Battling the Clouds Part 20

_Lee was a free man._

When the General returned to the den he looked long at Frank, and the Major was inspired to ask permission to leave for a few moments.

"Please call if you want us," he said, and nodding to Lee and Bill to follow, he took them across into his wife's room where they awaited a signal from the General. The wise Major knew that anything the General might say to Frank would be burned forever on his memory. For the General was not only a very great man but a wise one as well, and his words were always words of wisdom, and they were often words of mercy and forgiveness as well.

So the deep old voice rumbled on in the den, with only a brief word in Frank's boyish tones once in awhile.

Presently the door was opened and the General called.

The group advanced.

"Lee," said the General, "have you anything to say to this boy?"

There was a silence. Lee stiffened. Then Mrs. Sherman's tiny hand closed around Lee's great h.o.r.n.y fingers and pressed them in the warmest, tenderest clasp. It was very unmilitary, but the General said nothing.

Lee looked down at the little lady and smiled; the first smile for many weeks.

Then he stepped forward a pace, still holding Mrs. Sherman's little hand. Lee raised it, looked at the General, at Mrs. Sherman and last at Frank. With a gesture of reverence he let the little hand drop.

"I forgive you!" he said, "Let's begin new." He held out his hand to the boy, but with a cry Frank turned away.

"Not yet, not yet! I can't take it!" he cried.

"You can if I can," said Lee.

"No, no, I can't; not yet!"

"He is right," said the General. "Let _me_ shake your hand instead, young man, and thank you as one man to another for your forgiveness."

"My car is outside," said Major Sherman meaningly.

"Thank you," said the General. "Anderson, the hardest part is before you. Go home and make a straight confession to your father and mother, and then close this black chapter. Somehow or other I will see that our part of it is taken from the records. It remains for you to turn over a clean page."

Looking at no one, Frank left the room. He entered the Major's car, a lonely, frightened, despairing culprit.

"General," cried Lee suddenly, "if you please, sir, let me go with him!

Major Anderson is a hard man, sir. Please let me go!"

"Go!" said the General, and in a moment the boy who had caused such bitter trouble and so much pain and his innocent and forgiving victim were on their way to the Anderson quarters at Aviation Field. The General fussed for a moment, then went outside to the fateful telephone and called Major Anderson.

The others could hear what he said.

"Anderson," he commenced, "this is unofficial. General Marcom speaking.

You have a hard and trying interview before you. I want you to meet it with _mercy_, Anderson; _mercy_ rather than justice. Justice has already been done. I could recall something in your past, Anderson, that met with mercy, and which saved your whole career. I ask you to remember this. What? No, I won't explain--the explanation will reach you shortly--You will do as I suggest? Thank you, Anderson. Tell your wife what I have said. Good-morning!"

He hung up the receiver and returned to the house. A round wicker table stood in the center of the living-room near Ernest's couch. A snowy cloth covered it, and it was spread with the most delicious breakfast.

Notwithstanding the General's a.s.surances that he had eaten hours ago he sat down, unable to withstand the delicious whiffs rising from the coffee urn, and the smell of crispy toast browning in the electric toaster.

Grapefruit and eggs and commissary bacon (which is by all odds the best on earth) and that same before-mentioned toast, and coffee, and orange marmalade.

Bill, who had never imagined the time would come when he would be taking breakfast with a real General, was nevertheless so hungry and so happy that he forgot rank and everything else. The General did too, it seemed, because he sat and sipped, and ate, and ate, and questioned the boys and finally wanted the story of the flight from the very first instead of getting it tail-end first in little pieces.

Bill told his side of the flight, and Ernest told his, and together they told about the landing in the farmer's field, and the amusing people and about Webby, the "pig-headed" and trustworthy one.

And then the General and Major smoked as though there were no dispatches for the General to read and no cla.s.ses waiting for the Major--in fact, as though there was no military discipline at all. But as the General said, what was the use of being a General, anyway, if it didn't give you some privileges?

But at last the General jingled away, happy and quite full up with delicious coffee and things, and thinking Major Sherman was a lucky dog anyhow to have that little wife and fine boy. Before he left he gave an order for a guard for the airplane standing so calmly in the small field.

Close on his departure came the ambulance, and Major Sherman went off with Ernest to the Hospital for an X-ray of his broken arm.

Bill and his mother were alone.

Together they hustled the dishes into the kitchen and cleared up the living-room. Then Mrs. Sherman sat down in her favorite corner on the couch and Bill threw himself beside her with his tousled head in her lap.

"Goodness, Billy, you certainly _have_ grown!" she said. "Your legs trail way off the end, and when you went to school you didn't reach to the edge."

"Oh, come now, mother," said Bill, "quit fooling! I have grown about an inch."

"More than that," insisted Mrs. Sherman. "You are taller than I am now.

What an awful time I am going to have bossing you around now that you are so big."

"You never _did_ boss me," boasted Bill. "You just twisted me around your little finger."

"I won't be slandered!" said Mrs. Sherman, pulling his hair. "You are tired now and I should think you would like a nice hot bath and a good long sleep."

"That does sound good, Mummy. We will have to stay here for awhile, you know, because of the quarantine. But we will get rested up in, a few hours."

"Yes, you _must_ get rested," said Mrs. Sherman, "because as soon as you feel right, I want you to take me for a ride in that nice, lovely airplane."

Bill sat up. "_What!_" he cried. "You--fly!"

Mrs. Sherman nodded, smiling. "Yes, _me_--fly!" she mimicked. "Bill, I am converted!"

THE END