LEFT BEHIND
Main Street was alive with bunting and with multicolored dresses. Across
the thoroughfare hung banners. Flags were draped from window to window.
The sidewalks were jammed with people whose attire was gay and whose
faces were sad.
From the square at last came the fife-and-drum notes of “The Girl I Left
Behind Me.” The Ideala Cornet Band took up the strains--half a beat
behind. The waiting sidewalk crowds massed to the curb; and Ideala’s
twelve policemen were sore put to it to maintain the lines.
Down Main Street, from the square, toward the river wharf where they
were to embark for Columbus, marched Ideala’s two recruit companies. The
uniforms were new--glaringly new--and as ill fitting as cheap government
contract’s ingenuity could make them.
One hundred and ninety-four men, their muskets shouldered, their backs
galled by the unwonted chafing of new haversacks, their feet already
flinching from the harsh caress of loose army shoes, strode eastward
between the double lines of spectators.
The men were still painfully conscious of themselves and their aspect.
The art of keeping step was still new to them.
Wherefore they walked--not marched--with stiff bodies and compass legs.
Such of them as might survive would march home with a mile-eating swing
of leg and body, and with a gait that involved the maximum of speed to
the minimum of effort. But only months of campaigning could teach them
that motion.
As the foremost rank turned into Main Street a thousand waving
handkerchiefs caught the sunlight. A great, ragged cheer went up. A
cheer to which wet-eyed, flushed women lent a shrill treble sub-tone.
The procession had scarce covered two hundred yards when it came to a
shuffling and unsteady halt.
Something blocked its path. Something that seemed to have the right of
way.
Debouching from a side street, and crossing Main Street to the opposite
egress, crept a hearse, dourly resplendent in its sable panoply of plume
and polished glass. Behind moved a line of musty black coaches filled
with folk in mourning. The single touch of color was a little
half-masted American flag carried by a crape-hatted foot mourner at the
extreme rear of the cortège.
For the man who went to-day to his burial was Captain Otis, commander of
the first militia company that Ideala had sent forth. He had been
invalided home, a bullet in his lungs, directly after the battle of Bull
Run. And, two days ago, he had died.
The recruits, as, halted, they watched the gruesome counter-parade cross
their line of march, lost some of the patriotically eager look their
faces had worn. From the crowd on the sidewalks went up something very
like a groan. Then came a ruffle of half-stifled sobs.
The funeral had rubbed a black smear across the occasion’s glitter.
People all at once began to realize what war meant, and just what their
husbands and fathers and sons were facing.
An old woman on the curb’s edge reached forth a timid hand and touched
the shoulder of a gray-bearded recruit who had halted near her. He
turned, momentarily forgetting newly acquired discipline; and they
looked into each other’s time-scarred faces. Then the man shifted
slightly from his place in the ranks and, as she leaned forward, kissed
her.
A younger woman--brave in yellow organdy with red ribbons--at sight of
the kiss broke into unrestrained weeping and threw her arms about the
neck of a man in the next rank--the husband she had married but three
months earlier and who was never to see their child.
In the instant a score of women had invaded the carefully aligned ranks;
and the sound of strangled weeping rose clamorously to high heaven.
“Company, _attention_!” bellowed a right-amateurish militia captain.
“Carry _arms_! Present _arms_! Left shoulder--_arms_! Forrerd--_march_!”
The funeral had passed. Once more the fife-and-drum corps and the
Ideala Cornet Band--still a half-beat at variance--struck up “The Girl I
Left Behind Me.”
The invading women scuttled back to the sidewalk, crying and protesting.
The two companies caught step and moved forward with their former stiff
and unaccustomed stride.
And so down the street they passed, and to the wharf, where awaited the
river transport that was to bear them to the recruiting camp at
Columbus.
The occasion was over. Some of the crowd followed the soldiers to the
river. The rest broke into oddly silent and disorganized groups and
melted away.
Dad, tightening his grip on Jimmie’s hand, turned out of Main Street and
set his face toward the big house on the hill--his assigned post of war
duty.
Mrs. Joseph Brinton had not been in the throng on the sidewalks. She did
not like crowds. They made her head ache. Nor did she believe in public
exhibition of one’s feelings. So her good-by to her professionally
patriotic husband had occurred behind closed doors in the big house, an
hour earlier.
Dad and Jimmie had taken up a strategic position on the most promising
street corner, however, and had seen everything. The old man was
curiously silent as they turned away. But the boy was bubbling over with
words and excitement.
“Gee, but it was great, Dad!” he exploded. “Finer’n any circus parade
that ever struck this town. Only, did you hear how rottenly Hank Ebbets
played the snare-drum? If I couldn’t hammer a drum better’n he does I’d
learn to knit instead. I can play the drum all around any feller in that
corps. And I never had a lesson, either. I just picked it up. The leader
says I’m a ‘natural-born drummer.’ I wish I could be thumping a drum
down South there, this minute, in a battle.”
“Insubordination, general!” reproved Dad, his voice a trifle husky.
“Against our agreement. Seventeen more forbidden wishes like that and
you’ll have to order yourself court-martialed.”
“I forgot. I’m sorry. Say, father looked el’gant in his uniform, didn’t
he? Had it made to order. I heard a man behind us say a funny thing when
father marched past. Someone said: ‘Joseph Brinton is more patriotic
than I thought.’ And this other feller says: ‘Patriotic for revenue
only.’ What does ‘patriotic for revenue only’ mean, Dad?”
“It means too much nowadays, son. But it doesn’t mean your father. You
can bet on that. He’s a true fighting Brinton. Right down to the ground.
I used to be afraid he wasn’t. But that just shows how wrong a
suspicious old fool can be.”
“Wasn’t it a shame the way that horrible funeral tried to spoil the
procession?” exclaimed Jimmie, off on a new tack. “What did it have to
traipes across the route for, just when we were having such a good time
cheering?”
“When you grow up,” said Dad, “you’ll find that’s a way funerals
have--and, oftenest, funerals that go by other names.”
They had gained the hill’s summit, and had turned in at the gate of a
house whose architecture in garish ugliness outdid that of nearly all
its pretentious neighbors. Jimmie opened the front door without ceremony
and stood aside to let Dad pass in.
“Your headquarters, colonel!” he announced proudly. “You are hereby
placed in full command of the Brinton corps. Take your post.”
Dad stepped in and stood for an instant within the broad hall.
The big and overfurnished rooms filled him, as always, with a sort of
awe. He had long since offered Joseph the solid, early Victorian and
Georgian furniture his own mother had so prized. But Marcia, who had
once lived in the metropolis of Cincinnati and was an authority on all
matters of taste, had rejected the offer.
Mahogany, she declared, was hideously old fashioned, and rosewood was
worse. Also, Sheraton and Hepplewhite styles had forever gone out; and
no up-to-date home could afford to harbor their makers’ works.
So the antique lumber had gone in ignominy to storage, and the big house
was outfitted with the most ultramodern gems of furniture from
Cincinnati, Chicago, and even far-off New York.
Dad was to-day sensible, as never before, of the grandeur of his
surroundings. The marble-topped center tables, the plush chairs and
lambrequins, the art plaques and Rogers groups, all struck him afresh
with their splendor.
He felt a vague thrill of pride that he was chosen as master _pro tem_.
of it all. He hoped that Stage and the rest of the Eagle’s habitués
would appreciate how great a dignity was his. He had taken good care
that all of them should know of his new trusteeship.
He must be seen less in their company, he reflected. The master of the
big house on the hill did not belong in a barroom. His visits to the
Eagle must be fewer and less protracted.
He must do nothing to shake the sudden respect and desire for his
presence wherewith his daughter-in-law had so recently become imbued.
As Dad hesitated in the hallway, Jimmie behind him, just then from one
of the rear rooms Marcia Brinton appeared.
Dad, as he stepped toward her, tried to inject something of chivalric
protection and fatherliness into the greeting he tendered this
daughter-in-law of whom he had always been more than a little afraid.
“I have not had a chance,” he began rather pompously, “to tell you in
person how I appreciate the honor you have done me in choosing me to
represent your home and to look after its interests and yours in Joe’s
absence. Though I asked Joe to say so for me. I shall do all I can to
take his place worthily as head of the house and to serve you in every
way in my power.”
Mrs. Brinton made no immediate answer, but looked at the elderly and not
over-neat figure before her.
Her lips were thin. So was her nose. Her alert eyes showed no traces of
tears.
Presently she spoke.
“You seem to have a false idea of your position here,” she said. “I
don’t know what gloss Joseph may have put on my request that you stay in
this house while he is away. But I think it is always better to be
honest and to have a mutual understanding in advance.”
“But I don’t understand,” faltered Dad. “I--”
“I don’t wish to hurt your feelings,” she continued. “But, as I said, it
is best to be honest and above-board. I told Joseph you had better stay
here, so that there would be fewer chances of your--of your doing what
might pass discredit on us while he is away. And I told him there were
many light bits of work by which you could make yourself useful to me
and avoid the idleness that might send you into bad companionship. I
hope you will not abuse my trust; or add to my annoyances in any way.”
“I--I shall try not to,” said Dad dazedly.
“And now,” added Marcia briskly, “I’ll have to ask you to get your
dinner down-town to-day. My brother and his wife are dining with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” assented the old man.