The Desert of Wheat Part 53

He held up his hands in utter futility of expression. Lenore's quick eyes noted his face had grown thin and haggard, and she made sure with a pang that his hair was whiter.

"I'm sure glad to be home," he said, with a heavy expulsion of breath.

"I want to clean up an' have a bite to eat."

Lenore was so disappointed at failing to hear from Dorn that she did not think how singular it was her father did not tell more about Jim. Later he seemed more like himself, and told them simply that Jim had contracted pneumonia and died without any message for his folk at home.

This prostrated Mrs. Anderson again.

Later Lenore sought her father in his room. He could not conceal from her that he had something heartrending on his mind. Then there was more than tragedy in his expression. Lenore felt a leap of fear at what seemed her father's hidden anger. She appealed to him--importuned him.

Plainer it came to her that he wanted to relieve himself of a burden.

Then doubling her persuasions, she finally got him to talk.

"Lenore, it's not been so long ago that right here in this room Jim begged me to let him enlist. He wasn't of age. But would I let him go--to fight for the honor of our country--for the future safety of our home?... We all felt the boy's eagerness, his fire, his patriotism.

Wayward as he's been, we suddenly were proud of him. We let him go. We gave him up. He was a part of our flesh an' blood--sent by us Andersons--to do our share."

Anderson paused in his halting speech, and swallowed hard. His white face twitched strangely and his brow was clammy. Lenore saw that his piercing gaze looked far beyond her for the instant that he broke down.

"Jim was a born fighter," the father resumed. "He wasn't vicious. He just had a leanin' to help anybody. As a lad he fought for his little pards--always on the right side--an' he always fought fair.... This opportunity to train for a soldier made a man of him. He'd have made his mark in the war. Strong an' game an' fierce, he'd ... he'd ... Well, he's dead--he's _dead!_... Four months after enlistment he's dead....

An' he never had a rifle in his hands! He never had his hands on a machine-gun or a piece of artillery!... He never had a uniform! He never had an overcoat! He never ..."

Then Mr. Anderson's voice shook so that he had to stop to gain control.

Lenore was horrified. She felt a burning stir within her.

"Lemme get this--out," choked Anderson, his face now livid, his veins bulging. "I'm drove to tell it. I was near all day locatin' Jim's company. Found the tent where he'd lived. It was cold, damp, muddy.

Jim's messmates spoke high of him. Called him a prince!... They all owed him money. He'd done many a good turn for them. He had only a thin blanket, an' he caught cold. All the boys had colds. One night he gave that blanket to a boy sicker than he was. Next day he got worse....

There was miles an' miles of them tents. I like to never found the hospital where they'd sent Jim. An' then it was six o'clock in the mornin'--a raw, bleak day that'd freeze one of us to the marrow. I had trouble gettin' in. But a soldier went with me an'--an' ..."

Anderson's voice went to a whisper, and he looked pityingly at Lenore.

"That hospital was a barn. No doctors! Too early.... The nurses weren't in sight. I met one later, an', poor girl! she looked ready to drop herself!... We found Jim in one of the little rooms. No heat! It was winter there.... Only a bed!... Jim lay on the floor, dead! He'd fallen or pitched off the bed. He had on only his underclothes that he had on--when he--left home.... He was stiff--an' must have--been dead--a good while."

Lenore held out her trembling hands. "Dead--Jim dead--like that!" she faltered.

"Yes. He got pneumonia," replied Anderson, hoa.r.s.ely. "The camp was full of it."

"But--my G.o.d! Were not the--the poor boys taken care of?" implored Lenore, faintly.

"It's a terrible time. All was done that _could_ be done!"

"Then--it was all--for nothing?"

"All! All! Our boy an' many like him--the best blood of our country--Western blood--dead because ... because ..."

Anderson's voice failed him.

"Oh, Jim! Oh, my brother!... Dead like a poor neglected dog! Jim--who enlisted to fight--for--"

Lenore broke down then and hurried away to her room.

With great difficulty Mrs. Anderson was revived, and it became manifest that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her.

The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of life gave the lie to the splendid fighting chance Jim had dreamed of.

When Anderson realized that she was fading daily he exhausted himself in long expositions of the illness and injury and death common to armies in the making. More deaths came from these causes than from war. It was the elision of the weaker element--the survival of the fittest; and some, indeed very many, mothers must lose their sons that way. The government was sound at the core, he claimed; and his own rage was at the few incompetents and profiteers. These must be weeded out--a process that was going on. The gigantic task of a government to draft and prepare a great army and navy was something beyond the grasp of ordinary minds.

Anderson talked about what he had seen and heard, proving the wonderful stride already made. But all that he said now made no impression upon Mrs. Anderson. She had made her supreme sacrifice for a certain end, and that was as much the boy's fiery ambition to fight as it was her duty, common with other mothers, to furnish a man at the front. What a hopeless, awful sacrifice! She sank under it.

Those were trying days for Lenore, just succeeding her father's return; and she had little time to think of herself. When the mail came, day after day, without a letter from Dorn, she felt the pang in her breast grow heavier. Intimations crowded upon her of impending troubles that would make the present ones seem light.

It was not long until the mother was laid to rest beside the son.

When that day ended, Lenore and her father faced each other in her room, where he had always been wont to come for sympathy. They gazed at each other, with hard, dry eyes. Stark-naked truth--grim reality--the nature of this catastrophe--the consciousness of war--dawned for each in the look of the other. Brutal shock and then this second exceeding bitter woe awakened their minds to the futility of individual life.

"Lenore--it's over!" he said, huskily, as he sank into a chair. "Like a nightmare!... What have I got to live for?"

"You have us girls," replied Lenore. "And if you did not have us there would be many others for you to live for.... Dad, can't you see--_now_?"

"I reckon. But I'm growin' old an' mebbe I've quit."

"No, dad, you'll never quit. Suppose all we Americans quit. That'd mean a German victory. Never! Never! Never!"

"By G.o.d! you're right!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with the trembling strain of his face suddenly fixing. Blood and life shot into his eyes. He got up heavily and began to stride to and fro before her. "You see clearer than me. You always did, Lenore."

"I'm beginning to see, but I can't tell you," replied Lenore, closing her eyes. Indeed, there seemed a colossal vision before her, veiled and strange. "Whatever happens, we _cannot_ break. It's because of the war.

We have our tasks--greater now than ever we believe could be thrust upon us. Yours to show men what you are made of! To raise wheat as never before in your life! Mine to show my sisters and my friends--all the women--what their duty is. We must sacrifice, work, prepare, and fight for the future."

"I reckon," he nodded solemnly. "Loss of mother an' Jim changes this d.a.m.ned war. Whatever's in my power to do must go on. So some one can take it up when I--"

"That's the great conception, dad," added Lenore, earnestly. "We are tragically awakened. We've been surprised--terribly struck in the dark.

Something monstrous and horrible!... I can feel the menace in it for all--over every family in this broad land."

"Lenore, you said once that Jim--Now, how'd you know it was all over for him?"

"A woman's heart, dad. When I said good-by to Jim I knew it was good-by forever."

"Did you feel that way about Kurt Dorn?"

"No. He will come back to me. I dream it. It's in my spirit--my instinct of life, my flesh-and-blood life of the future--it's in my belief in G.o.d. Kurt Dorn's ordeal will be worse than death for him. But I believe as I pray--that he will come home alive."

"Then, after all, you do hope," said her father. "Lenore, when I was down East, I seen what women were doin'. The bad women are good an' the good women are great. I think women have more to do with war then men, even if they do stay home. It must be because women are mothers....

Lenore, you've bucked me up. I'll go at things now. The need for wheat next year will be beyond calculation. I'll buy ten thousand acres of that wheatland round old Chris Dorn's farm. An' my shot at the Germans will be wheat. I'll raise a million bushels!"

Next morning in the mail was a long, thick envelope addressed to Lenore in handwriting that shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of her room.

New York City, _November_ --.

DEAREST,--when you receive this I will be in France.