The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 39

She put out her hands blindly before her as she reached the head table and heard them cheering her husband's name-and her own. She felt her way into her place. She glanced down into her husband's surprised face and gave a terrified semblance of a smile. Then the whole room seemed to fuse before her. She has never been able to recollect connectedly the events of that evening.

The dinner began, progressed, and, after the manner of all dinners, at last ended. Sam Hod arose. He clinked on a water-gla.s.s with his knife.

The hallful saw him and gradually grew quiet.

It was a beautiful speech that the editor made. He began with the part Vermont has played in every war in which America has ever engaged. He told the story of the boys who marched away in '61 behind John Farrington. He recounted the story of Captain Farrington's death; the succession of "Jack Fuller the First" to the place of honor in the Company, the brilliant war-record of the regiment. He told of the home-coming; of the banquet fifty-two years before. He told smoothly of the events leading up to America's entry into the war. His quotation of the President's famous indictments against Germany brought ovation after ovation from the home-folks, who were worked up to hysterical pitch. And when it was over the editor said:

"To-night, before sitting down to this farewell banquet to our sons, many of whom are going away from us never to return-to-night I was the recipient of a strange request. It came from the last survivor of that famous Company of Sixty-two who fifty-two years ago saw Dashing Captain Jack Fuller of glorious memory, raise aloft this receptacle of rare vintage and propose a dramatic thing.

"This was the request: By some strange fate the evening when the last toast was to be given to the ill.u.s.trious dead comes at the terrifically tragic moment when the sons of many of these men are going forward to offer their lives in a new democracy. It has been suggested that nothing could have more approval from Dashing Captain Jack himself-or from all of those one hundred and six brave men who have crossed from the battlefields of earthly life into a blessed reward for their altruism-than that this toast should be given after all-if not by the two survivors, then by the leader of the local heroes who have volunteered to go "Over There" and by their sacrifice make the earth a finer, fairer, better place in which to dwell. "The Toast to Forty-five," famous for fifty-two years, will be given at last amid this a.s.sembly of another quota of the Union's soldiers about to go forth to preserve the same great principle for which their fathers laid their all upon the altar."

There was silence for a time. Then came another attempt at another ovation. But it died in the excitement of the thing transpiring at that speaker's table.

Sam Hod was opening the famous vintage.

The seal was broken. Out of that gla.s.s retainer came costly sparkling liquor, fifty-two years the prize relic of Farrington Post. Sam reached over. The two gla.s.ses of Uncle Joe Fodder and Captain Jack he filled to the brim. He stepped back-back from between Uncle Joe and Captain Jack-that they might click the rims of their slender goblets together.

"Gentlemen," cried Uncle Joe in that breathless moment-"The Toast-to-Forty-five!"

Every military man in that room arose to his feet.

Uncle Joe's withered old lips moved in the sunken face. The skinny hand holding the wine-gla.s.s trembled so that the beverage spilled over the edge and splashed on the white table-cloth like a clot of blood.

"Here's to the gallant Forty-five," he cried in a high-pitched, crackly voice. "Here's to Captain John Farrington. And here's to the men of Company Sixty-two and their posterity. Here's to-here's to Captain Jack Fuller and _his_ posterity-"

It was an unfortunate sentence at an unfortunate time.

_Jack Fuller's posterity!_

Through the lad's brain must have flashed a picture of a scene in his sitting-room months before when he had paid a fearful price for-something! He had promised- He had promised- He looked around the room. Hundreds of eyes were upon him as he stood there, splendid and erect in olive drab. He glanced around his own table, too. And in that instant he saw-the pale, wan features of his wife!

His arm still holding awkwardly aloft the gla.s.s, Jack looked into the faces of that crowd flanking the tables and walls of that great hall.

Something came to him-the scenes, the a.s.sociations-reincarnation, perhaps-the blood of his forefathers-heredity-in that great instant he was prompted to do a great and dramatic thing for the joy of the spectacular, the call of the dramatic.

Out of Joe Fodder's toothless mouth came voiceless words-

"I've-gone and forgot my speech! You say something, Jack. You say it!"

Sam Hod racked his brain for words to save the situation. All Paris waited. And then-in the silence-came a rich, strong, boyish voice:

"I'll give a toast-to Forty-five!"

It was Captain Jack. Two hundred pairs of eyes were fixed upon him. He knew perfectly that two hundred pairs of eyes were fixed upon him.

This is the thing that he did:

Deliberately into his dirty coffee-cup he poured the blood-red liquid.

As his grandfather would have done, with the same exaggerated flourish the boy took from his pocket a snow-white handkerchief. With that napkin he wiped flawlessly the delicate receptacle which had held the liquor.

Then he leaned over. From a gla.s.s pitcher he poured into that cleansed wine-gla.s.s its fill of pure cold sparkling water. In an instant he held it aloft.

"Fellows!" he cried. "A toast! a toast not with wine-for wine with its blood-color belongs to the times which are going-which we hope are pa.s.sing forever-I'm drinking a toast with crystal water-emblematic of the clean white civilization which is coming-for which we're going 'Over There' to fight and die.

"Here's to every man who ever did a n.o.ble thing; volunteering his strength to help protect the weak! Here's to every lad who ever fought out the terrible question in his heart and put the Greater Good above his life-hopes and ambitions. Here's to every soul that ever laid in the dark, thinking of those at home, knowing that in the charge of dawn he might become to them but a bitter-sweet memory of days when every hour was a golden moment and time but a thing to pa.s.s away. Here's to the dead-the ill.u.s.trious dead-those who fell in battle, those of Forty-five, the men of Sixty-two, the men of every age and every land who fought the good fight n.o.bly, to the best that was in them-for the things they believed to be right-and have gone to take finer and better orders under a Greater General, the Commander of Commanders, the Prince of-Peace!"

He paused. He drew a long breath. He looked down the table. And he continued: "But along with our toast for the soldiers of the dead, boys-while the opportunity is ours-why not give also a toast-another kind of toast-to the soldiers of the living? Not ourselves, boys-but the ones-we're leaving behind. It is little enough we can do for them!"

His gaze wandered up to his gla.s.s. In a strange, inspired voice, he cried softly:

"A toast!-a toast, also, to the truest and best soldiers of all-the mothers, the wives, and the girls we are leaving behind!

"Here's to the toil-hardened hands who cared for us when as helpless little kids, we were unable to care for ourselves. Here's to the tears they have shed over our little torn clothes; the pillows that have been wet in the midnight with anxiety, longing, and heartache that we might be spared to do our duty as men. Here's to the anguish they have suffered, the prayers they have prayed, the sacrifices they have made, the toil they have borne-all to be laid on the altar of war, all to be wiped out in a moment, perhaps, by a splinter of shrapnel or the thrust of a bayonet. Here's to the n.o.bility of their anguish when they come to learn we are no more; and the beauty of their faces when the divinity in their hearts tells the story upon their care-lined foreheads that they would climb the same weary Golgotha again-go through the same Gethsemane-bear the same cross-though they knew all along the end which it meant.

"Here's to the wives we loved in the days before War came upon us.

Here's to the promises they made us-to be ours until death came between us. Here's to the suffering they have borne for our thoughtlessness; the hours when they have looked into the future and wondered if the love that we promised was worth the price they were paying. Here's to the hopes and the fears, the joys and the sorrows that have come to them-that are coming to them now-that are coming to them in the years on ahead with ever greater portion. Here's to their courage and n.o.ble endeavor, given so pathetically to us chaps who sometimes-forget. May we die as faithfully in the cause to which we have pledged ourselves as they will live in the memory of what-might-have-been in the lean years when there are forms sitting in fantasy beside them in the firelight and our voices are heard in the homes we made with them-no more.

"And here's to the girls we are leaving behind! Here's to the kisses they have given us under the stars of many summers-the memory of their hands and their lips and their eyes! Here's to the weight in their souls and the pain that will hallow the memories that will haunt them through the years. Here's to the sighs and the shadows, the heart-hopes and the longing! G.o.d grant in His goodness their fidelity is rewarded!

"These are the things to which we drink-the men of yesterday-and the memory of their heroism which has been-and the women of to-day and whose heroism is to be. With the great incentive of these two in our hearts, boys-let us drink and go away to fight like men-to honor the first-to sanctify the second."

He clinked his gla.s.s against that of speechless Uncle Joe Fodder's-and they drank-Uncle Joe drinking his wine with a hand which trembled so that the liquid stained his withered claw like a scarlet wound.

The hall was strangely silent.

Sam turned to his wife. "That boy never composed that beautiful speech alone, Mary," he said-"not impromptu like that!"

Down the hall an old lady whispered to her daughter:

"Alice! Alice!-His grandaddy made just such a speech-almost word for word-the night John Farrington's company bade us women-folks good-by."

As the hall was being cleared for the big farewell dance, Sam came to the boy.

"Laddie," he demanded, "where did you learn that speech?"

"What speech?" asked the boy.

"You know _what_ speech-the toast!"

"I don't know, Mr. Hod. I just looked at the faces-and the wine-and-and-Betty!-and it just came out."

"Is that the truth?"

"Sure, it's the truth. What was it I said that was so awful wonderful?"

"Don't you remember what you said?"

The boy laughed ashamedly. "-I couldn't repeat it if it cost me my life," he replied. "It-just-came-out!"

Late that night the old editor lay in his bed thinking of many things.