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Page 34
The master-word, he needed that; he needed it desperately. He must go;
he must. Life would be unendurable without self-respect; no amount of
explaining could cover the stain on his soul if he failed in the answer
to the call of honor. That was it, it was in a nut-shell, the call. Yet
he could not hear it as his call. He wandered unhappily away and left
the church and its dissolving congregation, and the boys, the pride of
the church, the boys who were now, they also, separating and going back
each to his home for the last evening perhaps, to be loved and made much
of. Barlow vaguely pictured the scenes in those little homes--eyes
bright with unshed tears, love and laughter and courage, patriotism as
fine as in any great house in America, determination that in giving to
America what was dearest it should be given with high spirit--that the
boys should have smiling faces to remember, over there. And then
again--love and tender words. He was missing all that. He, too, might go
back to his father's house an enlisted man, and meet his father's eyes
of pride and see his sisters gaze at him with a new respect, feel their
new honor of him in the touch of arms about his neck. All these things
were for him too, if he would but take them. With that there was the
sound of singing, shrill, fresh voices singing down the street. He
wheeled about. A company of little girls were marching towards him and
he smiled, looking at them, thinking the sight as pretty as a garden of
flowers. They were from eight to ten or eleven years old and in the
bravery of fresh white dresses; each had a big butterfly of pink or blue
or yellow or white ribbon perched on each little fair or dark head, and
each carried over her shoulder a flag. Quite evidently they were coming
from the celebration at the church, where in some capacity they had
figured. Not millionaires children these; the little sisters likely of
the boys who were going to be soldiers; just dear things that bloom all
over America, the flowering of the land, common to rich and poor. As
they sprang along two by two, in unmartial ranks, they sang with all
their might "The Long, Long Trail."
"There's a long, long trail that's leading
To No Man's Land in France
Where the shrapnel shells are bursting
And we must advance."
* * * * *
And then:
We're going to show old Kaiser Bill
What our Yankee boys can do.
Jim Barlow, his hands in his pockets, backed up against a house and
listened to the clear, high, little voices. "No Man's Land in France--We
must advance--What our Yankee boys can do."
As if his throat were gripped by a quick hand, a storm of emotion swept
him. The little girls--little girls who were the joy, each one, of some
home! Such little things as the Germans--in Belgium--"Oh, my God!" The
words burst aloud from his lips. These were trusting--innocent,
ignorant--to "What our Yankee boys can do." Without that, without the
Yankee boys, such as these would be in the power of wild beasts. It was
his affair. Suddenly he felt that stab through him.
"God," he prayed, whispering it as the little girls passed on singing,
"help me to protect them; help me to forget myself." And the miracle
that sends an answer sometimes, even in this twentieth century, to true
prayer happened to Jim Barlow. Behold he had forgotten himself. With his
head up and peace in his breast, and the look in his face already,
though he did not know it, that our soldier boys wear, he turned and
started at a great pace down the street to the recruiting office.
"Why, you did come."
It was nine o'clock and he stood with lighted face in the middle of the
little library. And she came in; it was an event to which he never got
used, Mary's coming into a room. The room changed always into such an
astonishing place.
"Mary, I've done it. I'm--" his voice choked a bit--"I'm a soldier." He
laughed at that. "Well not so you'd notice it, yet. But I've taken the
first step."
"I knew, Jim. You said you were going to enlist. Why did you telephone
you couldn't come?"
He stared down at her, holding her hands yet. He felt, unphrased,
strong, the overwhelming conviction that she was the most desirable
thing on earth. And directly on top of that conviction another, that he
would be doing her desirableness, her loveliness less than the highest
honor if he posed before her in false colors. At whatever cost to
himself he must be honest with her. Also--he was something more now
than his own man; he was a soldier of America, and inside and out he
would be, for America's sake, the best that was in him to be.
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