Rien n'est impossible: il y a des voies qui conduisent à toutes
choses; et si nous avions assez de volonté, nous aurions toujours
assez de moyens.
--ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"Like to see it!" Well, I suppose they did. It will not do to say that
never was photograph so devoured; too many just such counterfeits of
boys in grey have sped across this broad continent and been just so
received; but it was well for this particular one that mere looking at
things cannot wear them out.
At first, after one astonished look and exclamation they all broke down
and cried. Partly for joy--for how handsome he was! and how those bell
buttons did set him off!--partly for the wild longing it stirred to
have him in their arms again. But with this came in another feeling:
that keen, subtle pang which detects a change. Was their own wayward,
careless, happy-go-lucky Magnus really hid away behind that perfectly
buttoned coat? For even a year at West Point makes a wonderful change,
which even accustomed eyes find marvellous; what wonder that these
unwonted ones grew wide open as they gazed? He had graduated from the
mild sway of persuasion and was under orders.
If the first half hour's study of the picture was full of joy, it may
be doubted if the pain of the second had all the softening that really
belonged to it. _This_ exact, stately young man, _her_ Magnus, who used
to catch her in his arms and whirl her off her feet. _This_ soldierly
fellow _their_ brother, who would swing himself by one foot from the
apple tree and climb the lightning rod and hold on by his teeth to the
window sill? They did not write all this out for themselves, but the
smiles faded. Not their boy any longer, but Uncle Sam's.
"I should think they might have left him just a few curls!" said
Violet, identifying one small grievance. "Oh, I wonder what Cherry will
say?"
"I wish she'd come," said poor Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to speak
calmly. "Cherry is always so wise. And I am such a goose," she added,
feeling after a stray smile. "Of course, he could not be at West Point
and a soldier and look like my little boy still."
"Let me run up with it to Cherry and bring her back," said Rose.
"No, no, leave it here!" cried the mother. "I cannot have it out of
my sight one minute. Oh, girls! was there ever such a handsome fellow
seen, anywhere?"
"Never, I do believe," said Rose. "Mother, his eyes haven't changed
one bit. Just see how they laugh at you----" But that look stopped the
words.
"What is going on here?" said a sweet young voice at the window. "What
are you all studying out?" And Cherry's quick, soft steps came through
the hall and into the room.
"Don't tell her! Don't tell her!" cried both the girls in an eager
whisper.
"Come in, love," said Mrs. Kindred. "We were just wishing for you."
"Yes, come and tell us what you think," said Rose. And placing
themselves each side of Cherry, the two girls marched her up to a place
behind their mother's chair, where she could look over Mrs. Kindred's
cap and see the picture, watching to hear what she would say.
But Cherry said never a word. She started, and gave a little cry at
first sight of that wonderful presentation of her hero, but then she
stood quite still; her fingers interlacing each other, the red and
white playing hide and seek on her young face. That undefined change
which they all felt came to her with a difference. For Magnus had
never been hers to have and to hold, but only to gaze at from a safe
distance; and suddenly, lo! he had become more wonderful than ever.
Whether this put him further away or not gave Cherry no trouble just
then; she had forgotten herself and the whole world at first sight of
this picture of that astonishing person, Cadet Charlemagne Kindred.
"Do you think it looks like him, dear?" Mrs. Kindred said plaintively;
and with a quick jump down to earth, Cherry answered in the most
matter-of-fact way:
"It must, Mrs. Kindred; it is a photograph."
"That's true," said the mother. "I had forgotten that, Cherry; you
always say just the right thing." And she turned round and held up her
face to kiss the girl who had spoken with such calm wisdom. But poor
Cherry found out then that her own nerves were overstrung, and she
had no answer ready. And what sort of an unconscious feeling was it
that made her turn away and take up the empty "Pach" envelope and look
inside; _could_ Magnus have put in a second copy for her? An action, by
the way, it was a pity that young man did not see, walking, as he was
just then, round Flirtation and making pretty speeches to the youngest
Miss Fashion.
Cherry laid down the envelope and put on her hat.
"You are strange people not to like it," she said.
"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad
because it looks different."
"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the
hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying
open, in the Army."
"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young
soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat
and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."
There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot
cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the
picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very
first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her
with bewildered eyes.
"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I
thought he had the whole Government to do that."
"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I
am sure," said Rose.
"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick,
Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."
"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.
"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back
again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his
mother." Her voice choked a little.
"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing
to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look
so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought
to be."
"And of course, you will go to him at once," put in Violet. "Then you
can tell us all about him and the place and everything."
"Go to him!" These lively spirits, treading down impossibilities with
their young feet, were too much for her.
"Why, girls, I haven't the money."
"You shall have my new winter bonnet--which was to be," said Rose.
"And all my Christmas presents which, perhaps, were not to be," said
Violet. "I've got five cents besides in my strong box."
"And Uncle Thorn will help," said Rose. Mrs. Kindred held up her hand.
"Be quiet, all of you," she said, "or I shall lose my senses." She sat
looking at that boy in grey who was homesick for the sight of her.
"It isn't 'all of us,' at all, mamma," said Violet, "for Cherry is as
still as a mouse. Speak up, red lips, and give us your opinion."
Speaking low, as before, Cherry made answer that it would be safe to
read the whole letter, before deciding upon anything, which was such
a self-evident point of wisdom that they all laughed, and the reading
began again.
"Now, mamma, don't stop till you get through, no matter what he says,"
pleaded Rose. And Mrs. Kindred tried, but in truth it was hard. Every
sentence or two she would stop and look up helplessly, at the two faces
that bent over her, or try for encouragement from Cherry's shining
eyes, down by the table. Which eyes, however, were not always in sight.
Cherry found some wonderful things in the letter, which the others
missed; and so now and then retired into her own private meditations.
"Bring up _our_ three girls" and "when _they_ come." Clearly, then, she
also was expected at "first-class camp," whatever that might be.
"Cherry, you don't seem to hear, my child. What does he mean about
their 'finding' him and his not coming home, but going to the
Antipodes?"
"I think it is just some of his nonsense, Mrs. Kindred," said the girl,
too happy to be alarmed. "He wants to make you come, and so he says
all the queer things he can think of. You see West Point hasn't really
changed him one bit."
"Dear fellow!" said the mother, with another look at the picture.
"I think you must be right, Cherry. I am getting used to the dress a
little. And I'd almost give my life to see him. But do you really think
I could go so far alone, even if I had the money?"
With the happy courage of their years, the girls assured her that
nothing possibly could be easier; get in and get out all right, and the
railway companies would do the rest.
"Uncle Thorn will put you in, you know," said Violet, "and as for your
getting out, when you are so near Magnus I don't believe anybody could
keep you in the cars without handcuffs and fetters. You'll just fly
out."
"But suppose I fly out too soon?" said Mrs. Kindred, to whose eyes the
two thousand miles of space loomed up very large indeed.
"You will not," said Rose decidedly. "Conductor will not let you. Read
on, mamma, please."
So Mrs. Kindred read on, only to get more hopelessly mixed as to the
real state of things. "Skins" and "scalps"--third-class corporals and
the Antipodes; laying it off on the West Point vernacular did not clear
up the meaning a bit. And when the letter had been read carefully twice
through from end to end, Mrs. Kindred laid it down and calmly announced
that she should set off for the East as soon as she could get ready.
And the girls kissed her and cheered her, and only wished they could go
too.
And things turned out a good deal as they had said. Mr. Thorn not only
bought her ticket, but put her in careful charge of the conductor. The
girls packed the modest little trunk, stowing in all the gingercakes
there was room for; Violet laid in a dainty handkerchief embroidered
with the young cadet's initials, Rose added a small pincushion "to go
in his pocket," and Cherry, with some demurs, sent him her last little
drawing of the old apple tree which had been his own special private
gymnasium. Cherry had a very pretty knack with her pencil. Then they
all went to the station to see her off, even some of the neighbours
joining in.
"It's a clear Providence your goin', Mrs. Kindred," said one good
woman, whose husband had come West looking for "royal roads" to wealth
and place. "Now you kin tell us all about it, for sen' Magnus went,
we've been athinkin' o' sendin' our Bill. He's a dreffle shiftless
feller: don't take after me, if I do say it. Bill just despises work in
any shape or way, and so his father kinder thought maybe he'd do for
West Point. They'd pull him through, likely, just as they do the rest,
and then he'd he provided for."
Happily, the train came, and nobody could answer. The girls went home
and held an indignation meeting, and Mrs. Kindred rolled swiftly away,
very soon forgetting everything else in the one thought that she was
going to see her boy.