The Portygee Part 47

"That's what I came here to tell you. Grandfather, I can't stay here--now. I want to enlist."

Captain Zelotes did not answer. His hand moved upward and pulled at his beard.

"I want to enlist," repeated Albert. "I can't stand it another minute.

I must. If it hadn't been for you and our promise and--and Madeline, I think I should have joined the Canadian Army a year or more ago. But now that we have gone into the war, I CAN'T stay out. Grandfather, you don't want me to, do you? Of course you don't."

His grandfather appeared to ponder.

"If you can wait a spell," he said slowly, "I might be able to fix it so's you can get a chance for an officer's commission. I'd ought to have some pull somewheres, seems so."

Albert sniffed impatient disgust. "I don't want to get a commission--in that way," he declared.

"Humph! You'll find there's plenty that do, I shouldn't wonder."

"Perhaps, but I'm not one of them. And I don't care so much for a commission, unless I can earn it. And I don't want to stay here and study for it. I want to go now. I want to get into the thing. I don't want to wait."

Captain Lote leaned forward. His gray eyes snapped.

"Want to fight, do you?" he queried.

"You bet I do!"

"All right, my boy, then go--and fight. I'd be ashamed of myself if I held you back a minute. Go and fight--and fight hard. I only wish to G.o.d I was young enough to go with you."

CHAPTER XIII

And so, in this unexpected fashion, came prematurely the end of the four year trial agreement between Albert Speranza and Z. Snow and Co.

Of course neither Captain Zelotes nor Albert admitted that it had ended.

Each professed to regard the break as merely temporary.

"You'll be back at that desk in a little while, Al," said the captain, "addin' up figgers and tormentin' Issy." And Albert's reply was invariably, "Why, of course, Grandfather."

He had dreaded his grandmother's reception of the news of his intended enlistment. Olive worshiped her daughter's boy and, although an ardent patriot, was by no means as fiercely belligerent as her husband. She prayed each night for the defeat of the Hun, whereas Captain Lote was for licking him first and praying afterwards. Albert feared a scene; he feared that she might be prostrated when she learned that he was to go to war. But she bore it wonderfully well, and as for the dreaded "scene," there was none.

"Zelotes says he thinks it's the right thing for you to do, Albert," she said, "so I suppose I ought to think so, too. But, oh, my dear, DO you really feel that you must? I--it don't seem as I could bear to ... but there, I mustn't talk so. It ain't a mite harder for me than it is for thousands of women all over this world... . And perhaps the government folks won't take you, anyway. Rachel said she read in the Item about some young man over in Bayport who was rejected because he had fat feet.

She meant flat feet, I suppose, poor thing. Oh, dear me, I'm laughin', and it seems wicked to laugh a time like this. And when I think of you goin', Albert, I--I ... but there, I promised Zelotes I wouldn't.

... And they MAY not take you... . But oh, of course they will, of course they will! ... I'm goin' to make you a chicken pie for dinner to-day; I know how you like it... . If only they MIGHT reject you!

... But there, I said I wouldn't and I won't."

Rachel Ellis's opinion on the subject and her way of expressing that opinion were distinctly her own. Albert arose early in the morning following the announcement of his decision to enter the service. He had not slept well; his mind was too busy with problems and speculations to resign itself to sleep. He had tossed about until dawn and had then risen and sat down at the table in his bedroom to write Madeline of the step he had determined to take. He had not written her while he was considering that step. He felt, somehow, that he alone with no pressure from without should make the decision. Now that it was made, and irrevocably made, she must of course be told. Telling her, however, was not an easy task. He was sure she would agree that he had done the right thing, the only thing, but--

"It is going to be very hard for you, dear," he wrote, heedless of the fact that Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k's censorious eye would see and condemn the "dear." "It is going to be hard for both of us. But I am sure you will feel as I do that I COULDN'T do anything else. I am young and strong and fit and I am an American. I MUST go. You see it, don't you, Madeline. I can hardly wait until your letter comes telling me that you feel I did just the thing you would wish me to do."

He hesitated and then, even more regardless of the censor, added the quotation which countless young lovers were finding so apt just then:

"I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more."

So when, fresh from the intimacy of this communication with his adored and with the letter in his hand, he entered the sitting-room at that early hour he was not overjoyed to find the housekeeper there ahead of him. And her first sentence showed that she had been awaiting his coming.

"Good mornin', Albert," she said. "I heard you stirrin' 'round up in your room and I came down here so's you and I could talk together for a minute without anybody's disturbin' us... . Humph! I guess likely you didn't sleep any too well last night, did you?"

Albert shook his head. "Not too well, Rachel," he replied.

"I shouldn't wonder. Well, I doubt if there was too much sleep anywheres in this house last night. So you're really goin' to war, are you, Albert?"

"Yes. If the war will let me I certainly am."

"Dear, dear! ... Well, I--I think it's what Robert Penfold would have done if he was in your place. I've been goin' over it and goin' over it half the night, myself, and I've come to that conclusion. It's goin' to be awful hard on your grandma and grandfather and me and Labe, all us folks here at home, but I guess it's the thing you'd ought to do, the Penfold kind of thing."

Albert smiled. "I'm glad you think so, Rachel," he said.

"Well, I do, and if I'm goin' to tell the truth I might as well say I tried terrible hard to find some good reasons for thinkin' 'twan't. I did SO! But the only good reasons I could scare up for makin' you stay to home was because home was safe and comf'table and where you was goin'

wan't. And that kind of reasonin' might do fust-rate for a pa.s.sel of clams out on the flats, but it wouldn't be much credit to decent, self-respectin' humans. When General Rolleson came to that island and found his daughter and Robert Penfold livin' there in that house made out of pearls he'd built for her--Wan't that him all over! Another man, the common run of man, would have been satisfied to build her a house out of wood and lucky to get that, but no, nothin' would do him but pearls, and if they'd have been di'monds he'd have been better satisfied. Well... . Where was I? ... Oh yes! When General Rolleson came there and says to his daughter, 'Helen, you come home along of me,' and she says, 'No, I shan't leave him,' meanin' Robert Penfold, you understand--When she says that did Robert Penfold say, 'That's the talk!

Put that in your pipe, old man, and smoke it?' No, SIR, he didn't! He says, 'Helen, you go straight home along with your pa and work like fury till you find out who forged that note and laid it onto me. You find that out,' he says, 'and then you can come fetch me and not afore.'

That's the kind of man HE was! And they sailed off and left him behind."

Albert shook his head. He had heard only about half of the housekeeper's story. "Pretty rough on him, I should say," he commented, absently.

"I GUESS 'twas rough on him, poor thing! But 'twas his duty and so he done it. It was rough on Helen, havin' to go and leave him, but 'twas rougher still on him. It's always roughest, seems to me," she added, "on the ones that's left behind. Those that go have somethin' to take up their minds and keep 'em from thinkin' too much. The ones that stay to home don't have much to do EXCEPT think. I hope you don't get the notion that I feel your part of it is easy, Al. Only a poor, crazy idiot could read the papers these days and feel that any part of this war was EASY!

It's awful, but--but it WILL keep you too busy to think, maybe."

"I shouldn't wonder, Rachel. I understand what you mean."

"We're all goin' to miss you, Albert. This house is goin' to be a pretty lonesome place, I cal'late. Your grandma'll miss you dreadful and so will I, but--but I have a notion that your grandpa's goin' to miss you more'n anybody else."

He shook his head. "Oh, not as much as all that, Rachel," he said. "He and I have been getting on much better than we used to and we have come to understand each other better, but he is still disappointed in me. I'm afraid I don't count for much as a business man, you see; and, besides, Grandfather can never quite forget that I am the son of what he calls a Portygee play actor."

Mrs. Ellis looked at him earnestly. "He's forgettin' it better every day, Albert," she said. "I do declare I never believed Capt'n Lote Snow could forget it the way he's doin'. And you--well, you've forgot a whole lot, too. Memory's a good thing, the land knows," she added, sagely, "but a nice healthy forgetery is worth consider'ble--some times and in some cases."

Issachar Price's comments on his fellow employee's decision to become a soldier were pointed. Issy was disgusted.

"For thunder sakes, Al," he demanded, "'tain't true that you've enlisted to go to war and fight them Germans, is it?"

Albert smiled. "I guess it is, Issy," he replied.

"Well, by crimus!"

"Somebody had to go, you see, Is."

"Well, by crimustee!"

"What's the matter, Issy? Don't you approve?"