Betty at Fort Blizzard Part 11

Colonel Fortescue caught himself; he had done what he seldom did--used the wrong word. Mrs. Lawrence struggled feebly to her feet, the divine obstinacy of a loving woman shining in her melancholy eyes.

"Stop!" she cried, "I can't allow any one, even the Colonel of the regiment, to disparage my husband before my face."

"I beg your pardon," said Colonel Fortescue, "I regret the word I used."

Mrs. Lawrence, inclining her head, sank, rather than sat, upon the bench.

"Perhaps I should not have spoken so," she said, in a composed voice, "as my husband was only a private, and you are the Colonel; but I think you understand that I was neither born nor reared to this position."

"I do understand," replied Colonel Fortescue, "and some one has done you a very great wrong in bringing you to this post; but you may depend upon it that neither you nor your child shall suffer for the present, and I hope you will soon be well."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Neither you nor your child shall suffer for the present."]

"It is my heart that is more ill than my body," replied Mrs. Lawrence, and the Colonel pa.s.sed on.

The tragedy of a desertion is very great, and as Colonel Fortescue said, tragedies grow more intense in the fierce cold of winter, and Mrs. Lawrence and the beautiful little boy were, in themselves, living tragedies. Sergeant McGillicuddy, too, had a tragic aspect. In spite of all the Colonel could say, the Sergeant still accused himself of being the cause of Lawrence's desertion. McGillicuddy's bronzed face, like a hickory nut, grew so haggard, his self-reproaches so piteous, that Colonel Fortescue thought it well to give him a positive order to say nothing of the circ.u.mstances that led up to Lawrence's striking him. The Sergeant begged to be allowed to tell the chaplain about it; to this Colonel Fortescue consented, and McGillicuddy had a long conversation with the chaplain.

"The Colonel says, sir," McGillicuddy declared mournfully to the chaplain, "as it is the d.a.m.ned climate,--excuse me, sir,--that makes everybody queer."

"I'll excuse you," replied the chaplain, who had the same opinion of the Arctic cold as Colonel Fortescue. "I think the cold gets on men's nerves and makes them queer."

However, the chaplain had the power to console, and McGillicuddy became a trifle more resigned, and even had a faint hope of Lawrence's return, caught from Mrs. McGillicuddy's report of Mrs. Lawrence's fixed belief that Lawrence would come back and give himself up. One great consolation to the Sergeant was, to spend a large part of his pay in comforts for Mrs. Lawrence and clothes and books and toys for the little Ronald. Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had reasoned out a very good solution of McGillicuddy's troubles, encouraged him in his kindness to Mrs. Lawrence and the boy, so that the old rule of G.o.d making the devil work for Him was again ill.u.s.trated; much good came to those whom Lawrence had deserted.

The chaplain thought it a good time to preach a sermon on loyalty, and on the very Sunday after Colonel Fortescue had talked with Mrs.

Lawrence, the congregation that crowded the chapel heard an exposition of what loyalty meant, especially loyalty to one's country. Among the most attentive listeners was Kettle, whose honest black face glowed when the chaplain proclaimed that every man owed it to his country to defend it, if required. When the congregation streamed out of the chapel, Mrs. Fortescue stopped a moment to congratulate the chaplain on his sermon. Behind her stood Kettle, who was never very far away from Miss Betty.

"I listen to that sermon, suh," said Kettle, earnestly, to the chaplain, "and it cert'ny wuz a corker, suh."

"That is high praise," answered the chaplain, "I would rather an enlisted man should tell me that a sermon of mine was a corker, than for the archbishop of the archdiocese to write me a personal letter of praise."

Just then the chaplain, who was accused of having eyes in the back of his head, saw something directly behind him. No less than four of the seven McGillicuddy boys were altar boys, wearing little red ca.s.socks and white surplices in church. They were supposed to leave the ca.s.socks and surplices in the sacristy, but Ignatius McGillicuddy, aged ten, had sneaked out of the sacristy, still wearing his red ca.s.sock, and, seeing the chaplain pa.s.sing out of the gate, thought it safe to begin an elaborate skirt dance, in his ca.s.sock, and making many fancy steps, with much high kicking, while the skirt of his ca.s.sock waved in the air. In the midst of his final pirouette, he caught the chaplain's stern glance fixed on him. Instantly Ignatius appeared to turn to stone, and the vision of a switch, wielded by Mrs. McGillicuddy's robust arm, pa.s.sed before his eyes. He was immensely relieved when the chaplain said, grimly:

"Ten pages of catechism next Sunday."

Kettle went home and was very solemn all day. Not even the After-Clap's pranks could make him smile, nor were the After-Clap's orders always orders to him that day. In the late afternoon Mrs.

Fortescue, seeing Kettle seated in a corner of the back hall, and evidently in an introspective mood, asked him:

"What's been the matter with you all day, Kettle?"

"I'm a-seekin', Miss Betty," Kettle replied solemnly.

"What are you seeking?" Mrs. Fortescue inquired.

"Seekin' light, Miss Betty," answered Kettle. "I'm seekin' light on my duty to my country, arter the chaplain done preached to-day."

"Glad to hear it," responded Mrs. Fortescue. "Your duty at present is to look after the baby and me."

"Gord knows I does the bes' I kin," replied Kettle, raising his eyes, full of faith and love and simplicity, to Mrs. Fortescue's. "But the chaplain, he say we orter fight for our country; maybe at this heah very minute I orter be a-settin' on a hoss, a-shootin' down the enemies of my country."

"Well, Kettle," said Mrs. Fortescue, laughing, "as you can't ride and you can't shoot, I don't think you will ever do much damage to the enemies of your country."

Mrs. Fortescue pa.s.sed on, laughing. But some one else had heard Kettle. This was Sergeant Halligan, a chum of Sergeant McGillicuddy, who had stopped at the Commandant's house on an errand. Sergeant Halligan, seeing no one around in that part of the house, winked to himself, and went up to "the naygur," as he, like Sergeant McGillicuddy called Kettle.

"I say," said the sergeant, in a whisper, "you're right about the chaplain's sermon. It's the duty of every man who can carry a gun to fight for his country. I saw the chaplain looking straight at you, and he was as mad as fire. A white-livered coward stands a mighty poor chanst of salvation, is what the chaplain thinks."

"Does you mean that?" anxiously asked Kettle.

"Don't I?" responded Sergeant Halligan, confidently. "Maybe you think it's hard lines to have to drill all day and walk post all night, but it's a merry jest compared with burning in h.e.l.l fire. I'd ruther drill and walk post all my life than find myself in the lake of brimstone and sulphur that's a-waitin' for cowards."

"Tain't the drill and the walkin' post as skeers me," said Kettle, "but I ain't noways fond of guns. If it wasn't for them devilish guns I'd enlist, pertickler if they'd let me stay with Miss Betty and the baby."

"Sure they would," replied the artful Halligan with a wink. "The Colonel wouldn't disoblige his lady. You'd be detailed to work around the house here, and you'd look grand in uniform."

"You think so?" said Kettle, with a delighted grin, "I always did have a kinder honin' after them yaller stripes down my legs."

"And a sabre and a sabretache," continued the Sergeant. Times were sometimes dull at Fort Blizzard, and the men in the barracks could get a good many laughs out of Kettle as a soldier.

The yellow stripes down his legs and the sabre and sabretache were dazzling to Kettle, But an objection rose on the horizon.

"How 'bout them hosses?" he asked, "I ain't never been on no hoss sence the time when I wuz a little shaver, and the Kun'l--he wasn't nothin'

but a lieutenant then--wuz courtin' Miss Betty, and he pick me up and put me on a hoss he call Birdseye. Lord! It makes me feel creepy now, to tink 'bout that hoss!"

"Oh, you needn't bother about horses," answered the Sergeant, cheerfully. "The Colonel could manage that, and you can wear your uniform just the same."

"I reckon I could ride a gentle hoss," ventured Kettle.

"'Course," replied the Sergeant confidently, "I think I can manage it with the orficer in charge of mounts. I could get the milkman's hoss for you. She is twenty-three years old and as quiet as an old maid of seventy-five; she wouldn't run away or kick, not even if you was to build a fire under her."

This seemed to dispose of the great difficulty in Kettle's mind, when the Sergeant suggested that he would see the milkman that very evening, and at nine o'clock the next morning, he would go to the officer in charge of mounts, and by ten o'clock Kettle, as soon as he had finished washing up the breakfast things and had taken the After-Clap for his airing in the baby carriage, could step down to the recruiting office and enlist.

Everything looked rosy to Kettle. That night, at dinner, Kettle was radiant and informed Mrs. Fortescue, between the fish and the roast, that he had "done found his duty and was a-goin' to do it."

Mrs. Fortescue had some curiosity to know what this new duty of Kettle's was, but Kettle maintained a mysterious silence, only admitting that it would not take him away from "Miss Betty and the baby."

Next morning, however, in the cold light of day, the proposition had lost something of its charms for Kettle. The yellow stripes down his legs did not appear quite so overwhelmingly fascinating. He remembered that Sergeant McGillicuddy was afraid to ride in the buggy behind the milkman's horse. Sergeant Halligan did not give Kettle any time to repent of his decision, and promptly appeared at ten o'clock and escorted Kettle to the recruiting office. The recruiting sergeant was on hand and Sergeant Halligan explained Kettle's martial enthusiasm.

Something like a wink pa.s.sed between Sergeant Halligan and Gully, the recruiting sergeant, who agreed to enlist Kettle, under the name of Solomon Ezekiel Pickup, as a unit in the army of the United States.

A sudden illumination came to Kettle. "Yon c'yarn' enlist me in no white regiment," cried Kettle to Sergeant Halligan, "I'm a n.i.g.g.e.r and you have to put me in a n.i.g.g.e.r regiment."

"Oh, that's all right," responded Sergeant Halligan, airily, "we can get you in all right, and we'll be proud to have you. Won't we, Gully?"

"Certainly," replied Sergeant Gully, "we can fix that up. It's fixed up already."

The rapidity of the proceedings rather startled Kettle.

"But doan' the doctor have to thump me, and pound me, and count my teeth?" he asked. Kettle had not spent twenty years at army posts without finding out something.

"No, indeed," answered Sergeant Gully, who was a chum of Sergeant Halligan, "not with such a husky feller as you. I can thump and pound and count your teeth."