Chapter V: Part 5

The next month was a long one for Tom. He was surprised to find how much of his life could be filled by a woman. After they were married there would be no such separations. He wrote regularly and received in return such brief notes as her duties permitted her to write. Then, for a week, none came, and he went to her home to see what news had been received there. The servant admitted him, half smiling, and in white house gown, by the open fire he saw Belle. She had never seemed so sweet and womanly, and with a cry he could not repress, he caught her in his arms. She struggled, but in vain, and at last gave her lips willingly to his. In that minute Tom learned more than all his college course had taught him. Utterly unconscious of his own temerity, he kissed her again and again. The little white figure was silent in his arms, and bending low he whispered a word which no reasonable man would ever be caught using.

Her face shining with tears, Belle looked up.

"Tom," she said, "do you love me?"

"Love you!" he said slowly. "Why--I guess--I must."

She laughed happily and he drew her closer.

"Dear little girl," he said tenderly, "do you love me?"

The answer came muffled from his shoulder: "All the time, Tom!"

"All the time! You darling! What an infernal brute I have been!"

He evidently intended to kiss her again, for he tried to lift her chin from his shoulder. Providence has taught women a great deal about such things. Her eyes flashed with mischief as she struggled to release herself.

"You must let me go, Tom; this isn't reasonable at all!"

But his training with the Harvard crew had given him a strength which kept her there.

"Reasonable!" he repeated. "Reasonable be hanged!"

Elmiry Ann's Valentine

Elmiry Ann's Valentine

"Si," said Mrs. Safford, "didn't Elmiry Ann Rogers come in here to-day to buy a valentine?"

"Yep," replied the postmaster, without interest. "One of them twenty-five cent ones, with lace onto it."

"I thought so," grunted the wife of his bosom.

"How, now, Aureely? Why ain't she a right to buy a valentine if she wants one?"

"She's a fine one to be buyin' sech trash, when everybody in The Corners knows she ain't hardly got enough to keep soul and body together, let alone clothes and valentines. I knowed she'd done it, jest as well as if I'd see her do it, 'cause she aint' missed comin' in on the twelfth of February sence we come here, and that is nigh onto fourteen year."

"Well," said Silas, after a long silence, "what of it?"

"Si Safford! do you mean to tell me you've been postmaster for fourteen year an' ain't never noticed that Elmiry Ann Rogers _gets_ a valentine every year?"

"No," replied Silas, turning to meet a customer, "I ain't never noticed it."

"Men do be the beatenest," exclaimed Aurelia under her breath.

"Evenin', Mr. Weeks."

"Evenin' Mis' Safford."

"Moderatin' any?"

"Nope, looks like snow, but I reckon it's too cold."

For perhaps ten minutes the two men talked the dull aimless commonplaces of the country store. The single lamp with a reflector behind it, made all three faces unlovely and old. John Weeks was a tall strapping fellow, slightly stooped, and about fifty years old. His hair was grey at the temples, but his eyes had a kindly twinkle that bid defiance to time.

He bought some brown sugar and went out. One could not blame him for seeking other surroundings, for even at its best, the post-office and general store at The Corners was a gloomy place.

Two well-worn steps that creaked noisily were the links between it and the street. The door opened by an old-fashioned latch, worn with much handling, and inside, a motley smell greeted the inquiring nostril unwonted to the place.

The curious sickish odour was a compound of many ingredients blended into one by the all-powerful and all-pervading kerosene. The floor, moderately clean, was covered with sand and saw-dust, which was occasionally swept out and replaced by a fresh layer.

On the right, as you went in, was a small show-case filled with bright coloured candies, displayed in the original packages. Other boxes were piled in the window and still others on the shelf. Within a radius of twenty steps one could buy calico, muslin, ruled stationery, or groceries and kerosene, as he might choose.

Once a year, the commonplace merchandise gave way to "Christmas novelties," and during the first two weeks in February the candy show-case was filled with the pretty nonsensical bits of paper called valentines, with a pile of "comics" on top.

Every year on the twelfth of February, as Mrs. Safford had said, Elmiry Ann Rogers came in and bought a valentine. Every year on the fourteenth of February, as the postmaster's keen-eyed wife had noted, Elmiry Ann Rogers had received a valentine. It was no comic, either, such as one might send to an unprepossessing old maid of forty, but a gorgeous affair of lace paper and cupids, in an ornate wrapping, for more than once, Elmiry's trembling fingers had torn the envelop a bit, as if she could not wait until she reached home.

In many a country town, the buyer of the valentines would have been known as "Ol' Mis' Rogers," but The Corners, lazy, rather than tactful, still clung to the name the pretty girl had gone by.

There was little in Elmiry to recall the graceful figure that was wont to appear in pink muslin or red merino at church and prayer meeting, for the soft curves had become angles, the erect shoulders were bent, and the laughing eyes were now filled with a dumb pathetic sadness. Elmiry's hair had once fallen in soft curls about her face, but now it was twisted into a hard little knot at the back of her head. The white dimpled hands were dark and scrawny now, but people still spoke of her as "Elmiry Ann."

The morning of the thirteenth dawned cloudy and cold. The postmaster went out of town on business, and his wife had her hands full. She moved briskly from one part of the store to the other, making change, rectifying mistakes, and attending to the mail.

At noon a crowd of children came in after "comics" and John Weeks stood by, watching aimlessly.

"You want any valentines, Mr. Weeks?" asked Mrs. Safford.

"Reckon not, I've been growed up too long for that."

"Sho, now! You ain't much older 'n Elmiry Ann Rogers, an' she buys one every year. It's a nice one too--twenty-five cents."

"I ain't never sent but one," said Mr. Weeks, after a silence.

"That so? Well, some folks buys 'em right along. Elmiry Ann Rogers gets one every year jest as regler as a tea party."

"Who'd you advise me to send one to?"

"Don't make no difference to us, so we sells 'em," laughed Mrs. Safford. "Stock's runnin' down now, but if there's any lef they can be kep' over. We've had one now for goin' on five year. It's a fifty cent one, an it's pretty too. Elmiry's looked at it every year but I guess it's too expensive."

"Lemme see it."

It was the same size as the others but it had more lace paper on it and more cupids. Weeks was evidently pleased with it and paid the fifty cents without a murmur.

"Makes me feel sorter silly to be buyin' one o' them things," he said awkwardly, "but I'm allers glad to do a favour for a friend an' I'll take it off your hands."

"Much obliged," returned Mrs. Safford. "Who you lowin' to send it to?"

Weeks considered carefully. "I've got a little nephew over to Taylorville," he said, "and I reckon he'd be right pleased with it." Another avalanche of children descended upon the valentine counter and in the confusion he escaped.

Busy as she was, Mrs. Safford found time to meditate upon Elmiry and her romance. "They do say that John Weeks used to set up some with Elmiry," she thought, "and then it was broke off, but there ain't either of 'em married. I sh'd think he'd want a woman to do for him, and poor Elmiry--her little house is most eat up by the mortgage. The squire was a-sayin' the other day that he thought she'd soon be on the town 'cause she ain't paid the intrust lately. An her a-buyin' valentines! La sakes! Well, it takes all kinds of people to make up a world!"

Early in the afternoon she sorted the mail, as usual, but there was nothing for Elmiry. A strange fact of the case was that the valentine had always come from The Corners. Mrs. Safford began to hope Elmiry would not be disappointed, then the latch clicked, and she came in.

"I want half a pound of dried beef, Mis' Safford," Elmiry said, "an' a quarter of a pound of rice, an' a jug of merlasses, an' a spool of black thread, number sixty."

"Would you mind writin' down your order, Mis' Rogers? I'll send Si over with it when he comes, 'cause I've got to get this mail off in a few minutes an' I ain't got time."

Elmiry seemed disappointed, but wrote her needs on a piece of wrapping paper, using the short blunt pencil which was suspended by a piece of twine from the show-case. Her writing was cramped, old-fashioned, and as distinctive as it was odd.

When Mrs. Safford had time to look at the order, she became greatly excited. "If that ain't the beatenest?" she said to herself. "Who'd have thought it? 'Course, maybe it ain't, but I'm goin' to make sure!"

Late in the afternoon Elmiry came in again, and as before, she was the only customer. "I jest thought I'd take my things, Mis' Safford," she said by way of explanation, "'cause I want to use some merlasses right away and 't ain't no need to trouble Mr. Safford, if you've got time to do 'em up."

"I've got 'em all ready, Elmiry." So Miss Rogers arranged the bundles under her shawl and Mrs. Safford caught sight of something white, held tightly in the dark scrawny hand.

"'T want thread, nor rice," she thought, as Elmiry went out, "and I know 't want her handkerchief. I reckon 'twas her valentine she was lowin' to send away, and didn't, 'cause she thought I'd look. She ain't goin' to fool me though."

Dusk brought the storm which had threatened for two days, and a bitter north wind came with it. In an hour the world was white, and belated foot-falls were muffled by the snow. At nine the store closed, and at half-past nine, Elmiry Ann Rogers wrapped her threadbare shawl around her and started down the street to the post-office.

It was a difficult journey, for the snow was three inches deep and was still coming down, but Elmiry knew the way so well that she could have gone with her eyes shut, if necessary.

She was stiff with the cold when she got there, and was fumbling with the opening in the door marked "mail" when a deep masculine voice at her elbow startled her into an impulsive little scream.

"Why, Miss Rogers," it said, "what are you doin' here this time o' night?"

"My goodness, Mr. Weeks, how you scairt me!" she answered trembling.

"You shouldn't be out a night like this," he continued, "it ain't fittin'."

"I--I jest come out to mail a letter,--an important letter," said Elmiry weakly.

"Why that's funny--so did I! Strange that we should meet, ain't it? And now, Miss Rogers, I'm goin' to take you home."

"Oh, you mustn't, Mr. Weeks," cried Elmiry in a panic, "I'd feel wicked to take you out of your way a night like this, and 't'aint but a few steps anyway."

"Sakes alive! Elmiry, how you talk! I'm a-goin' to take you home and we might as well start. Come."

He slipped her arm through his and turned down the street.

Elmiry felt a burning blush on her cold cheeks, for it had been years, more than she cared to remember, since any one had taken her home.

As they went on, Mr. Weeks did the talking and Elmiry endeavoured to collect her scattered senses. There was something strangely sweet in the feeling that she had a protector, and she wondered dimly how she had ever had the courage to take the trip alone. When they reached her door, she turned to bid him good-night, but he seemed to take no notice of it.

"I guess I'll go in an' set a spell," he remarked. "I'm quite chill." Elmiry had closed the door of the kitchen and turned up the light which was burning dimly before she remembered she had no fire. Mr. Weeks opened the stove door and found the interior dark and cold. Then he looked behind the stove, but there was neither wood nor coal and the floor was spotlessly clean.

"Why, Elmiry," he said, "I'll go right out and get you an armful of wood. It's been stormin' so you've got out. I'll bring in a lot of it."

"No, no," she cried. "Please don't! It's too late for a fire to-night and in the mornin' it'll be clear! Don't go!"

In her tone there was something more than polite anxiety to save him the effort, and he changed the subject. They talked commonplaces until he felt the cold in spite of his warm clothing. She still wore her shawl and looked pitifully thin and weak.

"Ain't you cold?" he asked.

"No," replied Elmiry with great dignity. "I'm warm-blooded an' most people keep their houses too hot. It ain't healthy."

Mr. Weeks agreed and rose to go. She did not ask him to come again, and he was half-way down the street when he began to wonder about the fire. The light was out, so he went back, very slowly approached the wood-shed by a roundabout way, entered stealthily and struck a match, shading the light with his hand.

On the floor, in the corner, was a very small pile of kindlings and the coal-bin was swept clean, no other fuel being in sight.

"It's jest as I thought," he said to himself. "The poor little soul!"

St. Valentine's morning was clear and bright, but enough snow had fallen during the night to obliterate the telltale tracks around the wood-shed. Mrs. Safford was up betimes, eagerly anticipating her husband's peep into the soap box which held chance letters posted after the store had closed. There were two valentines there, both addressed to "Miss Elmiry Ann Rogers, The Corners."

"Sakes alive!" said Mrs. Safford. "Si! Elmiry Ann Rogers has been a-sending herself valentines every year, regler. I wish 't I knew who t' other was from--this is the first time she's had two."

"How'd you know anything about it?"

"Why one on 'em is in the same hand that was on the order she wrote, but t' other looks like a man's hand."

"Aureely," said the postmaster, "you keep still about valentines and everything else you see in the mail, or I'll lose the post-office, and you'll go to jail! The United States government don't stand no foolin'!"

Awed by her husband's stern manner, Mrs. Safford decided to keep still, but she watched Elmiry Ann closely when Silas gave her the valentines. The thin sad face lighted up with pleased surprise, but Elmiry did not stop. She clutched her treasures tightly and hurried out looking younger than she had for years.

When John Weeks came in during the afternoon the Saffords were putting away the valentines. "This fool business is over for another year, John," said the postmaster. "We've sold one we've had for more'n five years. What you steppin' on my feet for, Aureely? Ain't you got room enough in the store to walk?"

"'Scuse me Si, there's the squire comin' in."

"Mornin', Squire."

"Mornin', Si. Has your clocks stopped, so's you don't know it's afternoon? How's biz?"

"Oh, so so. What's new?"

"Nothin', only the selectmen held a meetin' yesterday an' Elmiry Rogers is a-goin' to the poorhouse. She's back in her intrust, and ain't got no prospects, and the Doctor has got to foreclose. They wanted I s'd tell her, but someways, I don't like the idea. She'll be kep' warm and she'll be better off, and she'll have plenty of comp'ny, but I knowed her when she went to school, an' I knowed her mother too. For the sake of auld lang syne I don't want to hurt her."

"Sho now, ain't that too bad?" said both the Saffords together.

Nobody knew just when Mr. Weeks left the store, and Elmiry Ann was startled when she opened the door in response to his vigorous rap. She had not been at home long, and the colour still burned in her cheeks. The valentines lay on the table, presenting a strange contrast to their bleak and commonplace surroundings.

"Why, how do you do?" she exclaimed with a queer little note in her voice. "Will you come in?"

"Yes, I'll come in," he said decisively. He shut the door with a bang and took the trembling frightened woman into his arms.

"Elmiry! You poor little soul! I've wanted you 'most twenty years, an' I ain't never had courage to say it 'til now. We've waited too long, an' I want you to come and be my valentine--will you, dear?"

"Why, Mr. Weeks," she cried in astonishment, "what's took you all of a sudden?"

"It's sense, I reckon, Elmiry, an' it's been a long time comin'. I was huffed 'cause you never made no answer to the valentine I sent you, an' I thought you didn't want me, so I just stayed away."

"What valentine?" Elmiry's eyes were very big and fearful.

"Don't you remember that valentine I sent you?--Let's see, it's so long ago--I've most forgot what it was. It said:

"'The rose is red, the violet blue,
Pinks are sweet and so are you;
Give me your heart, you have mine--
Will you be my valentine?'"

"Yes," said Elmiry slowly, "I remember." She went to the Family Bible which lay on the marble-topped table in the front room and took it out. It was worn and faded and there were spots on it which looked like tears. "Did you mean that," she asked with difficulty, "for a-a----"

"Yes, I did," answered John, "an' I thought it was cunnin', but I see now, what a blamed fool I was. I should have come and asked you like a man an' not trusted to your understandin' no fool valentine. I made a great mistake--Elmiry, dear, won't you never forgive me?"

The poor little old maid smiled through her blinding tears.

"Oh, John," she said, "I've waited so long!" Then she broke down and sobbed helplessly in his arms.

Elmiry forgot the empty years, and the pathetic valentines, so dearly bought--it was so sweet to be loved and taken care of by a masterful man.

Neither heard the jingle of sleigh-bells 'till a voice shouted:

"Whoa," outside, and Doctor Jones started towards the gate.

"Who's that?" said Elmiry.

"It's the Doctor--he wants to see me about something and I'll go right out."

"No, I'm sure it's me, he wants to see, John," said Elmiry sadly.

"'Tain't neither. He see me a-comin' here."

Without stopping to put on his overcoat Weeks rushed out slamming the door behind him, as he went. The conversation was brief, but to the point, and presently the Doctor drove off with a smile on his face.

"Didn't he want to see me, John?" asked Elmiry tearfully.

"No, it was me, as I told you, but he sent in his congratulations."

"His congratulations! Oh, John! What did you tell him?"

"I told him," said John, taking her into his arms, "that we was engaged an' that you was goin' to be my valentine."

The Knighthood of Tony

The Knighthood of Tony

It was such a pretty bicycle! Tony fondled the glittering spokes and examined the pedals with the air of a connoisseur. He forgot the hump on his back, and his solitary little house on the outskirts of the village in the joy of his new possession.

Only the night before Mrs. Carroll had sent for him and given it to him. "Arthur wanted you to have it;" she said with a tremor in her voice. Between Tony and the delicate child for whom the wheel was bought, there had been a strong bond of sympathy. Tony was always ready to talk to him, or to take him to the woods, and Arthur was the only human being Tony knew, aside from Mrs. Carroll, who did not jeer at the hump on his back, or shrink from him as though he were an evil thing.

When Arthur died, Tony felt a terrible sense of loss, although he was a man in years and his friend was but a child.

On account of his deformity, the wheel was none too small. If he could only ride it! He shivered as he thought of the shout of derision which would inevitably be his share, should he venture to ride it through the village streets. But there was the long smooth stretch of road which led to the next town, and there were innumerable paths through the woods that he knew and loved. The people in the village need never know that he had it. He could ride out there and no one be the wiser.

He pushed it into his bedroom and shut the door. He had one other treasure--an old flute; and in spite of the cruel hump it was a very happy Tony who went to sleep that night, with one hand stretched out upon the saddle of the beautiful new wheel.

His father had been a shoemaker and by lifelong toil had left a little competence to his son. Tony knew the trade also and sometimes worked at it. All that he was thus enabled to make by his own efforts, he invested in books at the store in the next town. He felt dimly that it would not be right to use his father's money in this way, but his own was a different matter.

There was a tiny paint-box too, with which he sometimes copied the pictures in the books. On the white wall of his bedroom was a poor copy of a Madonna, whose beauty he felt, but could not express. In some way, the Madonna took the place of the mother he had never known, and whose picture, even, he had never seen.

Man though he was in years, Tony had dreams of a soft hand brushing back his hair, and sweet cool lips pressed against his own. When he came back from his weekly trips to the village store, stung to the quick by the taunts and derisions of his fellow-men, he had sobbed himself to sleep many a time longing for that gracious hollow in a woman's shoulder, which seemed made for such as he.

With the first streaks of dawn, Tony started for the woods with his bicycle. There was a wide shady path, well hidden by trees, and here, he made his first attempts. It seemed a long, long time before he could ride even a little way, and the hard falls bruised, but did not discourage him. Day after day, in the early light, he led his silent steed to the secret place and returned after nightfall that none might see him.

The trees at the side of the path were more of a help than a hindrance. Often he had restored his balance by reaching out to a friendly trunk. The feeling of confidence which every bicyclist remembers, came at last, and he rode up and down the path, making the turns at the end with perfect ease, until he dropped off from sheer weariness.

The next day he took his flute and his wheel and a bit of lunch into the woods. He rode on the path until he was a bit tired, and then sat down on the grass and began to play. He knew no music but what the birds had taught him, and the simple little melodies he had heard his father hum.

Call after call of the mocking-bird and robin he imitated on his flute, until the little creatures flocked around him as if he had been one of them.

Tony found the purest pleasure in the society of his feathered friends. They never noticed his crooked body, but with that unfailing sight which seems to belong to birds and animals, recognised the soul within, and knew that they need have no fear of him.

At that very minute, a robin was perched upon the handle-bar of his wheel, his bright eyes fixed upon Tony, who was calling to him with his own voice in such a wonderful way that the red-breasted visitor was well-nigh dumb with astonishment.

With a sudden cry of alarm, Sir Robin fluttered into a tree above and Tony looked up to behold a strange and altogether lovely thing.

It was only a pretty girl in a well-made bicycle suit of blue corduroy, with her wheel beside her, but to Tony she was even more beautiful than the Madonna.

"Excuse me," she said; "but I simply couldn't help stopping to listen."

Tony blushed uncomfortably but he made no reply.

"It must be a great pleasure to be able to call the birds to you like that," she went on; "I really envy you the gift."

He was transfixed with delight. This beautiful straight human being actually envied him the tiny bit of music he could make with his flute! His primitive hospitality came to the rescue.

"Won't you sit down?" he said timidly.

She was very willing to sit down, and almost before he knew it, he found himself telling her about his little cabin, the father who brought him up, and how Mrs. Carroll had given him the bicycle because he had been good to her little boy before he died.

She admired the wheel very much and talked over its good points with Tony until he felt perfectly at ease. She asked him his name and gave him her own. She was Miss Atherton, staying in a house just outside the village with her invalid brother.

The doctor thought the air of the woods would be good for him, so she had "packed up, bag and baggage," as she expressed it, and brought her horse, bicycle, piano and a trained nurse to the village for the summer.

She wanted Tony to come and see them the very next morning and bring his flute. Her brother would enjoy the music and he could come up on his wheel and stay all day.

She waved her hand to him as she rode away through the woods towards her home.

It was the first time Tony had ever been asked to visit any one except the little boy who had died. He remembered every detail of her face and dress, the velvety softness of the corduroy, the tiny watch at her belt, and the brown eyes, so much like those of the Madonna, that he felt as if he had known her always. But one thing troubled him. She did not seem to see the curve between his shoulders. Perhaps it was because he was leaning against a tree all the time she was there. If she had seen it, she would certainly have spoken of it. She might not make fun of him, but she would surely have pitied him, which was almost as bad. Even Mrs. Carroll who was always kind, did that. No, Miss Atherton had not seen it, and his dread of her discovering it was the one flaw in his present anticipations.

She, herself, in a pretty white gown, welcomed him at the door. Mr. Atherton lay in an invalid chair with a table at his side, and shook hands graciously with Tony.

It was such a happy day! He learned the first moves in chess and Miss Atherton played a tender, running accompaniment on the piano to the bird music he made with his flute.

They all had luncheon on the wide veranda and Tony had not dreamed such dainty things were possible.

They talked of their travels in Europe and Egypt, before Mr. Atherton was taken ill, and showed him pictures of wonderful things in the lands across the sea. She read aloud and sang softly to the half-hushed chords her brother picked out on the guitar, and Tony in a perfect wilderness of enjoyment, forgot all about his crooked shoulders.

That day was the first in a long series of happy ones. He learned to play chess well enough to make himself a formidable antagonist, and after Miss Atherton taught him the notes on the piano he found them on the flute, and began to play simple melodies from the music. Sometimes they all played together, very softly in the twilight--piano, flute and guitar; until it became time for the invalid to be wheeled into his room. Sometimes even after that, Tony would sit on the veranda while she sang or talked to him. Through the long night he dreamed of her, as many a lover dreams of his sweetheart. Beautiful Miss Atherton! He worshipped her from afar off, as a child looks at a star.

It was Tony who knew where the violets grew, and who in the dim silence of dawn laid handfuls of them at her door. And it was he who brought her a great sheaf of pond-lilies, dripping and sweet.

"Oh, Tony!" she cried, "where do they grow?"

His face flushed with pleasure. "I'll take you there if you want to go."

"Indeed I do," she exclaimed, "can we go on our wheels?"

"Yes, that's the best way, though it's rough in some places."

"I don't mind that," she answered, "come early in the morning and we'll stay all day."

That afternoon he went to the village store to buy his week's provisions. Half-a-dozen men who were loafing in front of it asked no better sport than to get him into a corner, so that he could not escape, and fling at him taunts and jeers about his crooked body. It was fun to see the sensitive face flush with anger, or quiver with pain, and it was not until his self-control was entirely gone and he sank in a sobbing heap on the floor, that they let him go.

The night was one of torture to him. It was not the mother he had never seen who could comfort him now, but Miss Atherton. His idea of heaven was a place where he might always be within the sound of her voice, within reach of her hand, and where she would look kindly upon him.

He was thankful that the way to her house lay beyond the village and not through it. He would never dare to show himself there on his wheel. And the road to the lilies ran through the woods; none would see to-morrow when he went there with her.

She was already on the veranda in her bicycle suit when he rode up the next morning. She tied a basket of lunch to his wheel and a book to her own.

"You see we are going to stay all day," she said, "and I couldn't think of starting without refreshment for body and mind. My brother has an armful of new books which came from the city yesterday, and he didn't even hear me when I said good-bye."

They started, Miss Atherton chatting busily and Tony too happy to speak except in monosyllables. A turn in the road brought them to a branch of the river, white with lilies in full bloom. She dismounted with a little cry of delight. "Oh, how white and sweet they are!"

Tony found a boat moored by the side of the stream and they soon had gathered a great sheaf of the golden-hearted censers, rich with fragrance, which they covered with cool ferns in the shade of the trees until they should be ready to take them home. Being collected early in the day they were fresher and sweeter than if they had been allowed to feel the heat of the later morning sun.

The lilies well cared for, they sat down under a tree and she read to him the story of Launcelot. His brave deeds and manly service, his love for Guenevere, and the spirit of romance and knightly courage which seemed to fairly breathe from the pages, held Tony spellbound.

"Miss Atherton," he said wistfully, as she finished, "I'd like to be one of those fellows."

"You can be," she answered.

"How?" he asked, his eyes wide open in astonishment.

"Any man is a knight," she said, "who does what is given him to do, wisely and well. It's not the horses and the armour, Tony, it's the man, and you can be as brave and true as Launcelot, if you only will. Never permit yourself to speak, or even think slightingly of a woman, and if you have the opportunity to help one, do it at any cost. That's the foundation of true knighthood and true manhood, too. See, I give you my colours; be my knight if you will," and she leaned forward smilingly to tie a white fragrant scarf around his arm.

But to her surprise, Tony burst into tears. And then a part of his dream came true, for Miss Atherton put her arm around him and drew him close to her. "Tony, dear, what is it? Tell me!" With his face half buried in the sweet comforting place he had longed for, but had never known, he sobbed out all the bitterness of his heart. He told her of the taunts and jeers which made his crooked life a burden--of all the loneliness before he knew her, and someway too, he told her of his longing for his mother whom he had never seen, and whose place he had tried to fill with the picture of the Madonna.

That day in the woods gave Tony undreamed-of strength. He even offered to do Miss Atherton's errands at the store.

They did not know that he was a knight bearing his lady's colours--that he was in her service and would be to the very end of the world, for even death, he thought, could never make any difference in his loyalty to her. He was Launcelot and she was Guenevere--it was his secret, and even she must never know.

Toward the end of the summer he rode up to Miss Atherton's with a great bunch of goldenrod, which only he knew where to find. She came to the door white and worried. "My brother is very ill, Tony," she said, "and I have sent my groom for the doctor, but he has been gone so long that I fear something may have happened to him. Would you go--on your wheel?"

For a moment, as the vision of the village store, on the only street that led to the doctor's house, with its crowd of loafers came before him, Tony hesitated. Would Launcelot hesitate with Guenevere in need? "I'll go, Miss Atherton," he said quietly.

Terror struck him as he came in sight of the store and saw the men he most feared, sitting in front of it. Mutely praying for help, he bent to his pedals. But they had seen him, and rushed out into the street with a shout. It was an easy matter for them to stop his wheel.

"Let me go! Let me go!" he cried, "Miss Atherton's brother is sick, and I'm going for the doctor!"

"That's a likely story," said one of them. "Bet a hat you stole this velocipede. She wouldn't send a hunchy like you anywheres."

"Mebby she might," said the keeper of the store. "That's the city gal he's goin' to marry. I seen her in the woods kissin' him!"

White with rage, not for himself, but that the dear name of his Lady should be soiled by their lips, Tony raised his slender arm to strike. "Say what you please to me," he muttered between his clenched teeth, "but if you dare to even _speak_ of her, I'll----"

Tony said no more, for one of the men half crazed with liquor, lifted the bicycle suddenly, and with a single blow across the curve between his shoulders, dashed him heavily to the ground. Thoroughly frightened, the crowd dispersed leaving Tony in the dusty road, amid the wreck of his wheel.

Meanwhile the doctor had arrived with Miss Atherton's servant. In half an hour the invalid was resting quietly, and as the doctor took his leave, Miss Atherton told him how she had sent Tony after him on his bicycle only a few minutes before he arrived.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said. "There's a rough crowd of men in the town, and they are very likely to harm the little chap if they have half a chance. I'll look for him as I go home and have him come and tell you that he is safe."

Not a man was in sight when the doctor found Tony, and even the shades of the store windows were closely drawn.

After vainly knocking at the door, he smashed in the window with a strong stick, and entering, found the men who were wont to loaf in front of the store, huddled in a corner of it. With the voice of one accustomed to command, he made them improvise a stretcher under his directions, and three of them helped him carry Tony home.

The doctor shook his head gravely when questioned as to the extent of the injury. "Some one must stay with him to-night," he said.

One of the men volunteered, but a look of such helpless terror came into Tony's eyes, that he sent them all away, telling the last one to go for Miss Atherton.

It was from him that she learned the whole story and fairly trembling with indignation, turned upon him.

"There isn't one of you in this whole village worthy to touch even the hand of the boy you have killed to-day. He was a man--you are nothing but brutes. Now go, and never let me see your face again."

The doctor met her at the door of Tony's little house. "You'd better stay with him," he said in a low tone. "He can't last until morning, and your brother will be perfectly safe with the nurse. I'll go up to your house and send down anything you may need. My man will come and stay within call."

Miss Atherton gave him a note to the nurse, and then went in to Tony. His eyes brightened at the sight of her, and he tried to speak.

"Hush, dear," she said, "it's all right. The doctor came just after you left, and my brother is in no danger now. I've come to stay with you."

Her cool hand brushed back the hair from his forehead, and moved by an impulse of womanly pity, she knelt beside him and laid her cheek against his own. He closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.

Her eyes wandered around the little room. A table stood in the corner of it. A cabinet photograph of herself in a pasteboard frame, around which Tony had painted a wreath of pond-lilies, stood in the centre of it beside a cracked cup filled with early autumn flowers. The flute lay straight across the front, like a votive offering, and underneath the photograph was written in his large, unformed hand: "My Guenevere."

At last she understood, and feeling that his little shrine was too holy for even her eyes to see, she turned them away.

Tony stirred, and she slipped her arm under his shoulders.

"Miss Atherton?"

"Yes, dear."

"Did--did--they--tell you--what they said?"

"Yes, dear." Her eyes filled.

"I didn't mind--for myself--but----"

"Hush, dear; I know."

Feeling herself unworthy in the presence of a true knightly soul, Miss Atherton held him untiringly in her arms. When he cried out with pain, she drew him close to her, and pillowed his head upon her breast. "Am--I--going to--die--Miss Atherton?"

She could hardly whisper the words: "I am afraid so, Tony."

"Will you--stay--until----"

"Yes, dear."

"And--afterward--you won't let--them--touch me?"

"No, Tony, no."

His eyes followed hers as she looked at the little shrine again.

"Do you mind?" he whispered anxiously. "I thought--you wouldn't know--if I called--you--Guenevere--at home."

"Tony, dear, no queen ever had a braver, truer knight than you have been to me. Even Launcelot was not half so noble in the service of Guenevere, as you have been in mine."

He smiled happily and seemed to sleep again.

Just at dawn, he said weakly: "Miss Atherton?"

"What is it, Tony?"

"The lilies--are opening--about now,--ar'n't they?"

"I shouldn't wonder. Is there anything you want?"

"Would--you--you--kiss me--just--once? I used--to dream--you did--and--and----"

With a sob she could not hide, she drew him close. He sighed contentedly as he put his frail arms around her, like a weary child, and with his Guenevere's kisses on his lips and brow, her little Launcelot blossomed into the light of which she had told him.

Her Volunteer

Her Volunteer

The flags fluttered listlessly in the warm spring air, and the little group on Jean Perry's piazza was scarcely more energetic. There was a martial significance in the atmosphere, for the heavy tread of battalions reverberated in the hearts of those who had seen one war, and came forth with sudden force to those who were about to live through it for the first time. Yet, the few who lounged in hammocks spoke in depreciation.

"The regular army is enough," said one; "that's what those fellows are for. As for me, I'm not anxious to be shot at. I would rather be excused."

Two or three of the others agreed, but Jack Terrence was watching Jean with grave trouble in his face. At the first sneering comment her eyes had flashed and then filled; now her breast was heaving with excitement, and her sensitive mouth was quivering.

A passing breeze stirred the scarlet veined folds of the flag above her, and for a moment it seemed to wave in proud defiance. But even as the century of its glorious history came back to her, one of the men looking at it reminiscently, was moved to languid speech.

"Funny thing, that rag up there--I suppose it really means a great deal to some people!"

"Do you honestly think so?" Jean's voice carried a note of fearful scorn. "I am proud to say that I am one of the people to whom it means something--more than your little mind can comprehend. If I could die fighting for it, and have it wrapped round me at the last, it would be glory enough for one small life, but I'm only a miserable woman, and I have to stay at home. Why ar'n't you in the ranks, fighting like a man? What do you think would become of your country if all the men were like you?" She ended convincingly.

The astonished individual whom she addressed made the earliest exit compatible with his dignity. The girls followed by twos and threes, and at last the time came to which Terrence had looked forward for an hour--a solitary moment with Jean.

"Let's go down to the river," he said, after waiting for her to speak. He took possession of her in the calm, masterful way that rests and soothes a nervous woman, and as his ring on her finger gave him the right to do. He found her hat and put it on her unresisting head without jabbing her with the pins, for which, even in her excitement, she was dimly grateful.

"You're such a comfort, Jack," she sighed restfully, as they strolled in the afternoon sunshine to the bank of the little noisy stream, that by courtesy was called a river.

"I get tired and fretted, and when you come it's just like putting on a pair of old shoes after you've been wearing new ones."

Terrence laughed. He was used to Jean's queer similes, and loved her all the more for her unexpectedness.

"You take things too seriously, dear, but just the same I was very proud of you this afternoon. You scattered the enemy's forces neatly." He laughed again, but this time there was no mirth in his face. "I was glad, too, Jean, because it makes it easier to speak of something I've been thinking about for the last two weeks."

For an instant her heart stood still. She did not need to be told what had made him unlike his sunny self for the past few days. He turned his face away that he might not see the trouble in hers. She began to understand.

After a little he spoke again. "Dear little woman," he said softly, "it all rests with you. It is for you to decide--not me. If you feel that my first duty is to you, you have only to say the word; if you feel that, dearly as I love you, there is something beyond that, you--you need not speak at all."

They were sitting on the bank of the stream now, and the late afternoon light was playing upon its rippling surface, while a glory of crimson and gold touched each rock and tree.

Half-way up the hill beyond, was a tiny two-story house in process of construction. On the crest, where the sun might shine on it longest, the flag seemed beckoning to them both. They felt its meaning.

"Jean," said Jack again, and his lips trembled as they said the little name, "is the roof of our home coming between us and our flag?"

"If it did," she answered slowly, "it could only be a house--not a home."

In those few moments she had fought a gallant battle with herself. She was white now, but there was new strength in her voice.

"Brave heart," said Terrence tenderly, "I knew what you would say!"

Then he went on to tell her of the regiment that was forming, and in which he had been offered a position in the line of promotion.

Something of the old fire came into her eyes. "Never mind position or promotion. Put on the private's uniform and fight in the ranks and be glad you've got the health and the strength and the right to do it. Though," she added, as an afterthought, "I'd try to be reconciled to it, even if you were a major-general." She smiled slyly.

There was no one to see him put his arm around her in the twilight and draw her close. The soft melody of the little stream, as it hurried noisily away, and the drowsy chirp of the birds came dreamily into the summer stillness. Up on the hill, like a parting benediction, a soft sunset glow trembled and shone around the flag.

"My sweetheart," he said, "I want to tell you something for you to remember for all time." A lump came into his throat, but he choked it down and went on. "It sounds like a joke in a comic paper for me to say you're the only woman I ever loved; but it's true, and you know it is, and it's the kind of love that couldn't die with the body of either of us, don't you know that, dear?"

A sob from Jean made him draw her closer still. "So I want to tell you now that, whatever happens, that will always be the same--nothing can ever change that. I want you to remember that. I haven't half deserved the love you've given me, but it's the sweetest thing God ever let a man dream of, and it's made me a better man, Jean, and there won't be a moment while I'm away that I won't see your dear face, because I'm fighting for you as well as for my dear country--to be the man you want me to be, and to make you proud of your volunteer."

The succeeding days were all confusion and preparation. To Terrence, they were days of drill, recruiting and unaccustomed labour; to Jean they were days of heartache, mingled with a strange pride that was neither wholly happiness nor wholly pain.

The day came at last when the regiment was ordered forward, and the whole town turned out to give its boys a rousing farewell. The love of fight, mingled with the stern discipline and cool courage of the Anglo-Saxon, was in the face of every man in the regiment.

Jean never forgot the spectacle as they formed in marching ranks. In spite of the pain at her heart, she was unreasonably proud at the sight of Jack in his new uniform--not that of a private, as she had wished him to go, but as first lieutenant, looking very handsome.

The long column swung into line. Quick and short came the word of command. Her eyes were upon her volunteer, and across the crowd of waiting thousands, he saw only her--cheeks crimson with pride, eyes sweet with love, and lips that trembled and tried to be brave in spite of all.

"Forward, march!" It was the summons to the glory and the agony of battle for those who kept time with the music. It was the summons to as brave a faith to those who remained behind.

After the first shock was over, Jean became almost happy. Jack wrote letters full of hope and good spirits. Every amusing thing that happened in camp, he stored away to write to Jean. He even had a little note-book in which to jot down, from time to time, things which would interest her. This was a never failing source of pleasure to his mates, and he was enthusiastically "guyed" by every man in the company. Of course he told her this, and, womanlike, Jean was much pleased.

Boxes of home delicacies sent to Jack filled the entire company with a beautiful admiration for "Terrence's girl." Magazines, papers and letters almost flooded the mails.

"Poor Terrence is getting pale," said one of them at mess.

"Separation," suggested the corporal.

"Naw," rejoined the other. "It's carryin' his mail from the post-office to his tent. That's what's wearin' on him."

Like a happy lover, Terrence took the jokes cheerfully. The routine of camp life made some of the men complain bitterly, but he said never a word. It was for his country--and Jean.

After two months of waiting, the regiment was ordered to the front and the old confusion began again. The night in camp was a memorable one. Already the star-spangled flag had been planted in new places, and the thirst for conquest, which is perhaps, more Anglo-Saxon than exclusively British, was upon every man in the army.

There is no need to write of the gallant charge at Santiago; no need to speak of the steadfast courage of those who faced three times their number in the narrow pass; no need to say that every lad in Uncle Sam's uniform proved himself to be the stuff of which Republics are built--for the world knows it all. Whatever criticism the strategists of the future, sitting in comfortable chairs, may make, as to tactics and military skill, the valour of the American army has been proved anew.

Up the burning, blazing heights, Lieutenant Terrence rushed with his men, stopping not for strange pitfalls and unknown dangers, facing volley after volley of explosive bullets, heeding not those who fell by the way, as long as through the smoke of battle, dimly lit by flash and flame, the flag called--"Follow!"

The orders had been brief: "Take the blockhouse on the height by storm." And the charge began with a cheer. But only twenty-two of the seventy-five men reached the summit, and after a fierce hand-to-hand conflict, dislodged the superior force. The rest lay upon the hillside,--some past help, and all exposed to the fire of an unchivalrous foe.

Lieutenant Terrence was among those reported "missing." The corporal spent the night in the underbrush with a lantern, but to no avail.

"Don't be so cut up, Johnny," said a messmate, "you can't do him no good."

"Maybe he fell off the side," replied the corporal, after a long silence, "and, anyway, it's his girl I'm thinking of. I'm going to find him for her."

Over the wire from headquarters came the list of killed, wounded and missing. Jean grasped the morning paper eagerly and then grew white "Missing! Missing!"

A dull dead weight settled down upon her like a suffocating pall. With sudden meaning, what he had said came back to her: "It's you I'm fighting for as well as for my country--to be the man you want me to be, and to make you proud of your volunteer."

The strained nerves and tortured heart could bear no more, and she was mercifully unconscious when they found her lying with the paper in her hands.

There were hushed whispers in the house for days to come, and the wires were kept busy with eager questionings. The old family physician was fighting an unequal battle with death for Jean had no desire to live.