and in a very weak condition. Its coat was lacerated all over,
probably from the bites of rats. That stump of a tail kept sending
S O S against my mess tin. Every tap went straight to our hearts.
We would get something to eat for that mutt if we were shot for
it.
Sailor Bill volunteered to burglarize the quartermaster's stores
for a can of unsweetened condensed milk, and left on his perilous
venture. He was gone about twenty minutes. During his absence,
with the help of a bandage and a capsule of iodine, we cleaned the
wounds made by the rats. I have bandaged many a wounded Tommy,
but never received the amount of thanks that that dog gave with
its eyes.
Then the billet door opened and Sailor Bill appeared. He looked
like the wreck of the HESPERUS, uniform torn, covered with dirt
and flour, and a beautiful black eye, but he was smiling, and in
his hand he carried the precious can of milk.
We asked no questions, but opened the can. Just as we were going
to pour it out, Happy butted in and said it should be mixed with
water; he ought to know, because his sister back in Blighty had
a baby, and she always mixed water with its milk. We could not
dispute this evidence, so water was demanded. We could not use
the water in our water bottles, as it was not fresh enough for our
new mate. Happy volunteered to get some from the well--that is, if
we would promise not to feed his royal highness until he returned.
We promised, because Happy had proved that he was an authority on
the feeding of babies. By this time the rest of the section were
awake and were crowding around us, asking numerous questions, and
admiring our newly found friend. Sailor Bill took this opportunity
to tell of his adventures while in quest of the milk.
"I had a fair wind, and the passage was good until I came alongside
the quartermaster's shack, then the sea got rough. The porthole
was battened down, and I had to cast it loose. When I got aboard,
I could hear the wind blowing through the rigging of the supercargo
(quartermaster sergeant snoring), so I was safe. I set my course
due north to the ration hold, and got my grappling irons on a cask
of milk, and came about on my homeward-bound passage, but something
was amiss with my wheel, because I ran nose on into him, caught him
on the rail, amidships. Then it was repel boarders, and it started
to blow big guns. His first shot put out my starboard light, and
I keeled over. I was in the trough of the sea, but soon righted,
and then it was a stern chase, with me in the lead. Getting into
the open sea, I made a port tack and have to in this cove with the
milk safely in tow."
Most of us didn't know what he was talking about, but surmised
that he had gotten into a mix-up with the quartermaster sergeant.
This surmise proved correct.
Just as Bill finished his narration, a loud splash was heard, and
Happy's voice came to us. It sounded very far off:
"Help, I'm in the well! Hurry up, I can't swim!" Then a few
unintelligible words intermixed with blub! blub! and no more.
We ran to the well, and way down we could hear an awful splashing.
Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from under; bucket
coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a few seconds a
spluttering voice from the depths yelled up to us, "Haul away!"
It was hard work, hauling him up. We had raised him about ten
feet from the water, when the handle of the windlass got loose from
our grip, and down went the bucket and Happy. A loud splash came
to us, and grabbing the handle again, we worked like Trojans. A
volley of curses came from that well which would have shocked Old
Nick himself.
When we got Happy safely out, he was a sight worth seeing. He
did not even notice us. Never said a word, just filled his water
bottle from the water in the bucket, and went back to the billet. We
followed. My mess tin was still sending S O S.
Happy, though dripping wet, silently fixed up the milk for the
dog. In appetite, the canine was close second to Hungry Foxcroft.
After lapping up all he could hold, our mascot closed his eyes and
his tail ceased wagging. Sailor Bill took a dry flannel shirt from
his pack, wrapped the dog in it, and informed us:
"Me and my mate are going below, so the rest of you lubbers batten
down and turn in."
We all wanted the honor of sleeping with the dog, but did not dispute
Sailor Bill's right to the privilege. By this time the bunch were
pretty sleepy and tired, and turned in without much coaxing, as it
was pretty near daybreak.
Next day we figured out that perhaps one of the French kiddies had
put the dog in the grain bin, and, in the excitement of packing up
and leaving, had forgotten he was there.
Sailor Bill was given the right to christen our new mate. He
called him "Jim." In a couple of days Jim came around all right,
and got very frisky. Every man in the section loved that dog.
Sailor Bill was court-martialed for his mix-up with the quartermaster
sergeant, and got seven days field punishment No. 1. This meant
that two hours each day for a week he would be tied to the wheel
of a limber. During those two-hour periods Jim would be at Bill's
feet, and no matter how much we coaxed him with choice morsels
of food, he would not leave until Bill was untied. When Bill was
loosed, Jim would have nothing to do with him--just walked away
in contempt. Jim respected the king's regulations, and had no use
for defaulters.
At a special meeting held by the section, Jim had the oath
of allegiance read to him. He barked his consent, so we solemnly
swore him in as a soldier of the Imperial British Army, fighting
for king and country. Jim made a better soldier than any one of
us, and died for his king and country. Died without a whimper of
complaint.
From the village we made several trips to the trenches; each time
Jim accompanied us. The first time under fire he put the stump of
his tail between his legs, but stuck to his post. When "carrying
in" if we neglected to give Jim something to carry, he would make
such a noise barking that we soon fixed him up.
Each day Jim would pick out a different man of the section to follow.
He would stick to the man, eating and sleeping with him until the
next day, and then it would be some one's else turn. When a man
had Jim with him, it seemed as if his life were charmed. No matter
what he went through, he would come out safely. We looked upon
Jim as a good-luck sign, and believe me, he was.
Whenever it came Ikey Honney's turn for Jim's company, he was
over-joyed, because Jim would sit in dignified silence, listening
to the jew's-harp. Honney claimed that Jim had a soul for music,
which was more than he would say about the rest of us.
Once, at daybreak, we had to go over the top in an attack. A man
in the section named Dalton was selected by Jim as his mate in this
affair.
The crew of gun No. 2 were to stay in the trench for over-head fire
purposes, and, if necessary, to help repel a probably counter-attack
by the enemy. Dalton was very merry, and hadn't the least fear or
misgiving as to his safety, because Jim would be with him through
it all.
In the attack, Dalton, closely followed by Jim, had gotten about
sixty yards into No Man's Land, when Jim was hit in the stomach by
a bullet. Poor old Jim toppled over, and lay still. Dalton turned
around, and, just as he did so, we saw him throw up his hands and
fall face forward.
Ikey Honney, who was No. 3 on our gun, seeing Jim fall, scrambled
over the parapet, and through that rain of shells and bullets,
raced to where Jim was, picked him up, and, tucking him under his
arm, returned to our trench in safety. If he had gone to rescue
a wounded man in this way he would have no doubt been awarded the
Victoria Cross. but he only brought in poor bleeding, dying Jim.
Ikey laid him on the fire step alongside of our gun, but we could
not attend to him, because we had important work to do. So he
died like a soldier, without a look of reproach for our heartless
treatment. Just watched our every movement until his lights burned
out. After the attack, what was left of our section gathered around
Jim's bloodstained body. There wasn't a dry eye in the crowd.
Next day, we wrapped him in a small Union Jack belonging to Happy,
and laid him to rest, a soldier of the king.
We put a little wooden cross over his grave which read:
PRIVATE JIM
MACHINE-GUN COMPANY
KILLED IN ACTION
APRIL 10, 1916
A DOG WITH A MAN'S HEART
Although the section has lost lots of men, Jim is never forgotten.
[signed] Arthur Guy Empey
Heel and Toe
That man--it could only have been a man--who invented the Klinger
darning and mending machine struck a blow at marriage. Martha
Eggers, bending over her work in the window of the Elite Hand
Laundry (washing delivered same day if left before 8 A.M.) never
quite evolved this thought in her mind. When one's job is that
of darning six bushels of socks a day, not to speak of drifts of
pajamas and shirts, there remains very little time for philosophizing.
The window of the Elite Hand Laundry was a boast. On a line strung
from side to side hung snowy, creaseless examples of the ironer's
art. Pale blue tissue paper, stuffed into the sleeves and front
of lace and embroidery blouses cunningly enhanced their immaculate
virginity. White piqué skirts, destined to be grimed by the sands
of beach and tee, dangled like innocent lambs before the slaughter.
Just behind this starched and glistening ambush one glimpsed the
bent head and the nimble fingers of Martha Eggers, first aid to
the unwed.
As she sat weaving, in and out, in and out, she was a twentieth
century version of any one of the Fates, with the Klinger darner
and mender substituted for distaff and spindle. There was something
almost humanly intelligent in the workings of Martha's machine.
Under its glittering needle she would shove a sock whose heel bore
a great, jagged, gaping wound. Your home darner, equipped only with
mending egg, needle, and cotton, would have pronounced it fatal.
But Martha's modern methods of sock surgery always saved its life.
In and out, back and forth, moved the fabric under the needle.
And slowly, the wound began to heal. Tack, tack, back and forth.
The operation was completed.
"If I see you many more Mondays," Martha would say, grimly, tossing
it into the heap at her side, "there won't be anything left of
the original cloth. I should think people would realize that this
laundry darns socks, but it doesn't manufacture 'em."
Before the advent of the ingenious mending machine I suppose more
men than would care to admit it married largely because they grew
so tired of seeing those eternal holes grinning back at them from
heel and toe, and of feeling for absent buttons in a hastily donned
shirt. The Elite laundry owed much of its success to the fact that
it advertised alleviation for these discomforts.
If you had known Martha as I know her you would have found a certain
pathos in the thought of this spare spinster performing for legions
of unknown unseen men those homely, intimate tasks that have long
been the duty of wife or mother. For Martha had no men-folks.
Martha was one of those fatherless, brotherless, husbandless women
who, because of their state, can retain their illusions about men.
She had never known the tragedy of setting forth a dinner only to
have hurled at her that hateful speech beginning with, "I had that
for lunch." She had never seen a male, collarless, bellowing about
the house for his laundry. She had never beheld that soul-searing
sight--a man in his trousers and shirt, his suspenders dangling,
his face lathered, engaged in the unbecoming rite of shaving.
Her knowledge of the home habits of the male biped she gleaned from
the telltale hints of the inanimate garments that passed through
her nimble hands. She could even tell character and personality
from deductions gathered at heel and toe. She knew, for example,
that F.C. (in black ink) was an indefatigable fox trotter and she
dubbed him Ferdy Cahn, though his name, for all she knew, might
have been Frank Callahan. The dancing craze, incidentally, had
added mountainous stacks to Martha's already heaped up bins.
The Elite Laundry served every age and sex. But Martha's department
was, perforce, the unwed male section. No self-respecting wife
or mother would allow laundry-darned hose or shirts to reflect on
her housekeeping habits. And what woman, ultra-modern though she
be, would permit machine-mended stockings to desecrate her bureau
drawers? So it was that Martha ministered, for the most part, to
those boarding house bachelors living within delivery-wagon proximity
to the Elite Laundry.
It was early in May that Martha first began to notice the white
lisle socks marked E.G. She picked them from among the great heap
at her work table because of the exquisite fineness of the darning
that adorned them. It wasn't merely darning. It was embroidery.
It was weaving. It was cobweb tapestry. It blended in with the
original fabric so intimately that it required an expert eye to
mark where darning finished and cloth began. Martha regarded it
with appreciation unmarred by envy, as the artisan eye regards the
work of the artist.
"That's his mother's darning," she thought, as she smoothed it with
one work-scarred finger. "And she doesn't live here in Chicago. No,
sir! It takes a small town mother to have the time and patience for
that kind of work. She's the kind whose kitchen smells of ginger
cookies on Saturday mornings. And I'll bet if she ever found a
moth in the attic she'd call the fire department. He's her only
son. And he's come to the city to work. And his name--his name
is Eddie."
And Eddie he remained for the months that followed.
Now, there was nothing uncanny in Martha Eggers' deduction
that a young man who wears white hose, miraculously darned, is a
self-respecting young man, brought up by a worshiping mother who
knows about ginger cookies and winter underwear, and whose Monday
washing is fragrant with the clean-smelling scent of green grass
and sunshine. But it was remarkable that she could pick this one
needle from the haystack of socks and shirts that towered above
her. She ran her hand through hundreds of garments in the day's
work. Some required her attention. Some were guiltless of rent
or hole. She never thought of mating them. That was the sorter's
work. But with Eddie's socks it was different. They had not, as
yet, required the work of her machine needle. She told her self,
whimsically, that when the time came to set her crude work next
to the masterly effects produced by the needle of Eddie's ma every
fiber in her would shrink from the task. Of course Martha did not
put it in just that way. But the thought was there. And bit by
bit, week by week, month by month, the life, and aims, and ambitions,
and good luck and misfortunes of this country boy who had come
to the call of the city, were unfolded before the keen eye of the
sparse spinster who sat stitching away in the window of the Elite
Laundry.
For a long, long time the white hose lacked reinforcements, so
that they began to grow thin from top to toe. Martha feared that
they would go to pieces in one irremediable catastrophe, like the
one-hoss shay. Evidently Eddie's job did not warrant unnecessary
expenditures. Then the holes began to appear. Martha tucked
them grimly under the glittering needle of the Klinger darner and
mender but at the first incision she snapped the thread, drew out
the sock, and snipped the stitches.
"His ma'd have a fit. I'll just roll 'em up, and take 'em home
with me to-night and darn 'em by hand." She laughed at herself,
a little shame-faced laugh, but tender, too.
She did darn them that night, in the twilight, and in the face
of the wondering contempt of Myrt. Myrt dwelt across the hall in
five-roomed affluence with her father and mother. She was one of
the ten stenographers employed by the Slezak Film Company. There
existed between the two women an attraction due to the law of
opposites. Myrt was nineteen. She earned twelve dollars a week.
She knew all the secrets of the moving picture business, but even
that hideous knowledge had left her face unscarred. Myrt's twelve
was expended wholly upon the embellishment of Myrt. Myrt was one
of those asbestos young women upon whom the fires of life leave no
mark. She regarded Martha Eggers, who dwelt in one room, in the
rear, across the hall, with that friendly contempt which nineteen,
cruelly conscious of its charms, bestows upon plain forty.
She strolled into Martha Eggers' room now to find that lady
intent upon a white sock, darning needle in hand. She was working
in the fast-fading light that came through her one window. Myrt,
kimono-clad, stared at her in unbelief.
"Well, I've heard that when actors get a day off they go to the
theater. I suppose it's the same idea. I should think you'd get
enough darning and mending from eight A. M. to six P. M. without
dragging it home with you."
"I'm doing it for a friend," said Martha, her head bent over her
work.
"What's his name?"
"Eddie."
"Eddie what?"
Martha blushed, pricked her finger, bent lower. "Eddie--Eddie
Grant."
At the end of the next six weeks every pair of Eddie Grant's hose,
heel and toe, bore the marks of Martha's workmanship. Then, quite
suddenly, they ceased to appear. Had he gone back home, defeated?
Had he moved to another neighborhood? Had he invested in a fresh
supply of haberdashery? On Tuesday of the seventh week E. G.'s
white hose appeared once more. Martha picked them from among the
heap. Instantly she knew. Clumsily, painstakingly, they had been
darned by a hand all unaccustomed to such work. A masculine hand,
as plucky as it was awkward.
"Why, the poor kid! The poor little kid! Lost his job for six
weeks, and did his own washing and mending."
That night she picked out the painfully woven stitches and replaced
them with her own exquisite workmanship.
Eddie's new job was evidently a distinct advance. The old socks
disappeared altogether. They had been darned until each one resembled
a mosaic. In their place appeared an entirely new set, with nothing
but the E. G. inked upon them by the laundry to distinguish them
from hundreds of others. Sometimes Martha missed them entirely.
then, suddenly, E. G. blossomed into silk, with clocking up the side,
and Martha knew that he was in love. She found herself wondering
what kind of girl she was, and whether the woman in the little
town that was Back Home to Eddie would have approved of her. One
day there appeared a pair of lovesick lavenders, but they never
again bloomed. Evidently she was the kind of a girl who would be
firm about those. Then, for a time--for two long weeks--E. G.'s
hose were black; somber, mournful, unrelieved black. They had
quarreled. After that they brightened. They became numerous,
and varied. There was about them something triumphant, ecstatic.
They rose to a paean.
"They're engaged," Martha told herself. "I hope she's the right
kind of a girl for Eddie."
Then, as they sobered down and even began to require some of Martha's
expert workmanship she knew that it was all right. "She's making
him save up."
Six months later the Elite Laundry knew E. G. no more.
Myrt, strolling into Martha's room one evening, as was her wont,
found that severe-faced lady suspiciously red-eyed. Even Myrt,
the unimaginative, sensed that some unhappiness had Martha in its
grip.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, I don't know. Kinda lonesome, I guess. What's the news down
at your place?"
"News! Nothing ever happens in our office. Honestly, some days
I think I'll just drop dead, it's so slow. I took three hours
dictation from Hubbell this morning. He's writing the 'Dangers of
Dora' series, and I almost go to sleep over it. He's got her now
where she's chained in the cave with the tide coming up, on a deserted
coast, and nobody for miles around. I was tickled to death when
old Slezak called me away to fill out the contract blanks for him
and Willie Kaplan. Kaplan's signed up with the Slezak's for three
years at a million and a half a year. He stood over me while I
was filling it out--him and his brother Gus--as if I was going to
put something over on 'em when they weren't looking."
"My land! How exciting! It must be wonderful working in a place
like that."
Myrt yawned, and stretched her round young arms high above her
head.
"I don't see anything exciting about it. Of course it isn't as bad
as your job, sitting there all day, sewing and mending. It isn't
even as if you were sewing on new stuff, like a dressmaker, and
really making something out of it. I should think you'd go crazy,
it's so uninteresting."
Martha turned to the window, so that her face was hidden from Myrt.
"Oh, I don't know. Darning socks isn't so bad. Depends on what
you see in 'em."
"See in 'em!" echoed Miss Myrtle Halperin. "See! Well for the
love of heaven what can you see in mending socks, besides holes!"
Martha didn't answer. Myrt, finding things dull, took herself
off, languidly. At the door she turned and looked back on the
stiff little figure seated in the window with its face to the gray
twilight.
"What's become of your friend What's-his-name that you used to darn
socks for at home? Grant, wasn't it? Eddie Grant?"
"That was it," answered Martha. "He's married. He and his wife,
they've got to visit Eddie's folks back home, on their wedding trip.
I miss him something terrible. He was just like a son to me."
[signed] Edna Ferber
Those Who Went First
A distant bugle summoned them by day,
A far flame beckoned them across the night.
They rose--they flung accustomed things away,--
The habit of old days and new delight.
They heard--they saw--they turned them over-seas,--
Oh, Land of ours, rejoice in such as these!
This was no call that sounded at their door,
No wild torch flaming in their window space,--
yet the quick answer went from shore to shore,
The swift feet hastened to the trysting place,
Laughing, they turned to death from peace and ease,--
Oh, Land of ours, be proud of such as these!
High hearts--great hearts--whose valor strikes for us
Out of the awful Dissonance of war
This perfect note,--in you the chivalrous
YOUNG SEEKERS OF THE GRAIL RE-LIVE ONCE MORE,--
Acclaimed of men, or fallen where none sees,
Oh, Land of ours, be glad of such as these!
[signed]Theodosia Garrison
A Summer's Day
Once I wrote a story of a woman's day in Paris, a Perfect Day. It
had to do with the buying of all the lovely trappings that are the
entrappings of the animal which Mr. Shaw believes woman endlessly
pursues. One of the animals was in the story, and there was food
and moonlight, music and adventure.
I never sold that marvelous tale. For years it has peeked out
at me from a certain pigeon hole in my desk with the anguish of
a prisoner in the Black Hole of Calcutta, and with as little hope
for its liberation into the glad air of a free press. Yet it is
with me now in Paris. In that last distracted moment of packing,
when all sense of what is needed has left one, it was thrust into
a glove case like contraband cigarettes. There may have been some
idea of remolding it with a few deceiving touches--make a soldier
of the hero probably--but with the "love interest" firmly remaining.
There was only one Perfect Day to a woman, I thought.
That was some weeks ago. I am now writing on the back of that
romance for lack of paper, writing of another day, wondering as
I work if the present day's adventures will have any quality that
might hold the reader's eye. I dare not ask for the reader's heart
when love does not stalk through the pages.
Paris is now an entrenched camp but one is not awakened by bugles,
and the beat of drums is unheard as the troops march through the
city. It was the regular "blump-blump" of military boots past
my window which possibly aroused me into activity, although the
companies crossing from station to cantonment no longer turn the
head of the small boy as he rolls his hoop along the Champs Élysées.
This troubles me, and I always go to the curb to watch them when
I am in the street.