That spring would always be a memorable one both to the girls and the
country at large, for momentous events followed one upon another in
rapid succession. War was declared with Spain, as Kenneth had
prophesied, and all the bustle and activity attendant upon the
preparations of hostilities with a foreign power were felt throughout
the nation.
Kenneth, believing such a crisis inevitable, had prepared to respond
promptly to the first call for troops.
There had been a fierce tussle with his father when first he broached
the subject, but by that time Mr. Landor had learned that Kenneth's was
not a nature to be forced into subjection and heard him out with far
more respect than would have been accorded him a year ago. Mr. Landor
suggested, in the course of the talk, that it was a pity to leave the
business just as he was mastering it; and Kenneth agreed with him. But
all the patriotism in his nature was aroused and this, combined with
Hester's inspiration and his naturally adventurous spirit, held him
proof against his father's arguments. This strength and decision were
not lost upon the older man, who, having put forth every argument to
keep his son at home, ended the discussion by saying, somewhat abruptly:
"When the call came in '61 I could not go. I had a father and mother
dependent on me. I'm--I'm not dependent on you, Kenneth, and your
country needs you. I should have been disappointed in you if you had not
wanted to go."
"Thank you, father," with a hearty grip of the hand for he thought he
understood the personal sacrifice his father was making, though,
man-fashion, he said no word.
And so Kenneth used his influence toward the end he had in view, with
the good result that when on that twenty-third day of April the
President issued his first call for troops, he was given a commission as
lieutenant in the crack cavalry troop of Radnor and ordered into the
State camp to await developments.
The girls saw the troopers go. They happened to be in the business part
of the city that afternoon and were attracted by groups of people
standing about and talking excitedly. Further investigation, coupled
with the sound of a bugle in the distance, caused them to take refuge on
the nearest steps and wait with bated breath for the militia to appear.
Electric cars had stopped running, wagons rattled off into the side
streets, leaving the main thoroughfare clear, and presently they came--a
troop of cavalry followed by a regiment of infantry, the splendid column
swinging along to the gay music of the band, whose medley of martial
airs wound up suggestively with "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
The crowd broke into a great spontaneous cheer and cheered and cheered
again, shouting until they were hoarse. On the sidewalks, steps, from
windows all about, people craned their necks for a last look at the
departing soldiers. Women waved their handkerchiefs and wept. Men raised
their hats--aye, flung them high in the air--while every man, woman and
child who could lay hand on a flag waved it in frantic demonstration.
For staid decorous Radnor it was an ovation.
The Dale girls thrilled with excitement. Just as the cavalry passed
their steps Julie grabbed Hester and said:
"Look at that officer just back of the men--isn't he stunning! And see
how beautifully he manages that prancing horse! No, not over there,
Hester,--this way, nearer us," excitedly, "the horse is dancing to the
music and oh!--why, Hester Dale, it's Mr. Landor! Wave to him, quick! I
want him to see us!"
They both waved, standing on tip-toe, and, as if impelled by the
instinct that warns us when those we love are near, he turned and saw
them. There was a quick interchange of glances, a slight wave of the
hand and he was gone.
"He _did_ see us," exclaimed Julie. "I am so glad even if it is against
the regulations for an officer to recognize people. Oh, aren't you glad
we were down town! It is really living in war times and seeing for
ourselves the things Daddy has described a thousand times!"
"I can't realize it," said Hester, looking rather flushed, "but I would
not have missed it for anything in the world!"
When they got back to the house they found Jack in a fever of impatience
waiting to waylay them.
"Did you see him? Did you see him?" he cried, stopping them at his door.
"Mr. Landor? yes," laughed Julie. "Did you?"
"Where were you? I was down at the Armory. Oh, please stop in here a
moment till I tell you about it."
Thus urged, they went in.
"He was here," cried Jack, to whom there was only one he, "early this
afternoon in his uniform and he asked for you; he wanted to say good-by,
but I said you'd just gone out. I saw you both going up the street
before he came--and he could only stay a second 'cause the troops were
ordered out and he thought I'd like to get around to the Armory and see
them start off. And didn't I, just! I went lickety-split on my crutches
nearly as fast as a boy could run," he cried, immensely proud of this
achievement, "and I was there in time and got a front seat. A fellow on
a grocery wagon asked me to sit up with him and I saw--everything," with
a comprehensive sweep of his arms. "The horses and the officers and the
men and all their friends crowding around the Armory and hanging on to
some of them tight, and some of the ladies crying and gee! but it was
great!"
"Well, you certainly were right in it, Jack," commented Hester.
"Should say I was! And pretty soon out came Mr. Landor--Lieutenant
Landor," corrected Jack with great emphasis, "and an orderly was
standing alongside the curb with his horse and before he mounted he saw
me sitting in the wagon on the corner of the street and he came down and
saluted as though I was his superior officer," Jack's eyes were fairly
dancing out of his head, "and said good-by all over again. I wish you
could have seen the crowd! They just gaped! and the boys nearly had a
fit seeing me talking to an officer. And when he went off one of them
said, 'Gee! he's a corker--he'll knock the spots out of the Spaniards,'
and I said, 'You bet!' That's awful slang, Miss Julie," apologetically,
"but it's the truth."
Julie smiled. "We are getting our first glimpse of war, Jack, and it is
pretty exciting for all of us."
"I'm crazy to go--I bet they'd take me for a drummer-boy if I could get
rid of these," with a disgusted glance at his crutches. "I told Mr.
Landor so and he said of course I wanted to go--every boy wanted to
serve his country--but sometimes there was just as much to do for those
who stayed at home as those who went. That the women and children must
be looked after" (the air of protection which the superiority of his sex
gave him would have been funny had he not been in such deadly earnest),
"and," he continued, "he appointed me a guard of honor. I'm to take care
of you!" He made this announcement with positive triumph.
"How splendid!" said Julie, realizing how much this feeling of
importance meant to the restless boy who was longing to be off for the
front.
"I'm to go and see his father too, and print a weekly bulletin full of
what we're all doing and anything I can make up--just like the one I do
for your father and he's going to write me from camp. Think of that! And
I'm to get well as fast as I can and study very hard and try to be a man
when he gets back. And what do you suppose? No more office for me!"
"Jack, you are inventing!"
"Nope," delighted at her incredulity, "he had a talk with mother last
week and I'm to go to school and then to college."
"That is the best news I've heard for many a day," said Julie,
affectionately regarding the happy boy. "If you work hard and go to
college I prophesy great things for you."
"If the war's still on, though, when I'm old enough and well enough,
maybe I'd get to be a drummer-boy." In his present state of military
ardor life held the promise of nothing greater than that.
When they had left him and were nearly at their own door they were
stopped by the sound of his crutches on the stairs below. Hester ran
back to see what he wanted.
"Don't come up, Jack," she called, running down to meet him. "Did we
leave something behind?"
"It's this, Miss Hester," reaching out a note. "He gave it to me--I
nearly forgot. Please forgive me," penitently.
"Of course, Jack," taking it from him and turning again she went
upstairs.
It was only a thin sheet of paper, folded three-cornered, on which in
pencil was scrawled her name. But she opened it on the stairs with a
mixture of curiosity and tenderness which she would have been at a loss
to define had any analysis of her feelings been required of her.
"I had hoped to see you," it said, without any other beginning, "but
that failing, I have stolen a moment here at the Armory to say
good-bye. It was not a friend but I, myself, to whom you were such a
help and inspiration that evening. When I come back will you let me
thank you for that and--more? The bit of gold you gave me I am
carrying with me as a mascot. Do you mind? And if I prove as
fearless and brave a soldier as you I shall thank God for making me
of the right stuff. Will you pray that it may be so? Good-bye."
She stood quite still for a moment when she had finished reading, then
brushed her hand quickly over her eyes and went on into their apartment.
Finding Julie she handed her the bit of paper and said gayly, though
Julie thought there was a suspicious huskiness in her voice, "See, Julie
dear, a note from a really, truly soldier." And before Julie could speak
she whisked out of the room and until Bridget called her to dinner, was
seen no more.
* * * * *
A month passed, during which, in spite of the excitement over war and
the subsequent depression along certain lines of business, their work
increased from day to day. And in the midst of all this bustle and rush
when each hour exacted of them the very limit of their endurance, Mr.
Dale died. He went to sleep with God as peacefully as a little child. At
first the girls could not believe it. They had grown so used to the long
hours in which he slept, so accustomed to the paralysis which kept his
mind and body apathetic, that they could not conceive that he would not
wake again and turn his eyes fondly on them as before. When finally he
was carried out of the little home and laid in his last resting place
they began to realize that God had released him from his earthly
thraldom and given them another saint in heaven. With characteristic
courage they lived through those first days when the awful loneliness
pressed so heavily upon them, and with characteristic determination took
up their work struggling to go on as if nothing had happened. But it was
hard--harder than any other sorrow which had come to them--for the whole
incentive of their work was gone. It was as if the very mainspring of
their lives had snapped and broken.
In the long solemn talks the girls had together at this time Julie urged
that they must be as faithful to their father's precepts as they had
tried to be while he was with them. And she dwelt very much on the fact
that he was still with them, guiding and loving them as much as during
all those years before he was stricken down. And Hester believed this
too for they had been taught the beauty of the inner, spiritual life
that counts for immortality and makes all separation merely a transitory
thing bridged over by love. So they felt their beloved father still with
them, though Hester often brokenly whispered that working was robbed of
its incentive now that they were no longer "making a home for Dad."
It must not be supposed that they were left alone in their affliction.
On the contrary, friends sprang up in every direction. Women whom
hitherto they had only regarded as customers and known most formally,
now came forward with kindest words and thoughtful suggestions, while
expressions of sympathy in the form of cards and flowers threatened to
well-nigh deluge them. It was evident to the most casual observer that
"those Dale girls" were persons of considerable importance. Unique as it
was, they had made their place in Radnor, and the fact was given wide
recognition. They themselves were fairly bewildered and overcome by so
much demonstration from people from whom they expected nothing. That
they were not insensible to its meaning was shown in their grateful
appreciation of every word and act. Even the haughty Miss Davis,
desiring to make reparation, chose this time to come and see them, and
Hester out of the fullness of her sorrowful heart accepted her repentant
kiss and fell to talking of childish days.
Next to Dr. Ware there was no one so keenly conscious of or who so
rejoiced over this capitulation of exclusive Radnor as the Lennoxes. As
Mrs. Lennox wrote Kenneth Landor, most girls were what their position
made them, but they had made their own position, winning the respect and
admiration and at last the friendship of every one who knew them. He,
hard at work drilling raw recruits in Virginia (for his troop had been
ordered into a Southern camp) found time to write how glad of this he
was and to the girls he sent a joint note of deepest sympathy.
The Driscoes wrote, of course, each in their own way. The girls half
smiled over Cousin Nancy's letter--it was such a mixture of a belief in
the retribution that overtakes the willful and an evident grief that the
Major was no more. Colonel Driscoe wrote little but did much which
developed later through Dr. Ware who unwarily let the cat out of the
bag. And Dr. Ware, as might have been expected, did everything. This
time the girls allowed him to plan and arrange and perform with them and
for them the last loving offices for their father, feeling that it was
his right.
Miss Ware was at this time in England and as the Doctor was living at
his club, his time was more than ever at their disposal. Miss Ware had
taken flight at this first note of war, indeed before the bugle sounded,
for she had a very indifferent regard for her country and at all times
preferred England. So the Doctor came and went without comment, and a
month after Mr. Dale's death he was summoned hastily one morning by
Bridget.
Julie lay ill. He could not find that she was in any great pain and he
had not expected that she would be. He knew immediately that the thing
he had been so long dreading had taken place. Her tired nerves refused
to do their work at last--the delicate mechanism of her body had
stopped.
Hester hovered about, wide-eyed and solicitous and then it was that more
than ever Dr. Ware took things into his own hands and said a few things
to Hester which caused that young woman to gasp with astonishment and
fling her arms about his neck in her usual impetuous fashion.