father--and him he swore to secrecy. The captain's father was the man
who had committed Company G to Spruce's good offices. He sent a check to
the company and a special box of cigars to Spruce. And Spruce, knowing
nothing of the intermediary, felt a more brilliant pride in his adopted
town, and bragged of its virtues more vehemently than ever. The camp was
not moved soon enough. Pneumonia and typhoid fever appeared. One by one
the boys of the regiment sickened. Presently one by one they began to
die.
Then Spruce suggested to the captain: "I guess I'd be more good in the
hospital than I am here, Captain." And the captain (who was scared, poor
lad, and had visions of the boys' mothers demanding the wasted lives of
their sons at his hands) had his best sergeant put on the sick detail.
If Spruce had been useful in camp he was invaluable in hospital. The
head surgeon leaned on him, with a jest, and the young surgeon in charge
with pretense of abuse. "You'll burst if you don't work off your steam,
Spruce, so out with it. What is it _now_?" In this fashion he really
sought both information and suggestion. Nor was he above being
instructed in the innumerable delicacies of requisitions by the old
regular, and he did not, when requisitions were unanswered and supplies
appeared in unusual form, ask any embarrassing questions. "I get 'em
from the Red Cross, sir," was Spruce's invariable and unquestioned
formula.
And the doctor in his reports accounted for what he had received and
complained lustily because his requisitions were not honored, even as
Spruce had desired, and, thereby, he obtained much credit, in the days
to come. Spruce did not obtain any particular credit, but he saved a few
lives, it is likely; and the sick men found him better than medicine.
The captain always handed the committee letters over to him; and bought
whatever he desired.
"Captain's going to distinguish himself, give him a chance," thought
Spruce, "he's got _sense_!"
And by degrees he began to feel for the young volunteer a reflection of
the worship which had secretly been offered to a certain fat little
bald-headed captain of the old --steenth. His picture of the great day
when he should have his triumph--quite as dear to him, perhaps, as any
Roman general's to the Roman--now always included a vision of the
captain, slender and straight and bright-eyed, at the head of the line;
and he always could see the captain, later in the day, presenting him to
his father; "Here's Sergeant Spruce, who has coached us all!" He had
overheard those very words once said to a girl visiting the camp, and
they clung to his memory with the persistent sweetness of the odor of
violets.
To-day he was thinking much more of the captain than of young Danvers,
though Danvers ranked next in his good will. Danvers was a college lad
who had begged and blustered his mother into letting him go. He would
not let her know how ill he was, but had the captain write to his
married sister, in the same town but not the same house. She, in sore
perplexity, wrote to both the captain and Spruce and kept her trunk
packed, expecting a telegram. Danvers used to talk of her and of his
mother and of his little nephews and nieces to Spruce, at first in mere
broken sentences--this was when he was so ill they expected that he
might die any day--later in little happy snatches of reminiscence. He
was perfectly aware that he owed his life to Spruce's nursing; and he
gave Spruce the same admiration which he had used to give the great man
who commanded the university football team. The social hiatus between
them closed up insensibly, as it always does between men who are in
danger and suffering together. Danvers knew Spruce's footfall and his
thin face would lighten with a smile whenever the sergeant came in
sight. He liked the strong, soft touch of his hand, the soothing cadence
of his voice; he felt a gratitude which he was too boyish to express for
the comfort of Spruce's baths and rubbings and cheerfulness. The other
sick lads had a touch of the same feeling for the sergeant. As he passed
from cot to cot, even the sickest man could make some little sign of
relief at his return.
Spruce's heart, a simple and tender affair, as a soldier's is, oftener
than people know, swelled within him, not for the first time.
"Well, I guess I done right to come here," thought he, "and I guess all
the G boys will be out of the woods this week, and then I don't care how
soon we git our orders."
Danvers stopped him when he returned. "I want to speak to you, Chris,"
he next said, and a new note in his voice turned Spruce about abruptly.
"What's the matter, Dick?"
"Oh, nothing, I only wanted to be sure you'd come back and say good-by
before you got off. The regiment's got its orders, you know?"
"_No!_" cried Spruce. He swallowed a little gasp. "What are you giving
me?"
"Oh, it's straight; I heard them talking. Colonel has the order; the
boys are packing to-day."
Spruce's eyes burned, he was minded to make some exclamations of profane
joy, but his mood fell at the sight of the boy's quivering smile.
"Great, isn't it?" said Danvers. "I wish they'd waited two weeks and
given us fellows a show, but I dare say there won't be any show by that
time, the way they are after the dons at Santiago. Can't you get off
now, to pack? But--you'll be sure to come back and say good-by, Chris!"
"I ain't off yet," said Spruce, "and I ain't too sure I will be.
They're always gitting orders and making an everlasting hustle to pack
up, and then unpacking. You go to sleep."
He was about to move away, but Danvers detained him, saying that he
wanted to be turned; and as the soldier gently turned him, the boy got
one of his hands and gave it a squeeze. He tried to say something, but
was barely able to give Spruce a foolish smile. "Spruce, you're a
soldier and a gentleman!" he stammered. He turned away his head to hide
the tears in his eyes. But Spruce had seen them. Of course he made no
sign, stepping away briskly, with a little pat on the lean shoulder.
He came back softly in a little while. He looked at Danvers, who was
simulating sleep, with his dark lashes fallen over red eyelids, and he
shook his head. During his absence he had found that the orders were no
rumor. The regiment was going to Porto Rico sure enough. Spruce stood a
moment, before he sat down by Danvers' side. But he barely was seated
ere he was on his feet again, in a nervous irritation which none had
ever seen in Spruce. He walked to the door of the tent and gazed, in the
same attitude that the nurse had gazed, an hour earlier, at the low,
white streets. Two great buzzards were flying low against the hot,
cloudless vault of blue.
"Them boys'll be all broke up if I go!" said Spruce.
He frowned and fidgeted. In fact, he displayed every symptom of a man
struggling with a fit of furious temper. What really was buffeting
Spruce's soul was not, however, anger, it was the temptation of his
life. Spruce had known few temptations; at least, he had recognized few.
His morality was the lenient, rough-hewn article which satisfies a
soldier's conscience. He had no squeamishness about the sins outside his
limited category; he fell into them blithely and had no remorse when he
remembered them, wherefore he preserved a certain incongruous innocence
even in his vices, as has happened to many a man before. It is, perhaps,
the moral nature's own defense; and keeps untouched and ever fresh
little nooks and corners of a sinner's soul, into which the conscience
may retreat and from which sometimes she sallies forth to conquer the
abandoned territory. What Spruce called his duty he had done quite as a
matter of course. He had not wavered any more than he wavered when the
war bonnets were swooping down on his old captain's crumpled-up form.
But this--this was different. The boys needed him. But if he stayed with
the boys, there was the regiment and the company and the captain and the
chance to distinguish himself and march back in glory to his town.
"I guess most folks would say I'd _ought_ to follow the colors," he
thought; "raw fellers like them, they need a steady, old hand. Well,
they've got Bates." (Bates was an old regular, also, of less
enterprising genius than Spruce, but an admirable soldier.) "I
s'pose,"--grudgingly--"that Bates would keep 'em steady. And captain can
fight, and the colonel was a West Point man, though he's been out of the
army ten years, fooling with the millish. I guess they don't need me so
awful bad this week; and these 'ere boys--Oh, damn it all!" He walked
out of the tent. There was a little group about a wagon, at which he
frowned and sighed. "Poor Maxwell!" he said. Then he tossed his head and
stamped his foot. "Oh, damn it all!" said he again, between his teeth.
But his face and manner were back on their old level of good cheer when
he bent over Danvers, half an hour later.
"Sa--y! Dick!"
"Yes, Chris. You come to say good-by! Well, it's good luck to you and
God bless you from every boy here; and we know what you've done for us,
and we won't forget it; and we'll all hurry up to get well and join
you!" Danvers' voice was steady enough now and a pathetic effort at a
cheer came from all the cots.
Spruce lifted his fist and shook it severely. "You shut up! All of you!
You'll raise your temperature! I ain't going, neither. Be quiet. It's
all settled. I've seen captain, and he wants me to stay and see you boys
through; all the G boys. Then we're all going together. I tell you, keep
quiet."
Dick Danvers was keeping quiet enough, for one; he was wiping away the
tears that rolled down his cheeks.
The others in general shared his relief in greater or less measure; but
they were too ill to think much about anything except themselves. In
some way, however, every one in the tent showed to Spruce that he felt
that a sacrifice had been made.
"I know you hated it like the devil, and just stayed for fear some of
your precious chickens would come to mischief if they got from under
your wings, you old hen!" was Dick's tribute; "and I know why you went
into town yesterday when the boys went off. It _is_ rough, Chris, and
that's the truth!"
"Oh, it's only putting things off a bit; the captain told me so
himself," said Spruce, very light and airy. But his heart was sore. The
G boys understood; he wasn't so sure that all the others did understand.
He caught his name on one gossiping group's lips, and was conscious that
they gazed after him curiously. "Wonder if I'm scared that I stayed
home, I guess," he muttered, being a sensitive fellow like all vain men.
"I wish they'd see the things I've been in! Damn 'em!"
The men really were discussing his various Indian experiences and
admiring him in their boyish hearts. But he was unluckily out of
earshot. Unluckily, also, he was not out of earshot when a lieutenant of
another regiment who had had a difference about a right of way with
Spruce's captain and been worsted by Spruce's knowledge of military
traditions freed his mind about that "bumptious regular who was so keen
to fight, but (he noticed) was hanging on to his sick detail, now the
regiment had a chance to see a few Spaniards." Spruce, in his properly
buttoned uniform, his face red with the heat and something of the words,
saluted rigorously and passed by, not a single muscle twitching. All the
while he was thinking: "I'm glad he don't belong to _my_ town! God! If
anybody was to write them things about me!"
By this time the town was not only his town, but he was sure that he was
a figure in the conversation of the place. Thus his anxiety of mind
increased daily. He kept it from his charges, who grew stronger all the
week, and the next; and he read such papers as drifted out to the camp
and such shreds of news about the fighting with frantic interest.
Danvers was able to sit up at the end of three weeks, but most of the
boys were further along, walking about the wards, or gone back to their
regiment.
"You get out, Chris," said Danvers, "we all know you're on your head
with aching to go. _We're_ all right; and I'm off home on furlough
to-morrow; I'll get straightened out there quicker, and I'll be after
you next week, see if I don't! I knew you'd be hanging on, so I won't
give you the excuse. My sister's coming to-morrow."
"Really, Dick," gasped Spruce, "and you--you're sure the other boys are
so's I can leave?"
"Well, you know there are going to be some women from the Red Cross,
last of the week--Oh, by the time we are all out of it, this will be a
swell hospital, with all the luxuries! Spruce, go, and don't get hurt,
or I'll murder you!"
Spruce giggled like a happy girl. He was on his way to put in his
application to join his regiment the next day--after Dick Danvers'
sister had arrived, when something happened. He did not exactly know
what it was himself, until he felt the water on his forehead and tried
to lift himself up from the sand, catching the arm of the
surgeon-in-chief. "Sunstroke, doctor?" he whispered.
"Just fainted," the surgeon answered cheerfully, "you've been overdoing
it in this heat. Be careful."
"Oh, it's nothing, sir," Spruce grinned back; "had it lots of times,
only not so bad. All the boys git giddy heads--"
Somehow the ready words faltered off his tongue; the surgeon had been
fumbling at his blouse, under the pretext of opening it for air, he was
looking in a queer, intent way at Spruce's chest.
Of a sudden the eyes of doctor and soldier, who had been nurse, met and
challenged each other. There was a dumb terror in the soldier's eyes, a
grave pity in the surgeon's. "I seen them spots yesterday," said Spruce,
slowly, in a toneless voice, "but I wouldn't believe they was typhoid
spots, nor they _ain't_!"
"You get inside and get a drink, Spruce, and go to bed," said the
doctor. "Of course, I'm not certain, but as good a nurse as you knows
that it isn't safe to try to bluff typhoid fever."
By this time Spruce was on his feet, able to salute with his reply:
"That's all right, Major, but--I got to keep up till Danvers gits off
with his folks, or he'd be kicking and want to stay. Jest let me see him
off, and I'll go straight to bed."
"No walking about, mind, though," said the doctor, not well pleased, yet
knowing enough of the two men to perceive the point of the argument.
Spruce saw Danvers off, with a joke and a grin, and an awkward bow for
Danvers' sister. Then he went back to the hospital and went to bed,
having written his aunt's address on a prescription pad (one of his
acquirements in his foraging trips) with a remarkably spelled request
that his pay be sent her, and his other property be given his friend, R.
E. Danvers, to divide among his friends, giving the captain first
choice.
"Lots of folks die of typhoid fever," he remarked quite easily, "and it
don't hurt to be ready. I feel like I was in for a bad time, and I ain't
stuck on the nursing here a little bit."
Before the week was out he recognized as well as the doctors that he was
a very sick man.
"If you'd only gone off with your regiment three weeks ago," the doctor
growled one day, "you'd have missed this, Spruce."
"That's all right," said Spruce, "but some of the boys are home that
wouldn't be, maybe. I guess it's all right. Only, you know captain and
Danvers; I wish you'd write back to the old town and tell the committee
I done my duty. I can't be a credit to the company, but I done my duty,
though I expect there's folks in town may think I was malingering."
"Stop talking!" commanded the doctor. "Did you know the women are coming
to-morrow; you are to have a nurse of your own here?"
"Time," said Spruce; "if my town had its way they'd been here long ago.
Ever been in my town, Major?"
"No. Good-by, Spruce; keep quiet."
"It's the bulliest town in the country, and the prettiest. And when G
company goes back--Oh, Lord, I won't be with 'em!"
The surgeon's hand on his shoulder prevented the movement which he would
have made, and he apologized; "I didn't mean to do that! Moving's so
bad. Tell you, I'd a time keeping the boys still; they _would_ turn when
they got a little off. Say, I got to talk, Major, something's broke
loose in me and I _got_ to talk. I don't want to, I just got to."
When the nurse came he was so light-headed as to have no control of his
words, yet quite able to recognize her and welcome her with an
apologetic politeness.
"I'd have had some lemonade for you if I'd been up myself, ma'am. We're
glad to see you. All the G boys are convalescing; most of 'em's gone. We
all come from the same city; it's an awful pretty town. I got a lot of
friends there that maybe don't take it in why I'm here 'stead of with my
regiment, with the old man. I got a good reason; only I can't remember
it now."
* * * * *
The captain's father stood outside the telegraph office in Spruce's
town. Beside him was the chairman of the relief committee.
"Too bad about that regular," said the chairman. "Spruce--isn't that his
name? One of the boys telegraphed he couldn't live through the day.
Better have him brought here for the funeral, I guess; he's been very
faithful. Young Danvers wanted to go right down to Florida; but he had a
relapse after he got home and he's flat on his back."
"I heard," said the captain's father; "I've just telegraphed, on my own
responsibility, for them to send him here. It won't make any difference
to him, poor fellow; but we owe it to him. I wish we could do something
that would help him, but I don't see anything."
"We have told them to spare no expense, and he's got plenty of money.
No, you have done everything. Well, good-by; remember me to the captain;
we're all proud of him."
The captain's father thanked him with rather an absent air. "I wish we
could do something for that fellow," he was thinking; "I don't suppose a
message to him would--when a fellow's dying, messages are nonsense--it's
a bit of sentiment--I don't care, I'll do it!" He turned and went back
into the office.
* * * * *
"I am afraid there is not a chance," said the doctor; "too bad, he was a
good fellow. Well, you can give him all the morphine he needs--and
strychnine, though he's past strychnine, I fear; morphine's the one
chance, and that's mighty little."
"He talked about wanting to see you," said the nurse. She had a sweet
voice, plainly a lady's voice; and her slim figure, in the blue-striped
gown and white surplice, had a lady's grace. Her face was not handsome,
nor was it very young, but it had a touch of her voice's sweetness. The
doctor found himself glad to look at her; and forgetting his patients in
his interest in the nurse.
"Oh, yes,"--he roused himself--"I'll look 'round later; I suppose he is
delirious?"
"Not so much that he does not recognize us. He talks all the time of his
town, poor fellow, and seems to want to have them understand that he
hasn't neglected his duty. He only once has spoken of any relations.
It's all the town, and the captain and Danvers making it right there;
and the boys going back--I suppose he has lived there all his life
and--"
"Not a bit of it; Danvers told me he merely enlisted from there. But
they are making a great time over him. Telegraphed to have his body sent
there; and here's another telegram. See--"
"I'll let him see," said the nurse, taking it, "may I, Doctor?"
"Yes, but not the first part about sending him back; that's a little too
previous."
The nurse's touch roused Spruce. "Dick," he murmured, "Dick, you tell
the folks. I couldn't go with the regiment--you know why."
"They know why, too; here's a telegram from your captain's father: 'Tell
Spruce he's the hero of Company G.'"
"Read it again!"
She read it. His hand tightened on hers. Her trained eyes were on his
face.
"Ain't it the--the _bulliest_ town! I wisht I'd enough money to go back;
but you see my folks got to have my pay. But I wisht--"
Her eyes, not the nurse's now, but a woman's, sought the doctor's in a
glance of question and appeal. He nodded.
Her sweet voice said: "And the town has telegraphed that no expense must
be spared to cure you; but if you don't recover you are to go back to
them."
Spruce drew a long, ecstatic sigh. "Oh--didn't I tell you? Ain't it the
bulliest town!"
A minute later he murmured, "Thank you, Dick," and, still holding the
nurse's hand, Spruce went to see his town.
A MIRACLE PLAY
The widow Darter's house was set on a hill. It was a story-and-a-half
cottage, of stucco, to which sun and wind and frost had offered their
kind offices, mellowing pleasantly its original glare of white. In
summer a trumpet-vine draped the ugly little piazza which Emmy's
"art-needle work" had helped build, and which she and her mother admired
with simple hearts. The big burr oak and the maples hid the house from
the road, but the grassy knoll in front of the house was bare, and from
this vantage-ground one could see the shallow curve of whitish-brown
where the village street climbed the hill, the chimneys of the houses
below, and, afar off, the trains roaring through the prairies. All the
village was interested in the railway, but Emmy had an especial and
intimate interest because her sweetheart was the local agent. He had
been her sweetheart during five years, in any one of which he would have
been proud and glad to marry her; yet this was the fifth year of their
betrothal, and Emmy was drearily reflecting that they were no nearer the
chance to spend their lives together the fifth than the first.
Emmy was hanging out clothes. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, but
she had just brought out the large basket and was pinning the garments
to the line, while Virginia, her sister, a little girl in short skirts
and a blue checked apron, helped with the less cumbrous stockings and
handkerchiefs. The child was pretty. She had a fresh color and curly
yellow hair. Emmy's hair was black, and twisted in a braid about a
shapely head. It shone like silk. But her eyes were gray, soft, and
liquid. She was slender, with a youthful litheness in her motions, and
her white arms flashed as they moved backward and forward in her work.
The sleeves of her blue gown were rolled up; the gown itself was plainly
her work-a-day garb, but there was a white lawn tie at her neck and the
gown was both neat and becoming; in short, she was an attractive little
creature who did not neglect her looks even of a wash-day.
The widow Darter sat on the piazza in a large rocking-chair. She rocked.
As she rocked, she moaned piteously. At intervals she changed the
sibilant moan into a hollow groaning sound. "Oh dear! _Oh_ dear! Oh
dear, oh dear, oh dear!" wailed the widow. "Um-m! um-m! um-m-m-m!"
The little girl flung a frown of impatience over her shoulder. "I don't
see why mamma makes such an _awful_ racket!" she snapped.
"She suffers," said Emmy.
"Well, she needn't holler so if she does," cried Virginia, rebelliously.
"I know she wouldn't let _me_ holler when I stubbed my toe. It hurt
awful, too!"
Emmy said nothing.
"Say, are you going to the picnic with Bert to-morrow afternoon?" said
the child.
"No, Jinny, I don't see how I can. Mother's so sick."
"Well, I told Bert I was willing to take care of mamma; and he said he'd
buy me a new doll if I would. I guess he wants you to go awful."
"Oh-h dear! Oh-h dear!" droned the sufferer on the piazza.
"Well, I can't," said Emmy. "I wish you'd run and ask mother if she
wants anything."
"She don't; she's been going on that way all the afternoon." But Jinny
granted the request after the easy-going manner of her age; she turned
on her heel and sent a shout at her mother--"Say, mamma! you want
anything?"
Mrs. Darter shook her head. The din of woe swelled in volume.
"I s'pose she wants you to read to her; she says I don't read with
expression," said the little girl. "But we're all read out; you put off
the washing to read the end of _A Romance of Two Worlds_, and we've got
to wait until No. 9 comes in! Albert said he'd sent for a whooping big
pile of books from Davenport; you can get 'em at the dry-goods stores
for five cents a book. And Mrs. Conner'll bring them up, won't she, when
she comes? She's got to go for her boarder." Emmy nodded. Mrs. Darter
groaned more softly, a sign that she was distracted by something from
her own griefs of mind or body. Jinny chattered on. "Miss Ann Bigelow
told me Mrs. Conner's going to have a girl from the University of
Chicago for a boarder this time, but she's only coming for a week. Sibyl
Edmunds knows her well. And, Emmy, she takes pictures, and she's going
to bring her camera."
"Emmy! _Emmy!_ there comes Mrs. Conner!" screamed her mother.