GOOD-BYES
"I'll develop those pictures and send them to you, Bob," Lucy
promised. "I'll send them to Fort Totten and they'll be forwarded,--if
you shouldn't be there." She evaded just then the subject that was
uppermost in her mind.
They were on their way to the dock the morning of Bob's departure, and
he had just said good-bye to Karl and Elizabeth, who were in fact still
standing on the piazza steps, Elizabeth waving for the last time as
they turned the corner by the General's house. Major Gordon had ordered
the government boat to Fort Totten with additional supplies, and Bob
was to accompany his father on it, as well as Mrs. Gordon, who, for
the privilege of seeing Bob a few hours longer, had hastily decided to
spend the day with a friend at the fort, and return with her husband in
the evening.
Bob had only to say good-bye to Lucy, Marian and William, which he
found quite enough at the moment when they reached the dock and the
_General Meigs_ whistled a warning signal.
"You'll write--I mean often, every day, won't you?" Lucy begged,
looking up at Bob's erect, soldierly figure and at the jolly boyish
face that was so thoughtful just now, with a feeling like desperate
homesickness in her heart.
"Oh, you bet I will, Captain Lucy. I'll tell you everything. And
perhaps I'll be able to see you all again before we sail," Bob
suggested hopefully, wishing that Lucy were coming on the boat with his
mother, to delay the parting a little longer.
But Lucy hated good-byes as much as he, and she knew how Bob hated
them, and in past days they had always agreed to get them over as
quickly as possible. So when Mrs. Gordon called from the edge of the
dock, "Hurry, Bob dear! Father says to come," Lucy managed to put on
the brightest kind of smile as Bob took leave of William and Marian.
When he turned to her she said cheerfully, "Good luck, Bob, old boy,
and we'll never stop thinking of you!" Brother and sister exchanged
a bear hug that knocked Lucy's hat off onto the dock and then Bob,
seizing his bag and raincoat, jumped down on the _General Meigs'_ deck
by his mother's side.
Bob looked back at the three faces watching him as the boat pulled out,
of which William's was by far the most solemn, and waved his cap and
called out a last good-bye.
Lucy, gazing after him, saw his face blur as her eyes filled up with
sudden tears, but she winked them angrily away and turned to Marian,
when the boat's white wake and stern were all that they could see.
"Let's go home, Marian. I hate seeing people go, don't you?" were the
inadequate words that came to her lips.
"Yes, I do," said Marian, who looked as though she could understand,
and putting her hand through Lucy's arm she led the way back up the
hill.
Once in the house again Lucy dropped down on the first resting-place at
hand, which happened to be the piano-stool, and sat with hands clasped
about one knee, staring idly before her. For a moment she could not
take up the round of duties her mother had left her, nor look sensibly
ahead to what came next. It was too strange and hard to realize that
Bob was gone. That his brief leave was cut short and ended, and with
it all the pleasant things she had planned for the time they should be
together. "Bob's gone," she repeated to herself, and could not seem to
go beyond the thought.
What roused her was Marian's coming suddenly over to take a seat beside
her with a face so set with determination that Lucy looked at her in
astonishment.
"There's no use sitting here and doing nothing, Lucy," Marian said
decidedly. "It will only make you feel worse. Let's develop those
pictures right away so that Bob will surely get them. I'll help if you
will show me how, and William can watch us."
Lucy could hardly help laughing, far as she was from feeling jolly,
at Marian's sudden assumption of authority. The change was almost
startling from the self-absorbed passiveness out of which she could so
seldom be roused, unless some one tried to make her do what she did not
like. But in consequence her words had more effect now in distracting
Lucy from her gloomy thoughts.
"All right, Marian, I will," she smiled, giving a lazy stretch of her
arms above her head. The family had risen early that morning, for the
_General Meigs_ left at eight o'clock. "I have to do some telephoning
for Mother first, but that won't take very long."
"Lucy! Are you here?" called a voice from the piazza, and Julia Houston
poked her head through a window. "Oh, hello, I'll climb in," she added,
getting over the sill with her usual swiftness of action.
"I was just wishing you'd come, Julia," said Lucy, rushing to meet her
friend. "Oh! Isn't he sweet! Where did you get him?" For Julia was
clutching with both arms a fat, yellow Newfoundland puppy that wanted
awfully to get on its own feet.
"Somebody gave Father two of them," explained Julia, dropping her
wriggling burden on to the floor with a sigh of relief. "And Father
says we may keep only one, and for me to give the other away, so I
thought I'd let you have first chance. I know you need cheering up
to-day, and they are the cunningest, funniest little ducks. I have been
playing with them ever since I woke up."
"I'd simply love to have him," exclaimed Lucy, shouting to be heard
over William's sudden squeals of delight as he came running in and saw
the puppy.
"Oh, let's have him, let's keep him,--mayn't we, Lucy?" he begged from
the floor, where he and the puppy were already a tangle of legs and
paws, as the puppy delightedly recognized something near his own size
to play with.
"I don't know until we ask Father," said Lucy, smiling. "But I guess he
won't mind."
"They're just alike. We'll have to label them to tell them apart," said
Julia. "Father wanted to name them something German, because they're
so yellow, but I certainly won't. I've named ours MacDougal after the
Canadian officer who gave them to us, and I'll call him Mac."
"Well, we shall simply have to keep this one. He's too sweet," said
Lucy, trying to push her fingers into the puppy's thick furry coat
while he rolled over in every direction.
"Let's name him something to remind us of our own men over in France,"
suggested Marian vaguely, her mind still filled with the recent
departures for the front.
"Call him American Expeditionary Force," laughed Julia. "He won't come
when he's called, so a long name does just as well."
"You two think of a nice one," said Lucy, getting up from the floor,
"while I do my telephoning and speak to Elizabeth. Then we're going to
develop some pictures, Julia, and you can help. William will take care
of,--you name him now."
With the help of Julia's lively company the morning was not very long
in passing. By the time Lucy's tasks were done and the roll of films
had been developed, dried, and printed in the sun on the piazza steps,
her spirits had recovered their usual brightness, and whatever lack of
real cheer lay beneath she managed to keep to herself.
By luncheon time William had become so attached to the puppy, who was
still unchristened, with a choice of about twenty names of all sorts
offered him, that Julia went home without him, leaving William beaming
with delight.
"He may have some milk right on the table by my plate, mayn't he,
Lucy?" he suggested, carrying the new pet into the dining-room with
him.
"No, he may not," said Lucy decidedly. "But he may have it on the floor
while you eat. I'm a sight!" she added, looking frowningly at her dress
as she tucked back a wisp of hair. "I never noticed how awfully I
looked after all that work, but it's too late to change now."
Lucy was feeling heavy-hearted again, at sight of the empty places at
the table, and did not care much about eating. She had a funny moment
though when Marian, noticing how indifferent she seemed to the good
food before her, said coaxingly, "Go on and eat, Lucy, won't you?
You'll feel much better if you do."
"It seems like Alice through the looking-glass," Lucy thought to
herself, her lips twitching with amusement. "Everything is turned
around to-day. Suppose you eat something yourself, for a change," she
countered, glancing at Marian's empty plate.
After lunch she went up-stairs to change her dress, with a look at the
fresh white one Marian had found time to put on when the pictures were
finished. She was soberly brushing her hair with hard slaps of the
brush, before the glass, when Elizabeth passed by the door and stopped
at sight of her.
"I fasten your dress, Miss Lucy, shall I?" she asked, hesitating in the
doorway.
"Yes, please do," said Lucy, feeling suddenly very much like hearing
Elizabeth's quiet, pleasant voice. "Sit down and wait until I finish
my hair and then you may help me."
"So you are not too long, I wait," consented Elizabeth, coming in the
room and commencing to hang up clothes and put away shoes instead of
sitting down as Lucy had suggested.
"Oh, Elizabeth, I hated so to have Bob go," Lucy could not help saying,
the thoughts she had kept back all day clamoring for utterance. "It was
so hard to have him here only two days,--and, oh, I wish to goodness
you weren't going too!"
Elizabeth paused in her work, her hand on the closet door, and regarded
Lucy with sad face and wistful eyes.
"It is not that I wish to go, Miss Lucy," she protested, shaking her
head slowly and twisting nervous fingers in her big apron. "It is very
hard for me to leave you all so dear to me and go to a strange country."
"Where are you going?" asked Lucy, tying her hair ribbon in a hasty bow
as she crossed the room to Elizabeth's side.
"I not know," Elizabeth responded uncertainly. "Karl did not tell me.
He only say, we must leave America. They do not want us here."
"Oh, but we do want you, Elizabeth!" exclaimed Lucy, fixing pleading
eyes on the little German woman's face, as though in despair of making
her understand. "War is a terrible thing! It has to come on all the
people, whether they deserve it or not, but you didn't want it any more
than I did, and it's not your fault."
"I never think my old country fight with America, Miss Lucy!" cried
Elizabeth, tears standing now in her eyes as she faltered out the
words. "So long our Kaiser keeps peace at home for us! I wonder now how
he have to go to war."
Lucy did not quite know what to say to this, so she only put a
comforting hand on Elizabeth's shoulder.
"I hope, though, maybe the war end before Mr. Bob get to the
battle-field," Elizabeth suggested hopefully after a moment's
thoughtful silence, her habitual cheerfulness asserting itself even now
above her melancholy.
"Perhaps," said Lucy doubtfully, her mind turned once more to her
brother, with a glimpse of the closer meaning the war now held for all
the Gordon family.
"Well, I must go down, Miss Lucy," sighed Elizabeth, but she smiled at
the same time and wiped away her tears with a corner of her apron.
"Wait a second. I have something for you," said Lucy, opening the
closet door and fumbling in the pocket of the blouse Elizabeth had
just hung up. "I printed a picture on purpose for you. It's of Bob
and William and me. I thought you'd like it." She drew out the little
snap-shot that Marian had taken the day before and gave it to Elizabeth
with a glance at the little group,--Bob's straight, soldierly figure,
her own beside him, and William peeking around at his brother from the
end of the line. Bob's boots were especially in evidence, but it was a
good likeness of all three.
"Oh, thank you, dear Miss Lucy," cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure
at the gift, and even more at the feeling of still being friends with
the Gordon children which the little talk had given her. "I keep it
always with me, and I often look at it and think of you."
She tucked the picture in the pocket of her apron and went off
down-stairs, while Lucy, with a sudden return of the lump in her
throat, sat down at her desk to mail a set of the pictures to Bob.
When Mrs. Gordon came home late that afternoon with her husband, in
great need of being cheered and comforted, for the activity at Fort
Totten spoke plainly of the regiment's departure, Lucy and Marian met
her at the door with welcoming faces. Lucy had overcome her low spirits
at last, with the satisfaction of angrily calling herself unpatriotic
names, and she was firmly entrenched now behind her resolution of
courageous cheerfulness.
No one had more courage than Mrs. Gordon, and her trouble did not show
itself long, but Lucy's sympathetic heart could guess it, even out
of sight. Mrs. Gordon was used enough to seeing men called away to
hazardous service. She had seen her husband go off to the Spanish War
as a young lieutenant, to China at the time of the Boxer uprising, and
to the Mexican border only a year ago. She knew that Bob must take his
chosen place, but he seemed so young to go. This year, that would have
made him a first classman at West Point, found him still a boy in his
mother's eyes, not grown to the measure of man's trials and hardships.
It had to be, and Bob's mother knew it and submitted, but it was hard.
Major Gordon was tired with a long day's tedious work, and the family
sat out on the cool piazza, where William ate his supper, while Mrs.
Gordon told the little news she had of Bob's fellow officers and
surroundings. William played on the floor with his new pet, from whom
he refused to be separated, the puppy's big, awkward paws flopping
in every direction and his furry body squirming with excitement when
William pretended to be another dog and jumped at him. Nobody could
help smiling at the jolly little beast, or at William's delight in him,
and Lucy said:
"The puppy is the happiest person here. I think we need him, Father.
Anyway, if you don't let us have him I think William will go over and
live at the Houstons'."
"Oh, keep him if you wish to," said Major Gordon, poking a boot at the
puppy, who at once grabbed it in his little teeth and rolled over and
over. "Only don't let him get to chewing up my clothes, William, or out
he goes. What's his name?"
"You said he was happy, Lucy, let's call him that," suggested William,
grabbing his pet with both hands.
"Well, we've been trying to give him some grand name all day," said
Lucy, "but I suppose we might as well come down to that and be done
with it."
"I like it," said William. "Your name's Happy, do you hear?" he told
the puppy, who cheerfully wagged his tail, cocking one alert ear at his
little master, while Mrs. Gordon drew William over to her side.
The two days following Bob's departure brought other changes in the
Gordon household, for on the third day Karl and Elizabeth took their
leave. The parting between William and Elizabeth was almost a tragedy,
as Lucy remarked, sinking into a piazza chair that afternoon, feeling,
as she announced to Marian, "dead beat." She began sorting the
mail which had just arrived, her hands moving listlessly, her thoughts
filled with the sailing of the One Hundred and Thirty-Sixth, which
had taken place, to the best of Major Gordon's knowledge, early that
morning. Mrs. Gordon came out after showing the kitchen to the newly
arrived cook, their only servant for the time being, and looked over
Lucy's shoulder. Together they seized the post-card Bob had mailed from
Fort Totten the night before, and read the few words scribbled on it:
"Good-bye, and love from Bob."
In spite of Major Gordon's announcement of the intended sailing this
short message seemed to mean more to them, somehow, than any official
tidings. Bob never said good-bye until the last moment.
Lucy looked down among the neglected letters and papers again to hide
her tear-dimmed eyes, but a moment later she held up a second card,
exclaiming:
"Look here! Something nice has actually happened! It's one of my
post-cards back from Mr. Harding!"
"Oh, Lucy, let me see!" cried Marian, rushing to her side in unusual
excitement. "I never really thought you'd get one back again."
"I did," said Lucy confidently, and read aloud the lines written with
indelible pencil:
"DEAR CAPTAIN LUCY:
"Here I am, and I haven't forgotten my promise. We'll soon be in the
thick of it; but I can't say any more, only I think of you often. Send
me any news of Bob's coming.
R. H."
"William was wrong, after all, when he said we could tell where it came
from by the postmark," said Marian, turning the card over with gentle
fingers, "for there isn't any postmark, except New York."
That evening, when the two girls were getting ready for bed, Lucy said
to Marian, with relief and thankfulness in her voice, "Anyway, there is
no one else left to go just now." But she was not quite right.
Sergeant Cameron's wife had been ill a long time, and in spite of
every care she died a few days after Bob's departure. The Sergeant
was devoted to her, and soon he found his lonely little house
unbearable, and his quiet round of duties grown suddenly distasteful.
So one morning he summoned up courage to ask Major Gordon to have
him transferred from his staff detail back to the regiment. Very
reluctantly Major Gordon consented, for Sergeant Cameron's loss was a
heavy one with the Quartermaster's Department swamped with work, and he
had few such tried and capable assistants.
"I can't refuse you, Sergeant," he said at last. "I've put in the
application for you, and I think it will be approved. Our regiment is
still at Plattsburg Barracks, but there is talk of its soon seeing
foreign service." Major Gordon thought of his own staff detail as
he spoke, but whatever hopes or wishes he had in sympathy with the
Sergeant's, he gave no voice to them.
"I'm very grateful to the Major," said Sergeant Cameron, saluting. "And
I'm sorry to leave--I am indeed, sir."
So it was that in that short, eventful summer Lucy saw her friends go
one by one, in such sudden changes as even army life had never known
before. And in their places came others who were not always found to be
such strangers either, for an army girl has friends from east to west,
and must learn to bear partings bravely and make the most of those who
are near at hand.