Where the Souls of Men are Calling Part 6

"What the h.e.l.l's the matter with me?" he asked himself. "I'm no coward; there hasn't been a coward in my family since the Crusade. No, it's the Colonel's eternal cackling that's got my goat!"

Heartened somewhat, he continued at a faster pace and soon turned through the side gate, thence across the porch into the Tumpson home.

Miss Sallie's voice from upstairs greeted him.

"Back safe, Jeb?"

The tenderness of her inquiry, subtly--though unintentionally--suggesting that the manor lord had returned and therefore the womenfolk must haste with ministering, greatly restored his self-esteem. Again the sword began to lose its tarnish; again it flashed in his hand with zest; again in imagination his company stepped off with the precision of regulars!

"War's declared," he shouted. "Colonel Hampton and Mr. Strong have patched up their fuss, and are going to recruit a company and make me captain. We'll be smashing the Germans inside a month!"

He wondered at the strength with which these last words were spoken, and was on the point of repeating them because their sound had caressed his pride, when Miss Sallie gave a cry.

"Sister Veemie," she called, "come with me quickly! War is declared, and our Jeb has been appointed to lead the soldiers! Oh, what shall become of us!"

The last symptoms of trepidation lingering in his make-up now disappeared entirely, and it was a tall, proud, imperious officer who stood in the front hall waiting for the little ladies who, hand-in-hand, came timidly down. Without speaking, Miss Veemie crossed to where he stood. She did not seem to walk, but glide, so smooth and gentle was her movement and the flow of her wide, rather old-fashioned skirt. Tiptoeing and putting her arms around his neck, she simply whispered:

"Jeb!"

"Pshaw, Aunt Veemie," he said, feeling delightfully heroic, "it isn't anything to take on about. We're at war, and at it for keeps!--that's all there is to it! I've been honored with a captaincy, and we'll be in France before July Fourth, and in Berlin by Thanksgiving. Think of that!"

Miss Sallie caught his sleeve.

"Oh, Jeb," she cried, "if your dear father had lived to hear you speak thus spiritedly!"

"We're so proud of you, dear," Miss Veemie whispered, her eyes gazing up at him through tears of adulation. "You'll try not to get hurt, won't you?" She admonished simply from force of habit.

It might have been a war G.o.d who dined in their home that evening. He was seated in Jeb's place, and on either side of him sat a seamed though gentle handmaiden, missing no opportunity to load his plate with good things. Their faded cheeks were tinged with a glow that had not been there in many years, their eyes sparkled with an almost forgotten light, and the lace on their narrow-breasted bodices rose and fell with an agitation that required at times a delicate hand to still.

The talk was of war, and Jeb handled the subject to his entire satisfaction. His highly strung mind drew pictures that more and more stirred their admiration--and horror. Working upon fragments of fact that from day to day had been printed in the _Eagle_, he built a structure of sacrifice and slaughter from which he alone arose supreme.

It was a dramatic dissertation and contained red-blooded sentiments that would have done credit to a man who had actually played the giant game, swapped trick for trick with death, and won out by sheer luck.

Curiously enough, he believed himself; he believed that his moment of weakness earlier in the day had now pa.s.sed into the limbo of things never to be resurrected; he believed that his courage was absolute, that no terrors were great enough to shake it. The ancient Egyptians brought a skeleton to their feasts to remind them of death, but Jeb's apparent familiarity with carnage seemed to be giving him new life.

A man may think he possesses a determined belief, yet unless he has energy and faith enough to test it he is harboring little more than a wish, a hope. If he is downright honest he will not permit himself to be deceived--but the trouble is that hopes which he wishes were beliefs, and wishes that he hopes will become beliefs, are blindfolds deliberately placed across his eyes to spare him an unrestricted vision of his naked soul. This is the most common type of cowardice in the world.

The brave words Jeb uttered were most agreeable to his senses; they fed the hole that should have been filled with courage, and he therefore plunged onward into the realm of imageries until the little ladies felt that they had never really known their Jeb. Certain were they that his manliness had received a most inadequate appreciation.

Dinner over, he left them for the quietude of the garden. Back and forth upon the path, bordered by wee budding tulips, he walked with springing steps. His gaze was in the laced branches overhead, a tangle that broke the calm flood of moonlight into silver patches and scattered them over the ground. Back and forth across these he strode--one moment in sharp outline, the next obscured--thinking, dreaming. He would not stop to hear the unspoken message of this place, whispering to him everywhere that the intricate mesh of branches represented Fear, through which the pulseless courage shed upon man from G.o.d is shattered. He would not see, in the tiny green tips pushing through the earth, that man's blooming into perfection is a slow process, dependent upon the cultivation of his soul. In this night of his greatest promise, he asked only to live with dreams.

The soil surrounding Jeb's progress thus far in life had been prepared by his two adoring aunts with very much the same care they bestowed on their tulips. After he was put into their hands at the age of four, neither their time, nor thought, nor means were spared in forcing his development. But while Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie could intensify the development of a tulip, it might not be said that they knew anything about boys. To a critical eye--had it watched Jeb now walking this way and that as a restive animal--the fruit of their labor would without doubt have been p.r.o.nounced satisfactory; yet only in a visual sense could he have been called animal. So far as concerned temperament he was merely a fretful peri locked up in a cage of flowers--for how in the name of all creation had it been possible for Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie, sole proprietresses of this male machine, to make him properly masculine!

Within the dining-room there were no dreams. As he had pa.s.sed out, the little ladies remained silent for several minutes. Slowly Miss Sallie raised her eyes and looked at her sister, then sharply exclaimed:

"Don't be a fool, now, Veemie!"

"I can't help it," the other choked. "It's an outrage for the Colonel to have selected Jeb to do all those horrid things! He's nothing but a boy!"

Miss Sallie was seldom out of patience with her more tender sister, yet at this moment her love and her patriotism--by which is meant her heart and soul--were violently in conflict. Fearing lest the former might prevail, she replied with greater asperity:

"Well, be a fool if you must, but for pity sake don't let Jeb see you!

He's no boy any more; since this morning he's grown into a big, mature man!--just the kind we need to end this horrible war! As for Marian, she'll be glad enough to wait for him!"

Miss Sallie appeared not to see her sister rise hurriedly and leave the room; but she waited, listening, until a door upstairs slammed, then called softly to their maid:

"Be sure that Mr. Jeb's room is right!"

With this nightly admonition she went on tiptoe to her own room and locked herself in. Until well nigh daylight a far-seeing G.o.d gazed tenderly into the upturned faces of two women whose souls writhed in an agony of pleading.

CHAPTER IV

When Jeb opened his eyes next morning, rather heavy after a scanty sleep, he did not at once remember the great change that had come into his life. He vaguely knew something had happened; then suddenly the captaincy loomed ahead, startling him as though it were an exploding bomb. There was nothing imaginary about this, and he lay awhile considering it.

The same unpleasant weight crept over him; his heart beat rapidly, and his body seemed to be very hollow. Unceasing panoramas of heroism cast on his mental screen were one thing, but the military company in the broad daylight of cold, hard fact did not appeal to him at all.

Embarking for a distant sh.o.r.e where men were torn by sh.e.l.ls, where the ground was slippery with the blood of countless thousands, where a fellow's chances of getting back alive were, so he pictured it, one in a million, brought a distinct feeling of panic. He could see the air literally filled with bursting shrapnel, while red-hot bullets from machine-guns swept the earth as clean as a scythe goes through the ripening wheat. Man simply could not endure in a h.e.l.l like that! It was utterly impossible!

For a little while he gained a modic.u.m of comfort by swearing at the Administration, the President, the Cabinet. What right had they to declare war, anyhow? Now, if we were going to fight Mexico!--or if the Germans tried to come over _here_!--well, that would be a different proposition!

The usual tonic of his bath, a shave, fresh clothes and breakfast began to improve the situation, but he was still desperately depressed. The adoring solicitude of his aunts--more tender after their night of prayerful and palpitating concentration--helped but little.

"Where are you going this morning, dear?" Miss Sallie, trying to seem natural, asked as he arose from the table. Miss Veemie repeated the question with a look, not trusting herself to speak.

"Oh," he answered, with that indifference which is intended to imply the highest type of courage--but never does unless the courage is there!--"I suppose I ought to run downtown and see if the War Department has answered about our uniforms and rifles. Then I'll stop by for a game of tennis with Marian."

Miss Veemie, still silent, closed her eyes as though shutting out a reality that her prayers had been unable to dissolve. Her sister became busy taking up and putting down into their same places the sideboard silver. Jeb felt an undeniable interest in the uniforms and rifles, looking forward to them very much as a condemned man might view a gallows. Nevertheless, after he had walked halfway to the _Eagle_ office, the mood sufficiently pa.s.sed for him to enter with a certain amount of _savoir faire_.

The Colonel had been there since eight o'clock, properly ensconced behind a table especially placed for him. A ledger for recruits' names lay open, with pens and ink-pot ready. Mr. Strong had not yet come down; neither had a man thus far been recruited, although the _Eagle's_ story was setting Hillsdale aflame with patriotism.

"Any news?" Jeb asked, shaking hands.

"No, sir," the Colonel answered, leaning near the window to glance up at the courthouse clock. "But our telegrams have been received, and the War Department is doubtless busily packing the things at this moment. They ought to reach here to-morrow, without fail, if sent by express--as they will be sent, of course. In times of war, Jeb, materials have to move quickly, remember that! It was the secret of Stonewall Jackson's greatest strength--and of Napoleon's. They moved like meteors!"

To-morrow! This brought the crisis so close that Jeb sat down and drew a long breath. The old gentleman watched him for a moment, then in a voice of tenderness asked:

"Did you know that Marian leaves to-night? Her father is going with her as far as New York."

"Leaves for where?" Jeb exclaimed, straightening up.

"For France, of course! Where else would she be leaving for at a time like this? Her father burned the wires last night; although I know how each message burned more deeply into his heart! They leave here about midnight."

Jeb remained silent, crushed by feelings of self-condemnation. How was it that she possessed the courage to go, and he did not! The Colonel, divining a different type of depression and wanting to cheer him up, cried good humoredly:

"Here, sir! Before giving yourself over to moonings, just sign this page; then you'll belong to your government body and soul! Your name should be the first, anyhow!"

He held out the pen, but Jeb did not appear to see it. Instead, he arose abruptly, saying: