_By_ HARRISON RHODES
From _Harper’s Magazine_
_Copyright, 1918, by Harper and Brothers._
_Copyright, 1919, by Harrison Rhodes._
The pretty, peaceful Jersey farm-land slopes gently up from the Delaware
River to the little hill which Princeton crowns. It is uneventful
country. The railway does not cross it, nor any of the great motor trunk
roads. On the river itself there is no town of considerable size, though
on the map you read the quaint name of Washington Crossing for a little
hamlet of a few houses. This will remind you of the great days when on
these sleepy fields great history was made. But the fields have lain
quiet in the sun now for more than a century, and even the legends of
Revolutionary days are for the most part forgotten along these country
roads.
As for modern legends, the very phrase seems proof of their
impossibility. And in spite of her spacious and resounding past, New
Jersey’s name now seems to mean incorporations and mosquitoes and
sea-bathing and popcorn-crisp rather than either legend or romance. But
with the coming of the Great War strange things are stirring in the
world, and in the farthest corners of the land the earth is shaken by
the tramp of new armies. In the skies by day and night there is a sign.
And the things one does not believe can happen may be happening, even in
New Jersey.
The small events on the Burridge Road which are here set down cannot
even be authenticated. There are people down by the river who say they
saw a single horseman go through the village at dusk, but not one seems
to know which way he came. There is no ferry at Washington Crossing and
the bridge at Lambertville had, since three that afternoon, been closed
for repairs. What facts are set down here—and indeed they are scarcely
facts—were acquired because a chauffeur missed the road and a motor then
broke down. What story there is—and indeed there is perhaps not much
story—has been pieced together from fragments collected that afternoon
and evening. And if the chronicle as now written is vague, it can be
urged that, though it all happened so recently as last year, it is
already as indeterminate and misty as a legend.
We may, however, begin with undisputed facts. When her grandson enlisted
for the war old Mrs. Buchan became very genuinely dependent on the
little farm that surrounded the lovely old Colonial house on the
Burridge Road. (Meadows, and horses, and hay and the quality and price
of it, have much to do with our story—as, indeed, befits a rural
chronicle.) The farm had been larger once, and the hospitality which the
old house could dispense more lavish. Indeed, the chief anecdote in its
history had been the stopping there once of Washington, to dine and rest
on his way to join the army in New York. Old Mrs. Buchan, who, for all
her gentleness, was incurably proud, laid special stress on the fact
that on _that_ night the great man had not been at an inn—which was in
the twentieth century to cheapen his memory by a sign-board appeal to
automobile parties—but at a gentleman’s house. A gentleman’s house it
still was; somehow the Buchans had always managed to live like
gentlemen. But if George, the gay, agreeable last one of them, could
also live that way, it was because his grandmother practised rigid
heart-breaking economy. The stories of her shifts and expedients were
almost fables of the countryside. When George came home—he had a small
position in a New York broker’s office—there was gaiety and plenty. He
might well have been deceived into thinking that the little he sent home
from New York was ample for her needs. But when he went back his
grandmother lived on nothing, or less than that. She dressed for dinner,
so they said, in black silk and old lace, had the table laid with
Lowestoft china and the Buchan silver, and ate a dish of corn-meal mush,
or something cheaper if that could be found!
George Buchan’s enlistment—it was in the aviation service—had been
early. And very early he was ordered to France to finish his training
there. Two days before he expected his ship to sail the boy got a few
hours’ furlough and came to the Burridge Road to say good-by to his
grandmother.
What was said we must imagine. He was all the old lady had left in the
world. But no one ever doubted that she had kissed him and told him to
go, and to hold his head high as suited an American and a Buchan.
Georgie would perhaps have had no very famous career in Wall Street, but
no one doubted that he would make a good soldier. There had always been
a Buchan in the armies of the Republic, his grandmother must have
reminded him. And very likely Georgie, kissing her, had reminded her
that there had always been a Buchan woman at home to wish the men God
speed as they marched away, and told her too to hold her old head high.
There must have been some talk about the money that there wouldn’t be
now; without his little weekly check she was indeed almost penniless. It
is quite likely that they spoke of selling the house and decided against
it. Part of the boy’s pay was of course to come to his grandmother, but,
as she explained, there were so many war charities needing that, and
then the wool for her knitting— She must manage mostly with the farm.
There was always the vegetable-garden, and a few chickens, and the green
meadow, which might be expected to yield a record crop of hay.
We may imagine that the two—old lady and boy—stepped out for a moment
into the moonlit night to look at the poor little domain of Buchan that
was left. Under the little breeze that drifted up from the Delaware the
grass bent in long waves like those of the summer seas that Georgie was
to cross to France. As the Buchans looked at it they might have felt
some wonder at the century-old fertility of the soil. Back in the days
of the Revolution Washington’s horse had pastured there one night. Then,
and in 1812, and during the great battle of the States, the grass had
grown green and the hay been fragrant, and the fat Jersey earth had out
of its depths brought forth something to help the nation at war. Such a
field as that by the old white house can scarcely be thought of as a
wild, primeval thing; it has lived too long under the hand of man. This
was a Buchan field, George’s meadow, and by moonlight it seemed to wave
good-by to him.
“You aren’t dependent on me now, dear,” he may have said, with his arm
around his grandmother. “I just leave you to our little garden patch and
our chickens and the green meadow.”
“You mustn’t worry, dear. They’ll take care of me,” she must have
answered.
So George went away; and the night after, the night before he sailed,
the horseman and his company came.
――――
It was at dusk, and a gossamer silvery mist had drifted up from the
Delaware. He had hitched his horse by the gate. He was in
riding-breeches and gaiters and a rather old-fashioned riding-coat. And
in the band of his hat he had stuck a small American flag which looked
oddly enough almost like a cockade. He knocked at the door, quite
ignoring the new electric bell which George had installed one idle
Sunday morning when his grandmother had felt he should have been at
church. As it happened, old Mrs. Buchan had been standing by the window,
watching the mist creep up and the twilight come, thinking of Georgie so
soon to be upon the water. As the horseman knocked she, quite suddenly
and quite contrary to her usual custom, went herself to the door.
His hat was immediately off, swept through a nobler circle than the
modern bow demands, and he spoke with the elaboration of courtesy which
suited his age; for, though his stride was vigorous, he was no longer
young. It was a severe, careworn face of a stern, almost hard, nobility
of expression. Yet the smile when it came was engaging, and old Mrs.
Buchan, as she smiled in return, found herself saying to herself that no
Southerner, however stern, could fail to have this graceful lighter
side. For his question had been put in the softer accents of Virginia
and of the states farther south.
“I’ve lost my way,” he began, with the very slightest, small, gay laugh.
But he was instantly serious. “It is so many, many years since I was
here.”
Mrs. Buchan pointed up the road.
“That is the way to Princeton.”
“Princeton, of course. That’s where we fought the British and beat them.
It seems strange, does it not, that we now fight with them?”
“We must forget the Revolution now, must we not?” This from Mrs. Buchan.
“Forget the Revolution!” he flashed back at her, almost angrily. Then
more gently: “Perhaps. If we remember liberty!” He glanced an instant up
the road to Princeton hill and then went on. “They fought well then,
madam. As a soldier I am glad to have such good allies. But I was
forgetting. Yonder lies Princeton, and from there there is the post-road
to New York, is there not? I must be in New York by morning.”
Mrs. Buchan was old-fashioned, but she found herself murmuring amazedly
something about railroads and motor-cars. But he did not seem to hear
her.
“Yes,” he continued, “I must be in New York by morning. The first
transport with our troops sails for France.”
“I know,” she said, proudly. “My grandson, George Buchan, sails for
France.”
“George Buchan? There was a George Buchan fought at Princeton, I
remember.”
“There was. And another George Buchan in the War of Eighteen-twelve. And
a John in the Mexican War. And a William in eighteen sixty-three. There
was no one in the Spanish War—my son was dead and my grandson was too
young. But now he is ready.”
“Every American is ready,” her visitor answered. “I am ready.”
“You?” she broke out. And for the first time she seemed to see that his
hair was white. “Are you going?”
“Every one who has ever fought for America is going. There is a company
of them behind me. Listen.”
Down the road there was faintly to be heard the clatter of hoofs.
“Some joined me in Virginia, some as we crossed the Potomac by
Arlington, where there is a house which once belonged to a relative of
mine. And there were others, old friends, who met me as we came through
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. You would not now know Valley Forge,” he
finished, half to himself.
The river mist had crept farther up and was a little thicker now. The
moon had risen and the mist shimmered and shone almost as if by its own
light. The world was indeed of the very substance of a dream. The
hoofbeats on the road grew nearer, and at last, while old Mrs. Buchan
stood in a kind of amazed silence, they came into sight, even then mere
shadowy, dim, wavering figures behind the gossamer silver veil which had
drifted there from the lovely Delaware. The horses looked lean and
weary, though perhaps this was a trick of the moonlight. Yet they
dropped their heads and began eagerly to crop the short, dusty grass by
the roadside. The moonlight seemed to play tricks with their riders,
too. For in the fog some of them seemed to have almost grotesquely
old-fashioned clothes, though all had a sort of military cut to them.
Some few, indeed, were trim and modern. But the greater part were, or
seemed to Mrs. Buchan to be, in shabby blue or worn gray. The chance
combination of the colors struck her. She was an old woman and she could
remember unhappy far-off days when blue and gray had stood for the fight
of brother against brother. Into her eyes the tears came, yet she
suddenly smiled through them—a pair of quite young men lounged toward
the fence, and then stood at ease there, the blue-clad arm of one
affectionately and boyishly thrown around the other’s gray shoulder.
“These go with you?” asked old Mrs. Buchan, still held by her memories.
“Yes. They are of all kinds and all ages, and some of them were not
always friends. But you see—” He smiled and pointed to the lads by the
fence. “One of them is from Virginia and the other from Ohio. Virginia
and Ohio fought once. But I only say that I can remember that Ohio was
part of Virginia once long ago. And is not Virginia part of Ohio and
Ohio part of Virginia again now? I should be pushing on, however, not
talking. It is the horses that are tired, not the men.”
“And hungry?” suggested Mrs. Buchan.
“The horses, yes, poor beasts!” he answered. “For the men it does not
matter. Yet we must reach New York by morning. And it is a matter of
some five-and-fifty miles.”
“Rest a half-hour and let the horses graze. You can make it by sunrise.”
Mrs. Buchan went a little way down the path. It was lined with pink and
white clove-pinks and their fragrance was sweet in the night.
“Open the gate there to the left, men,” she called out, and her voice
rang, to her, unexpectedly strong and clear. “Let the horses graze in my
green meadow if they will.”
They gave an answering cheer from out the mist. She saw the meadow gate
swing open and the lean horses pass through, a long, long file of them.
“But they will spoil your hay crop,” objected the horseman. “And it
should be worth a fair sum to you.”
Mrs. Buchan drew herself up. “It is of no consequence,” she answered.
He bowed again.
“But I don’t understand,” she almost pleaded, staring again at his white
hair and the little flag in his hatband that looked so oddly like a
cockade. “You say you sail to-morrow with my boy?”
“I think you understand as well as any one.”
“Do I?” she whispered. And the night suddenly seemed cold and she drew
her little shawl of Shetland wool more tightly about her shoulders. Yet
she was not afraid.
Her guest stooped and, rising, put one of her sweet-smelling clove-pinks
in his button-hole.
“If you permit, I will carry it for your boy to France. We are extra
men, supercargo,” he went on. “We shall cross with every boat-load of
boys who sail for France—we who fought once as they must fight now. They
said of me, only too flatteringly, that I was first in peace. Now I must
be first in war again. I must be on the first troop-ship that goes. And
I shall find friends in France. We have always had friends in France, I
imagine, since those first days. Of course, madam, you are too young to
remember the Marquis de la Fayette.”
“Yes, I am too young,” answered old Mrs. Buchan. And she smiled through
her tears at the thought of her eighty years.
“You’re a mere chit of a girl, of course,” he laughed—one of the few
times his gravity was relaxed. “Shall I know your boy, I wonder?” Then,
without waiting for her answer, “The George Buchan who fought at the
battle of Princeton was about twenty-two, slim and straight, with blue
eyes and brown hair and an honest, gallant way with him, and a smile
that one remembered.”
“You will know my boy,” she told him. “And I think he will know you,
General.”
Even now she swears she does not quite know what she meant by this. The
magic of the June night had for the moment made everything possible. Yet
she will not to this day say who she thinks the horseman may have been.
Only that George would know him, as she had.
“I want them all to know that I am there,” he had replied. “They will
know. They will remember their country’s history even as we remember.
And when the shells scream in the French sky they will not forget the
many times America has fought for liberty. They will not forget those
early soldiers. And they will not forget Grant and Lee and Lincoln. The
American eagle, madam, has a very shrill note. I think it can be heard
above the whistle of German shrapnel.”
――――
He drank a glass of sherry before he went, and ate a slice of
sponge-cake. Perhaps altogether he delayed a scant quarter of an hour.
The lean horses came streaming forth from the green meadow, a long, long
file; and while the moon and the river mist still made it a world of
wonder, the company, larger somehow than she had thought it at first,
clattered off up the Princeton road toward New York and salt water and
the ships.
The mist cleared for a moment and the great green meadow was seen, so
trampled that it seemed that a thousand horses must have trampled it. Al
Fenton, dignified by Mrs. Buchan as “the farmer,” had now belatedly
roused and dressed himself. He stood by the old lady’s side and
dejectedly surveyed the ruin of the hay crop. He is a sober, stupid,
serious witness of what had happened. And this is important; for when
the sun rose, and Mrs. Buchan opened her window, the breeze from the
river rippled in long green waves over a great green meadow where the
grass still pointed heavenward, untrampled, undisturbed. The Buchan
meadow could still, as George had believed it would, take care of his
grandmother.
This is the story, to be believed, or not, as you like. They do as they
like about it in Jersey. But old Mrs. Buchan believes that with each
American troop-ship there will sail supercargo, extra men. And she
believes that with these extra men we cannot lose the fight. George,
too, writes home to her that we shall win.