"MY ORDERS HAVE COME"
"It isn't as though they were strangers, or we'd known them only a
little while," Lucy protested, unconvinced. "They've both been with us
so long, I'm sure they are more American than anything else. In the
three years we've been stationed here they've hardly left Governor's
Island."
"Well, I think your father and Bob are right, just the same," said
Marian, rubbing her eyes.
"Perhaps they are," sighed Lucy, fiddling with the pillow-case on
Marian's bed with restless fingers, "but it seems somehow as though
everybody was going at once. The Twenty-Eighth and now Bob, and we
can't even have Elizabeth left. We'll never find any one to like us
all the way she does, and take care of us. I don't so much mind losing
Karl,--he is obstinate and queer, and I don't think he's always very
kind to Elizabeth, though he's served Father so faithfully. But it's
just a shame they have to go now when Mother has so much to bother her
anyway." Lucy's usually cheerful face was heavily clouded.
She was sitting on the floor by Marian's bed the morning after Bob's
party, her kodak, which she had run up-stairs to get for him, beside
her, while she poured her trouble into Marian's sympathetic if sleepy
ears. Marian had grown fond enough of Lucy to feel an interest in all
she cared about. Indeed, her companionship with her cousin, the first
she had ever had with a girl her own age, was the strongest influence
so far in awakening her from her dull and fretful indifference.
Lucy had known nothing of her father's decision in regard to Karl and
Elizabeth until this morning. Mrs. Gordon had talked matters over with
her husband the evening before, but Lucy had been too much occupied in
getting out dance records and making sure that every one was coming to
give heed to anything else. With the arrival of the battalion from Fort
Slocum many new officers with their families were on the post. So she
enjoyed Bob's party as much as he did, though no one liked a gay crowd
and a dance better than Bob, even when the crowd was only a little
group of officers' sons and young lieutenants, with a dozen girls from
his own age down to Lucy's, and the dance no more than rugs pushed back
in two rooms, and a phonograph which Mrs. Gordon tended all the evening.
Marian had danced without a sign of weariness and with a color in her
pale cheeks at the unusual exertion that made Mrs. Gordon resolve
to urge her again to take part in outdoor games with Lucy and the
others. At eleven she had gone up to bed, tired out, but Mrs. Gordon
was satisfied that she had enjoyed herself, and let her sleep the clock
around.
The clock on her mantel was striking now, and she sat up with a little
less than her usual morning listlessness.
"I'm going to get up, Lucy. What's the kodak for?" she asked, reaching
for her slippers.
"Bob wants it," explained Lucy; "he's going to take pictures of the
family to carry with him when he goes. Hurry up and be taken with us.
I'd better go down now, I guess. He must think I'm lost," she added,
rising from the floor with a little of her serenity restored.
Through the open door as she ran down-stairs Lucy saw Bob seated on
the front steps engaged in conversation with Sergeant Cameron. So she
stopped to put a film in the kodak at her leisure before going out into
the brilliant sunlight.
Sergeant Cameron was standing at ease with one foot on the lowest step,
his bright blue eyes fixed upon Bob's face as the two exchanged a fire
of interested questions.
"The Lieutenant expects to see service on the other side very shortly?"
he surmised, when Bob had told him the regiment to which he was
assigned and the week's leave allowed him.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure to," Bob agreed.
"And how do you feel about that?" persisted the Sergeant, his eyes
brightening at the words.
"Oh, I shan't mind it," said Bob briefly, meeting the non-commissioned
officer's glance with the understanding of old and well-tried friends.
Bob's feeling of respect and warm liking for this faithful veteran,
a true type of the old "non-com" who forms so valuable and efficient
a part of our service, a very tower of strength for his superiors to
rely on, was oddly mixed with a secret boyish satisfaction at hearing
himself called "the Lieutenant," in a respectful tone, by the old
soldier who had taught him to ride bareback on the western plains, and
scolded him unmercifully if he did not come up to service standards of
horsemanship, when he was a long-legged youngster of thirteen at Fort
Leavenworth.
Sergeant Cameron had not received enough early education to join the
ranks of those younger non-coms who were eagerly working to pass the
examination for a commission which the shortage of officers had caused
the government to offer them after the declaration of war. He was not,
anyway, ambitious in that direction, preferring to fill the place in
which he satisfied himself and others, with a comfortable knowledge
that the service needed him and more men like him. If he had fallen
under Bob Gordon's command, as Bob was sincerely wishing he had, the
young lieutenant's orders would have been carried out by him in the
face of every hazard, with an unshakable faith and allegiance, though
not with any dog-like submission. For he was a man of independent mind,
whose honest thoughts, shining through his eyes, would have told Bob
with every glance what heights of devotion to duty he expected of the
Major's son.
"Well, good luck to you, Sergeant, and good-bye, if I don't see you
before I go," said Bob at last, getting up and holding out his hand.
"We may meet again, you know, before we expect it."
Sergeant Cameron took Bob's hand in a quick, hard grasp, and murmured
something no less hearty for being almost inaudible. Then he saluted
stiffly and turned away in a rapid walk toward Headquarters.
Lucy came out, screwing up the film in the rather refractory camera,
as Bob turned to go indoors. "Here I am, Bob; don't be discouraged.
Marian's coming in a minute, too."
"All right. Mother! Come and be taken," Bob called through the window,
bringing out Mrs. Gordon and William in obliging haste.
"Now you and Captain Lucy and Corporal William all stand there on
the grass and look cheerful. Remember I'm going to carry these
pictures nobody knows where," cautioned Bob, in words hardly calculated
to make the faces before him brighten very much, though they tried to
do their best.
"Here's Marian," said Lucy, turning her head after the camera had
safely clicked. "Take her with me, Bob, will you? I want one for
myself."
"And I'll send one to Father to show him how fat I've grown," said
Marian, who felt very dutiful lately after making several weak attempts
to eat when she did not feel like it.
Mrs. Gordon smiled thoughtfully at the two girls as they stood with
arms linked together, Lucy, sun-tanned and bright-eyed, filled with
the energy which so often overdid itself in tumblings and breakings,
and Marian, delicate and fair as a little flower in her fresh blue
muslin dress, with new-brushed curls gleaming in the sun, but both
grown pretty good friends in spite of so many differences.
"Now, Marian, I wish you would take one of all my children for me,"
asked Mrs. Gordon when the film was turned again. "I will stand off
here and tell them how to look."
"All right; come on, Bob," said Lucy. "You stand here, me next and
William last, so we'll look like a nice little flight of steps."
"Bob takes up most of the room," commented Marian, peering into the
finder, "but I suppose he ought to."
"Of course," said Bob seriously, while William nodded such a solemn
agreement that everybody laughed, and Marian lost her range and had to
start over.
With this the film was used up and the family went indoors and sat down
to lunch, after a telephone message had come informing them that Major
Gordon had been called away to Fort Totten until night.
"I'll develop these beautiful things after lunch," said Bob as he laid
down the camera. "By that time it won't be quite so hot for tennis."
"Every time I see a post-card I expect to find my writing on it,"
remarked Lucy, glancing toward the mail which Elizabeth had just
brought in after the postman's ring. "Mr. Harding promised to write,
and here it is the second of September, and we know the ships are
safely there."
"Just one for me and the rest are Bob's," said Mrs. Gordon. "Play
tennis early then, Bob, and get back in time to look over your things
with me," she suggested, opening her letter. "I want to see what you
need before I go to town to-morrow."
"I can't play tennis," said Bob suddenly, in a voice that sounded
excited, as he held out to his mother the sheet of paper he had taken
from its long envelope. "My orders have come."
"Bob!" cried Lucy and her mother in a breath, as Lucy sprang from her
place to read over her mother's shoulder the few typewritten lines.
WAR DEPARTMENT
ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE
_Washington, D. C., September 1, 1917._
So much of the leave of absence granted Second Lieutenant Robert Lee
Gordon, 136th regiment of Infantry, by paragraph 6, special orders No.
82, as remains unexpired on the 3d instant is cancelled. Lieutenant
Gordon will proceed to Fort Totten and report for duty not later than
twelve o'clock noon of the 3d instant.
By order of the Adjutant General,
H. C. MCNAIR.
"Oh, Bob," said Lucy from the depths of her bitter disappointment;
"they might have let you have three days!"
Mrs. Gordon let fall the paper on the table and took Bob's hand in
hers, while Elizabeth's eager, troubled eyes watched her closely.
"Will you go now,--this second?" asked William, standing puzzled and
anxious by his mother's chair, unnoticed in the general confusion.
[Illustration: "MY ORDERS HAVE COME"]
"No, not till to-morrow morning," said Bob, his surprise over and a
hundred questions flitting through his brain. "Come, Mother, never
mind! What's a day or two, anyway? I have to go, so let's be cheerful
about it. Buck up, Captain Lucy! You be a sport."
"I will," said Lucy, smiling through the tears that trembled on her
lashes. "Look at Marian, Mother. She's worried to death about us." For
at sight of Mrs. Gordon's white face Marian had risen from her place
overcome with sympathy, roused for the moment from herself and vainly
trying to summon words of courage for another instead of asking them
for her own need.
Mrs. Gordon looked around at them all and smiled, the color coming
slowly back to her pale cheeks. "It was so sudden, Bob,--I couldn't
realize it at first," she said, patting Bob's shoulder as he bent
anxiously over her. "But of course I ought to have known your orders
might come at any moment. Your father told me so. But you get so many
long envelopes marked Official Business that I never thought when I saw
that one. Now we'll have to get to work in earnest. We'll finish our
lunch, children, and go up-stairs and pack."
"I have all the rest of the day and to-night," said Bob cheeringly,
smiling at Lucy, who was setting a good example by eating her dessert
as calmly as she could with so many feelings struggling for utterance
and her heart racing hard with painful excitement.
"I want just my steamer trunk and bag," said Bob, falling back on
details as the easiest thing to talk about at the moment. "We'll get
that all done and shan't have anything to bother about to-night. Do you
mind calling up Julia and Mr. Lewis, Marian, and telling them we can't
play with them this afternoon?"
The sun was sinking when the boat from Fort Totten drew in to the
Governor's Island Wharf and Major Gordon, stepping ashore, walked
rapidly homeward.
Inside his own door he found Bob coming down-stairs and accosted him
with, "Well, any news for you, Bob?"
"Yes, Dad, my orders have come," Bob returned, springing down to his
father's side.
Major Gordon nodded his head, his eyes on his son. "I thought so." He
lowered his voice a little as the two moved off into the study. "I was
sent for to-day to inspect the supplies for your regiment at Totten.
Three transports sail this week under convoy of the cruisers in the
river. What time do you report?"
"To-morrow noon."
"Well, son, how do you feel about it?" Major Gordon's voice was not so
calm itself as he put the question, one hand upon Bob's shoulder.
"I'm sorry on Mother's account,--awfully--but I want to go," said Bob,
gripping his father's arm.
Up-stairs Elizabeth had been helping Mrs. Gordon in Bob's room, and now
she led William away, reluctant to go, though he was tired out with
running from trunk to closet and tagging close at his big brother's
active heels.
"We'll sit down in your room here and have a story, shall we?" she
proposed, drawing up a low rocking-chair by William's bed and lifting
the sleepy little boy upon her lap.
"What shall I tell?" she asked, when William leaned comfortably back
against her, his unwillingness to leave the others forgotten.
"Tell about the goose princess," murmured William against her arm.
"But that you have so often heard," protested Elizabeth, but faintly,
knowing she would have to yield.
As William only grunted in reply she plunged patiently into the little
old story that was William's favorite, and very easy to tell indeed,
for William prompted her at every few words.
"Now the frog comes hopping in, doesn't he?" he raised his head
presently to ask.
"Yes," Elizabeth nodded, "and up he came before the little
princess to stand, but she was so frightened she ran back to the
chimney corner."
"And the stork,--what did he say?" put in William.
"The stork look very cross, poking out by the chimney his long neck,
and he said, 'Only for good childrens will the frog answer your
questions.' Then the stork flap his large wings against the chimney and
fly up out of sight. And while the little princess look up after him
she see the sky through the chimney-top----"
"And the house was all gone, wasn't it?"
"The little house was all gone, and in her old blue dress the princess
was on the hillside sitting, and her geese were making a fine noise
around her."
"And next day," prompted William, when Elizabeth stopped to take a
breath, then settled back comfortably once more to listen as she went
on.
William was always quiet and contented in Elizabeth's company. There
was no end to the tales she could tell, all about elves and gnomes
and strange, wise animals, and good and bad children who played among
them. Her stories came from Elizabeth's childhood in a country of
simple-hearted, fanciful people, the kindly soul of old Germany, with
its love of music and children and of tranquil happiness;--that Germany
which is bound up with the Kaiser and his Junkers in their mad and
pitiless thirst for conquest only by the blind obedience that comes
from their simplicity.
"And where did it all happen, Elizabeth?" William wanted to know when
at last the story had come to a satisfactory end and the frog and the
princess had reached an understanding.
"Oh, that happen far away from here, William. Over where I come from,
in my old country," Elizabeth explained, untangling William's legs from
her apron.
"Could I go over there and see it, do you think?" asked the little boy,
smothering a yawn as he put the question.
Elizabeth gave a heavy sigh which sounded so different from her usual
cheerful self that William looked quickly around into her face and saw
it for a moment set in sad, tired lines. But almost at once she smiled
at him again and said briskly, "Well, maybe you go some time there. But
now we must go quick to bed."