The Flag Part 22

Captain Perry sat back in his chair and thrust his legs under the table. It was apparent that he was embarra.s.sed, but it was apparent also that he would remain firm in the matter of his decision. Nor was Pen at such a loss to understand the reason for his rejection as his question might imply. He knew, instinctively, that the old story of his disloyalty to the flag had come up again, after all these years, to plague and to thwart him. He was quite right.

"I will tell you frankly, Butler," replied the captain, "what the trouble is. Since it became known that you wanted to enlist, some members of my company have come to me with a protest against accepting you. They say they represent the bulk of sentiment among the enlisted men. You see, under these circ.u.mstances, I can't very well take you. We are citizen soldiers, not under the iron discipline of the regular army, and in matters which are really not essential I must yield more or less to the wishes of my boys. They like, in a way, to choose their a.s.sociates."

He ended with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile intended to be conciliatory. Chagrined and wounded, but not abashed nor silenced, Pen stood his ground. He resolved to see the thing through, cost what pain and humiliation it might.

"Would you mind telling me," he inquired, "what it is they have against me?"

"Why, if you want to know, yes. They say you're not patriotic. To be more explicit they say that up at Chestnut Hill, where you used to live, you--"

Pen interrupted him. His patience was exhausted, his calmness gone.

"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know. They say I mistreated the flag. They say I insulted it, threw it into the mud and trampled on it. That's what they say, isn't it?"

"Yes, substantially that. Now, I don't know whether it's true or not--"

"Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on account of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and live with my grandfather Walker at Cobb's Corners. They say that, don't they?"

"Something of that kind, I believe."

"Well, that's true too. But they don't say that it all happened half a dozen years ago, when I was a mere boy, that I did it in a fit of anger at another boy, and had nothing whatever against the flag, and that I was sorry for it the next minute and have suffered and repented ever since. They don't say that that flag is just as dear to me as it is to any man in America, that I love the sight of it; that I'd follow it anywhere, and die for it on any battlefield,--they don't say that, do they?"

His cheeks were blazing, his eyes were flashing, every muscle of his body was tense under the storm of pa.s.sionate indignation that swept over him. Captain Perry, amazed and thrilled by the boy's earnestness, straightened up in his chair and looked him squarely in the face.

"No," he replied, "they don't say that. But I believe it's true. And so far as I'm concerned--"

Pen again interrupted him.

"Oh, I'm not blaming you, Captain Perry; you couldn't do anything else but turn me down. But some day, some way--I don't know how to-night--but some way I'm going to prove to these people that have been hounding me that I'm as good a patriot and can be as good a soldier as the best man in your company!"

"Good! That's splendid!" Captain Perry rose to his feet and grasped the boy's hand. "And I'll tell you what I'll do, Butler; if you're willing to face the ordeal I'll enlist you. I believe in you."

But Pen would not listen to it.

"No," he said, "I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you, nor to your men, nor to me. I'll meet the thing some other way. I'm grateful to you all the same though."

"Very well; just as you choose. But when you need me in your fight I'm at your service. Remember that!"

On his way home from the armory it was necessary that Pen should pa.s.s through the main street of the town. Many of the shops were still open and were brilliantly lighted, and people were strolling carelessly along the walk, laughing and chatting as though the agony and horror and brutality of the mighty conflict just across the sea were all in some other planet, billions of miles away; as though the war cloud itself were not pushing its ominous black rim farther and farther above the horizon of our own beloved land. Now and then Pen met, singly or in pairs, khaki clad young men on their way to the armory for the weekly drill. Two or three of them nodded to him as they pa.s.sed by, others looked at him askance and hurried on. The resentment that had been roused in his breast at Captain Perry's announcement flamed up anew; but as he turned into the quieter streets on his homeward route this feeling gave way to one of envy, and then to one of self-pity and grief. Hard as his lot had been in comparison with the luxury he might have had had he remained at Bannerhall, he had never repined over it, nor had he been envious of those whose lines had been cast in pleasanter places. But to-night, after looking at these st.u.r.dy young fellows in military garb preparing to serve their state and their country in the not improbable event of war, an intense and pa.s.sionate longing filled his breast to be, like them, ready to fight, to kill or to be killed in defense of that flag which day by day claimed his ever-increasing love and devotion. That he was not permitted to do so was heart-rending. That it was by his own fault that he was not permitted to do so was agony indeed. And yet it was all so bitterly unjust. Had he not paid, a thousand times over, the full penalty for his offense, trivial or terrible whichever it might have been? Why should the accusing ghost of it come back after all these years, to hound and hara.s.s him and make his whole life wretched?

It was in no cheerful or contented mood that he entered his home and responded to the affectionate greeting of his mother.

"You're home early, dear," she said.

"Didn't they keep you for drill? How does it seem to be a soldier?"

"I didn't enlist, mother."

"Didn't enlist? Why not? I thought that was the big thing you were going to do."

"They wouldn't take me."

"Why, Pen! what was the matter? I thought it was all as good as settled."

"Well, you know that old trouble about the flag at Chestnut Hill?"

"I know. I've never forgotten it. But every one else has, surely."

"No, mother, they haven't. That's the reason they wouldn't take me."

"But, Pen, that was years and years ago. You were just a baby. You've paid dearly enough for that. It's not fair! It's not human!"

She, too, was aroused to the point of indignant but unavailing protest; for she too knew how the boy, long years ago, had expiated to the limit of repentance and suffering the one sensational if venial fault of his boyhood.

"I know, mother. That's all true. I know it's horribly unjust; but what can you do? It's a thing you can't explain because it's partly true. It will keep cropping up always, and how I am ever going to live it down I don't know. Oh, I don't know!"

He flung himself into a chair, thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets and stared despairingly into some forbidding distance. She grew sympathetic then, and consoling, and went to him and put her arm around his neck and laid her face against his head and tried to comfort him.

"Never mind, dearie! So long as you, yourself, know that you love the flag, and so long as I know it, we can afford to wait for other people to find it out."

"No, mother, we can't. They've got to be shown. I can't live this way.

Some way or other I've got to prove that I'm no coward and I'm no traitor."

"You're too severe with yourself, Pen. There are other ways, perhaps better ways, for men to prove that they love their country besides fighting for her. To be a good citizen may be far more patriotic than to be a good soldier."

"I know. That's one of the things I've learned, and I believe it. And that'll do for most fellows, but it won't do for me. My case is different. I mistreated the flag once with my hands and arms and feet and my whole body, and I've got to give my hands and arms and feet and my whole body now to make up for it. There's no other way. I couldn't make the thing right in a thousand years simply by being a good citizen. Don't you see, mother? Don't you understand?"

He looked up into her face with tear filled eyes. The thought that had long been with him that he must prove his patriotism by personal sacrifice, had grown during these last few days into a settled conviction and a great desire. He wanted her to see the situation as he saw it, and to feel with him the bitterness of his disappointment.

And she did. She twined her arm more closely about his neck and pressed her lips against his hair.

But her heart-felt sympathy made too great a draft on his emotional nature. It silenced his voice and flooded his eyes. So she drew her chair up beside him, and he laid his head in her lap as he had used to do when he was a very little boy, and wept out his disappointment and grief.

And as he lay there a new thought came to him. Swiftly as a whirlwind forms and sweeps across the land, it took on form and motion and swept through the channels of his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed the tears from his face, and looked down on his mother with a countenance transformed.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, "I have an idea!"

"Why, Pen; how you startled me! What is it?"

"I have an idea, mother. I'm going to--"

He paused and looked away from her.

"Going to what, Pen?"

He did not reply at once, but after a moment he said:

"I'll tell you later, mother, after it's all worked out and I'm sure of it. I'm not going to bring home to you any more disappointments."