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Page 61
"If the war hadn't ended pretty soon, I don't know to what heights of
gold braid and encomiums Willie would have climbed; but it did. There
was a secession of hostilities just three days after he was appointed
a colonel, and got in three more medals by registered mail, and shot
two Spaniards while they were drinking lemonade in an ambuscade.
"Our company went back to San Augustine when the war was over. There
wasn't anywhere else for it to go. And what do you think? The old
town notified us in print, by wire cable, special delivery, and a
nigger named Saul sent on a gray mule to San Antone, that they was
going to give us the biggest blow-out, complimentary, alimentary, and
elementary, that ever disturbed the kildees on the sand-flats outside
of the immediate contiguity of the city.
"I say 'we,' but it was all meant for ex-Private, Captain de facto,
and Colonel-elect Willie Robbins. The town was crazy about him. They
notified us that the reception they were going to put up would make
the Mardi Gras in New Orleans look like an afternoon tea in Bury St.
Edmunds with a curate's aunt.
"Well, the San Augustine Rifles got back home on schedule time.
Everybody was at the depot giving forth Roosevelt-Democrat--they used
to be called Rebel--yells. There was two brass-bands, and the mayor,
and schoolgirls in white frightening the street-car horses by throwing
Cherokee roses in the streets, and-well, maybe you've seen a
celebration by a town that was inland and out of water.
"They wanted Brevet-Colonel Willie to get into a carriage and be drawn
by prominent citizens and some of the city aldermen to the armory, but
he stuck to his company and marched at the head of it up Sam Houston
Avenue. The buildings on both sides was covered with flags and
audiences, and everybody hollered 'Robbins!' or 'Hello, Willie!' as we
marched up in files of fours. I never saw a illustriouser-looking
human in my life than Willie was. He had at least seven or eight
medals and diplomas and decorations on the breast of his khaki coat;
he was sunburnt the color of a saddle, and he certainly done himself
proud.
"They told us at the depot that the courthouse was to be illuminated
at half-past seven, and there would be speeches and chili-con-came at
the Palace Hotel. Miss Delphine Thompson was to read an original poem
by James Whitcomb Ryan, and Constable Hooker had promised us a salute
of nine guns from Chicago that he had arrested that day.
"After we had disbanded in the armory, Willie says to me:
"'Want to walk out a piece with me?'
"'Why, yes,' says I, 'if it ain't so far that we can't hear the tumult
and the shouting die away. I'm hungry myself,' says I, 'and I'm
pining for some home grub, but I'll go with you.'
"Willie steered me down some side streets till we came to a little
white cottage in a new lot with a twenty-by-thirty-foot lawn decorated
with brickbats and old barrel-staves.
"'Halt and give the countersign,' says I to Willie. 'Don't you know
this dugout? It's the bird's-nest that Joe Granberry built before he
married Myra Allison. What you going there for?'
"But Willie already had the gate open. He walked up the brick walk to
the steps, and I went with him. Myra was sitting in a rocking-chair
on the porch, sewing. Her hair was smoothed back kind of hasty and
tied in a knot. I never noticed till then that she had freckles. Joe
was at one side of the porch, in his shirtsleeves, with no collar on,
and no signs of a shave, trying to scrape out a hole among the
brickbats and tin cans to plant a little fruit-tree in. He looked up
but never said a word, and neither did Myra.
"Willie was sure dandy-looking in his uniform, with medals strung on
his breast and his new gold-handled sword. You'd never have taken him
for the little white-headed snipe that the girls used to order about
and make fun of. He just stood there for a minute, looking at Myra
with a peculiar little smile on his face; and then he says to her,
slow, and kind of holding on to his words with his teeth:
"'Oh, I don't know! Maybe I could if I tried!'
"That was all that was said. Willie raised his hat, and we walked
away.
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