Time of the Singing of Birds

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh, but we haven’t heard from you, Barney!” called out one of the Wrexall twins. “It’s time for you to give an account of yourself now!” And a chorus of the others called out, “Yes, yes! A speech from Barney. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?”

  “Oh,” said Barney, “I suppose I am still one of the old crowd, but it hadn’t occurred to me I would have to give account of myself. Well, here goes. I’ll make it brief. The most notable thing that has happened to me since I went away was that one dark night on a lonely shore, a smashed plane on the ground behind me, crouching enemies behind every tree, and nothing before me but a big lonely stretch of sea, not even a foxhole to hide in, out there in a place like that I met God, and got to know Him. It was the greatest thrill that ever came to me, and still is. Sometime I’ll tell you all about it, if you care to hear, but it’s too long a story for tonight. Now, fellows, who’s going to take over? Shall we sing some of the old songs?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Hortense angrily. “Hank, you and Cap go get the eats and drinks. I’m near dead for a drink myself, and I guess you’re all pretty well fed up with this gruesome start. Now, Barney, you sit down and try to realize we came to welcome you home again, and give you the honor due to a hero of war.”

  “Oh,” Barney said, grinning, “don’t bother about that hero stuff, just be yourselves, my old friends! But excuse me a minute, I’ll go out and help. Fellas, hold up a minute, I’m coming!”

  Amid the immediate protests of the girls, he flashed out into the kitchen, hoping to find Roxy.

  There she was, getting out glasses, trays, and napkins.

  “Roxy, can you get us some coffee, or lemonade, or something?” he called in a quick, low voice as he vanished out the side door and across the lawn, arriving at the line of parked cars almost as soon as the committee Hortense had sent out.

  Two large baskets of cakes and sandwiches were deposited on the lawn beside the gramophone and Hank was just reaching farther into the car, and edging out the case of liquor they had brought along.

  Barney gave it a scrutinizing glance, and put out a protesting hand.

  “It won’t be necessary to bring that in, fellas. Roxy’s getting something for us. Come, take your gramophone and your eats, and let’s get back.” Barney’s hope of getting to see Sunny again that night was fast vanishing.

  Hank paused and looked at his host.

  “Sorry, Barney, but I guess I have to take this in. Hortie’ll have all kinds of a fit if I don’t. She was very particular about this.”

  “Well, I guess we can stand a few fits, if it comes to that. Hortense knows how I feel about that. You see, we just don’t serve that here, so you needn’t bring it in. Come on, fellas!”

  So the three went in together, silently. Hank had it in mind to tell Barney what a fuss Hortense had made to get that liquor, and how she had made everyone contribute to it, but then he decided not to say anything, and they walked along for the most part in silence, only Barney now and then making a cheerful remark, and so they arrived in the house.

  They put the four baskets of cakes and sandwiches in the kitchen where Roxy took grim possession. Barney seized the tray full of brimming glasses of fruit punch, fragrant and luscious, and assigning Hank and Cap to the other two trays, marched into the living room and straight over to Hortense. She looked up hopefully, and he bent and tendered her a glass.

  “You were thirsty, lady?” he said mischievously, and Hortense looked at him in surprise.

  She reached an eager hand to the glass, then caught the fragrance of well-blended fruit, and frowned.

  “Why, what’s this?” she asked, drawing back her hand. “This isn’t what I sent you for, Hank. What are you trying to put over on us?”

  “Try it, lady,” urged Barney, with his old-time grin. “I think you’ll find it quite drinkable. Or, if you prefer coffee, I think that some is on the way.”

  “But I brought. . .” burst forth Hortense in a vexed tone. “Hank, I told you to bring. . .”

  “Yes, I know,” said Barney. “But don’t blame Hank. I told him we don’t serve that here, and I thought you would understand.”

  Barney flashed her a pleasant, confident smile and went on passing the tray to the other girls. They seized eagerly upon the glasses, for everyone knew that anything Roxy had concocted would be something extra, and so it was.

  Several of the girls had slipped into the kitchen as the boys came in with the trays, and now they began to march in with plates and napkins and platters of sandwiches, and it was soon a happy young crowd that chattered away, and ate up every sandwich and crumb of cake, and drank the seemingly inexhaustible cups of coffee, and glasses of fruit lemonade, until before long, no one thought any more about the liquor except the girl who had schemed to bring it just for the sake of forcing Barney to drink. She knew how Barney’s mother had felt on that subject, and it was her great desire to bring the young man to the place where he would go against those odd, old-fashioned principles of the woman who had so annoyingly dominated him all his life, and who now even in her death was holding him from things that Hortense loved. Things she knew if she could just break down, there would be some hope of bringing him to her feet.

  But the evening wore on, and the young crowd grew cheerful in the memory of the dear old days, and forgot the glum Hortense who had retired disapprovingly into a corner and taken little part in the merriment of the rest.

  Only once she came out of her corner and started that gramophone loudly, and then made the boys move back the chairs, and started dancing with one of them. Soon a few others joined her, but for the most part they were interested in the story Barney was telling, and the dancing, being rather forced just then, languished for lack of participants. Somehow Barney was having a strange effect upon the young crowd, who of late had most of them followed Hortense in everything she did. To have one come in who definitely ignored her lead and openly, pleasantly defied her; Hortense herself could not believe that this was really happening. And yet with it all, Barney was his old merry, engaging self, not long-faced nor self-righteous, not goody-goody nor conceited, not mamma’s-little-boy still tied to her apron strings, though she was gone to another world. Certainly he was not a sissy, but a strong man who had ideas, and what he called principles of his own, who had made his mark in the war and won medals, and honorable mentions, and been unafraid in danger, done deeds of daring, and had outranked many who seemed harder and tougher than he when he was a lad. And yet now even Hortense saw this, although she could not explain it. What was it that made him so quietly firm in certain matters? And why had he so deliberately foiled her attempts to put on the kind of party that she knew his mother would not have enjoyed having in her home? Had it been just for hatefulness? No, somehow he did not seem that way, for there was in his manner a gentleness and strength that she did not remember to have noticed in his childhood. And yet she was frantic that her plans had been spoiled, and everyone could see that she had failed in putting over this worldly kind of party in a house where the whole atmosphere had always been what she called, even in her childhood, “old fogy.”

  Hortense watched the young man as the evening went on, and saw his continued pleasantness and courtesy under what she sensed must be trying circumstances for him. She didn’t care for that, of course, but she couldn’t understand what kept him strong and sweet through it all.

  They began to sing after a time; Amelia, seeing Hortense defied, dared to start a little something on her own initiative, and sitting at the piano let her fingers run into several old-time songs that caught the whim of the crowd and made them hum together, and finally pour their voices in a big peppy chorus.

  “School days! School days!

  Dear old golden rule days!

  Reading and writing and ’rithmetic,

  Taught to the tune of a hickory stick!”

  How it rang out and stirred the heart of Roxy and Joel, disapprovingly cleaning up in the kitchen.
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br />   Then came “Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.” They were such very old songs that Roxy marveled those young things should know the words, even though the radio had been reviving them now and again. And there was “Juanita” and “Annie Laurie” and “Old Black Joe” and “Swanee River.” Sometimes Amelia’s nimble fingers would tinkle out the beginning of another and all would take it up; sometimes a girl’s voice would be ready with a new one, before the last one was finished. It was a bright ending to a strange evening, and Barney, as he sang, looked around upon them all and wondered why Sunny hadn’t stayed. As he continued to think about it he realized how far superior she was to most of the girls here. Even the few minutes they had been together this evening at supper had told him that. Yet some of those girls were beautiful, though some were vapid, some conceited, and some just idle pleasure-loving kittens who merely wanted a good time out of life. The boys were not much. That is, the ones who were here. They were the henchmen of such girls as Hortense, who ran their errands and were satisfied to be their humble escorts when more desirables were not at hand. And yet, if those same boys had gone off to war, nine out of ten of them would have learned the serious side of life, and be ready to do some purposeful thinking.

  Somebody suddenly started “The Old Rugged Cross,” and strange to say, even in that crowd, everybody seemed to know the words and rather liked to sing it, although he could see Hortense’s lips curl in scorn. He felt sure that if she were a singer she certainly would have chimed in with some modern jazz just in contrast. Then, as the last notes of the hymn died away, Barney struck up in his clear, beautiful baritone:

  “Abide with me: fast falls the even tide;

  The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide!”

  It was a song he had sung often when overseas, when he was about to go into a dangerous engagement. It seemed to him now as he sang it that his song, as it had often been before, was a prayer. He had a passing thought that he was perhaps in as much need of help now as he had ever been in battle.

  A strange dark look came into Hortense’s eyes as she watched his face while he sang, but he was not looking at her and did not notice, and so he sang the verses as he remembered them from childhood, until the last line when the final word died away.

  It was very still in the room for an instant, and then the silence was suddenly broken with as distinct a snap as if the quietness had been as brittle as a glass tube, that fairly broke at the new sound. It was Hortense, of course. She made a restless, impatient movement, shoving her chair back sharply to the bare floor beyond the rug, and rose with decision and a disagreeable sneer on her lips.

  “I’m going home!” she announced sharply. “I’m just fed up with this sob stuff, and I have to run up to New York in the morning for a shopping trip so I want to save my strength. Good night! Are any of you coming with me?” And she sailed out of the room toward the front door with her head high.

  “Oh, cut it out, Hortie,” shouted one of the young men who had come with her. “We’re just getting into the fun. You said you were going to stay late.”

  “Sorry,” said Barney. “Have I been monopolizing the program too much? Suppose I sit back and rest awhile and you take over, Hortense. How about you giving us a solo yourself? Seems to me I remember you had a good voice when you were a kid. What numbers do you know? I’d like to hear you sing again, and then meantime you can be thinking up what you want to do next. Come on, be a good sport and sing us some songs, Hortense.”

  Hortense paused in the doorway and surveyed the young soldier, good-looking and courteous in his well-fitting uniform. Was it really worthwhile? Then Barney turned on his winning smile, and she suddenly resolved to try again. She simply had to conquer him now, or they would all see that she had failed. And besides, she was flattered to be asked to sing. She was proud of her voice. So she fixed her languishing gaze on Barney’s eyes for a moment, and then drawled: “Oh, well, I don’t mind waiting long enough to sing for you, since you ask it.” She said it with the air of conferring a great favor. Hortense was exceedingly fond of herself. She would do almost anything to glorify herself.

  Amelia rose from the piano stool as if she felt she ought to be apologizing for having been there, and Hortense sat down, entirely aware of the lovely lines of her expensive evening dress, glad that there was really an opportunity at last to display it to advantage. She had been showing off, either herself or her possessions, ever since she was born.

  Hortense’s white fingers fell daintily upon the keys, as if she idly searched among the notes to find what she would sing.

  At last she looked up.

  “Just what do you want me to sing?” she asked Barney loftily, as if her repertoire included anything he could possibly ask, but Barney only smiled.

  “I’d like to hear the song you like best to sing,” he said graciously, and Hortense settled down to work with a look of satisfaction on her sharp, hard young face.

  Hortense had a thin, shallow voice, with a distinct whine to it. Barney, as he watched her, wondered why she did not know that her voice was unpleasant. Then he put on an attentive attitude and let his thoughts wander off to other things.

  The other girls in the room sat listening politely, and he studied each face. Amelia’s was quiet and humble, not much sparkle there; some of the others were very pretty, but yet didn’t seem to have much behind the prettiness. Or was it because he had another face in his thoughts with which he was comparing them? Well, that was silly. He had only seen Sunny a very few minutes, and that while they were eating their supper out on the terrace, and at such close range that he could not stare at her and really know how she did look. Just a lovely, rose and golden look, with a glance in her eyes that one could not help trusting. Well, this was silly, only he wished this party would get itself over, let him go to sleep and wake up to a new day when he might perhaps get a chance to go and see Sunny and study her a little more.

  Chapter 9

  From that time on the party became quite merry, to Barney’s utter weariness.

  But in spite of the fact, he was up early the next morning and down to breakfast, much to the surprise of Roxy, who had expected him to sleep late and was meditating on an especially tempting breakfast for later, when he woke up.

  But he told her all he wanted was just what she and Joel had, some of that nice-looking oatmeal, with real cream, and a cup of coffee.

  “Would I embarrass Sunny if I went down there this early?” he asked suddenly, while he was enjoying the scrambled eggs she heaped upon his plate, and the crisp buttered toast she produced after the oatmeal and orange juice she insisted upon. “I can’t seem to settle to anything,” he went on, “not even resting, till I apologize for the way I let her run off alone in the dark.”

  “Oh, she didn’t mind that,” laughed Roxy. “She’s used to running around alone. And it didn’t seem to me you had much choice about the matter. It was Sunny ran away from you.”

  “Yes, but I should have stopped her somehow. Why did she do it, Roxy?”

  “She was right, Barney boy. You don’t realize. If she had stayed here that crowd would have made her feel very uncomfortable. They would either have taken it for granted she was here as a sort of servant, helping me out, or else they would have judged her by themselves and made it appear that she was running after you. I thought it quite sensible of her to go.”

  “But why should they treat her that way, Roxy? They’re no better than she is. They’re none of them anything great. I’m sure teaching school is just as honorable and necessary in these times as riveting, or going around entertaining soldiers home on leave, or any of the other things those girls are doing.”

  “Wouldn’t you think so?” assented Roxy. “But would you believe it, those girls almost ignore her. You wouldn’t think she was brought up in the same town. And it’s just because she hasn’t forged ahead and forced herself into all their silly parties. She doesn’t drink or smoke or dance the night away. She has too much real work to do. Of course
there’s a few others wouldn’t care so much to be frivolous, if they didn’t feel they had to copy that poor simp Hortense. And why, I can’t understand. She hasn’t got any money, and she isn’t good-looking. I believe it’s just because she’s dared to do things and take the lead and laugh at them if they don’t follow her. She dared to get married in a hurry, and then she dared to get divorced, and she’s sort of made herself the fashion, although she calls it ‘smaht.’ And there’s Sunny with her sweet lips clean and smiling, without anything on them but her own healthy skin the way God made them. And they won’t speak to her, unless they want her to do something for them that they can’t do themselves. And they go around with their lips all bright red and horrid. I’ve often wondered why they paint them up so thick and wide. They look as if they were swollen and bleeding.”

  “Yes, they do, don’t they?” laughed Barney. “But you didn’t answer my question. Do you think it’s too early for me to run over to Sunny’s house? Would I be interrupting some work she ought to do? This is Saturday. She wouldn’t be teaching school today, would she?”

  “No, there’s no school today, and I don’t think she’d mind your being there even if she was busy. She’d probably let you help her if it was anything important she couldn’t leave till another time. Run along and see Sunny, and if you want to bring her back here to a meal anytime, just feel free to do it. Sunny’s a dear child, and I’m fond of her.”

  So Barney finished his breakfast and started out eagerly, reflecting with satisfaction that he was glad his guests of the night before wouldn’t have woken up yet, at least not many of them, and would therefore not be on hand to see where he was going.

  As he walked along the sunlit road, he heard the birds singing high in the sky, some far in the distance, and in spite of himself his heart was filled with a grave delight. The quiet air, filled with sunshine, the birds everywhere. Oh, it was good to be at home again where there were not sounds of bombing, not tenseness in the air, no fear of what was going to develop during the day, or what would happen tomorrow! No feeling of desperation, when comrades and friends moved out of sight for an engagement from which some would, in all probability, never return. Oh, it was good to be in a land of peace for a little while! Though somehow last night’s merriment did not appeal to him as good. It had seemed that all his former friends were just children yet, where he had left them when he went away, seeking fun and more fun, thrills, and greater thrills. They had not yet reached the place where they cared much about anything that did not affect them personally, that would bring them a better time, a forgetfulness of life. It didn’t occur to them that there might be disappointment in the world, and that there were serious things to think about. It was a sense of the nearness of death that brought that; and while they were eager about doing things in an important way, especially if they could wear a uniform, they did not in the least recognize what war was like. To them war was just a big game, to win at all odds, and to tell tales about afterward of their own prowess.