The Tin Soldier Part 74

It was Sunday, and in the morning they went dutifully to church. They ate their luncheon dutifully with the whole family, and motored dutifully afterwards with the General. Then at twilight they sought the Toy Shop.

They had it all to themselves, and they had told Bronson that they would not be home for dinner. So Jean made chocolate for Derry as she had made it on that first night for his father. They toasted war bread on the electric grill, and there were strawberries.

They were charmed with their housekeeping. "It would have been like this," Derry said--all eyes for her loveliness, "if you had been the girl in the Toy Shop and I had been the shabby boy--"

Jean pondered. "I wonder if a big house is ever really a home?"

"Not ours. Mother tried to make it--but it has always been a sort of museum with Dad's collections."

"Do you think that some day we could have a little house?"

"We can have whatever you want." His smile warmed her.

"Wouldn't you want it, Derry?"

"If you were in it."

"Let's talk about it, and plan it, and put dream furniture in it, and dream friends--"

"More Lovely Dreams?"

"Well, something like that--a House o' Dreams, Derry, without any gold dragons or marble b.a.l.l.s or queer porcelain things; just our own bits of furniture and china, and a garden, and m.u.f.fin and Polly Ann--" Her eyes were wistful.

"You shall have it now if you wish."

"Not until you can share it with me--"

And that was the beginning of their fantastic pilgrimage. In the time that was left to them they were to find a house of dreams, and as Jean said, expansively, "all the rest."

"We will start tonight," Derry declared. "There's such a moon."

It was the kind of moon that whitened the world; one swam in a sea of light. Derry's runabout was a fairy car. Jean's hair was molten gold, her lover's pale silver--as with bare heads, having pa.s.sed the city limits, they took the open road.

It was as warm as summer, and there were fragrances which seemed to wash over them in waves as they pa.s.sed old gardens and old orchards. There was bridal-wreath billowing above stone fences, snow-b.a.l.l.s, pale globes among the green, beds of iris, purple-black beneath the moon.

They forded a stream--more silver, and a silver road after that.

"Where are we going?" Jean breathed.

"I know a house--"

It was a little house set on top of a hill, where indeed no little house should be set, for little houses should nestle, protected by the slopes back of them. But this little house was set up there for the view--the Monument a spectral shaft, miles away, the Potomac broadening out beyond it, the old trees of the Park sleeping between. This was what the little house saw by night; it saw more than that by day.

It was not an empty house. One window was lighted, a square of gold in a lower room.

They did not know who lived in the house. They did not care. For the moment it was theirs. Leaving the car, they sat on the gra.s.s and surveyed their property.

"Of course it is ours," Jean said, "and when you are over there, you can think of it with the moon shining on it."

"I like the sloping roof," her lover took up the refrain, "and the big chimney and the wide windows."

"I can sit on the window seat and watch for you, Derry, and there will be smoke coming out of the chimney on cold days, and a fire roaring on the hearth when you open the door--"

They decided that there ought to be eight rooms--, and they named them.

The Log-Fire Room; The Room of Little Feasts; the Place of Pots and Pans--

"That's the first floor," said Jean.

"Yes."

The upper floor was harder--The Royal Suite; The Friendly Boom, for the dream maid of all work; The Spare Chamber--

"My grandmother had a spare chamber," Jean explained, "and I always liked the sound of it, as if she kept her hospitality pressed down and running over--"

Derry, who had written it all by the light of the moon, held his pencil poised. "There is one more," he said, "the little room towards the West--"

Jean hesitated for the breadth of a second. "Well, we may need another,"

she said, and left it nameless.

The door opened and a man came out. If he saw them, they meant nothing to him--a pair of lovers by the wayside; there were many such.

He paced back and forth on the gravel walk. They could hear the crunch of it under his feet. They saw the shining tip of his cigar--smelt its fragrance--.

Again the door opened, to frame a woman. She called and her voice was young.

"Dearest, it is late. Are you coming in?"

His young voice answered. His far-flung cigar-end trailed across the darkness, his eager steps gave quick response--the door was shut--.

"Oh, Derry, I'd call you like that---"

"And I should come."

The light went out on the lower floor, and presently in a room above a window was illumined.

THE SIXTH DAY

A dream house must have dream furniture. There are old shops in Alexandria, where, less often than in earlier years, one may find treasures, bow-legged chairs and gate-legged tables, yellowed letters written by famous pens, steel engravings which have hung in historic halls, pewter and plate, l.u.s.ter and Sevres, Wedgwood and Willow, Chippendale and Hepplewhite, Adams and Empire, everything linked with some distinguished name, everything with a story, real or invented. One may buy an ancestor for a song, or at least the portrait of one, and silver with armorial bearings, and no one will know if you do not tell them that your heirlooms have come from a shop.

And Alexandria, as all the world knows, is reached from Washington by motor and trolley, train or ferry.

It was by ferry that the lovers preferred to go in the glory of this May morning, feeling the breeze fresh in their faces as with a motley crowd they stood on the lower deck and looked towards the old town.

Thus they came to the wharves, flanked by ancient warehouses in a straggly row along the water line. The windows of these ancient edifices had looked down on Revolutionary heroes, the old brick walls had echoed to the sound of fife and drum--the old streets had once been thronged by men in blue and buff. Since those days the quaint little city had basked in the pride of her traditions. She had tolerated nothing modern until within this very year she had waked to find that her red-coat enemy was now her friend, that the roads which George Washington had travelled were being trod once more by marching men; that in the church where he had worshipped prayers were being said once more for men in battle.

And into the shops, with their storied antiques, drifted now men in olive-drab and men in blue, and men in forester's green, who laughed at the flint locks and powder horns, saluted the Father of his Country whenever they pa.s.sed his picture, gazed with reverence on ancient swords and uniforms, d.i.c.kered for such small articles as might be bought out of their limited allowances, and paid in the end, cheerfully, prices which would have been scorned by any discriminating buyer.