Georgina's Service Stars Part 11

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 cla.s.s. 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 ap.r.o.ns 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XV

"THE GATES AJAR"

COMMENCEMENT is over, the good-byes are said and most of the girls have departed for home. Babe and I leave this morning at ten 'clock when Mrs.

Waldon's machine is to come for us and take us to her apartment for a week's visit. Babe is included in the invitation because she can't go home till I do. Her family won't let her travel alone, although she's nineteen, a year and a month older than I.

Father wasn't willing for Barby to leave this country, so she went into the Army and Navy League work with Mrs. Waldon, the first month she was here. But now she's at the head of one of the departments in the Red Cross and will be in Washington all summer, and longer if necessary.

I've finished my Book of Second Chronicles and shall leave it for her to read whenever she can find an opportunity. But I'm keeping my Memoirs out of my trunk till the last moment, because there's something I want to write in it about Babe.

It was agreed that n.o.body was to wear flowers at Commencement, and we asked our families not to send any, so it was generally understood that there was to be no display of any kind. But yesterday an enormous florist box arrived for Babe Nolan. If she hadn't been so mysterious about it we wouldn't have thought anything of it. Any one of us would have opened it right then and there in the hall, and pa.s.sed it around to be sniffed and admired. But she got as red as fire and, grabbing the box, hurried into her room with it and shut the door. That's the last anybody saw of it. A little later when I had occasion to go to her room there wasn't a sign of a flower to be seen, not even the box or a piece of string. The girls all thought it was queer they should disappear so absolutely, and wondered why she didn't put them in the dining-room or the chapel if she didn't want them in her own room, and they teased her a good deal about her mysterious suitor.

But last night, after Lillian and Jessica had started to the train, she called me to her room and threw open the wardrobe door with a tragic gesture, and asked me what on earth she was to do with _that_. Her trunk wouldn't hold another thing, and she supposed she'd have to go all the way to the Cape with it in her two hands, and it smelled so loud of tuberoses and such things she was afraid people would think she was taking it to a funeral.

There on the wardrobe flood stood a floral design fully three feet high, that looked exactly as if intended for a funeral, for it was one of those pieces called "Gates Ajar." I didn't dare laugh because Babe stood there looking so worried and so deeply in earnest that I knew she'd be offended if I did. I suggested simply leaving it behind, or taking out the flowers and chucking the wire frame into the ash can. Then I saw my advice was unacceptable. Evidently she hadn't told me all, and didn't intend to for fear I'd laugh at the person who sent such a design.

But when I said in a real sympathetic and understanding way that it was _so_ appropriate for a Commencement offering because everybody thinks of Commencement Day as being a gate ajar, through which a school girl steps into the wider life beyond, she gave me a sharp glance and then took me into her confidence. She had on one of those new sport skirts with two enormous side pockets, the most stylish thing I ever saw Babe wear. She drew a card out of one of the pockets. On it was engraved, "Lieutenant Watson Tucker."

I nearly dropped with surprise, for two reasons. First, I didn't think he was the sort of a man to send such a queer thing. It would have been more like him to have sent a bunch of sweet peas. And second, I didn't know he had kept up with Babe enough to know the date of her graduation.

She said yes, they correspond occasionally, and in his last letter he said he was expecting to have a two-weeks' sh.o.r.e leave soon. She wouldn't be surprised any day to hear that the ship was in. Although she said it airily, I know Babe. She couldn't fool me. She over-acted her indifference, and when she said she supposed she might as well box up the flowers and take them along when the machine came, I knew positively that she cared far more for Watty Tucker than she'd have me know.

Babe says it's like visiting in the Hall of Fame to be here at Mrs.

Waldon's. Every way we turn are autographed pictures on the walls of celebrities who have helped to make history. Every time the door bell rings it is a call from somebody who is helping to make it now. And they're not Admirals and Generals and diplomats and their wives to Mrs.

Waldon. They're just Joe and Ned and Nancy who took "pot luck" with her in the old army days on the frontier before they got to be famous or else somebody who knew her intimately in the Philippines.