“At first, of course,” she said, “I thought you were white slavers. But
I’ve got it now. The other game is different. Oh, I may come from a
small town, but I’m not unsophisticated. You people didn’t send my
father those black hand letters he’s been getting lately, I suppose?”
“Tish!” I called sharply.
But Tish had stopped and was listening intently. Suddenly she said:
“Run!”
There was a sort of pounding noise somewhere behind, and Aggie screeched
that it was the Knowleses’ bull loose on the road. I thought it quite
likely, and as we had once had a very unpleasant time with it, spending
the entire night in the Knowleses’ pig pen, with the animal putting his
horns through the chinks every now and then, I dropped the suitcase and
ran. Myrtle ran too, and we reached the farmhouse in safety.
It was then that we realized that the sound was the pursuing car,
bumping along slowly on four flat tires. Tish shut and bolted the door,
and as the windows were closed with wooden frames, nailed on, we were
then in darkness. We could hear the runabout, however, thudding slowly
up the drive, and the voices of Mr. Culver and the policeman as they
tried the door and the window shutters.
Tish stood just inside the door, and Myrtle was just beside me. Aggie
had collapsed on a hall chair. I have, I think, neglected to say that
the farmhouse was furnished. Tish’s mother used to go out there every
summer, and she was a great woman for being comfortable.
At last Mr. Culver came to the front door and spoke through it.
“Hello, inside there!” he called, in a furious voice. As no one replied,
he then banged at the door, and from the sound I fancy the policeman was
hammering also, with his mace.
“Open, in the name of the law!” bellowed the policeman.
“Stop that racket,” Tish replied sternly. “Or I shall fire.”
Of course she had no weapon, but they did not know this. We could hear
Mr. Culver telling the policeman to keep back, as he knew us, and we had
any other set of desperadoes he had ever heard of beaten for
recklessness with a gun.
There was a moment’s silence, during which I heard Aggie’s knitting
needles going furiously. She learned to knit by touch once when she had
iritis and was obliged to finish a slumber robe in time for Tish’s
birthday. So the darkness did not trouble her, and I knew she was
knitting to compose herself.
Tish then stood inside the door, and delivered through it one of the
most inspiring patriotic speeches I have ever heard. She spoke of our
long tolerance, while the world waited. Then of the decision, and the
call to arms. She said that the sons of the Nation were rising that day
in their might.
“But,” she finished, “there are some among us who would shirk, would
avoid the high and lofty duty. There are some who would profane the name
of love, and hide behind it to save their own cowardly skins. To these
ignoble ones there is but one course left open. Go. Put your name on the
roster of your country as a free man, unmarried and without impediments
of any sort. Then return and these doors will fly open before the magic
of a blue card.”
It was at that time, we learned later, that the policeman, who was but a
rough and untutored type, decided that Tish was insane—how often, alas,
is genius thus mistaken!—and started off for the Knowles farm to bring
help. Mr. Culver made no reply to Tish’s speech, and we learned later
had gone away in the midst of it. Later on he was reported by Aggie, who
looked out from an upper window, to be sitting under the chestnut tree
where he had once rescued Tish’s black alpaca skirt, sulking and
watching.
Tish then went up and spoke to him from the window.
“See here,” she said angrily, “do you think that I did not mean what I
said through that door?”
He had the audacity to yawn.
“I didn’t hear all of it,” he said. “But judging from what I know of
you, I daresay you meant it. Would you mind tossing me a tin cup or
something to drink out of?”
“You are not going back to town to register, then?”
“It’s early,” he replied, coolly. “If you mean do I intend to walk back,
I do not. I shall wait for the Sheriff and the posse.”
It was then that Tish saw the policeman crossing a field toward the
Knowles farm and she tried to reason with the young man. But he dropped
his pretence of indifference, and would not even listen to her.
“I’ve only one thing to say,” he said, fiercely. “You be careful of that
young lady. As to whether I register or not, that’s my business and has
nothing to do with the case. When you open that door and send her out,
with four good tires to take the place of the ones you ruined, I’ll talk
to you, and not before.”
He then got up and walked away, and Tish came downstairs and lighted a
candle with hands that shook with rage. We had heard the entire
conversation, and in the candlelight I could see that Aggie was as white
as wax.
Well, the situation was really desperate, but Tish’s face forbade
questions. Aggie ventured to observe that perhaps it would be better to
unlock the door and release the girl, but Tish only gave her a ferocious
glance.
“I am doing my duty,” she said, firmly. “I have done nothing for which
the law can punish me. If a young lady comes willingly into my car for a
ride, as you did”—she turned sharply to Myrtle—“and if a young fool
chooses to sit in my front yard instead of registering to serve his
country, it is not my fault. As a matter of fact, I can probably have
him arrested for trespass.”
As I have said, the farmhouse is still furnished with Tish’s mother’s
things. She was a Biggs, and all the things the Biggses had not wanted
for sixty years were in the house. So at least we had chairs to sit on,
and if we had only had water, for we were all thirsty from excitement
and dust, we could have been fairly comfortable, although Myrtle
complained bitterly of thirst.
“And I want to wash,” she said fretfully. “If I could wash I’d change my
blouse and look like something.”
“For whom?” Tish demanded. “For that slacker outside?”
Suddenly Myrtle laughed. She had been in tears for so long that it
surprised us. We all stared at her, but she seemed to get worse and
worse.
“She’s hysterical, poor child,” Aggie said, feeling for her smelling
salts. “I don’t know that I blame her, Tish. No one knows better than I
do what it is to expect to be married, and then find the divine hand of
Providence intervening.”
But Myrtle suddenly walked over to Aggie and, stooping, kissed her on
the top of her right ear.
“You dear thing!” she said. “I still don’t get all the idea, but I don’t
much care if I don’t. I haven’t had so much excitement since I ran away
from boarding school.”
She then straightened and looked at Tish. It was clear that her feeling
for dear Tish was still vague, but was rather more of respect than of
love.
“As for the—the young man outside,” she said, “I seem to gather that he
hasn’t registered, and that I am not to marry him until he has. Very
well. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that speech of
yours—suppose you tell him that I won’t marry him until he has a—a
magic blue card. I should like to see his face.”
But Tish is a woman of delicacy, and she suggested that Myrtle do it
herself, from an upper window. I went up with her, and we found Mr.
Culver again under the tree. The conversation ran like this:
MYRTLE, (looking very pretty indeed but very firm): Look here, I—I’ve
decided not to marry you.
MR. CULVER (rousing suddenly and staring up at her): I beg your pardon!
MYRTLE: I know now that I was making a terrible mistake. No matter how
much I care for you, I cannot marry a slacker.
MR. C. (furiously angry and glaring at her): You know better than that!
MYRTLE: Not at all. Can you deny that you haven’t registered yet?
MR. C.: What’s that got to do with it? I daresay I’m losing my mind. It
wouldn’t be much wonder if I have. When I think of the way I’ve suffered
lately—look at me!
MYRTLE (in a somewhat softened voice): Have you really suffered?