to school before the doors were opened, decided to allow ten minutes
extra that morning. At exactly half-past eight, the Scotch janitor
always took down the big bar which held the double doors in place, and
Theodora was invariably the first one in. It was not necessary for her
to get there until ten minutes of nine, but she never ran the slightest
risk of being tardy. In all her life, she had never been tardy or
absent.
'Don’t worry about me, mother, if I’m late to luncheon,' said Theodora,
as she appeared in the dining-room door. 'It’s so snowy that it will
take me longer than usual.'
'Theodora, child,' remonstrated Mrs. Bowles, 'surely you don’t think
that I’m going to allow you to go to school?'
'Why, yes, mother,' said Theodora, with horrible misgiving none the
less.
'You couldn’t get there alive,' declared her mother. 'There’s no one on
the street. It would be positively suicidal.'
Theodora began with tears, and just the usual methods of teasing; then,
finding these trusty old friends unavailing, she launched forth into
impromptu diplomatic schemes for extracting a 'yes.' She tried to trap
her mother by means of a system of cross-questioning, and she endeavored
to weary her, until she should impatiently exclaim, 'Oh, for mercy’s
sake, _go_!'
But her mother, for once, was relentless. Her father had given up all
idea of going to his office, and while Theodora was arguing with her
mother, Mr. Bowles went down cellar to build a furnace fire. He very
rarely visited the cellar, and when he did, he always returned
tremendously upset about something or other. Consequently, Theodora
teased in a low voice so that her father shouldn’t hear her through the
registers. She hoped to win her mother’s consent and get away before
her father wrathfully returned. Mrs. Bowles, however, seemed to get more
flinty-hearted every minute. When ten minutes of nine came, and then
nine minutes of nine, Theodora realized that never again, in all her
life, could she say, 'I have never been tardy.'
She still hoped, however, that some higher power would intervene, and
see to it that she got to school at nine. To be tardy was disgraceful
enough, but to be absent was a crime that could never be expiated.
Suddenly she ran into the library, and knelt rigidly on a rug which she
had heard her mother refer to as a 'prayer rug.' And she all but prayed
the soul out of her body that the rug would change into a magic carpet
on which she could be transported to school. She must have invoked the
wrong deity, for the rug did not stir even a hair’s breadth. But perhaps
kneeling was not enough; perhaps one ought to lie prone on the rug and
pray.
She had just stretched out, full-length, face down, when the hall clock
boomed the fatal nine. Now she was both tardy and absent. She was just
like any other ordinary human child--she was undistinguished in any way.
Well, there was really no use in continuing to live, and oh, for a
convenient way to die! How badly her mother and father would feel when
they found her stretched dead on the piano bench, and how they would
blame themselves for not allowing her to have her way!
Weeping miserably from self-pity, Theodora pulled off her things, and
sat down to look out at the storm, and plan her end.
'Come, Pussy, don’t mope!' exclaimed her father. He had just finished a
bitter dissertation on the short life of the modern coal-shovel when
handled by the choreman of to-day, and was beginning to feel very
good-natured again. 'Let’s play backgammon.'
'I’m tardy, and I’m absent!' moaned Theodora, who had about abandoned
the idea of dying, in favor of disappearing forever.
'There won’t be any school on such a day as this,' said Mr. Bowles,
consolingly. 'Even the teachers couldn’t get there and live.'
This happy suggestion made Theodora decidedly less pensive. Maybe--and
oh, how she prayed that it might be so!--_maybe_ her father was right,
and maybe, after all, she was still a supreme being--one who had never
been tardy or absent. As the day wore on, she became more and more
hopeful. Her greatest comfort of all was the thought that Charles
Augustus Starr, Junior, who lived over two miles from school, was even
more surely a prisoner than herself.
It kept right on snowing that night. There was no discussion about any
one’s going out the following day, for the whole city seemed destined to
be buried in the snow which fell unceasingly from low, inexhaustible
clouds. Finally, after several days, when people were becoming seriously
alarmed, and some of them were hungry, the snow stopped, and the sky
turned into a dazzling blue from which a blinding sun again looked down
on a new white city. And then men began to open their front doors again,
and shovel and pant, and pant and shovel, as they dug their way out into
the world. Gradually there began to be postmen and butcher-boys and
milk-men and horsecars and newspaper-boys and policemen. And when
Theodora’s father started for his office, the long-pent-up Theodora was
permitted to go to school.
IV
Although the small paths on the sidewalk were so slippery that the most
nimble-footed kept tumbling down, Theodora was, as usual, the first
child against the school door. And she was the first to burst into the
silent building when the Scotch janitor took down the bar, and the first
to dash up the creaky wooden stairs. Racing down the echoing hall, she
tore off her things in the dressing room, and rushed into Room H,
fearing she knew not what. And the sight that she saw on the blackboard
made her blood run cold. During her enforced absence, the very worst had
happened. At the end of the long line of stars which followed the name
of Charles Augustus was a prominent, unmistakably new star. It was
larger than any of the pink or blue or red or green or yellow stars, and
there was no doubt about it, for the sun shone warmly on the blackboard:
the new star opposite her rival’s name was--purple. The new boy,
Coal-Cart Starr’s son, the skipper of classes, the groom-escorted,
never-absent, late, or wrong Charley Starr, had attained the
unattainable.
Slowly Theodora put her books into her desk, and sat in her place,
waiting grimly for Miss Prawl. It was only a few minutes later that the
teacher came in, rosy from her short run through the snowy street,--she
lived only three doors from the school,--and said cheerfully, without
looking the least bit guilty,--
'Good morning, Theodora.'
Theodora could not reply. All the while the other children were bouncing
in with shiny, apple-red cheeks, and a great flourishing of clean white
pocket handkerchiefs, Theodora sat as still as a little China image. In
the midst of her chagrin, she dreaded meeting the exultant look which
she knew would be in the eyes of the winner of the purple star. Every
time any one came in from the hall, Theodora jumped from nervousness.
But she jumped in vain, because Charley Starr failed to appear. Even
when it was ten minutes of nine, Charley Starr had not come. With a
triumphant lilt of the heart, Theodora thought, 'Charley Starr is late!'
At nine o’clock, it dawned upon her that Charley Starr was not coming to
school at all. And at the same time, an unexplained lump of
uncomfortable bigness suddenly developed in her throat. She was
afraid--afraid that something had happened to Charley Starr. She did not
know why, but a panic of terror seized her. It was the first big real
fear of her life. The purple star on the blackboard became the sign of
some heroic tragedy. Where, where, where was Charley Starr?
'Well, girls and boys,' began Miss Prawl, 'we have all been taking a
very unexpected vacation. And there has been no school at all since you
were all here before.'
Theodora’s heart flippety-flopped with relief. All her sufferings had
been in vain: she was still a supreme being. But what was the thing in
Miss Prawl’s face which made one sit so deadly still, and grasp the
desk-cover so tight?
'I came to school on the first morning of the blizzard, because I live
so near. And one other person came, too.' Her little audience began to
look frightened. 'The only child who came that morning was brought in
unconscious.'
Charley Starr was dead--Theodora had known it all along.
'At six o’clock on the first morning of the blizzard, Charley Starr,
without any one’s knowing he was awake, went out to his father’s stable,
and managed to saddle one of the horses. And in order not to be late to
school, he left home at half-past six, and rode through the blinding
snow, until, at nine o’clock, he reached the school. And when he finally
got here, he was so exhausted that he tumbled off the horse into a
snow-drift. If the janitor hadn’t happened to see him, there would be no
Charley Starr in our class, or in the world to-day. But the janitor did
see him; and so, although Charley is pretty sick, he’s going to get
better and come back to us again. It seemed to me that it was very brave
of Charles to try to come to school, and so I gave him the purple star.
He doesn’t know it yet, but I am going to write to him to-day. And I
want every girl and every boy who thinks I was right in giving him the
star to clap with all his might.'
The spontaneous applause that at once shook the walls was due in part to
enthusiasm for Charley Starr. Most of the noise, however, was caused by
the exuberant joy of being allowed, for once, to make as much racket as
one could within the sacred precincts of Room H. Every one set to work
to blister his hands; every one but Theodora, who sat with folded arms
and with burning, accusing eyes fixed on Miss Prawl. Holding up her hand
for silence, Miss Prawl, with an inexplicable sinking of heart, said,--
'Well, Theodora?'
Theodora rose, white-lipped.
'Miss Prawl, if I’d disobeyed my parents, or stolen out when they didn’t
know it, _I_ might have come to school and had a purple star. I wasn’t
scared. _I_ wanted to come. I _prayed_ to come.' She knew this last
statement would have to be lived down later, but at this hazardous
moment, she cared not for that. 'I’d have walked till I died, if they’d
let me.'
Before she had time to sit down again, an unexpected adherent suddenly
sprang to his feet in the person of Freddy Beal, the class dunce.
'So would I!' shouted Freddy, desirous to support the distinguished
Theodora, and at the same time to win a little unaccustomed prominence
for himself. 'They caught me just as I was shinnying over the back
fence, and they had to lock me up to keep me home. I ain’t "gone" on
school, but it would have been fun to come _that_ day! It was the only
day I ever wanted to come to school. Charley Starr hadn’t ought to get
no purple star. That stunt of his wa’n’t brav’ry.'
The greatest and the least having been heard from, every one in the
class then felt called upon to rise up and say that his soul had been
sick within him because he was not permitted to come to school the first
day of the blizzard. Miss Prawl was devoutly wishing that she had
abolished the purple star before such zealots as the critical Theodora
and her followers had darkened the door of Room H, when, as if drawn
into the discussion by Fate, Mr. Wadsmore entered, with a brilliant
smile for the class and a rather serious look for Miss Prawl. He handed
her a note, and said mysteriously,--
'From an I. P. And I’m afraid I think he’s right.'
To the great delight of everyone, Mr. Wadsmore turned to the class, and
joked about an impossible, prehistoric period when he was a small
boy,--he now weighed nearly two hundred,--while Miss Prawl, with damask
cheeks and too brilliant eyes read the note from the Irate Parent. This
note was written with violet ink on heavily perfumed paper with a gold
coat of arms and a gold border, and it read:--
936 Clinton Avenue
MY DEAR MR. WADSMORE,--
On close questioning, I find that my son Charles was actuated in
his dare-devil adventure of leaving for school at six-thirty
o’clock on the first morning of the blizzard by a desire to win a
purple-chalk star. He knows that he very nearly lost his life, and
he is hoping that his rash act may be rewarded in the foolish way I
mentioned above. He considers that he is a hero, unappreciated at
home, and he is working himself into a fever over the whole thing.
I am a plain man [Miss Prawl’s eyes wandered to the coat of arms]
and I greatly disapprove of such methods in education. Unless you
can do away with your purple-star system immediately, I shall be
obliged to transfer Charles to another private school which is
nearer, and therefore more convenient.
Awaiting your reply, I am
Very truly yours,
CHARLES AUGUSTUS STARR.
Miss Prawl read the note in a flash, snatched up the eraser, rubbed out
the purple star, opened the chalk box, and dropped the purple chalk in
the wastebasket.
'What Theodora said about the purple star is quite true,' she said,
soberly. 'And I shall never give any one a purple star. Never!'
As Mr. Wadsmore left the room with an approving smile at Miss Prawl,
Theodora’s eyes grew soft and bright, and she sighed with pathetic
relief. For the first time since she had heard of the purple star, the
world seemed altogether right.
RUGGS--R.O.T.C.
BY WILLIAM ADDLEMAN GANOE
I
IT was only because it was the middle of the night that the barracks of
Company Number 1 lay quiet. Even at that solitary hour the squares of
moonlight from its sliding windows revealed two long huddled rows of
Gold Medal cots creaking with the turnings of one hundred and sixty
restless sleepers.
Down toward the end of Squad 15, Joseph Morley Ruggs lay wrapped in
dreams more troubled than was his wont. The 'Meter' was standing before
him, writing with a feathered sword in a giant book, 'Thou art weighed
in the balance and _found_--' The words kept spreading until the _d_ was
crushed against the edge of the page. The Meter’s eyes became flaming
nozzles, which shot waves of gas into Ruggs’s unmasked face. There was a
crashing sound of many bands, playing mostly upon cymbals.
All at once the 'U.S.' on the Meter’s collar and the silver bars on his
shoulders became incandescent, his body lengthened out like Aladdin’s
genie, and he slowly disappeared upward in a whirl of smoke, mounted on
the shaft of a rifle grenade--and Ruggs was left alone, holding in his
hand a rectangular parchment headed, 'Honorable Discharge from the
service of the United States.'
When he raised his head Alice, with sorrowful eyes, was looking him
through and through--Alice, whom he had left a month before with the
trembling words of acquiescence on her lips and a kiss of hope at his
departure. There she stood, shaking a finger of scorn at the paper of
Failure in his hand.
The earth was giving way under him. As he sank lower and lower, voices
grew abundant about him; and there arose a continuous clatter of
rifle-bolts, bayonets, and mess-tins. A bugle somewhere was sounding the
assembly. The company in the dusky distance was falling in under arms;
the corporals were about to report, and he, Candidate Ruggs, would be
absent.
He tried to hurry over dressing himself; but his arms worked in jerks,
and when he attempted to run, his legs merely pulled and pushed back and
forth heavily in one spot. Frantically he struggled to make headway
against the solid air, but in vain. With a supreme effort he lunged
forward--and came down at the side of his cot on both feet, with a
resounding shock that made the boards of the flimsy barracks rattle.
'For Gawd’s sake,' growled the Duke of Squad 15, rising on his elbow,
'don’t you get enough settin'-up stuff in the daytime without jarrin'
your muscles when decent folks sleep?'
'Who fell into the trench?' inquired Naughty, his legal mind going to
the bottom of the matter.
'No use tryin' to sleep around here,' continued the Duke with a groan.
'Got to get a pass and lock yourself in a hotel over Saturday and
Sunday.'
Some one in the middle of barracks was attempting to search out with a
pocket-flash the cause of the excitement.
'Use of--star--shells--specially successful--'gainst active enemy--in No
Man’s Land,' droned the great voice of small Squirmy in a far corner.
And the disturbance subsided with several chuckles, allowing Ruggs to
dispose himself upon his rumpled sheets without further fire upon him.
In the morning, as he stood in ranks at reveille, he was secretly
relieved to note the Meter’s normal appearance, and his life-sized
pencil, though that active instrument was spelling out death to some
career possibly at that moment. Degradation to the name of Ruggs had not
yet come; the chance to be included among the commissioned few at the
end of camp lay before him as a possibility.
He was wakened smartly from his musings. 'Dress up, put up your arm! you
still asleep?'
The Duke, who had been a sergeant in the National Guard for six years,
realized that, since the Meter was near at hand, it was a fortunate time
to make penetrating corrections. The awe and respect which had bestowed
on him the name of Duke on account of his knowledge of the rudiments,
were now, in the squad over which he had tyrannized as acting corporal,
beginning to wane.
Ruggs put up his arm, every bristling hair of his mouse-colored head
erect with fury. It was difficult for a man fifteen years out of
college, who had by dint of energy and foresight worked his way to the
superintendency of one of the largest banking houses in the East, to
take orders from a grocery clerk much younger and of slight education.
'Every kind of military communication should be impersonal.' These words
of the Meter came to him opportunely. He fastened his mind on the
details for the following day which the first sergeant was then reading
out, and was rewarded.
'For company commander to-morrow--Ruggs!'
'He-re!' His voice came all cracked and husky.
'You’d better get onto those drill regs and get up that company stuff,'
admonished the Duke at breakfast. 'I always find I can get along better
after givin' it a once-over, no matter how well I know it.'
Ruggs made no reply. He was lost in the thought of the chance he had
waited for through thirty-five days of slavery. His opportunity had
come.
It was a red-letter day because of another circumstance. For the first
time he had been called by name by the Meter at the morning conference.
The elation was so great that, when a note from Alice in the noon mail
told him that she would spend the week-end near the camp, he had only
time to reflect on what joy his success in handling the company would
bring her. Every spare minute during the afternoon and evening he
concentrated on close-order drill. Not satisfied with the snatches thus
taken, he disappeared after taps, with his books and a small improvised
stool, into the lavatory, where there was still a faint light from two
badly arranged bulbs. There he delved into combat work and reviewed the
company drill. It was one o’clock before he crawled dizzily into bed,
with reveille before him at five-thirty.
He woke at five with a start. This was the day of his trial. Although he
had stood at the head of ventures involving millions, no day of his life
had seemed to him so full of hazard. The fact that he had made good in
civil life, he understood, meant nothing in his favor in a military way.
For only the previous week Cyrus Long, an industrial manager, with a
salary of fifteen thousand a year, had been told plainly by the Meter
that he could not make good. And Cy had left with the first failure of a
lifetime in his wake.
When Ruggs, making every inch of his five feet eleven count as the Meter
approached, commanded 'Company, attention!' his accent was very unlike
the ideal one he had planned to use. He noted the men in ranks eyeing
him as much as to say, 'Well, how are you going to handle us this
morning?'
'Give the company ten minutes' close-order drill, after which proceed
with fifteen minutes of extended order under battle conditions.'
The Meter shot the words out in two definite explosions.
It was the first time that such instructions had been issued, but Ruggs
asked no questions.
'Squads right!' he sang out (meaning secretly squads left); then added,
'March!' in a surprised and subdued tone that he had not intended.
On the whole the first of the drill went along fairly well, except that
at times some of the men were unable to hear his commands, and _he_ knew
that _they_ knew that he continually meant _right_ when he said _left_,
and vice versa--which did not add to his authority. But he was too
honest to 'bluff' the matter before the Meter, each time admitting the
error by a loud 'As you were!' and setting them straight without delay.
When the extended order part of the drill began, he inadvertently made
his deployment so that one flank fanned out across the commanding
officer’s lawn.
'Halt your company!' roared the Meter. 'Company commander report here!'
Ruggs yelled a demoralized 'Halt!' and ran to the captain.
'Who’s in command of this company?'
'I am, sir.'
'It doesn’t appear so; or possibly you wanted them to dance over the
colonel’s lawn?'
'No, sir.'
'Then why did you put them there?'
'I didn’t mean to, sir.'
'You didn’t mean _not_ to, did you?'
'No, sir.'
'You lead your command out over a fire-swept zone, and after it is
decimated, you make a report that you didn’t mean to place it there.
How will that look when the dead are counted?'
'Not very well, sir.'
'Go place your company where it belongs.'
Ruggs saluted and ran toward the centre of the line, yelling at the top
of his lungs, 'Assemble, _assemble_, ASSEMBLE _over here_!'
'Come back!' shouted the Meter.
But Ruggs was so intent on gathering up the tramplers of the colonel’s
lawn that he did not hear.
'Company commander--Mr. Ruggs!' repeated the Meter, putting all his
power against his diaphragm.
Ruggs returned, his thick chest heaving, his hair matted, and a drop of
perspiration clinging to the end of his big Roman nose.
'How was this drill to be conducted?' snapped his torturer.
'Under battle conditions, sir.'
'Do you suppose that the company stretched over a space of two hundred
yards, while the barrage fire was going on, could hear such caterwauling
as you’ve been attempting? What should you do?'
'Use whistle and signal, sir.'
'Have I not directed you to do so heretofore?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Either malicious or wooden--take your choice! Proceed with your drill.'
Cut to the quick, Ruggs thought hard what to do in his predicament. The
studious, sleepless night was beginning to tell on him, but he called to
his memory the signal for 'Assemble' and blew a stout blast on his
whistle. He felt the Meter behind his back making damaging notes in the
book, and the glances of his fellows before him betraying pity and
superiority. The number of errors increased with the length of the
drill. Each time the Meter summoned him, the criticisms were more
caustic. At last he waved his arms in unknown combinations and
directions. But whenever the Meter stopped him, he was able, with much
teeth-gritting that made his jaw muscles swell his cheeks, to set the
movement straight without excitement.
In the afternoon, during a march along the road, the Meter directed the
company to be halted and its commander to report to him.
'Mr. Ruggs, you see that little bluff about four hundred yards to the
left of this road?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You have been marching along here as the advance party to your advance
guard, when suddenly you receive a burst of fire from that bluff, which
you estimate to be directed by about a platoon. What do you do?'
'I’d tell them to--'
'I didn’t ask you what you’d tell. I asked you what you’d do.'
'I’d put them, sir--'
'Put who?'
'I’d put the company--'
'You speak of the company as if it were a bird-cage or a jack-knife.'
'Sir, I just wanted--'
'I just asked you what YOU would do--do you get it?'
By this time Ruggs was so aroused that every fibre of his mind was
alert. Instead of being more confused, he was able to concentrate more
acutely than before. He pulled his whistle from his pocket and blew it
almost in the Meter’s face, at the same time signaling to the company to
deploy and lie down.
'That will do.' snorted the Meter. 'March your company back to
barracks!'
Ruggs replaced his whistle in his pocket in a hang-dog way which showed
that he was convinced that his doom was sealed.
'Squads right!' he commanded. 'As you were! I mean, squads left!--Oh,
steady! Squads right about! March!'