CHAPTER XII
"SHOD GOES SURE"
JUNE week has come and gone, but I was not there when the midshipmenwent marching by in their white uniforms across the green mall, and theband played and parasols and summer dresses fluttered their gay colorsfrom the Armory to the training ship.
Father wrote that he was coming, and would take me home with him if Ididn't mind missing commencement. I did mind, terribly, but it wasnothing when weighed in the balance with travelling back to the Capewith him and being with him a whole week.
So Babe and Lillian went without me, but it was some comfort afterwardto hear that the boys all seemed disappointed because I wasn't there.They sent ever so many nice messages. Duffield sent me a _Lucky Bag_,the midshipmen's Annual, full of jokes about each other and some veryattractive pictures both of the men and the buildings. There was asplendid one of him, and he drew a little sketch of Commodore Perry'sflag on the margin, changing the motto to the words, "_Won't_ give upthe ship."
Babe brought back a _Lucky Bag_, too; Watson gave it to her. She alsohad a postal card of that old Indian figurehead, Tecumpseh. I believeBabe must have made some wish while running around it which came true,or else Watson gave her the postal. It surely must have some associationfor her, for she brought it back to Provincetown and has it now, framedin a carved ivory frame, the handsomest one in the house, and whollyunsuitable for an old wooden Indian. She keeps it on her side of thebureau, and Viola simply loathes it.
Father and I had a delightfully cosy visit on the way home. We stayedall night in Boston and came over on the boat. He has been under afrightful strain and shows it; looks so worn and tired and has ever somany more gray hairs than he had a year ago. He came right from the warzone, and twice has been on ships that had to go to the rescue oftorpedoed vessels and pick up passengers adrift in life-boats.
I couldn't get him to talk much about such things. He said he was tryingto put them out of his mind as much as possible, and was hungry to getback to the sand dunes and just peaceful women folks. His eyes followedBarby's every movement. At times they had a grave, wistful expressionwhich gave me dreadful forebodings.
Coming over on the boat he questioned me about the course of study atHarrington Hall--how far I'd gone in mathematics and everything. Then heasked what I thought about learning typewriting this summer, and takinga short practical business course in Mr. Carver's office. I was soastonished I couldn't speak for a moment. All I could think of wasChicken-Little's cry--"The sky's a-failing. I was sitting under arose-bush and a piece fell on _me_."
Finally, instead of answering his question, I blurted out the one I wasfixing to ask him later on, after I'd paved the way for it and led up toit diplomatically, about my stopping school and taking the training fora Red Cross nurse. The moment it was out I knew I had bungled it bybeing so abrupt. He simply waved it aside as impossible. He said Ididn't understand the conditions at the front at all. They needed womenthere, not immature girls unfitted both physically and mentally to copewith its horrors. They would be nervous wrecks in a short time. He saidhe was speaking from a physician's standpoint. He recognized the Joan ofArc spirit in the school-girls who offered themselves. It was one ofthe most beautiful and touching things the war had called forth, butthey needed something more than youthful enthusiasm and a passion forsacrifice. When I was through school if I still wanted to take thetraining he wouldn't say a word, but now----
The shake of his head and the gesture of his hand as he said that oneword dismissed the subject so utterly that I simply couldn't insist. Icouldn't offer a single one of the arguments which I had stored up toanswer him with in case he objected, as I knew he would.
Then he said he'd always hoped to give me some practical businesstraining, just as if I'd been a boy, and now the war was making it evenmore necessary that I should have it. If I'd been a boy he would havewanted me to go into the Cold Storage Plant here that we have aninterest in, long enough for me to learn how it is carried on and whatits success depends upon. Mr. Samuel Carver II is at the head of it, andTitcomb Carver and Sammy III will take it up when they're throughcollege. But they'll be the first to enlist when the call comes. They'rethat kind. And if they never come back the business will be eventuallyturned over to strangers. He wants me to know enough about it tosafeguard our interests.
I was perfectly aghast at the idea. Me, not seventeen till next month,spending all my vacation shut up in an office, banging on a typewriter,with the whole free sparkling harbor outside calling to me. I'd plannedsuch good times for this summer, a regular "under-the-rose-bush" kind,no lessons, no rules. Now not only was the sky a-falling over myparticular bush, it was hitting me hard.
The boat had just rounded the point when Father finished unfolding hisplan, and we were leaning over the railing of the upper deck watchingfor the old town to come in view. For the first time it failed to lookbeautiful to me. The straight, ugly lines of the huge Storage plantloomed up till it seemed the biggest thing alongshore except the Pilgrimmonument. That, of course, stretched up grim and stern above everythingelse, and looked across at me as if it knew the hard thing Father hadjust asked me to do. I felt that it heard the rebellious answer I wasmaking to myself.
"I can't."
"You must," it answered back, as it had done all my life. "It's yourduty. The idea of a descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Minute Menshirking her duty!"
It always gets back at me that way. It knows that the stern androckbound Huntingdon part of me could make only one answer when Fatherput the matter to me the way he did. It was a sacrifice, for I had hopedto begin my new novel this summer. But I had a sort of righteous,uplifted feeling after I had consented, such as I think the martyrs musthave had, which is the reward of sacrifice. It's queer what asatisfaction one can get out of that martyr feeling at times.
But I was ashamed of it next morning. I was going through the hall tojoin Barby and Father on the porch when I heard them talking about me.
"No, Judson, she's only a child. I can't bear to have her go out intothe rough business world this early. There'll be time enough for that ifsome actual need should arise."
"But, Barbara, to let her grow up unprepared for what is almost sure tohappen, would be like sending her out on a stony road in her little barefeet. 'Shod goes sure,' Uncle Darcy used to say. If she's properly shodshe'll be spared much pain and weariness. If you could only realize whatlies ahead of us--if you could only see what I have seen----"
I walked out on the porch just then and he put out his hand to draw meto a seat beside him. Then he began to tell us of what he has just seenin France and England, the splendid way the women and girls over thereare rising up and shouldering their burdens. Of their work in themunitions factories and on farms and in railroad yards. From peeressesto peasants they stop at nothing which needs doing, from oiling alocomotive to cleaning out a stable. Personal affairs are no longerregarded. Personal comfort no longer counts. Safety doesn't count. Lifeitself doesn't count. The only thing that does count is winning the war,and they are giving themselves magnificently, body and soul, "as one whodoes a deed for love nor counts it sacrifice."
It's like listening to one of the old Crusaders when Father talks thatway. It's a holy war to him. When I compared the selfish, easy existenceI had planned for myself this vacation with what the girls over thereare doing, and remembered how noble I had considered myself for givingit up, I felt ashamed of having called _it_ a sacrifice. I made up mymind then and there that I'll make good in the way Father wants me to ifit kills me. He shall never have cause to regret my being just a girl.I'm sure he has envied Mr. Carver his sons many a time, but I'll showhim I can answer my Country's call when it comes, fully as well asTitcomb or Sammy III. In the meantime, I'll put in my best licks atgetting shod for whatever road that lies ahead.
Of course I didn't start till Father's visit was over, but he took medown to the office one morning and made all the arrangements. It is theold Mr. Carver, Grandfather Huntingdon's friend, who is
to take me inhand. Sammy Senior, everybody calls him. He doesn't do much now but signchecks and attend to some of the correspondence, so he'll have plenty oftime to attend to me, and seems glad to do it.
It was a solemn sort of morning, for we went into Mr. Sammy Senior'soffice, and Father took his private box out of the safe and looked overthe papers in it. He made a lot of changes and told both of us what hetold me up in the garret last time he was home, and a lot more besides.There are certain bonds he wants turned over to Uncle Darcy'sgrandchildren, Elspeth and little Judson, when they are old enough to goto college. Judson is Father's namesake. He explained to Mr. SammySenior that their father, Dan Darcy, saved his life once over in China,nursing him, that time he caught the strange disease which was attackingthe sailors. Father had gone over there to study it for the government.
Dan married Tippy's niece, Belle Triplett, after he came home and isworking now in the wireless station over at Highland Light, but thegovernment wants him for more important work in the Navy, and Fatherwants to make sure those children are provided for in case anythinghappens to Dan. Naturally that led to our going over the whole story.How Dan disappeared from town under a cloud years ago, everybodythinking he was the thief, instead of his friend Emmet Potter. (Dan justwent away, like a scapegoat into the wilderness to shield him.) And howa year later Emmet was drowned, trying to save some people from a wreckon Peaked Hill bars, and the town put up a monument in his memory. Andthen a long time after that Richard and I found his confession in an oldmusket that we were cleaning up to play pirate with.
It was as dramatic as a real play, the finding of that confession, and Ienjoyed telling it again to such an appreciative audience. How Richardand I were sitting in the swing in front of Uncle Darcy's door,polishing the brass plate on the stock, when we found it, and I wentscreaming into the house that Danny was innocent. How Belle, whohappened to be there by the strangest coincidence, read the confessionover Uncle Darcy's shoulder, and cried out "Emmet a thief! God inheaven, it will kill me!" and how she carried on like a crazy woman tillshe made Uncle Darcy promise he'd never tell till she gave himpermission, although he would have given his life to wipe the stainfrom Danny's name. She was engaged to Emmett when he died, and had beenworshipping him as a hero up to this time. She didn't know till laterthat one of the reasons that Dan took Emmet's disgrace on himself was toshield her, because he had cared for her all along as much as Emmet did.
Then Father took up the story again, and told how my letter reached himover there in China and led to the discovery that the silent youngAmerican who had saved his life was no other than Dan, who didn't knowtill then that Emmet had confessed and that exile was no longernecessary. "And so," said Father in conclusion, "he came back andmarried Belle, and, thanks to the little pirates, they lived happilyever after."
"That would make a rattling good movie," Mr. Carver said. "Thatship-wreck scene, and finding the confession, and you children buryingthat pouch of gold-pieces in the sand, for the storm to cover upforever. If the little pirate can write it as well as she can tell itthere's the material all right."
All the way home I kept thinking of his suggestion. I had never usedmaterial from real life before. I had always made up my characters. Butnow I began to see some of the familiar town people in a new light.Plain, quiet Dan, doing his deed regardless of the disgrace it broughtupon him, was a real Sir Gareth. And dear old Uncle Darcy, vowed tosilence so long, what a heroic part he had played!
"I'll try it some day on the typewriter," I resolved. Then I thoughtFather was right when he said "shod goes sure." Knowing how to use thetypewriter will be a help in my literary career. It begins to look as ifevery road I happen to take leads into the one of my great ambition.