CHAPTER III
IN THE SHADOW OF WAR
LAST Wednesday I spent the day at Fishburn Court. My visits seem to meanso much to Aunt Elspeth, now that her time is divided between her bedand wheeled chair. I improvised a costume and did the song and dance forher that I am going to give in the French Relief entertainment nextweek. And I made a blueberry pie for dinner, and set the little kitchenin shining order, and put fresh bows on her cap, and straightened outall the bureau drawers.
When everything you do is appreciated and admired and praised until youare fairly basking in approval, it makes you feel so good inside thatyou want to keep on that way forever. You just _love_ to be sweet andconsiderate. But afterwards it's such a comedown to go back home tothose who take it as a matter of course that you should be helpful, andwho feel it is their duty to improve your character by telling you what_your_ duty is. It rubs you the wrong way, and makes life much harder.
Somehow, going to Fishburn Court is like climbing up into the Pilgrimmonument and looking down on the town. Seen from that height, the thingsthat loomed up so big when you were down on their level shrink tonothing. Maybe it is because Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth have lived sovery, very long that they can look down on life that way and see it froma great height as God does. I always think of them when I read thatverse, "A thousand years in thy sight is but as yesterday." That is whynothing seems to matter to them very much but loving each other andtheir neighbors as themselves.
I came away from there resolved to turn over a new leaf. I am sorry nowthat I said what I did the other day in the closet, but I don't feelthat I have a right to blot it out of this record. The good and the badshould stand together in one's memoirs. It makes a character seem morehuman. I never felt that I had anything in common with Washington untilI read that he sometimes gave away to violent fits of anger.
I am now resolved to make those Busy Bees the power for good which Barbythinks I can, and quit thinking of my own feelings in the matter, of howdisagreeable it is to have them eternally tagging after me. After all,what difference will it make a thousand years from now if they do tag?What difference if one little ant in the universe is happy or unhappyfor one atom of time? When you think of yourself that way, as just atiny ant sitting on the equator of eternity you can put up with almostanything.
* * * * *
A whole week has gone by since I wrote the above sentence, and in thattime the most exciting thing has happened, in addition to celebrating mysixteenth birthday. The birthday came first. Barby's gift to me was adarling rowboat, light and graceful as a cockle-shell. Uncle Darcycarved my initials on the oars, and Richard came after dark the nightbefore and dragged it up into the yard, and tied it under the holidaytree. Next morning my presents were all piled in the boat instead ofbeing tied to the branches, for which I was very thankful. It made mefeel that I had come to a boundary line which the family recognized,when they discarded the old custom of decorating the holiday-tree. Theyno longer considered me an infant.
I have been wild for a boat of my own for two years, and was so excitedI could scarcely eat my breakfast. I was out in it all day, first withBarby and Richard, and, afterward, with Babe Nolan and Judith Gilfred,who came to lunch. Ordinarily, I would fill pages describing mypresents and what we did, but I can't wait to tell the climax.
Late in the afternoon Richard came again and rowed me over to theLighthouse and back. When we came up the beach on our way home to supperthe sun was just setting. It was all so beautiful and I was so happythat I began humming "The End of a Perfect Day." But it wasn't the end,for when we went into the house the exciting thing happened. Who shouldrise up suddenly in the dusk and put his arms around me but _Father_,home on unexpected shore leave. I hadn't seen him for a year.
Even Barby didn't know he was coming. It seemed too good to be true thathe should be in time for the lighting of my birthday candles. As if itwasn't more than enough just to have him back again, safe and sound, hebrought me the most adorable little wrist-watch, and from then on tillmidnight when my eyes weren't on him they were on it. It's so heavenlyto have everybody in the world that you love best and everything youwant most all together at the same time.
We had to talk fast and crowd as much as possible into the hours. I feltthat I had at last stepped into my field Elysian, when nobody said aword about my running along to bed. I think they would have let me situp though, even if I hadn't been sixteen, the time was so precious.
Up till this time the war had seemed a faraway, unreal thing, just likethe tales we used to shudder over, of the heathen babies thrown to thecrocodiles. I had been working for the Red Cross and the Belgian orphansin the same spirit that I've worked for the Missionary Society, wantingto help the cause, but not feeling it a personal matter. But when Fathertalked about it in his grave, quiet way, I began to understand what warreally is. It is like a great wild beast, devouring our next-doorneighbors and liable to spring at our throats any minute. It issomething everybody should rise up and help to throttle.
I understand now why Richard is so crazy on the subject. It isn't justthirst for adventure, as his cousin James says, although "Dare-devilDick" is a good name for him. He sees the danger as Father sees it, andwants to do his part to rid the world of it. He talked a long time withFather, begging him to use his influence to get him into some kind ofservice over there. But Father says the same thing that Mr. Morelanddid. That he's too young, and the only thing for him to do is to go backto school in the fall and fit himself for bigger service when hiscountry has greater need of him. Richard went off whistling, but I knewhe was horribly disappointed from the way his hat was pulled down overhis eyes.
The next morning when I went down to breakfast I felt as if the wildbeast had already sprung as far as our door-step, if not actually at ourthroats, for Barby sat pale and anxious-eyed behind the coffee urn, andher lips were trembly when I kissed her good-morning. Father hadreceived his orders to report in Washington in forty-eight hours, and wehad hoped to keep him with us at least two weeks. He is called to aconsultation about some extensive preparations to be made for marinehospital work. He had already been notified that he was to be put at thehead of it, and he may have to go abroad to study conditions, almostimmediately.
I knew from the dumb misery in Barby's eyes she was thinking of the samethings I was--submarines and sunken mines, etc., but neither of usmentioned them, of course. Instead, we tried to be as jolly as possible,and began to plan the nicest way we could think of to spend our one daytogether. Suddenly Father said he'd settle it. He'd spend it all withme, any way I chose, while Barby packed her trunk and got ready to goback to Washington with him. He'd probably be there a week or ten daysand he wasn't going one step without her.
Then I realized how grown-up one really is at sixteen. A year ago Iwould have teased to be taken along, and maybe would have gone off in acorner and cried, and felt dreadfully left out over such an arrangement.But I saw the glance that passed between them when he said it, and Iunderstood perfectly. Barby's face was radiant. You may adore your onlychild, but the love of your life comes first. And it should. I was_glad_ they wanted to go off that way on a sort of second honeymoontrip. It would be dreadfully sad to have one's parents cease to be allin all to each other. Babe Nolan's mother and stepfather seem that way,bored to death with each other.
Two things stand out so vividly in that last day that I never can forgetthem. One is our walk down through the town, when I almost burst withpride, going along beside Father, so tall and distinguished looking inhis uniform, and seeing the royal welcome people gave him at every step.They came out of the stores and the houses to shake hands with him, thepeople who'd known him as a little boy and gone to school with him, andthey seemed so really fond of him and so glad to have him back, that Ifairly loved them for it, even people I hadn't liked especially before.
The second thing was the talk we had up here in the garret in the gablewindow-seat, when he came up to look for some things he h
ad packed awayin one of the chests, twenty years ago.
We did lots of other things, of course; went rowing in the new boat to aplace on the beach where he used to picnic when he was a boy. We tookour lunch along and ate it there. Afterwards we tramped back into thedunes a little way, just to let him feel the Cape Cod sand in his shoesonce more, he said. It was high tide when we got back to the boat-house,so we got our bathing suits and went in. He was so surprised and pleasedat some of my diving stunts, and taught me a new one. He is amagnificent swimmer himself.
His hair is iron gray at the temples, and I've always been halfwayafraid of him before--that is, afraid to say right out whatever Ihappened to think or feel. But it was different this time. I felt thathe understood me better than anybody else in the world, even as well asBarby used to, when I was younger. As we went back home he said thenicest thing. He said it seemed to him that we must have been boystogether at some time in our lives. That I was such a jolly good chum.
I can't think about that last evening or the going away yesterdaymorning without the tears starting. But I'm thankful I didn't breakdown at the station. I couldn't have kept from it if it hadn't been forCaptain Kidd, who frisked along with us. Just at the hardest moment hestood up on his hind legs and saluted. I'd never seen him do it before.It's a trick Richard taught him lately. It was so cunning everybodylaughed, and I managed to pull myself together till the train started.
But I made up for it when I got back home and came up here to the gablewindow-seat where Father and I had that last precious talk together,with his arm around me and my head on his shoulder. I nearly bawled myeyes out as I recalled each dear thing he said about my being old enoughnow to understand business matters, and what he wanted me to do in casethe United States went to war; how I was to look after Barby if anythinghappened to him; and what I was to do for Uncle Darcy and Dan'schildren. That he relied on me just as if I were a son, because I was atrue Huntingdon, and no Huntingdon woman had ever flinched from a dutyor failed to measure up to what was expected of her.
I keep thinking, what if he should never come back to talk to me againin that near, dear way. But ... I'll have to stop before any moresplashes blot up this page.
Georgina's Service Stars Page 4
