Short Stories of Various Types

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"'Italy's full of Americans,' he suggested. 'Living here. Over military
age, but fit for a lot of our use. I miss my guess if bunches of 'em
wouldn't jump at a chance to get busy under their own flag.'

"We sent out a call and they came. Down from hill-towns, out of cities,
from villages we'd never heard of--it was amazing how they came. We
didn't dream there was such a number. Every one middle-aged, American
all, and gentlemen all. One morning, after brisk work the night before,
I'd just turned out and was standing by my bus--I slept on a stretcher
inside--I saw a big, athletic, grizzled chap, maybe fifty-five or over,
shabby as to clothes, yet with an air like a duke, sauntering up. How
he got in there I never thought to ask. He held out his hand as if we
were old friends. 'Good morning,' he said. 'I hope I didn't wake you
up. How do you like Italy?' There was something attractive about him,
something suggestive of a gracious host whose flower garden was
Italy--which he trusted was to my taste. I told him I worshipped Italy.

"Just then a shell--they were coming over off and on--struck two
hundred yards down the road and we both turned to look. In thirty
seconds, maybe, another--and another--placed middling close, half a
minute apart maybe, till eight had plowed along that bit. When they
stopped, he looked at me. 'That's the first time I ever saw shells
light nearby,' he spoke. 'Eight, I made it. But two were duds, weren't
they?'

"It didn't seem to occur to him that they might have hit him. About
then he saw me wondering, I suppose, what a civilian was doing making
conversation inside the lines before breakfast, and he explained.

"'You need men for the Red Cross, I believe,' he explained. 'I came to
offer my services.' He spoke English perfectly, yet with a foreign
twist, and he was so very dark that I wondered about his nationality.

"'Are you Italian?' I asked, and at that he started and straightened
his big shabby shoulders as if I'd hit him, and flushed through his
brown skin.

"'American, sir,' he said proudly.

"And, Uncle Bill, something in the way he said it almost brought tears
to my eyes. It was as if his right to being American was the last and
most precious thing he owned, and as if I'd tried to take it from him.

"So I threw back 'That's great,' as heartily as I knew how, and shook
hands with him over it.

"There was something about him which I couldn't place. He looked--natural.
Especially his eyes.

"Well, I said we'd be delighted to use him, and told him where to
report and then, though it wasn't my business, I asked his name. And
what do you think he told me?"

I shook my head.

"He gave his name as John Donaldson," stated the boy.

"What!" I asked bewildered. "This man in Italy was called----"

"By my name," the boy said slowly. "John Donaldson."

I reasoned a bit. "John Donaldson" is a name not impossible to be
duplicated. "It was devilish odd," I said, "to run into your own handle
like that, wasn't it?"

The boy went on. "At that second Ted Frith ran along shouting, '7:30.
Better hurry. Coffee's waiting.' So I threw the strange man a good-bye
and bolted.

"That day we were going some. They were heaving eggs from the other
side of the Piave and we were bringing back wounded to the dressing
stations as fast as we could make it over that wrecked land; going back
faster for more. When I stopped for chow at midday, I found Ted Frith
near me, eating also.

"'Remember the old boy you were talking to this morning?' asked Ted
between two mouthfuls of dum-dums--that's beans, Uncle Bill. I 'lowed I
remembered the old boy; in fact he'd stuck in my mind all day.

"'Well,' Ted went on, 'he's a ring-tailed snorter. He's got an American
uniform, tin derby and all, and he's up in the front trenches in the
cold and mud with his chocolates and stuff, talking the lingo to the
wops and putting heart into them something surprising. They're cheering
up wherever he goes. Good work.'

"That afternoon I ran into the man under hot fire hurrying down the
communication trench for more stuff. He looked as pleased as a boy with
a new pony. 'Hello,' I yelled across the noise. 'How do you like our
Italy? They tell me you're helping a lot.'

"He stopped and stared with those queerly homelike, big eyes. 'Do
they?' he smiled. 'It's the best time I've had for years, sir.'

"'Needn't _sir_ me,' I explained. 'I'm not an officer.'

"'Ah, but you are--my superior officer,' he argued in a courteous,
lovely way. 'I'm a recruit--raw recruit. Certainly I must say _sir_, to
you.'

"'Duck there,' I shouted. 'You're on a rise--you'll be hit.'

"He glanced around. 'If you knew what a treat I'd consider it to be
done for wearing this.' He looked down and slapped his big knee in its
khaki. 'But if I'm helping, it's the game to keep whole. You see, sir,'
and he laughed out loud--'this is my good day. I'm American to-day,
sir!'

"And as I let in the clutch and turned the wheel, I sniffled. The man's
delight at being allowed to do a turn of any sort under the flag got
me.

"The hideous day wore on; one of the worst I went through. We were
rushing 'em steadily--four badly wounded in the back you know, and one
who could sit up in the front seat with the driver, every trip. About
3:30 as I was going up to the front lines, I struck Ted Firth again
coming down.

"'That you, Johnny?' he shouted as we jammed together, and then: 'Your
friend's got his,' he said. We were caught in a crowd and had to wait,
so we could talk.

"'Oh no!' I groaned. 'Gone west?'

"He shook his head. 'I think not yet. But I'm afraid he's finished. Had
to leave him. Didn't see him till I was loaded up. He's been
stretcher-bearer the last three hours.'

"'The devil he has. Why?'

"'A sudden attack--bearer was killed. He jumped in and grabbed the
stretcher. Powerful old boy. Back and forth from the hurricane to the
little dressing station, and at last he got it. Thick to-day, isn't
it?'

"'Stretcher-bearer!' I repeated. 'Nerve for a new bird.'

"'Nerve!' echoed Teddy. 'He's been eating it up. The hotter it got, the
better it suited. He's one of the heroes fast enough. If he lives, he's
due a cross for his last stunt--out under fire twice in five minutes to
bring in wounded. But he won't live. There--it's clearing. You run
along and find the old boy, Johnny.'

"I found him. He was hurt too badly to talk about. As gently as we knew
how, Joe Barron and I lifted him into the car and he recognized me.

"'Why, good evening, sir,' he greeted me, smiling at the disputed
title, charming and casual as ever. He identified me--'The boy who
adored Italy.' Then: 'Such luck!' he gasped. 'Killed--in our
uniform--serving!' And as he felt my hand on his forehead: 'For God's
sake don't be sorry, lad,' he begged. 'A great finish for me. I never
hoped for luck like this.'

"There's a small village," the boy went on--"I never knew its name;
it's back of the Piave; only a pile of broken stuff now anyhow. But the
church was standing that night, a lovely old church with a tower
pierced with windows. We stuck in a traffic jam in front of that
church. The roads were one solid column going forward into the mess.
Mile after mile of it in one stream--and every parallel road must have
been the same.

"It got dark early and the ration truck was late coming up, being
caught in the jam. It was night by the time the eats were ready and I
left my bus in front of the church I spoke of. I'd wished myself on the
officers of a battery having mess in trees back of a ruined house. When
I went back to the bus, it was clean dark. But the sky was alight with
gun flashes from everywhere, a continuous flicker like summer lightning
with glares here and there like a sudden blaze from a factory chimney.
The rumbling gun thunder was without a break, punctuated by heavier
boomings; the near guns seemed an insane 4th of July. I looked in at my
load and I saw that my namesake was worse. We were still trapped in the
jam; no chance of breaking for hours maybe. I saw then that they'd
turned the church into a dressing station. There was straw on the stone
floors and two surgeons and some orderlies. Wounded were being carried
in on stretchers. Joe Barron and I lifted out John Donaldson and took
him in and cared for him as well as possible until we could corral an
overworked doctor. I thought I'd talk to him a bit to distract him, and
he seemed glad to have me."

The lad stopped; his big fingers pulled at the collar of his uniform.

"Little by little," he went on, "John Donaldson of Italy told his
story. He held tight to my hand as he told it." The boy halted again
and bit at his lower lip with strong white teeth. "I like to remember
that," he went on slowly. "He had lived nearly twenty years in Perugia.
He had run away from America. Because--he--took money. Quite a lot of
money. He--was supposed to be dead."

I sat forward, grasping the sides of my chair, pulling the thing out of
the boy with straining gaze.

"Uncle Bill," he spoke, and his dear voice shook, "you know who it was.
I found why his eyes looked familiar. They were exactly like my own.
The man I was helping to die was my father."

I heard my throat make a queer sound, but I said no word. The voice
flowed on, difficultly, determinedly.

"It's a strange thing to remember--a weird and unearthly bit of
living--that war-ruined church, strewn with straw, the wounded wrapped
like mummies in dark blankets, their white bandages making high spots
in the wavering, irregular lights of lanterns and pocket flashes moving
about. I sat on the pavement by his side, hand in hand. A big crucifix
hung above, and the Christ seemed to be looking--at him."

The voice stopped. I heard my own as a sound from beyond me asking a
question. "How did you find out?" I asked.

"Why, you see, Uncle Bill," he answered, as if my voice had helped him
to normality a bit, "I started off by saying I'd write to anybody for
him, and wasn't there somebody at home maybe? And he smiled out of his
torture, and said 'Nobody.'

"Then I said how proud we were of such Americans as he had shown
himself and how much he'd helped. I told him what Teddy Frith said of
how he'd put heart into the men. And about the war cross. At that his
face brightened.

"'Did he really say I'd helped?' He was awfully pleased. Then he
considered a moment and spoke: 'There's one lad I'd like to have
know--if it's possible to find him--and if he ever knows anything about
me--that I died decently.'

"I threw at him--little dreaming the truth, yet eagerly--'I'll find
him. I promise it. What's his name?'

"And he smiled again, an alluring, sidewise smile he had, and said:
'Why, the same name as mine--John Donaldson. He was my baby.'

"Then for the first time the truth came in sight, and my heart stood
still. I couldn't speak. But I thought fast. I feared giving him a
shock, yet I had to know--I had to tell him. I put my free hand over
his that clung to me and I said: 'Do you know, Mr. Donaldson, it's
queer, but that's my name too. I also am John Donaldson.'

"He turned his head with a start and his eyes got wide. 'You are?' he
said, and he peered at me in the half light. 'I believe you look like
me. God!' he said. His face seemed to sharpen and he shot words at me.
'Quick!' he said. 'I mayn't have time. What was your mother's name?'

"I told him.

"He was so still for a breath that I thought I'd killed him. Then his
face lighted--quite angelically, Uncle Bill. And he whispered, two or
three words at a time--you know the words, Uncle Bill--Tennyson:

"'Sunset and evening star' he whispered:

"'Sunset and evening star,

"'And one clear call for me----'

"He patted the breast of his bloody, grimy uniform. 'Following the
flag! Me! My son to hold my hand as I go out! I hadn't dreamed of such
a passing.' Then he looked up at me, awfully interested. 'So you're my
big son,' he said. 'My baby.'

"I knew that he was remembering the little shaver he'd left twenty
years back. So I leaned over and kissed him, and he got his arm around
my neck and held me pretty tight a minute, and nobody cared. All those
dying, suffering, last-ditch men lying around, and the two worn-out
doctors hurrying among 'em--they didn't care. No more did he and I. I'd
found my father; I wasn't caring for anything else."

There was deep silence in the room again and a log of the fire crackled
and fell apart and blazed up impersonally; the pleasant sound jarred
not at all the tense, human atmosphere.

"And he----! Uncle Bill," went on the throbbing voice, "through the
devilish pain he was radiant. He was, thank God! I wanted to hold up a
doctor and get dope to quiet him--and he wouldn't.

"'It might make me unconscious,' he objected. 'Would I lose a minute of
you? Not if I know it! This is the happiest hour I've had for twenty
years.'

"He told me, a bit at a time, about things. First how he'd arranged so
that even my mother thought him dead. Then the bald facts of his
downfall. He hated to tell that.

"'Took money,' he said. 'Very unjustifiable. But I ought to have had
plenty--life's most unreasonable. Then--I couldn't face--discovery--hate,
unpleasantness.' He shuddered. 'Might have been--jailed.' It was
shaking him so I tried to stop him, but he pointed to his coat and
laughed--Uncle Bill, a pitiful laugh. It tore me. 'John Donaldson's
making a good getaway,' he labored out. 'Must tell everything. I'll
finish--clean. To--my son. Honor of--the uniform.' He was getting
exhausted. 'That's all,' he ended, 'Dishonor.'

"And I flung at him: 'No--no. It's covered over--wiped out--with
service and honor. You're dying for the flag, father--father!' I
whispered with my arms around him and crying like a child with a
feeling I'd never known before. 'Father, father!' I whispered, and he
lifted a hand and patted my head.

"'That sounds nice,' he said. Suddenly he looked amused. His nerve all
through was the bulliest thing you ever saw, Uncle Bill. Not a whimper.
'You thought I was Italian,' he brought out. 'Years ago, this morning.
But--I'm not. American, sir--I heard the call--the one clear call.
American.'

"Then he closed his eyes and his breathing was so easy that I thought
he might sleep, and live hours, maybe. I loosened his fingers and
lifted his head on my coat that I'd folded for a pillow, for I thought
I'd go outside and find Joe Barron and get him to take the bus down
when the jam held up so I could start. Before I started, I bent over
again and he opened his eyes, and I said very distinctly: 'I want you
to know that I'll be prouder all my life than words can say that I've
had you for a father,' and he brought out a long, perfectly contented
sigh, and seemed to drop off.

"I began to pick my way through the clutter of men lying, some still as
death, some writhing and gurgling horrid sounds. I had got about eight
feet when across the hideous noises broke a laugh like a pleased kid. I
whirled. He'd lifted his big shoulders up from the straw and was
laughing after me from under those thick black lashes; his eyes were
brilliant. He stretched out his arms to me.

"'American, sir,' he said in a strong voice. And fell back dead."

I heard the clock tick and tick. And tick. Minutes went by. Then the
boy got up in the throbbing silence and walked to the fire and stood,
his back to me, looking down at the embers. His voice came over his
square young shoulders, difficult but determined, as of a man who must
say a thing which has dogged him to be said.

"God arranged it, Uncle Bill. I know that well enough. God forgave him
enough to send him me and a happy day to go out on. So don't you
believe--that things are all right with him now?"

It was hard to speak, but I had to--I had a message. "John," I said,
"we two know the splendor of his going, and that other things count as
nothing beside that redemption. Do you suppose a great God is more
narrow-minded than we?"

And my boy turned, and came and sat on the broad side of the chair, and
put his arm around my shoulder and his young head against mine. His
cheek was hot and wet on my thin hair.

"American, sir," whispered my dear boy, softly.

KATHERINE MAYO

John G.

It was nine o'clock of a wild night in December. For forty-eight hours
it had been raining, raining, raining, after a heavy fall of snow.
Still the torrents descended, lashed by a screaming wind, and the song
of rushing water mingled with the cry of the gale. Each steep street of
the hill-town of Greensburg lay inches deep under a tearing flood. The
cold was as great as cold may be while rain is falling. A night to give
thanks for shelter overhead, and to hug the hearth with gratitude.

First Sergeant Price, at his desk in the Barracks office, was honorably
grinding law. Most honorably, because, when he had gone to take the
book from its shelf in the day-room, "Barrack-Room Ballads"[68-1] had
smiled down upon him with a heart-aching echo of the soft, familiar
East; so that of a sudden he had fairly smelt the sweet, strange,
heathen smell of the temples in Tien Tsin--had seen the flash of a
parrot's wing in the bolo-toothed Philippine jungle. And the sight and
the smell, on a night like this, were enough to make any man lonely.

Therefore it was with honor indeed that, instead of dreaming off into
the radiant past through the well thumbed book of magic, he was digging
between dull sheepskin covers after the key to the bar of the State, on
which his will was fixed.

Now, a man who, being a member of the Pennsylvania State Police,[69-1]
aspires to qualify for admission to the bar, has his work cut out for
him. The calls of his regular duty, endless in number and kind, leave
him no certain leisure, and few and broken are the hours that he gets
for books.

"Confound the Latin!" grumbled the Sergeant, grabbing his head in his
two hands. "Well--anyway, here's my night for it. Even the crooks will
lie snug in weather like this." And he took a fresh hold on the poser.

Suddenly "buzz" went the bell beside him. Before its voice ceased he
stood at salute in the door of the Captain's office.

"Sergeant," said Captain Adams, with a half-turn of his desk-chair,
"how soon can you take the field?"

"Five minutes, sir."

"There's trouble over in the foundry town. The local authorities have
jailed some I. W. W.[69-2] plotters. They state that a jail delivery is
threatened, that the Sheriff can't control it, and that they believe
the mob will run amuck generally and shoot up the town. Take a few men;
go over and attend to it."

"Very well, sir."

In the time that goes to saddling a horse, the detail rode into the
storm, First Sergeant Price on John G., leading.

John G. had belonged to the Force exactly as long as had the First
Sergeant himself, which was from the dawn of the Force's existence.
And John G. is a gentleman and a soldier, every inch of him. Horse-show
judges have affixed their seal to the self-evident fact by the sign of
the blue ribbon,[70-1] but the best proof lies in the personal
knowledge of "A" Troop, soundly built on twelve years' brotherhood.
John G., on that diluvian night, was twenty-two years old, and still
every whit as clean-limbed, alert, and plucky as his salad days had
seen him.

Men and horses dived into the gale as swimmers dive into a breaker. It
beat their eyes shut with wind and driven water, and, as they slid down
the harp-pitched city streets, the flood banked up against each planted
hoof till it split in folds above the fetlock.

Down in the country beyond, mud, slush, and water clogged with chunks
of frost-stricken clay made worse and still worse going. And so they
pushed on through blackest turmoil toward the river road that should be
their highway to Logan's Ferry.

They reached that road at last, only to find it as lost as
Atlantis,[70-2] under twenty feet of water! The Allegheny had
overflowed her banks, and now there remained no way across, short of
following the stream up to Pittsburgh and so around, a detour of many
miles, long and evil.

"And that," said First Sergeant Price, "means getting to the party
about four hours late. Baby-talk and nonsense! By that time they might
have burned the place and killed all the people in it. Let's see, now:
there's a railroad bridge close along here, somewhere."

They scouted till they found the bridge. But behold, its floor was of
cross-ties only--of sleepers to carry the rails, laid with wide breaks
between, gaping down into deep, dark space whose bed was the roaring
river.

"Nevertheless," said First Sergeant Price, whose spirits ever soar at
the foolish onslaughts of trouble--"nevertheless, we're _not_ going to
ride twenty miles farther for nothing. There's a railroad yard on the
other side. This bridge, here, runs straight into it. You two men go
over, get a couple of good planks, and find out when the next train is
due."

The two Troopers whom the Sergeant indicated gave their horses to a
comrade and started away across the trestle.

For a moment those who stayed behind could distinguish the rays of
their pocket flash-lights as they picked out their slimy foothold. Then
the whirling night engulfed them, lights and all.

The Sergeant led the remainder of the detail down into the lee of an
abutment, to avoid the full drive of the storm. Awhile they stood
waiting, huddled together. But the wait was not for long. Presently,
like a code signal spelled out on the black overhead, came a series of
steadily lengthening flashes--the pocket-light glancing between the
sleepers, as the returning messengers drew near.

Scrambling up to rail level, the Sergeant saw with content that his
emissaries bore on their shoulders between them two new pine
"two-by-twelves."[72-1]

"No train's due till five o'clock in the morning," reported the first
across.

"Good! Now lay the planks. In the middle of the track. End to end. So."

The Sergeant, dismounting, stood at John G.'s wise old head, stroking
his muzzle, whispering into his ear.

"Come along, John, it's all right, old man!" he finished with a final
caress.

Then he led John G. to the first plank.

"One of you men walk on each side of him. Now, John!"

Delicately, nervously, John G. set his feet, step by step, till he had
reached the centre of the second plank.

Then the Sergeant talked to him quietly again, while two Troopers
picked up the board just quitted to lay it in advance.

And so, length by length, they made the passage, the horse moving with
extremest caution, shivering with full appreciation of the unaccustomed
danger, yet steadied by his master's presence and by the friend on
either hand. As they moved, the gale wreaked all its fury on them. It
was growing colder now, and the rain, changed to sleet, stung their
skins with its tiny, sharp-driven blades. The skeleton bridge held them
high suspended in the very heart of the storm. Once and again a sudden
more violent gust bid fair to sweep them off their feet. Yet, slowly
progressing, they made their port unharmed.

Then came the next horse's turn. More than a single mount they dared
not lead over at once, lest the contagious fears of one, reacting on
another, produce panic. The horse that should rear or shy, on that
wide-meshed footing, would be fairly sure to break a leg, at best. So,
one by one, they followed over, each reaching the farther side before
his successor began the transit.

And so, at last, all stood on the opposite bank, ready to follow John
G. once more, as he led the way to duty.

"Come along, John, old man. You know how you'd hate to find a lot of
dead women and babies because we got there too late to save them! Make
a pace, Johnny boy!"

The First Sergeant was talking gently, leaning over his pommel. But
John G. was listening more from politeness than because he needed a
lift. His stride was as steady as a clock.

It was three hours after midnight on that bitter black morning as they
entered the streets of the town. And the streets were as quiet, as
peaceful, as empty of men, as the heart of the high woods.

"Where's their mob?" growled the Sergeant.

"Guess its mother's put it to sleep," a cold, wet Trooper growled back.

"Well, we _thought_ there was going to be trouble," protested the local
power, roused from his feather bed. "It really did look like serious
trouble, I assure you. And we could not have handled serious trouble
with the means at our command. Moreover, there may easily be something
yet. So, gentlemen, I am greatly relieved you have come. I can sleep in
peace now that you are here. Good-night! _Good_-night!"

All through the remaining hours of darkness the detail patrolled the
town. All through the lean, pale hours of dawn it carefully watched its
wakening, guarded each danger-point. But never a sign of disturbance
did the passing time bring forth.

At last, with the coming of the business day, the Sergeant sought out
the principal men of the place, and from them ascertained the truth.

Threats of a jail delivery there had been, and a noisy parade as well,
but nothing had occurred or promised beyond the power of an active
local officer to handle. Such was the statement of one and all.

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