The Flag Part 23

CHAPTER X

It was three days later that Pen came home one evening, alert of step, bright-eyed, his countenance beaming with satisfaction and delight.

"Well, mother," he cried as he entered the house; "it's settled. I'm going!"

She looked up in surprise and alarm.

"What's settled, Pen? Where are you going?"

"I'm going to war."

She dropped the work at which she had been busy and sat down weakly in a chair by her dining-room table. He went to her and laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder.

"Pardon me, mother!" he continued, "I didn't mean to frighten you, but I'm so happy over it."

She looked up into his face.

"To war, Pen? What war?"

"The big war, mother. The war in France. Do you remember the other night when I told you I had an idea?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, that was it. It occurred to me, then, that if I couldn't fight for my own country, under my own flag, I would fight for those other countries, under their flags. They are making a desperate and a splendid war to uphold the rights of civilized nations."

He stood there, erect, manly, resolute, his face lighted with the glow of his enthusiasm. She could but admire him, even though her heart sank under the weight of his announced purpose. Many times, of an evening, they had talked together of the mighty conflict in Europe.

From the very first Pen's sympathies had been with France and her Allies. He could not get over denouncing the swiftness and savagery of the raid into Belgium, the wanton destruction of her cities and her monuments of art, the hardships and brutalities imposed upon her people. The Bryce report, with its details of outrage and crime, stirred his nature to its depths. The tragedy of the _Lusitania_ filled him with indignation and horror. Now, suddenly, had come the desire and the opportunity to fight with those peoples who were struggling to save their ideals from destruction.

"I'm going to Canada," he continued, "to enlist in the American Legion. They say hundreds and thousands of young men from the United States who are willing to fight under the Union Jack, have gone up into Canada for training and are this very minute facing the gray coats of the German enemy in northern France."

"But, Pen," she protested, "this is such a horrible war. The soldiers live in the muddiest, foulest kinds of trenches. They kill each other with gases and blazing oil. They slaughter each other by thousands with guns that go by machinery. It's simply terrible!"

"I know, mother. It's modern warfare. It's up to date. It's no pink tea as some one has said. But the more awful it is the sooner it'll be over, and the more credit there'll be to us who fight in it."

"And you'll be so far away."

She looked up at him, pale-faced, with appealing eyes. He knew how uncontrollably she shrank from the thought of losing him in this wild vortex of savagery. He patted her cheek tenderly.

"But you'll be a good patriot," he said, "and let me go. It's my duty to fight, and it's your duty to let me fight. There isn't any doubt about that. Besides, this isn't really France's war nor England's war any more than it is our war, or any more than it is the war of any country that wants to maintain the ideals of modern civilization. I shall be serving my country almost the same as though I were fighting under the Stars and Stripes. And I'll be answering in the only way it's possible for me to answer, those people who have been charging me with disloyalty to the flag. Oh, I must show you what Grandfather Butler says. He made a speech yesterday at the flag-raising at Chestnut Valley, and it's all in the Lowbridge _Citizen_ this morning.

Listen! Here's the way he winds up."

He drew a newspaper from his pocket and read:

"'So, fellow citizens, let me predict that before this great war shall come to an end the Stars and Stripes will wave over every battlefield in Europe. Sooner or later we must enter the conflict; and the sooner the better. For it's our war. It's the war of every country that loves liberty and justice. Up to this moment the Allies have been fighting for the freedom of the world, your freedom and mine, my friends, as well as their own. It is high time the Government at Washington, impelled by the patriotic ardor of our thinking citizens, declared the enemies of England and France to be our enemies, and joined hands with those heroic countries to stamp out forever the teutonic menace to liberty and civilization. In the meantime I say to the red-blooded youth of America: Glory awaits you on the war-scarred fields of France. Go forth! There is no barrier in the way. Remember that when the ragged troops of Washington were locked in a death-grip with the red-coated soldiers of King George, Lafayette, Rochambeau and de Gra.s.se came to our aid with six and twenty thousand of the bravest sons of France. It is your turn now to spring to the aid of this stricken land and prove that you are worthy descendants of the grateful patriots of old.'"

Pen finished his reading and laid down the paper. There had been a tremor in his voice at the end, and his eyes were wet.

"That's grandfather," he said, "all over. I knew he'd feel that way about it. I had decided to go before I read that speech. Now I couldn't stay at home if I tried. I'm his grandson yet, mother, and I shall answer his call to arms."

After that he sat down quietly and unfolded to his mother all of his plans. He told her that he had gone to Major Starbird and had confided to him his desire to serve with the Allied armies. The old soldier, veteran of many battles, had sympathized with his ambition and had procured for him the necessary information concerning enlistment and training in Canada. He was to go to New York and report to a certain confidential agent there at an address which had been given him, where he would receive the necessary credentials for enlistment in the new American Legion then in process of formation. And Major Starbird had said to him that when he returned, if at all, his place at the mill would still be open to him and he would be welcomed back. He told it all with a quiet enthusiasm that evidenced not only his fixed purpose, but also the fact that his whole heart was in the adventure, and that there would be no turning back.

And his mother gave her consent that he should go. What else was there for her to do? Mothers have sent their sons to war from time immemorial. It is thus that they suffer and bleed for their country.

And who shall say that their sacrifice is not as great in its way as is the sacrifice of those who offer up their lives in battle? But that night, through sleepless hours, when she thought of the loneliness that would be hers, and the hazards and horrors that would be his, and of how, after all, he was such a mere boy, to be petted and spoiled and kept at home rather than to be sent out to meet the trials and terrors of the most cruel war in history, her heart failed her, and she wept in unspeakable dread. It is the women, in the long run, who are the greater sufferers from the armed clash of nations!

The mother who conceals her grief While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret G.o.d To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor!

It was three days later that Pen went away. There were many little matters to which he must attend before going. His mother must be safeguarded and her comfort looked after during his absence. His own private affairs must be left in such shape that in the event of his not returning they could easily be closed up. He permitted nothing to remain at loose ends. But to no one save to his employer and his mother did he confide his plans. He did not care to publish a purpose that lay so near to his heart. He went on the early morning train.

Major Starbird was at the station to wring his hand and bid him G.o.dspeed and wish him a safe return. But his mother was not there. She was in her room at home, her white face against the window, gazing with tear-wet eyes toward the south. She heard the distant rumble of the cars as they came, and the blasts from the far away whistle fell softly on her ears. And, by and by, the ever lengthening and fading line of smoke against the far horizon told her that the train bearing her only child to unknown and possibly dreadful destiny was on its way.

Pen had been in New York before. On several memorable occasions, as a boy, he had accompanied his grandfather Butler to the city and had enjoyed the sights and sounds of the great metropolis, and had learned something of its ways and byways. He had no difficulty, therefore, in finding the address that had been given him by Major Starbird, and, having found it, he was made welcome there. He learned, what indeed he already knew, that Canada was not averse to filling out her quota of loyal troops for the great war by enlisting and training young men of good character and robust physique from the States. Armed with confidential letters of introduction and commendation, and certain other requisite doc.u.ments, he left the quiet office on the busy street feeling that at last the desire of his heart was to be fully gratified. It was now late afternoon. He was to take a night train from the Grand Central station which would carry him by way of Albany to Toronto. Borne along by the crowd of home-going people he found himself on Broadway facing Trinity Church. The dusk of evening was already falling, and here and there the glow of electric lamps began to pierce the gloom. On one occasion he had wandered, with his grandfather, through Trinity Churchyard, and had read and been thrilled by inscriptions on ancient tomb-stones marking the graves of those who had served their country well in her early and struggling years. Had it been still day he would not have been able to resist the impulse to repeat that experience of his boyhood. As it was, he stood, for many minutes, peering through the iron railing that separated the living, hurrying throngs on the pavement from the narrow homes of those who, more than a century before, had served their generation by the will of G.o.d and had fallen on sleep.

As he turned his eyes away from the deepening shadows of the graveyard it occurred to him that he would go to a hotel formerly frequented by Colonel Butler, and get his dinner there before going to the train. It would seem like old times, for it was there that they had stayed when he had accompanied his grandfather on those trips of his boyhood. To be sure the colonel would not be there, but delightful memories would be stirred by revisiting the place, and he felt that those memories would be most welcome this night.

Ever more and more, in these latter days, his thoughts had turned toward his boyhood home. After six years of absence and estrangement there was still no tenderer spot in his heart, save the one occupied by his mother, than the spot in which reposed his memories of his childhood's hero, the master of Bannerhall. He wished that there might have been a reconciliation between them before he went to war. He would have given much if only he could have seen the stern face with its gray moustache and its piercing eyes, if he could have felt the warm grasp of the hand, if he could have heard the firm and kindly voice speak to him one word of farewell and G.o.dspeed. He sighed as he turned in at the subway kiosk and descended the steps to the platform to join the pushing and the jostling crowd on its homeward way. At the Grand Central Station he procured his railway tickets and checked his baggage and then came out into Forty-second street. After a few minutes of bewildered turning he located himself and made his way without further trouble to his hotel. But the place seemed strange to him now; not as s.p.a.cious as when he was a boy, not as ornate, not as wonderful. It was only after he had eaten his dinner and come out again into the lobby that it took on any kind of a familiar air, and not until he was ready to depart that he could have imagined the erect form of Colonel Butler, with its imposing and attractive personality, approaching him through the crowd as he had so often seen it in other years.

Then, as he turned toward the street door, a strange thing happened. A familiar figure emerged from a side corridor and came out into the main lobby in full view of the departing boy. It needed no second glance to convince Pen that this was indeed his grandfather. The stern face, the white, drooping moustache, the still soldierly bearing, could belong to no one else. The colonel stopped for a minute to make inquiry and obtain information from a hotel attendant, then, having apparently learned what he wished to know, he stood looking searchingly about him.

Pen stood still in his tracks and wondered what he should do. The vision had come upon him so suddenly that it had quite taken away his breath. But it did not take long for him to decide. He would do the obvious and manly thing and let the consequences take care of themselves. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

"How do you do, grandfather," he said.

Colonel Butler turned an unrecognizing glance on the boy.

"You have the advantage of me, sir," he replied. "I--"

He stopped speaking suddenly, his face flushed, and a look of glad surprise came into his eyes.

"Why, Penfield!" he exclaimed, "is this you?"

But, before Pen had time to respond, either by word or movement, to the greeting, the old man's gloved hand which had been thrust partly forward, fell back to his side, the light of recognition left his eyes, and he stood, as stern-faced and determined as he had stood on that February night, years ago, asking about a boy and a flag.

"Yes, grandfather," said Pen, "it is I."

The colonel did not turn away, nor did any harsh word come to his lips. He spoke with cold courtesy, as he might have spoken to any casual acquaintance.

"This is a surprise, sir. I had not expected to see you here."

He made a brave effort to control his voice, but it trembled in spite of him.

Pen's heart was stirred with sudden pity. He saw as he looked on his grandfather's face, that age and sorrow had made sad inroads during these few years. The hair and moustache, iron-gray before, were now completely white, the countenance was deep-lined and sallow, the eyes had lost their piercing brightness. But Pen did not permit his surprise, or his sorrow, or his grief at the manner of his reception, to show itself by any word or look.

"Nor did I expect to see you," he said. "Have you been long in the city?"

"I arrived less than an hour ago. I expect to meet here my friend Colonel Marshall with whom I shall discuss the state of the country."

"Did--did you come alone?"