The next morning the young folks gathered at Broad Acres. All the
school children were there except Albert Smith and Dick Osborne; and
Dick, poor boy, was toiling sullenly and alone in the garden at home.
The young war gardeners became so interested in the task they had set
themselves that they returned to it in the afternoon, and there Black
Mayo found them when he came to bring Mrs. Wilson some tomato plants.
“What is this, Agnes? a Chatterbox Club?” he inquired, setting a basket
carefully in a shaded place. “From the noise I heard at a distance, I
thought crows or blue jays might be holding a caucus in your garden.”
The young folks were duly indignant at the slander, and asserted that
their hands--most of them, anyway, and--well, most of the time--were
going as fast as their tongues.
“Come and see what we are doing,” invited Patsy. “Here are our
potatoes; we are giving half of our garden to them. Isn’t the soil
fine, and aren’t the rows pretty and even? Cousin Agnes showed us how
to lay them off, by a string tied to sticks at the ends of the row.”
“I wish the potatoes would hurry and come up,” said Sweet William, “so
I can get the bugs off them.”
“Hey, old scout!” said Black Mayo. “Are you in it, too?”
“Course I am,” was the complacent answer. “I was the first to join.
Wasn’t I, Cousin Agnes? I reckon I’ve walked ten miles--well, I know
I’ve walked a mile--to-day, carrying buckets of potatoes to the
children to plant. Didn’t I, Cousin Agnes?”
“You’ve been helping, dear. We couldn’t get on without you. Nothing in
The Village could get on without our Sweet William,” said Mrs. Wilson,
kissing him.
He accepted the caress soberly and then said with a little frown: “I
reckon I’m ’most too big for ladies to kiss.”
“Ah, Billy boy, you’ll change your mind in a few years,” laughed Black
Mayo. “What’s that bag-of-bonesy thing at your heels?”
“He’s my dog; he’s Scalawag,” the youngster explained with dignity.
“A dog, eh? A poor excuse for a dog! Where’d you get it?”
“I didn’t get him. He came and adopted me,” explained Sweet William.
“He’s a mighty good dog. See! He’s watching me like he wants to help.”
“Cousin Mayo, look at the bean rows I am laying off,” called Patsy.
“Really and truly, Cousin Mayo,” said Anne, “don’t you think it’s good
for us to have a garden?”
“Truly and really, my dear,” he said, “I think it’s splendid. You are
helping--and how much the willing, diligent children all over the
land can help!--in America’s work of saving the world from starving.
The fighters can’t farm, so we must feed the armies; and we have the
people of France and Belgium on our hearts and hands; and there are the
U-boats--we must have food enough to send another shipload for every
one they sink. It’s a big job.”
“We gardeners will do our part. I’m going to help when I come back in
June,” said Anne.
“She’s helping while she’s away, Cousin Mayo,” said Patsy. “She
suggested our having a garden. And her Happy Acres, all except the
flower part, is to be put in corn. Our Canning Club is going to can
corn and butterbeans and tomatoes together, to make Brunswick stew.
Cousin Agnes says we can surely sell all we put up.”
“The girls think pie of their old Canning Club,” said David, jealously.
“We boys are doing real work in our Corn Club, and we are going to have
a real garden; not dawdle around, like a parcel of girls.”
“Come, come!” chided Mr. Osborne. “You are working for the same cause.
You are in friendly camps, not hostile ones. By the way, what are their
names?”
“Names? They haven’t any,” said Patsy.
“Pshaw! They must have names; of course they must. Camp Feed Friend,
isn’t that a good name for yours, Patsy? And the boys’ plot can be Camp
Fight Foe.”
“All right,” said David; then he laughed. “Maybe the girls will raise
enough to feed Friend Humming Bird!”
“Here, my boy!” said Mr. Osborne. “It isn’t a sign of wisdom or
experience to be scornful of girls and women. You may do better work
than the girls; and then again you may not. Time will prove. Suppose
you keep a record of your work and have a competitive exhibition of
garden products this autumn. I’ll give a prize, the silver cup I cut my
teeth on, to the best gardeners.”
“Fine!” said Steve. “That cup is as good as ours.”
“‘There’s many a slip
’Twixt cup and lip,’”
Patsy reminded him, with a saucy tilt of her chin.
Mr. Osborne laughed. “Well, while I loaf here, my work’s getting no
forwarder. I must go home. By the way, Agnes, I have two or three
bushels of potatoes for you that I’ll send----”
“But, Mayo, you can’t spare----”
“Neither could you,” he said, looking at the war-garden rows. “G’by!
Oh, I was forgetting the pigeon I brought Dick.” He picked up his
basket. “Poor hungry bird!”
“Hungry? Let me feed it,” said Mrs. Wilson. “Here are a few peas left
in my seed box.”
“Oh, no! no, thank you,” he answered. “It is a racing pigeon that I’m
beginning to train. It must start off hungry, so it will fly home to be
fed.”
“Let me see it, Cousin Mayo; please let me take it in my hands,” said
Anne. She cuddled the dove against her cheek. “What a pretty, gentle
bird it is! The emblem of peace, isn’t it? Oh, what a shame it seems to
send it from this quiet, sweet place to those terrible battlefields!”
Mr. Osborne put one caressing hand on the bird and the other on Anne’s
head.
“These God’s dear creatures bear messages of help and rescue through
the battle cloud; they soar above and beyond it, and their wings catch
the eternal sunshine. Ah! our doves of war are still--are more than
ever--the birds of peace. For this war isn’t just a fight for territory
and undisturbed sea ways; it is a war for freedom and human rights, and
so for true and lasting peace. Agnes,” he turned to Mrs. Wilson, “have
you given our young folks the President’s message?”
“Not yet,” she answered.
“Not yet!” he repeated reproachfully. “And already it is being read in
French schools. It is a part of the history of our times, of all time;
it’s like the Declaration of Independence, but wider, higher, grander.”
“I’m going to read it to my history class,” said Mrs. Wilson.
“To every one of these young folks, from primer babies up, and
now,” Black Mayo said impetuously. “Get the paper. Let’s sit in
the summerhouse here and fancy it’s the Capitol and this is the
history-making night of April 2d.
“Here we are, waiting for the President. He’s coming. The throngs on
the streets are cheering him at every step. The floor of the House is
crowded,--its own members, senators, Cabinet officers, judges of the
Supreme Court, representatives of the Allied nations. The galleries,
too, are crowded; people waited at the doors for hours for the precious
privilege of a seat.
“The President rises, solemn and resolute with a great duty. He stands
there before the House, before the world for all time. He is America
speaking. He gives the message that devotes a hundred million people to
war for American rights and world freedom.
“It is done. He turns to go. And now, ah! now statesmen are not
Democrats, not Republicans; they are only patriots. Men who have stood
with the President, men who have stood against him, throng shoulder to
shoulder to clasp his hand and pledge themselves to support him in this
sacred cause. Only the ‘little group of willful men’ stands shamefully
apart.
“Here are the words that expressed and inspired the soul of America.”
And then Mayo Osborne read the President’s war message.
“‘The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;
they cut to the very roots of human life....
“‘We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted
that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong
done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are
observed among the individual citizens of civilized states....
“‘The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish
ends to serve. We desire no conquests, no dominion. We seek no
indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
we shall freely make....
“‘The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their
own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a
universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall
bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last
free.
“‘To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those
who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend
her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she has treasured.
“‘God helping her, she can do no other.’”
There was a minute of silence at the end.
With eyes shining through tears, Mrs. Wilson turned to her daughter.
“Oh, Ruth, Ruth!” she said. “If only you were a boy in khaki, and I at
your side!”
“Oh, mother! I w-w-wish I were!” cried Ruth.
“It’s wonderful!” Black Mayo tapped the paper with a thoughtful finger.
“He Americanizes the war, and does it by putting aside everything for
which the ‘land of dollars’ is supposed to stand and upholding our old
high ideals. No indemnity, no conquests. The _Lusitania_ was an insult
to our flag; more than that, it was a dishonor to humanity.”
“He starts us on a high-going road,” said Mrs. Wilson.
“Please,” broke in David, “let’s finish planting our corn before dark.”
“Righto, boy!” exclaimed Black Mayo, jumping up. “And my plow’s
standing still. Geminy! how time flies!”
He hurried away and the war gardeners went back to work.
“Will you look who’s coming?” Patsy exclaimed presently, glancing
toward the gate. “Jeff Spencer and Will Eppes!”
Mrs. Wilson hastened to meet the visitors who had been her pupils from
A B C days till they went to university and engineering corps.
“Why, Jeff! I didn’t know you were at home!” she said, shaking hands
with the boy in front, a pleasant-looking, round-faced fellow, so fat
that he resembled a well-stuffed pincushion.
“I--I am not at the University any longer, Miss Agnes,” he said soberly.
“Not at the University!” She looked at him in dismay. He had always
been a mischievous chap, and she had had her doubts and fears about his
college course, but gradually these had subsided. Now he was in his
senior year; and here he was back home. What scrape had he got into?
Jeff’s light-blue eyes were twinkling, and now he laughed till his
fair, freckled face reddened to the roots of his sandy hair.
“I always could get a rise out of you, Miss Agnes!” he said. “Here you
are wondering what I’ve done to get sent away from the University, just
as mother did. And it never occurred to you that I’ve left of my own
free will.” A new light came into the bright eyes. “I’ve enlisted. And,
gee! won’t a uniform be full of me!”
“Enlisted!” she echoed. “But, Jeff, your mother--she always said she
could never consent to----”
“Oh, she’s a trump, the ace of trumps! Of course she hates war. The War
took so many of her people--her father and both her uncles--and all the
things. She knows what war is. But when I put it up to her, she said
‘Go!’ Of course I’d have had to do it anyway. I couldn’t look myself in
the face in a mirror if I sat safe at home and let others risk their
lives to make the world a decent place for me to live in. So I’ve come
to say good-by to you who”--he returned to his waggish tone--“put me up
to going.”
“I?” She was amazed. “Why, Jeff, I’ve not seen you even to say
‘how-dye-do’ since war was declared.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about lately. It was the way you taught us
history; not Jack’s book that was so dry every time we turned a page it
raised dust, but in spite of it you made us know what America stands
for, the things for which a man ought to be willing and glad to risk
his life. Grandmother says”--he grinned--“I’m fighting for Confederate
principles, the right of self-government. Isn’t she a darling, red-hot
old Southerner?”
“And I’m going, too, Cousin Agnes,” said William Eppes. “I didn’t know
it till yesterday; but father knew it.”
“Your father knew it?” she repeated.
“Yes’m. He’d been might quiet lately, and at last he came out with,
‘there never had been an American war without an Eppes in it, and here
are the two of us, and I can take my choice; but he hoped I’d stay at
home and let him go, being a Spanish-American vet.’ I asked him if
he knew what a whopper he was telling. Why, he’d have dropped in his
tracks if I had showed the white feather and said I wasn’t willing to
go. But I just hadn’t thought of it. It didn’t take me two secs to
decide. Of course I’m going.”
“And so you boys are joining the army; going to France to fight.”
It seemed but yesterday since they were little fellows in her primer
class. And now they were going, with the bodies and hearts of men, to
do men’s work in the world. Through the mist in her eyes she had a
vision: New pages of the history book opened, heroes walked out, took
form and life; lo! they were her own schoolboys--shy Fayett Mallett,
mischievous Jeff Spencer, slow William Eppes--and others, others would
come. Why, here were the youngsters, even little Sweet William, putting
aside play to do their part.
“Oh, goody! goody!” Sweet William was saying now, in his high, eager
little voice. “We’ve got soldiers, our own soldiers, to send things
to. Come on, Jeff; you and Will, look at our gardens.”
And then half a dozen, talking at once, explained about Camp Fight Foe
and Camp Feed Friend.
“I’m surely glad to see these gardens,” said Jeff. “I always was a
hearty eater, and my ‘stomach for fighting’ needs to be a full one.
We’re going to claim the best food we see over there, aren’t we, Bill?
biggest potatoes and sweetest beans, for I know they’ll come from The
Village straight to us.”
“We’ll think of you when the weather gets warm, and we’ll work hard and
not loaf on the job,” said Alice Blair.
“Thank you,” said William. “It seems a shame for you to tan your face
and blister your hands--for us.”
“I like to do it--for you,” said Alice; and then she blushed.
“I should think you’d be going to Fort Myer, Jeff,” said David.
“Well, I did think about the O. T. C.,” answered Jeff; “but I felt
sorry for those poor officers. It seemed to me they need a few privates
under them; so I decided to be in the ranks. And I’m going to try to
get with Northern boys.”
“Jeff Spencer! Why----”
“So I can do missionary work,” he explained. “Those Harvard chaps I
met on our last game--bully fellows they were!--thought the old United
States began in 1620 on Plymouth Rock. I broke to ’em the news about
1607 and Jamestown,--that before their _Mayflower_ sailed, Virginia was
here, with a House of Burgesses standing for freemen’s rights, just as
we’re standing to-day. Hurrah for Jamestown and Woodrow Wilson!”
The enthusiasm excited by the President’s message and the volunteers
extended to the smallest small boys. For weeks they had been carrying
on a war play on their way home from school. Now the game was blocked.
The boys who had composed the kaiser’s forces refused to be Germans;
they were Americans.
At last, after a whispered consultation with Jeff Spencer, Joe Eppes
said with a grin: “Oh, wait a minute. I’ll be the Germans one more
time; I’ll be them all, kaiser and generals and army.”
He ran home and soon came back, wearing a German helmet made of an old
derby hat with a tin oil can fastened on top of it.
He did the goosestep backward down the hill, shouting, “On! on! on!
straight to Paris!” At Tinkling Water, he swaggered on the foot log
and tumbled, with a mighty splash, into the water, to the huge delight
of the other children who loudly applauded the ignominious end of the
German forces.