OLD AARON'S FLAG
GREENWALD is an old town but it is a delightfully interesting one. It
does not wear its antiquity as an excuse for sinking into mouldering
uselessness. It presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint,
romantic and historic with the beautiful, progressive and modern. Though
it clings reverently to honored traditions it is ever mindful of the
fact that the welfare of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable
progress in its religious, educational and industrial life.
The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in its great old trees;
its wide Market Square from which narrower streets branch to the east,
west, north and south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
type of several generations ago; its occasional little, low houses which
have withstood the march of modern building and stand squarely beside
houses of more elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its
old-fashioned gardens. All the old-time flowers are favorites there and
refuse to be displaced by any newcomer. Sweet alyssum and candytuft
spread carpets of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes which have been undisturbed for
three or more generations.
To Phoebe Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand inhabitants, its
several churches, post-office and numerous stores, seemed a veritable
city. She delighted in walking on its brick sidewalks, looking at its
different houses and entering its stores. How many attractions these
stores held for the little country girl! There was the big one on the
Square which had in one of its windows a great lemon tree on which grew
real lemons. Another store had a large Santa Claus in its window every
Christmas--not that Phoebe Metz had ever been taught to believe in that
patron saint of the children--oh, no! Maria Metz would have considered
it foolish, even sinful, to lie to a child about any mythical Santa
Claus coming down the chimney Christmas Eve! Nevertheless, the smiling,
rotund face of the red-habited Santa in the store window seemed so real
and so emanative of cheer that Phoebe delighted in him each year and
felt sure there must be a Santa Claus somewhere in the world, even
though Aunt Maria knew nothing about him.
Most little towns can boast of one or more persons like Granny
Hogendobler, well-nigh community owned, certainly community
appropriated. Did any one need a helper in garden or kitchen or sewing
room, Granny Hogendobler was glad to serve. Did a housewife remember
that a rose geranium leaf imparts to apple jelly a delicious flavor,
Granny Hogendobler was able and willing to furnish the leaf. Did a lover
of flowers covet a new phlox or dahlia or other old-fashioned flower,
Granny Hogendobler was ready to give of her stock. Should a young wife
desire a recipe for crullers, shoo-fly pie, or other delectable dish,
Granny had a wealth of reliable recipes at her tongue's end. This
admirable desire to serve found ample opportunities for exercise in the
constant demands from her friends and neighbors. But Granny's greatest
joy lay in the fond ministrations for her husband, Old Aaron, as the
town people called him, half pityingly, half accusingly. For some said
Old Aaron was plain shiftless, had always been so, would remain so
forever, so long as he had Granny to do for him. Others averred that the
Confederate bullets that had shattered his leg into splinters and
necessitated its amputation must have gone astray and struck his
liver--leastways, that was the kindest explanation they could give for
his laziness.
Granny stoutly refuted all these charges--gossip travels in circles in
small towns and sooner or later reaches those most concerned--"Aaron
lazy! I-to-goodness no! Why, he's old and what for should he go out and
work every day, I wonder. He helps me with the garden and so, and when I
go out to help somebody for a day or two he gets his own meals and tends
the chickens still. Some people thought a few years ago that he might
get work in the foundry, but I said I want him at home with me. He gets
a pension and we can live good on what we have without him slaving his
last years away, and him with one leg lost at Gettysburg!" she ended
proudly.
So Old Aaron continued to live his life as pleased his mate and himself.
He pottered about the house and garden and spent long hours musing under
the grape arbor. But there was one day in every year when Old Aaron
came into his own. Every Memorial Day he dressed in his venerated blue
uniform and carried the flag down the dusty streets of Greenwald, out to
the dustier road to a spot a mile from the heart of the town, where, on
a sunny hilltop, some of his comrades rested in the Silent City.
Only the infirm and the ill of the town failed to run to look as the
little procession passed down the street. There were boys in khaki, the
town band playing its best, volunteer firemen clad in vivid red shirts,
a low, hand-drawn wagon filled with flowers, an old cannon, also
hand-drawn, whose shots over the graves of the dead veterans would
thrill as they thrilled every May thirtieth--all received attention and
admiration from the watchers of the procession. But the real honors of
the day were accorded the "thin blue line of heroes," and Old Aaron was
one of these. To Granny Hogendobler, who walked with the crowd of
cheering children and adults and kept step on the sidewalk with the step
of the marchers on the street, it was evident that the standard bearer
was growing old. The steep climb near the cemetery entrance left him
breathless and flushed and each year Granny thought, "It's getting too
much for him to carry that flag." But each returning year she would have
spurned as earnestly as he any suggestion that another one be chosen to
carry that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth day the lean
straight figure of Old Aaron marched directly under the fluttering folds
of Old Glory and the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration,
then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot him again or
spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little lazy, a little shiftless, a little
childish, and Granny Hogendobler became the more important figure of
that household.
Granny was fifteen years younger than her husband and was undeniably
rotund of hips and face, the former rotundity increased by her full
skirts, the latter accentuated by her style of wearing her hair combed
back into a tight knot near the top of her head and held in place by a
huge black back-comb.
From this style of hair dressing it is evident that Granny was not a
member of any plain sect. She was, as she said, "An Evangelical, one of
the old kind yet. I can say Amen to the preacher's sermon and stand up
in prayer-meeting and tell how the Lord has blessed me."
There were some who doubted the rich blessing of which Granny spoke. "I
wouldn't think the Lord blessed me so much," whispered one, "if I had a
man like Old Aaron, though I guess he's good enough to her. And that boy
of theirs never comes home; he must have a funny streak in him too."
"But think of this," one would answer, "how the Lord keeps her cheerful,
kind and faithful through all her troubles."
Granny's was a wonderful garden. She and Old Aaron lived in a little
gray cube of a house that had its front face set straight to the edge of
Charlotte Street. However, the north side of the cube looked into a
great green yard where tall spruce trees, overrun with trumpet vines and
woodbine, shaded long beds of flowers that love semi-shady places. The
rear of the house overlooked an old-fashioned garden enclosed with a
white-washed picket fence. Always were there flowers at Granny's house.
In the cold days of winter blooming masses of geraniums, primroses and
gloxinias crowded against the little square panes of the windows and
looked defiantly out at the snow; while all the old favorites grew in
the garden, from the first March snowdrop to the late November
chrysanthemum. In June, therefore, the garden was a "Lovesome spot"
indeed.
"It vonders me now if Granny's home," thought Phoebe as she opened the
wooden gate and entered the yard.
"Here I am," called Granny. "Back in the garden. I-to-goodness, Phoebe,
did you come once! I just said yesterday to Aaron that I didn't see none
of you folks for long, and here you come! You haven't seen the flowers
for a while."
"Oh!" Phoebe breathed an ecstatic little word of delight. "Oh, your
garden is just vonderful pretty!"
"Ain't," agreed Granny. "Aaron and me's been working pretty hard in it
these weeks. There he is, out in the potato patch; see him?"
Phoebe stood on tiptoe and looked where Granny's finger pointed to the
extreme end of the long vegetable garden, where the white head of Old
Aaron was bending over his hoeing.
"He's hoeing the potatoes," Granny explained. "He don't see you. But
he'll soon be done and come in."
"What were you doin'?" asked the child.
"Weeding the flag."
"Weedin' the flag--what do you mean?" Phoebe's eyes lighted with
eagerness. "I guess you mean mendin' the flag, Granny." She looked
toward the porch as if in search of Old Glory.
"I said weeding the flag," the woman insisted. "It's an idea of Aaron's
and I guess I'll tell you about it, seeing your eyes are open so wide.
See the poppies, that long stretch of them in the middle of the garden?"
"Um-uh," nodded Phoebe.
"Well, that patch at the back is all red poppies, the buds just coming
on them nice and big. Then right in front of them is another patch of
white poppies; the buds are thick on them, too. And right in front of
them--you see what's there!"
"Larkspur, blue larkspur!" cried Phoebe. "Oh, I see--it's red, white and
blue! You'll have it all summer in your garden!"
"Yes. When it blooms it'll be a grand sight. I said to Aaron that we'll
have all the children of Greenwald in looking at his flag and he said he
hopes so, for they couldn't look at anything better than the colors of
Old Glory. Aaron's crazy about the flag."
"'Cause he fought for it, mebbe."
"Yes, I guess. His father died for it at Gettysburg, the same place
where Aaron lost his leg. . . . The only thing is, the larkspur's
getting ahead of the poppies--seems like the larkspur couldn't
wait"--her voice continued low--"I always love to see the larkspur
come."
"I too," said the child. "I like to pull out the little slippers from
the middle of the flowers and fit 'em into each other and make circles
with 'em. I made a lot last summer and pressed 'em in a book, but Aunt
Maria made me stop."
"That's just what Nason used to do. I have some pressed in the big Bible
yet that he made when he was a little boy." She spoke half-absently, as
though momentarily forgetful of the child's presence.
"Who's Nason?" asked Phoebe.
Granny started. "I-to-goodness, Phoebe, I forgot! You don't know him,
never heard of him, I guess. He's our boy. We had a little girl, too,
but she died."
"Did the boy die too, Granny?"
"No, ach no! You wouldn't understand. He's living in the city. He writes
to me often but he don't come home. He and his pop fell out about the
flag once when Nason was young and foolish and they're both too stubborn
to forget it."
"But he'll come back some day and live with you, of course, won't he?"
Phoebe comforted her.
"Yes--some day they'll see things different. But now don't you bother
that head of yourn with such things. You forget all about Nason. Come
now, sit on the bench a little under the arbor."
"Just a little. I must go to the store yet."
"You have lots to do."
"Yes. And I almost forgot what I come for. Aunt Maria wants you should
come out to our place to-morrow early and help with the strawberries if
you can."
"I'll come. I like to come to your place. Your Aunt Maria is so straight
out, nothing false about her. I like her. But now I bet you're thinking
of how many berries you can eat," she added as she noted the child's
abstracted look.
"No--I was thinkin'--I was just thinkin' what a funny name Nason is,
like you tried to say Nathan and got your tongue twisted."
"It's a real name, but you must forget all about it."
"If I can. Sometimes Aunt Maria tells me to forget things, like wantin'
curls and fancy things and pretty dresses but I don't see how I can
forget when I remember, do you?"
"It's hard," Granny said, a deeper meaning in her words than the child
could comprehend. "It's the hardest thing in the world to forget what
you want to forget. But here comes Aaron----"
"Well, well, if here ain't Phoebe Metz with her eyes shining and a pink
rose pinned to her waist and matching the roses in her cheeks!" the old
soldier said as he joined the two under the arbor. "Whew! Mebbe it ain't
hot hoeing potatoes!"
"You're all heated up, Aaron," said Granny. His fifteen years seniority
warranted a solicitous watchfulness over him, she thought. "Now you get
cooled off a little and I'll make some lemonade. It'll taste good to me
and Phoebe, too."
"All right, Ma," Aaron sighed in relaxation. "You know how to touch the
spot. Did you tell Phoebe about the flag?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I think it's fine!" cried the child. "I can't wait till all the
flowers bloom. I want to see it."
"You'll see it," promised the man. "And you bring all the boys and girls
in too."
"And then will you tell us about the war and the Battle of Gettysburg?
David Eby says he heard you once tell about it. I think it was at some
school celebration. And he says it was grand, just like being there
yourself."
"A little safer," laughed the old soldier. "But, yes, when the poppies
bloom you bring the children in and I'll tell you about the war and the
flag."
"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old Johnny Schlegelmilch
from way up the country comes to our place still to sell brooms, and
once last summer he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop said
he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all about the war. He
said our flag's the prettiest in the whole world."
"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.
"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking it," said the
child, remembering Granny's words.
"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a young fellow once, a nice
fellow he seemed, too, and his father a soldier who fought for the flag.
Well, the father was always talking about the flag and what it means and
how every man should be ready to fight for it. And one day the boy said
that he would never fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old
flag made him sick, and one soldier in the family was enough."
"Oh!" Phoebe opened her eyes wide in surprise and horror.
"And the father told the boy," the old man went on in a fixed voice as
though the veriest details of the story were vividly before him, "that
if he would not take back those words he never wanted to see him again.
It was better to have no son, than such a son, a coward who hated the
flag."
Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the story was abruptly ended.
Phoebe refrained from questioning the man about the story but as she sat
under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the street of the
little town, she wondered over and over how a boy could be the son of a
soldier and hate the flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was
the story of himself and Nason.