"A soldier brave
We weep for here."
Then we looked out a nice flagstone in the stable-yard, and we got a
cold-chisel out of the dentist's tool-box, and began.
But stone-cutting is difficult and dangerous work.
Oswald went at it a bit, but he chipped his thumb, and it bled so he had
to chuck it. Then Dicky tried, and then Denny, but Dicky hammered his
finger, and Denny took all day over every stroke, so that by tea-time we
had only done the H, and about half the E--and the E was awfully
crooked. Oswald chipped his thumb over the H.
We looked at it the next morning, and even the most sanguinary of us saw
that it was a hopeless task.
Then Denny said, "Why not wood and paint?" and he showed us how. We got
a board and two stumps from the carpenter's in the village, and we
painted it all white, and when that was dry Denny did the words on it.
It was something like this:
"IN MEMORY OF BILL SIMPKINS
DEAD FOR QUEEN & COUNTRY
HONOR TO HIS NAME AND ALL
OTHER BRAVE SOLDIERS."
We could not get in what we meant to at first, so we had to give up the
poetry.
We fixed it up when it was dry. We had to dig jolly deep to get the
posts to stand up, but the gardener helped us.
Then the girls made wreaths of white flowers, roses and canterbury
bells, and lilies and pinks, and sweet pease and daisies, and put them
over the posts, like you see in the picture. And I think if Bill
Simpkins had known how sorry we were, he would have been glad. Oswald
only hopes if _he_ falls on the wild battle-field, which is his highest
ambition, that somebody will be as sorry about him as he was about Bill,
that's all!
When all was done, and what flowers there were over from the wreaths
scattered under the tombstone between the posts, we wrote a letter to
Mrs. Simpkins, and said:
"DEAR MRS. SIMPKINS,--We are very, very sorry about the
turnips and things, and we beg your pardon humbly. We have
put up a tombstone to your brave son."
And we signed our names.
Alice took the letter.
The soldier's mother read it, and said something about our oughting to
know better than to make fun of people's troubles with our tombstones
and tomfoolery.
Alice told me she could not help crying.
She said:
"It's _not_! it's NOT! Dear, _dear_ Mrs. Simpkins, do come with me and
see! You don't know how sorry we are about Bill. Do come and see. We
can go through the church-yard, and the others have all gone in, so as
to leave it quiet for you. Do come."
And Mrs. Simpkins did. And when she read what we had put up, and Alice
told her the verse we had not had room for, she leaned against the wall
by the grave--I mean the tombstone--and Alice hugged her, and they both
cried bitterly. The poor soldier's mother was very, very pleased. And
she forgave us about the turnips, and we were friends after that, but
she always liked Alice the best. A great many people do, somehow.
After that we used to put fresh flowers every day on Bill's tombstone,
and I do believe his mother _was_ pleased, though she got us to move it
away from the church-yard edge and put it in a corner of our garden
under a laburnum, where people could not see it from the church. But you
could from the road, though I think she thought you couldn't. She came
every day to look at the new wreaths. When the white flowers gave out we
put colored, and she liked it just as well.
About a fortnight after the erecting of the tombstone the girls were
putting fresh wreaths on it when a soldier in a red coat came down the
road, and he stopped and looked at us. He walked with a stick, and he
had a bundle in a blue cotton handkerchief and one arm in a sling.
And he looked again, and he came nearer, and he leaned on the wall, so
that he could read the black printing on the white paint.
And he grinned all over his face, and he said:
"Well, I _am_ blessed!"
And he read it all out in a sort of half whisper, and when he came to
the end, where it says, "and all such brave soldiers," he said:
"Well, I really _am_!" I suppose he meant he really was blessed.
Oswald thought it was like the soldier's cheek, so he said:
"I dare say you aren't so very blessed as you think. What's it to do
with you, anyway, eh, Tommy?"
Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is called
that. The soldier said:
"Tommy yourself, young man. That's _me_!" and he pointed to the
tombstone.
We stood rooted to the spot. Alice spoke first.
"Then you're Bill, and you're not dead," she said, "Oh, Bill, I am so
glad! Do let _me_ tell your mother."
She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly because of
his leg, but I tell you he went as fast as ever he could.
We all hammered at the soldier's mother's door, and shouted:
"Come out! come out!" and when she opened the door we were going to
speak, but she pushed us away, and went tearing down the garden path
like winking. I never saw a grown-up woman run like it, because she saw
Bill coming.
She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of him,
and she cried much more than when she thought he was dead.
And we all shook his hand and said how glad we were.
The soldier's mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I couldn't
help looking at her face. It was like wax that had been painted pink on
both cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles. And when we had all said
how glad we were, she said:
"Thank the dear Lord for His mercies," and she took her boy Bill into
the cottage and shut the door.
We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the wood-axe and had a
blazing big bonfire, and cheered till we could hardly speak.
The post-card was a mistake; he was only missing. There was a pipe and a
whole pound of tobacco left over from our keepsake to the other
soldiers. We gave it to Bill. Father is going to have him for
under-gardener when his wounds get well. He'll always be a bit lame, so
he cannot fight any more.