Where the Souls of Men are Calling Part 9

"I'm awfully sorry I won't be out Tuesday to register."

"Don't let that worry you, my boy," Mr. Strong leaned gently over and spoke to him. "The War Department has provided for those who happen to be ill, so you won't miss it; we promise to see to that, eh, Roger?"

"He's in my district," the generous Colonel answered, "so I'll come by here first thing Tuesday morning and fill out his card. Why, it'll be a pleasure, Jeb!"

Where was the good fairy, the kind Fate, now that had stood between him and this war horror! He felt limp and willing to lie still awhile; but as soon as the guests had left he sprang up and feverishly paced the floor.

Had he possessed one chum, to whom he could pour out this agony and who in turn could have jolted him back into a normal perspective, Jeb might have faced the issue with coolness and even gladness, as millions of other fellows were doing. But he had started wrong, and the farther he stumbled down the wrong road the harder it was to struggle back. Each hour he had let himself be confronted with agonizing thoughts of pain and death--strangling in the cruel embrace of the one, or being drawn whimpering into the mysterious uncertainty of the other; vivid prospects, these, that drew him into a state of dumb hysteria. He loathed himself, he loathed everything about him, until the untoward tomorrows were nearly effaced by the self-torment of todays. To be caught between the two was an endless terror--since tomorrows are always tomorrows, and todays face us with every dawn. Trembling at the uncertainties ahead, he longed for that peace which is only found in the finalities of yesterdays. With anguished eyes he peered into the future, and wrung his hands impotently.

When he heard Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie coming up to say goodnight, he slipped between the sheets and remained impa.s.sive while they fussed about, touching the pillow here or patting the coverlet there. At last, alone for the night, he crossed silently to the door and locked it; then drew a chair to the window and gazed moodily out into the trees, one of whose branches brushed the sill on which he leaned.

There was an agitation in the leaves that seemed to whisper eerie things to him; they were stirred by some invisible emotion--by fear, he thought. To his mind all nature was trembling before the great human sacrifice about to be demanded of this fair land; and he imagined other trees, forests upon forests of them, vines, flowers, gra.s.ses--aye, mountains and gorges, even--being obsessed by this same dumb shivering.

"The world is shivering," he whispered. He was shivering! How long, he wondered, must it be before this quietly shivering world would burst into a raging frenzy, as these trees within touch of him had been whipped by storms of unbridled pa.s.sion! He recalled a storm in the previous summer, when green leaves torn from their stems were driven before the hurricane and plastered on these very window panes above his head. He likened it to a man-made fury, wherein pieces of human body would be blown about with the same unrelenting indifference.

By eight o'clock next morning Jeb was on his way downtown. Although his face was white and somewhat drawn, the illness had disappeared; he had eaten a man's size breakfast and declared himself to be fit. The shivers that earlier made a playground of his frame were quiet; their elements were present, but scattered by a resolution that was now driving him onward--and well nigh driving him mad!

Turning into the _Eagle_ building he walked stolidly to the editor's room and entered. As he had hoped, Mr. Strong was not there, and only the Colonel arose, crying with outstretched hands:

"A soldier's recovery, on my word, sir! Jeb, you rebound like a rubber ball--I'm proud of you!"

"You mustn't be proud of me," he replied slowly, not looking into the honest face that smiled at him. "I am not fit to be proud of."

The words might have been taken for extreme modesty, but the tone fell unpleasantly on the Colonel's ears. He recognized, or thought he recognized, something that had its root in this young man before him; not merely an expression of the moment. For an instant his keen eyes bored into the averted face, causing Jeb to look up rather defiantly.

"Colonel," he said jerkily, "tomorrow is draft day. I'm afraid of it; I'm a--a----" then it burst in a tone of desperation, "--a coward, sir!"

The office was perfectly still for nearly a minute, during which the Colonel's scrutinizing gaze never faltered. He would have been vacuous indeed to ask if this thing were a joke, for Jeb's whole att.i.tude condemned him. But the old gentleman was not the type who easily surrendered the honor of his friends, and when he spoke his words came haltingly, as though he were weighing this d.a.m.ning statement against all that had formerly been good; he was unwilling to p.r.o.nounce a verdict on the bare face value of such an accusation without throwing into the balance, not only Jeb's character since boyhood, but the affectionate memory of his father.

"It takes a brave man to say that, Jeb, and you've certainly shown no cowardice thus far. I prefer to think that you are mistaking a new situation, a strange sensation, for this more unworthy thing--I won't name it, sir!"

Whatever the hope to which Colonel Hampton clung, he could no longer doubt Jeb's earnestness nor his sanity. He saw that this son of his dead friend was speaking a horrible truth which he, himself, could not possibly understand. And then he seemed suddenly to have aged, to have grown old in a moment.

Sometimes an autumn will progress far while still holding the bounteous greens of summer; the skies will have tempered their chill to trees and gra.s.s, and even scattered wild flowers will retain their bloom. But, one night, something taps upon the window pane. Faster, faster, like metallic clicks of a speeding-up machine, the sleet rattles for a little while, and lo! where are the leaves, the flowers, of yesterday! Thus did the Colonel age at this quick approach of blighting cold which the optimism of his nature was impotent to withstand. Yet he was still unwilling to give up the fight. Jeb was afraid, not a coward! There lay a vast difference between these, and he said hopefully:

"Get this in your mind, Jeb: bravery is the absence of fear, but courage is the ability to overcome fear! It's no disgrace to be afraid; it's only a disgrace to be a slave to fear. The man who possesses one pound of fear and two pounds of courage, is a lion; reverse this order and you have--that other thing, which I won't believe you are! Why, boy, I remember my first experience well! My regiment was behind a hill, waiting the word that would send us charging into action--and a red-hot fight they said it would be, too! I was leaning on my rifle in the most nonchalant att.i.tude of indifference, but the truth was that if it hadn't been for that prop my knees would have crumpled up. You're the first man I ever told this to, and I wouldn't now unless I thought it would help you. That was the most unhappy moment in my life; but, like all troubles, it appeared to be much greater at a distance. Once in action I had a rattling good time and hated like the devil to quit; and you'll be the same way--I know you will. I'll go a step further with your case--as also mine--and a.s.sert that the man who doesn't know fear is an utter stranger to the extreme delights of courage--for courage is a delight to the very soul after it takes possession. The trouble is, you've been thinking too much; you've been picturing foreign things in a foreign land, and your vision is distorted. Go to it, lad, and you'll be the same game rooster your daddy was before you!"

The Colonel finished with a burst of enthusiasm that was genuine until he saw the face of his staring listener. Then his jaws set and the appearance of age again crept slowly back. He turned away and began drumming on the table with his pencil.

"I suppose it can't be helped," he said, tremulously, after a death-like silence wherein the breathing of each was distinctly audible. "I suppose it's in one's make-up," he continued, as though pleading with an invisible accuser who was sitting there in judgment upon the son of his old friend. "It's probably like an ear for music, an eye for color, an apt.i.tude for this or that pursuit in life--just stuck in, you know, without apparent cause; and so with the stuff that makes soldiers."

Then, turning in a sudden fury, he thundered: "But the h.e.l.l of it is, that every born male baby should be then and there a born soldier, else nature has blundered in making it a male!--for a boy-child that comes into the world without that divine element which later would make it joyfully die for its country, ought to be a girl-child! I'm not sure that it ought to be anything at all, judging from the n.o.bility our girls, our women, have always shown when their country bleeds! There's Marian Strong, possessed with the courage of a lion--yes, sir, a lion! I don't understand you; I don't understand anything--I'm d.a.m.ned if I do!--not anything at all!"

Again, except for the drumming pencil, the same sickening stillness filled the room. When Mr. Strong was heard outside talking to a member of his staff, the old soldier and the young slacker looked at each other quickly, almost guiltily, as if they had nearly been surprised in a crime. To their relief he turned and descended the stairs, but the Colonel tilted his chair until he could see the courthouse clock, saying drily:

"He'll be back in a few minutes. The draft registration is tomorrow.

What are we going to do?"

Jeb felt as though his body were a sponge that had absorbed all the sickening heaviness extant throughout the world. There was a strong tugging within that demanded of him to cry aloud his intention to enlist, but another personality whimpered desperately, "I can't--I can't!" His own face now was drawn as the Colonel's had been; his eyes seemed filmy, and when he spoke his voice was lifeless.

"I know it is," he said.

It did not escape the Colonel that Jeb had replied directly to the thing which most concerned him. The draft was his evil fetish; second in importance came the question of what he should do, or whether Mr. Strong might return and be a witness to his disgrace--yet the Colonel even now was unwilling to call it this. Applied to any one else--yes! Treating with any one else he would doubtless have ordered him from the office.

But this was the son of his old friend; the boy he had watched with pride, lo! these twenty-six years. One cannot in the batting of an eye shake off an affection so deeply grounded!

"Well, sir, I know it, too," he suddenly exclaimed. "I ask you what we are going to do!"

"I--I wish I knew," Jeb answered desperately. "I--I want to do something----"

"You've _got_ to do something," the interruption came with uncompromising sternness.

The door opened and Mr. Strong entered.

"Hullo," he cried, with a brevity characteristic of him when hurried.

"Would have been here sooner, but that plagued unit had to be got fixed."

"What unit are you talking about, Amos?" the Colonel asked, glad and sorry for the interruption.

The editor seated himself and began to run a thin steel paper knife through one after another of several unopened letters.

"Barrow's," he answered, without turning around. "Barrow's hospital unit--leaves some time tonight; and Wade, the man listed to go from here, dropped a packing box on his foot. Barrow 'phoned me last night, and I've been looking for a suitable man all morning."

Nearly everyone in Hillsdale had heard that the great Barrow was heading a hospital unit, and the editor's nearest friends knew that he had been honored with permission to select one man from his own town. Now this man had come to grief! The Colonel looked across at Jeb. He saw at once a miraculous opportunity, and whispered:

"Helping about a hospital is a fine work, Jeb. Of course, it isn't like being with the Colors, but it means service--a very n.o.ble service!"

Jeb's mind had sprung farther ahead than the n.o.bility of service. It saw a place of comparative safety, far from the range of sh.e.l.ls; there would be no charging over parapets, no bullets would come ploughing through his stomach, no shrapnel would tear shreds from his face! He thought much of that face. He could actually be in France and come home a hero!

Besides all these considerations, he would escape the draft!

The Colonel, watching closely, read each argument, each emotion. For a moment his own fearless, honest eyes drew to shiny points and his lips, had he not controlled them, would have curled in disgust. But he could not quite forget that Jeb was the son of his old friend; aye, and his own friend. As there had been two personalities in Jeb, tugging for and against enlistment, so were there two beings in the Colonel's soul condemning and pleading for this weakling Hercules. He now turned anxiously to the editor, asking:

"You haven't found anyone, have you, Amos?"

"Eh? No, Roger, I haven't. Our boys, who are not already pledged to the Colors, prefer taking their turn with the draft."

"Then wire Barrow quickly that Jeb takes Wade's place!"

Mr. Strong swung about in his chair.

"Jeb? Does Jeb want _that_ branch of service?"

"He's crazy for it, Amos! He wants anything that'll get him to France as speedily as possible."

The Colonel tried manfully, for the love of old a.s.sociations, to look without flinching into the eyes of Amos Strong. He felt that Jeb should have told this lie--not, perhaps, an out and out lie, for Jeb did truly want any service wherein he would escape the draft and gun-fire; but it was a lie, nevertheless, and the Colonel's cheeks burned hotly.

"Well, I'm----!" Mr. Strong did not say it--not that he wouldn't have!

He turned, wrote a hurried direction and rang for his stenographer; then, as she retired, he wheeled back again with a cordial smile.

"You've greatly surprised me, Jeb--that is, I'm delighted with your resolution. I've a blank somewhere," he now began fumbling over the littered desk, "and we'll make it out at once; just a form, you know--all units have 'em in one style or another! Now: Name? ---- Residence? ---- Age? ----"

It was soon done and pa.s.sed over for Jeb's signature which was attached with a firm, confident hand. Mr. Strong wrote awhile further, and looked up, saying: