and went on in his grave way to put the situation before them in a few forceful sentences.
He was that way all the time he was at home. It made no difference where we went or what we were doing, he couldn't shake off the horror of things he had seen, and the knowledge that they were still going on. Several times he said he felt he oughtn't to be taking even a week's rest. It was like taking a vacation from fighting mad dogs. Every moment should be spent in beating them off.
It worried Barby dreadfully to see him in such a state. She's afraid he'll break down under the strain. He's promised her that when the war is over he'll ask for a year's leave.
Father has been gone two weeks. It was hard to see him go this time, so much harder than usual, that I am glad to have my days filled up with work as well as play. Down at the office I'm so busy there isn't time to remember things that hurt. This arrangement isn't half as bad as it sounded at first. In fact, it isn't at all bad, and there's lots about it that I enjoy immensely.
For one thing I go only in the mornings. The stenographer is a nice Boston girl who gives me lessons in shorthand in between times when she isn't busy, and I'm getting a lot by myself, just out of a text book. I can already run the typewriter, and I certainly bless Tippy these days for giving me such a thorough training in spelling. Old Mr. Carver is a darling. He likes taking me around inside the business and showing me how the wheels go round. It may sound disrespectful, to say it gives him a chance to show off, but I don't mean it that way.
I'm learning all about the weirs and the fisheries connected with the Plant, and where our markets are, and what makes the prices go up and down, and where we buy chemicals to freeze with and what companies we're insured with and all that sort of thing. It's amazing to discover how many things one has to know – banking and payrolls and shipping and important clauses in contracts. I never before realized how pitifully ignorant I am and what a world full of things there is to learn outside of the school room.
One of his ways of testing how much I have learned about shipments and prices and things, is to hand me a letter to answer, just for practice, not to send away. I've always been told that I write such good letters that I was awfully mortified over the way that he smiled at my first attempt. I had prided myself on its being quite a literary production. But I caught on right away what he meant, when he told me in his whimsical fashion that "frills are out of place in a business letter. They must be severely plain and tailor-made." Then he gave me a sample and after that it was easy enough. I've answered three "according to my lights," as he puts it, that were satisfactory enough to send, without any dictation from him.
Often he drifts into little anecdotes about grandfather, and lots of things I never heard before about the Huntingdon family and the older town people. Usually the mornings fly by so fast that I'm surprised when the noon whistle blows and it's time to go home. At first I brought my knitting along to pick up at odd moments, such as the times when he gets to reminiscing. Then I got so interested in practising shorthand, that I began taking down his conversations, as much as I could get of them. That old saying of Uncle Darcy's, "All's fish that comes to my net," seems to be a true one. For everything that comes my way seems to help along towards the goal of my ambition. These very tales I am taking down in shorthand, once I am proficient enough to catch more than one word in a sentence, may prove to be very valuable material for future stories.
It isn't turning out to be a very gay summer after all. Babe and Viola are up in the White Mountains, and Judith is tied at home so closely, keeping house and nursing her mother who has been ill all vacation, that I never see her except when I go to the house. George Woodson is a reporter on a Boston paper, and comes home only on Sunday now and then, and Richard seems to have dropped entirely out of my life. He says he is so busy these days that there's never any time to write, except when he's so dead tired he can't spell his own name.
There's so little going on here of interest to him that my letters to him are few and far between. It's strange how absence makes people drift apart. When he was home he was one of the biggest things in my landscape. If he were here now I'd find plenty of time to boat and ride and talk with him, but now it's hard to find a moment for even a short note; that is, when I'm in a mood for writing one. I surely do miss him, though. We've spent so many summers together.
For the few things that happened between my seventeenth birthday and this last day of August, see my "Book of Second Chronicles." Barby was so interested in reading my Harrington Hall record, and so very complimentary, that I have been writing in it this summer, to the neglect of this old blank book. But I'm going to put it in the bottom of my trunk and take it back to school with me.
Babe is back home. She had a chance to investigate the brass balls of that bedstead in the White Mountains. She did it in fear and trembling, for it was in her Aunt Mattie's room, and she was afraid she'd walk in any minute and ask what she was doing. The balls were empty. So she's still wondering where in the Salvation Army those letters can be. We are going back to Washington together next week. To think of our being Seniors! Father is going to be pleased when he gets Mr. Carver's report of me. I never had a vacation fly by so fast.
PART II
"True to One's Orbit and the Service of Shining."
CHAPTER XIV
THE CALL TO ARMS
It has come at last – the call to arms – the biggest thing that may ever be my lot to record in all my life, or the life of my country. So I have hunted up this old book of Memoirs that I have not written in for months, in order that I may put down the date.
April 6, 1917. On this day the United States declared war against Germany!
Far down the street a band is playing, and in every direction flags are flying in the warm April breeze. All Washington is a-flutter with banners. The girls are so excited that they can't talk of anything else. Some of them have been in tears ever since the announcement came. Many of them have brothers in Yale or Princeton or Harvard who've only been waiting for this to break away and enlist. Not that the girls don't glory in the fact that they've got some one to go, just as I glory in the thought that Father is in the service. But we've been on a fearful nervous strain ever since the last of January, when Germany declared she'd sink at sight all vessels found in certain zones, and those zones are the very waters where our ships are obliged to go.
Lillian Locke's Uncle Charlie went down in one of the merchant ships they sank last month. He was her favorite uncle, and most of us girls knew him. He came to the school twice last year, and whenever he sent Lillian "eats" he sent enough for her to treat the entire class. Then there is Duffield, and Bailey Burrell and Watson Tucker all off on the high seas somewhere. Sometimes at vespers when we sing:
"O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,"
the thought of Father and of all those boys who danced with us just a year ago, and who went marching so gaily across the green mall, chokes me so that I can't sing another note. Sometimes all over the chapel voices waver and stop till only the organ is left to finish it alone.
We Seniors have voted to cut out all frills in our Commencement exercises, and give the money to the Red Cross. We're going to wear simple white shirt-waist suits. It'll make it such a plain affair it won't be worth while for our families to come on to see us get our diplomas.
Barby is coming anyhow, and I know she'll be disappointed. She has all the old-time ideas about flowers and fluffy ruffles for the "sweet girl graduates." She had them herself, with so many presents and congratulations that her graduation was almost as grand an occasion as her wedding. Her Aunt Barbara's pearl necklace which she inherited was handed over to her then, and I think she has visions of my wearing it on the same stage, on the occasion of my Commencement. There are only a few strands in the necklace and the pearls are quite small, though exquisitely beautiful, but, of course, I couldn't wear it with just a plain shirt-waist.
Easter has come and gone, and nothing of importance has happened here at school, but a letter from Barby brings news of happenings at home which have a place in this record, so I am copying it.
"What a cold and snowy Spring this has been! All week we have had to pile on the wood as we do in midwinter. I am glad that you are away from this bleak tongue of sand, far enough inland and far enough South to escape these cold winds from the Atlantic, and to have Spring buds and Spring bird-calls in the school garden.
"Yesterday, just before supper, while I sat knitting in the firelight, the front doorbell rang. Not hearing Tippy go out into the hall, I started to answer it. You know how she opens a door by degrees, one cautious inch and then another – well, I was just in time to see a big man in a fur cap and burly overcoat shoulder his way in and throw his arms around her in a hearty embrace. I couldn't see his face in the dusk, nor did I recognize the deep voice that cried out – 'Ah, Tippy! But you look good to me!'
"The next instant I was caught up in a great bear hug by those same strong arms. It was Richard, home again after two long years, and so glad to be back that it was a joy to see his delight. He had come home to enlist.
"You can easily picture for yourself the scene at the table a little while later. He teased and flattered Tippy till she was almost beside herself. She kept getting up to open some new jar of pickle or preserves, or to bring on something else from the pantry which she remembered he had an especial liking for. Afterwards he insisted on tying one of her aprons around him and wiping the dishes for her. He kept her quivering with concern as usual for the safety of the cups and saucers, when he tried his old juggling tricks of keeping several in the air at the same time.
"But later, when we were alone, he dropped all his gay foolery and sat down on the hearthrug at my feet, as he used to do when he was a little lad, and, leaning his head against my knee, looked into the fire.
"'You're all I've got now, Barby,' he said, and took my knitting away that my hand might be free to stray over his forehead as it used to do when he came to me for sympathy and comfort. After a moment he began talking about his father. It was the first time I had seen him, you know, since Mr. Moreland was killed.
"Then he told me how circumstances had made it possible for him to come back to the States to enlist, as soon as war was declared. He is no longer bound by his promise to the Canadian whose family he was caring for. The man was sent back home two months ago, dismissed from a hospital in France. He was wounded twice so badly that one leg had to be amputated. But though he came home on crutches he came back with something which he values more than his leg – the Victoria Cross. He won it in an awful battle, one in which nearly his whole regiment was wiped out.
"Richard sprang up from the rug and paced the floor as he talked about it. His face glowed so that I couldn't help asking, 'But how did you feel when you saw him with the cross that might have been yours had you gone in his stead!'
"He stood a moment with one elbow resting on the mantel, looking down into the fire. Then he said slowly, 'Well, it would have been ripping, of course, to have had it one's self – worth dying for in fact; but after all, you know, little Mother, it isn't the "guerdon" any of us are after in this war. It's just that the deed gets done. I believe that is the spirit in which all America is going into it. Not for any gain – not for any glory – she's simply saying to herself and to the world, "For the deed's sake will I do this."'
"As he said that, he looked so like his father in one of his inspired moods, that I realized the two years in which he has been away has made a man of him. It was only that he was so boyishly glad to be at home again that I hadn't noticed before how earnest and mature he had grown to be.
"Within a month after the Canadian's return, he was able to take a place in the factory. His artificial limb made it possible. Richard went at once to an aviation field to complete his training. He intended to go from there to join a flying squadron in France, for his Cousin James is ready now to do anything for him he asks. But just as he was about to start, the United States declared war, and he hurried home to enlist under his own flag. He has been promised a commission and an opportunity to go soon in some special capacity, for he passed all the tests in expert flying. He will probably be kept at Newport News while he is waiting for some bit of red tape to be untied.
"He did not stay late, for there were some business matters he had to discuss with Mr. Milford, and he left town early this morning. Several times while here, he glanced around saying, 'Somehow I keep expecting Georgina to pop in every time the door opens. It doesn't seem like home without her here to keep things stirred up.'
"He asked many questions about you and said that he hopes mightily to see you before he sails. I told him that was highly improbable as Commencement is to be so late this year owing to the enforced vacation in January when over half the school was in quarantine on account of mumps and measles. That was the first he had heard of it, and he said to congratulate you for him on your lucky escape."
I am glad that Barby wrote in detail as she did, for I have not had a line from Richard in three months. Evidently he did not get my last letter, for in that I told him all about that quarantine, and the fun we girls had who escaped the contagion, but who were kept in durance vile on account of the others.
I wish I had been at home when he surprised them. I wish I were a boy and could do what he is doing. It would be simply glorious to go winging one's way into battle as he will do. It's one thing to give your life for your country in one exalted moment of renunciation, and quite another to give it in little dribs of insignificant sacrifices and petty duties, the way we stay-at-home girls have to do. It is maddening to have the soul of an "Ace" who would dare any flight or of a "Sammie" who would endure any trench, and then have nothing but a pair of knitting needles handed out to you.
Another letter from Barby this week. Of course I knew the war would come close home in many ways, but I hadn't expected it would get that little mother-o'-mine first thing. This is what she writes:
"It is quite possible that I may be in Washington by the last of May. Mrs. Waldon has written, begging me to come and stay with her while Catherine goes back to Kentucky for a visit. She writes that she is 'up to her ears' in the Army and Navy League work, and that is where I belong. She says I should be there getting inspiration for all this end of the state, and lending a hand in the grand drive they are planning for. Her letter is such a veritable call to arms that I feel that I'll be shirking my duty if I don't go. Tippy says there is no reason why I shouldn't go. She can get Miss Susan Triplett to come up from Wellfleet to stay with her till you come home.
"Her patriotic old soul is fired with joy at no longer being under the ban of a 'neutral' silence. When it comes to her powers of speech, Tippy on the war-path is a wonder. I wish the Kaiser could hear her when she is once thoroughly warmed up on the subject. She'd be in the first soup-kitchen outfit that leaves for the front if it wasn't for her rheumatism. As it is, she is making the best self-appointed recruiting officer on the whole Cape.
"I have written to your father, asking him if he can find me a place where I can be useful on one of the hospital ships; I can't nurse, but there ought to be many things I can do if it's nothing more than scrubbing the operating rooms and sterilizing instruments. And maybe in that way I could see him occasionally. Of course it isn't as if he were stationed on one particular ship. I believe he could manage it then, but being needed in many places and constantly moving he may not want me to go. In that case I shall join Mrs. Waldon. She says she can put me into a place where every hour's work will count for something worth while."
It made the tears come to my eyes when I read that. Little Barby, out in the world doing things for her country! Since I have grown to be half a head taller than she, and especially since my office training last summer and Father's leaving her in my care, I've been thinking of her as little Barby. She's never done anything in public but read her graduating essay. The tables are turned now. It is she who is going out on a stony road in her little bare feet, and she's never been shod for such going. But she's got the spirit of the old Virginia Cavaliers, even if she didn't inherit a Pilgrim-father backbone as the Huntingdons did. She'll never stop for the stones, and she'll get to any place she starts out to reach. I'm as proud of her as I am of Father. I've simply got to do something myself, as soon as school is out.
