Pen made good use of his leisure time at Lowbridge. There was no night
school there, but the courses of a correspondence school were
available, and through that medium he learned much, not only of that
which pertained to his calling as a textile worker, but of that also
which pertained to general science and broad culture. History had a
special fascination for him; the theory of government, the struggles
of the peoples of the old world toward light and liberty. The working
out of the idea of democracy in a country like England which still
retained its monarchical form and much of its aristocratic flavor, was
a theme on which he dwelt with particular pleasure. Back somewhere in
the line of descent his paternal ancestors had been of English blood,
and he was proud of the heroism, the spirit and the energy which had
made Great Britain one of the mighty nations of the earth.
To France also, fighting and forging her way, often through great
tribulation, into the family of democracies, he gave almost unstinted
praise. Always splendid and chivalric, whether as monarchy, empire or
republic, he felt that if he were to-day a soldier he would, next to
his own beautiful Star Spangled Banner, rather fight and die under the
tri-color of France than under the flag of any other nation.
But of course it was to the study and contemplation of his own beloved
country that he gave most of the time he had for reading and research.
He delved deeply into her history, he examined her constitution and
her laws, he put himself in touch with the spirit of her organized
institutions, and with the fundamental ideas, carefully worked out,
that had made her free and prosperous and great. And by and by he came
to realize, in a way that he had never done before, what it meant to
all her citizens, and especially what it meant to him, Penfield
Butler, to have a country such as this. He thought of her in those
days not only as a thing of vast territorial limit and of splendid
resources of power and wealth and intellect, not only as a mighty
machine for humane and just government, but he thought of her also as
a beloved and beautiful personality, claiming and deserving affection
and fealty from all her children. And he never saw the flag, he never
thought of it, he never dreamed of it, that it did not arouse in him
the same tender and reverent feeling, the same lofty inspiration he
had felt that day when he first saw it floating from its staff against
a back-ground of clear blue sky on the school-house lawn at Chestnut
Hill.
He held himself closely to his tasks. Only twice since he came away
had he gone back with his mother for a holiday visit at Cobb's
Corners. Grandpa Walker had a hearty handshake for him, and an
affectionate greeting. The boy was forging ahead in his calling, was
developing into a fine specimen of physical young manhood, and the old
man was proud of him. But he did not hesitate to remind him that if a
day of adversity should come the latch-string of the old house was
still out, and he would always be as welcome there as he was on that
winter day when he had come to them as an exile from Bannerhall.
One Memorial Day, as Pen stood at the entrance to the cemetery bridge
watching the procession of those going in to do honor to the patriotic
dead, he was especially impressed with the fine appearance of the
local company of the National Guard which was acting as an escort to
the veterans of the Grand Army post. The young men composing the
company were dressed in khaki, handled their rifles with ease and
accuracy, and marched with a soldierly bearing and precision that were
admirable. It occurred to Pen that it might be advisable for him to
join this body of citizen soldiery provided he had the necessary
qualifications and could be admitted to membership. It was not so much
the show and glamour of the military life that appealed to him as it
was the opportunity that such a membership might afford to be of
service to his country. Even then Europe was being devastated by a war
which had no equal in history. The German armies, trained to a point
of unexampled efficiency, with the aid of their Allies, had
overwhelmed Belgium and had almost succeeded in entering Paris and in
laying the whole of France under tribute. Beaten back at a crucial
moment they had dug themselves into the soil of the invaded country
and were holding at bay the combined forces of their Allied enemies.
Half of Europe was in arms. The tragedies of the seas were appalling.
International complications were grave and unending. More than one
statesman of prophetic foresight had predicted that a continuance of
the war must of necessity draw into the maelstrom the government of
the United States. In such an event the country would need soldiers
and many of them, and the sooner they could be put into training to
meet such a possible emergency the better.
Moreover it was not necessary to look across the ocean to foresee the
necessity for military readiness. Our neighbor to the south was in the
grip of armed lawlessness and terrorism. Northern Mexico was infested
with banditti which were a constant menace to the safety of our
border. Such government as the stricken country had was either unable
or unwilling to hold them in check. It appeared to be inevitable that
the United States, by armed intervention, must sooner or later come to
the protection of its citizens. In that event the little handful of
troops of the regular army must of necessity be reinforced by units of
the state militia. It might be that soldiers of the National Guard
would be used only for patrolling the border, and it might well be
that they would be sent, as was one of Penfield Butler's ancestors,
into the heart of Mexico to enforce permanent peace and tranquility at
the point of the bayonet.
So this was the situation, and this was the appeal to Pen's patriotic
ardor. And the appeal was a strong one. But he did not at once respond
to it. His work and his study absorbed his time and thought. It was
not until late in the fall of that year, the year 1915, when the
crises, both at home and abroad, seemed rapidly approaching, that Pen
took up for earnest consideration the question of his enlistment in
the National Guard. Given by nature to acting impulsively, he
nevertheless, in these days, weighed carefully any proposed line of
conduct on his part which might have an important bearing on his
future. But he resolved, after due consideration, to join the militia
if he could.
He went to a young fellow, a wool-sorter in the mills, who was a
corporal in the militia, to obtain the necessary information to make
his application. The corporal promised to take the matter up for him
with the captain of the local company, and in due time brought him an
application blank to be filled out stating his qualifications for
membership. It was necessary that the paper should be signed by his
mother as evidence of her consent to his enlistment since he was not
yet twenty-one years of age. She signed it readily enough, for she
quite approved of his ambition, and she took a motherly pride in the
evidences of patriotism that he was constantly manifesting.
Armed with this document he presented himself, on a drill-night, to
Captain Perry in the officers' quarters at the armory. The captain
glanced at the paper, then he laid it on the table and looked up at
Pen. There was a troubled expression on his face.
"I'm sorry, Butler," he said, "but I'm afraid we can't enlist you."
The announcement came as a shock, but not utterly as a surprise. For
days the boy had felt a kind of foreboding that something of this sort
would happen. Yet he did not at once give way to his disappointment
nor accept without question the captain's pronouncement.
"May I inquire," he asked, "what your reason is for rejecting me?"
Captain Perry sat back in his chair and thrust his legs under the
table. It was apparent that he was embarrassed, but it was apparent
also that he would remain firm in the matter of his decision. Nor was
Pen at such a loss to understand the reason for his rejection as his
question might imply. He knew, instinctively, that the old story of
his disloyalty to the flag had come up again, after all these years,
to plague and to thwart him. He was quite right.
"I will tell you frankly, Butler," replied the captain, "what the
trouble is. Since it became known that you wanted to enlist, some
members of my company have come to me with a protest against
accepting you. They say they represent the bulk of sentiment among the
enlisted men. You see, under these circumstances, I can't very well
take you. We are citizen soldiers, not under the iron discipline of
the regular army, and in matters which are really not essential I must
yield more or less to the wishes of my boys. They like, in a way, to
choose their associates."
He ended with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile intended to
be conciliatory. Chagrined and wounded, but not abashed nor silenced,
Pen stood his ground. He resolved to see the thing through, cost what
pain and humiliation it might.
"Would you mind telling me," he inquired, "what it is they have
against me?"
"Why, if you want to know, yes. They say you're not patriotic. To be
more explicit they say that up at Chestnut Hill, where you used to
live, you--"
Pen interrupted him. His patience was exhausted, his calmness gone.
"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know. They say I mistreated the flag. They
say I insulted it, threw it into the mud and trampled on it. That's
what they say, isn't it?"
"Yes, substantially that. Now, I don't know whether it's true or
not--"
"Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on
account of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and
live with my grandfather Walker at Cobb's Corners. They say that,
don't they?"
"Something of that kind, I believe."
"Well, that's true too. But they don't say that it all happened half a
dozen years ago, when I was a mere boy, that I did it in a fit of
anger at another boy, and had nothing whatever against the flag, and
that I was sorry for it the next minute and have suffered and repented
ever since. They don't say that that flag is just as dear to me as it
is to any man in America, that I love the sight of it; that I'd follow
it anywhere, and die for it on any battlefield,--they don't say that,
do they?"
His cheeks were blazing, his eyes were flashing, every muscle of his
body was tense under the storm of passionate indignation that swept
over him. Captain Perry, amazed and thrilled by the boy's
earnestness, straightened up in his chair and looked him squarely in
the face.
"No," he replied, "they don't say that. But I believe it's true. And
so far as I'm concerned--"
Pen again interrupted him.
"Oh, I'm not blaming you, Captain Perry; you couldn't do anything else
but turn me down. But some day, some way--I don't know how
to-night--but some way I'm going to prove to these people that have
been hounding me that I'm as good a patriot and can be as good a
soldier as the best man in your company!"
"Good! That's splendid!" Captain Perry rose to his feet and grasped
the boy's hand. "And I'll tell you what I'll do, Butler; if you're
willing to face the ordeal I'll enlist you. I believe in you."
But Pen would not listen to it.
"No," he said, "I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you, nor to
your men, nor to me. I'll meet the thing some other way. I'm grateful
to you all the same though."
"Very well; just as you choose. But when you need me in your fight
I'm at your service. Remember that!"
On his way home from the armory it was necessary that Pen should pass
through the main street of the town. Many of the shops were still open
and were brilliantly lighted, and people were strolling carelessly
along the walk, laughing and chatting as though the agony and horror
and brutality of the mighty conflict just across the sea were all in
some other planet, billions of miles away; as though the war cloud
itself were not pushing its ominous black rim farther and farther
above the horizon of our own beloved land. Now and then Pen met,
singly or in pairs, khaki clad young men on their way to the armory
for the weekly drill. Two or three of them nodded to him as they
passed by, others looked at him askance and hurried on. The resentment
that had been roused in his breast at Captain Perry's announcement
flamed up anew; but as he turned into the quieter streets on his
homeward route this feeling gave way to one of envy, and then to one
of self-pity and grief. Hard as his lot had been in comparison with
the luxury he might have had had he remained at Bannerhall, he had
never repined over it, nor had he been envious of those whose lines
had been cast in pleasanter places. But to-night, after looking at
these sturdy young fellows in military garb preparing to serve their
state and their country in the not improbable event of war, an intense
and passionate longing filled his breast to be, like them, ready to
fight, to kill or to be killed in defense of that flag which day by
day claimed his ever-increasing love and devotion. That he was not
permitted to do so was heart-rending. That it was by his own fault
that he was not permitted to do so was agony indeed. And yet it was
all so bitterly unjust. Had he not paid, a thousand times over, the
full penalty for his offense, trivial or terrible whichever it might
have been? Why should the accusing ghost of it come back after all
these years, to hound and harass him and make his whole life wretched?
It was in no cheerful or contented mood that he entered his home and
responded to the affectionate greeting of his mother.
"You're home early, dear," she said.
"Didn't they keep you for drill? How does it seem to be a soldier?"
"I didn't enlist, mother."
"Didn't enlist? Why not? I thought that was the big thing you were
going to do."
"They wouldn't take me."
"Why, Pen! what was the matter? I thought it was all as good as
settled."
"Well, you know that old trouble about the flag at Chestnut Hill?"
"I know. I've never forgotten it. But every one else has, surely."
"No, mother, they haven't. That's the reason they wouldn't take me."
"But, Pen, that was years and years ago. You were just a baby. You've
paid dearly enough for that. It's not fair! It's not human!"
She, too, was aroused to the point of indignant but unavailing
protest; for she too knew how the boy, long years ago, had expiated to
the limit of repentance and suffering the one sensational if venial
fault of his boyhood.
"I know, mother. That's all true. I know it's horribly unjust; but
what can you do? It's a thing you can't explain because it's partly
true. It will keep cropping up always, and how I am ever going to live
it down I don't know. Oh, I don't know!"
He flung himself into a chair, thrust his hands deep into his
trousers' pockets and stared despairingly into some forbidding
distance. She grew sympathetic then, and consoling, and went to him
and put her arm around his neck and laid her face against his head and
tried to comfort him.
"Never mind, dearie! So long as you, yourself, know that you love the
flag, and so long as I know it, we can afford to wait for other people
to find it out."
"No, mother, we can't. They've got to be shown. I can't live this way.
Some way or other I've got to prove that I'm no coward and I'm no
traitor."
"You're too severe with yourself, Pen. There are other ways, perhaps
better ways, for men to prove that they love their country besides
fighting for her. To be a good citizen may be far more patriotic than
to be a good soldier."
"I know. That's one of the things I've learned, and I believe it. And
that'll do for most fellows, but it won't do for me. My case is
different. I mistreated the flag once with my hands and arms and feet
and my whole body, and I've got to give my hands and arms and feet and
my whole body now to make up for it. There's no other way. I couldn't
make the thing right in a thousand years simply by being a good
citizen. Don't you see, mother? Don't you understand?"
He looked up into her face with tear filled eyes. The thought that had
long been with him that he must prove his patriotism by personal
sacrifice, had grown during these last few days into a settled
conviction and a great desire. He wanted her to see the situation as
he saw it, and to feel with him the bitterness of his disappointment.
And she did. She twined her arm more closely about his neck and
pressed her lips against his hair.
But her heart-felt sympathy made too great a draft on his emotional
nature. It silenced his voice and flooded his eyes. So she drew her
chair up beside him, and he laid his head in her lap as he had used
to do when he was a very little boy, and wept out his disappointment
and grief.
And as he lay there a new thought came to him. Swiftly as a whirlwind
forms and sweeps across the land, it took on form and motion and swept
through the channels of his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed the
tears from his face, and looked down on his mother with a countenance
transformed.
"Mother!" he exclaimed, "I have an idea!"
"Why, Pen; how you startled me! What is it?"
"I have an idea, mother. I'm going to--"
He paused and looked away from her.
"Going to what, Pen?"
He did not reply at once, but after a moment he said:
"I'll tell you later, mother, after it's all worked out and I'm sure
of it. I'm not going to bring home to you any more disappointments."