"Any news of Potter Waite to-day?" Tom Watts asked, as he dropped into a
chair at the table which was regarded as the property of the crowd in the
Pontchartrain bar.
"No change," La Mothe said. "Still unconscious or something like that."
"Anybody seen him? Any of the crowd been out to Mount Clemens?" asked
Brick O'Mera.
"No good. They wouldn't let anybody in. They say he just lies with his
eyes half open. When you say he's alive that ends it. It's a matter of
days, they say."
"Seems like we ought to do something--this crowd he trained with," said
O'Mera.
"We'll get together and send him some bang-up flowers," said Randall. "One
of those pillow things, or a horseshoe or something. Most likely they'll
want us for pall-bearers."
"I sent him a box of cigars and a book," said Kraemer, seriously.
"Which, being unconscious, he's enjoyed like the devil," said La Mothe.
"There's the Teutonic mind for you, fellows. Gets an idea and goes ahead
with it regardless.... I suppose if Potter had been an Englishman you'd
have sent him cigars with dynamite in 'em." La Mothe took great joy in
baiting Kraemer, for whom, nevertheless, he had a very considerable
affection.
"You always send cigars and books to a sick man," Kraemer said.
"And torpedo vessels--even when there are women and babies on 'em. Women
and babies ought to keep off vessels, is that your idea?"
"Of course.... Listen here, you fellows." His voice changed to the voice
of one repeating a lesson learned by heart. Even the wording was not his
own. "Germany acted within her rights in sinking the _Lusitania_, because
she gave preliminary notice to all the world by establishing a war zone
around England. She gave special notice to travelers before the sailing of
the _Lusitania_. England is to blame for what happened because she used
American citizens as human shields to guard ammunition supplies on an
English auxiliary cruiser."
"Hear! Hear!" applauded La Mothe. "Doesn't he recite beautifully! Who
taught you the piece, Wilhelm?"
"I hear the von Essen girl is coming out all right," said Watts.
"Her father said so at the Harmonie last night," Kraemer told them.
"She'll be out of the hospital in a couple of weeks. Nothing broken, just
shock, and a little concussion.... If Potter doesn't die von Essen will
kill him. He talked like a crazy man."
"Wonder how she got mixed up with Potter?" Watts said. "She's only a kid,
isn't she?"
"The speediest kid this town's seen for a while. Regular little devil.
Always up to something. They say she had old von Essen fighting for air
most of the time." La Mothe usually could be trusted to supply the spice.
"Natural enough she and Potter should fly in a flock. Same kind of birds."
"The rate Potter was traveling, he was bound to come a cropper some day,"
said Randall, virtuously.
They were already speaking of him in the past tense; Potter Waite, in a
couple of weeks, had become something that used to exist.
"You could trust him to make it a gilt-edged, sensational cropper when he
got to it," La Mothe rejoined. "He was one good scout."
"But peculiar. He was all-fired peculiar," Kraemer said, seriously. "I
never quite understood him."
"Well, the data's all in, Wilhelm; there'll never be any more. Study over
it a few years and you may begin to get him."
"You've got to hand it to Potter for one thing," said Watts; "if he made
up his mind to do a thing he would pull it off, hell or high water."
There was a moment's silence, a moment's depression, then La Mothe said,
"Seen the new girl that's dancing at the Tuller?"
Interest quickened. One might almost say that the agile, silken-clad legs
of the dancer kicked Potter Waite out of the minds of his friends. Why
not? They had pronounced his obituary. He had been and was not. Dancers
must dance and cocktails must be mixed and the world must wag on as is its
custom, though more important personages than a reckless, headstrong,
purposeless boy be removed from the scene.
Two weeks and three days passed over Potter's unconscious head. He did not
know that his mother sat by his bedside through long days and slept in an
adjoining room through sleepless, woeful nights. He did not know how much
of the priceless time of his busy father was spent in that still room. Had
he been conscious he might have understood something of his mother's
agony, for, quiet, simple as she was, she had retained her turbulent son's
affection. Perhaps she understood him. Assuredly she had never abandoned
hope for him even when his wildest escapade was bruising her heart. But
she had not been strong enough, forceful enough, to restrain him, and,
realizing her limitation, she had grieved silently.
In his most alert moment Potter could not have read Fabius Waite's mind. A
tidal wave of business success had carried Fabius far away from his son,
into a distant country. For a dozen years they had been growing farther
and farther apart, each taking the other for granted, looking upon the
other as something that was and could not be blinked. Fabius had no time
for his son; Potter had no time for his father. They had no point of
contact.... It was natural that Potter should now be unable to see into
his father's heart and comprehend the love that had sprung to life again,
the dull ache of self-accusation that would not be assuaged. He could not
know that Fabius Waite was saying in his secret soul, "This is my son, my
only son, and I have sinned against him."
"Mother," said Fabius, that afternoon, and his voice was different from
the voice with which he usually spoke, "this is my fault."
She did not seek to comfort him by a denial. "We have both been to blame,"
she said, gently.
Fabius was silent a moment; then he said, fiercely, "I've been a hell of a
father...."
She laid her hand on his knee and he placed his hand over it. Many years
had passed since they had sat with hand touching hand.... The nurse sat
looking from the window, her back to the bed. Suddenly a voice, yet not a
voice so much as the ghost of a voice, spoke from the pillow. It was not a
babble, not a mutter. It was a whisper directed by a mind. "Hello--folks!"
it said.
Father and mother were on their feet, bending over the bed. Their son had
spoken; his eyes looked up at them, dim, but intelligently; their son whom
famous surgeons had told them would never regain consciousness!
"He knows us! He knows us!" his mother whispered.
"Sure," Potter said. "What ..."
Then he was gone again into that murky region which was not life and which
was not death.
"Nurse!" said Fabius Waite, tensely, "he spoke. He recognized us....
What--what does that mean?"
The nurse knew no more than they. It might be a promise held out to them;
it might have been his farewell to the world. She could not tell.
"He knew us," Fabius said to himself again and again. "He knew us."
So the boy who could not live lived on. Intervals of consciousness came
again and again, and lasted longer and longer. The physicians, who would
not admit of hopes at first, were compelled--against their wills, it
seemed--to give Potter a reluctant chance of recovery.... Another ten days
saw him fully conscious--not safe yet, but with chances of safety
multiplied. Though doubts existed in the medical mind, none were permitted
to exist in the minds of Fabius Waite and his wife. Their son was to be
given back to them; they _knew_ it.
Despite fractured bones, despite invisible but awful injuries, Potter not
only clung to the life that was in him, but reached out and strengthened
his grasp upon it, until even the medical mind was convinced and, with due
eye to its reputation, gave to the parents the assurance, "We've saved
him," and then expatiated on the miracle wrought by its skill. Two months
after the catastrophe Potter Waite was on his snail-like way to recovery.
At first Potter seemed to have little curiosity regarding his accident. He
appeared not to remember it or to have any idea why he was in his bed in a
hospital. Later he asked questions.
"Somebody was with me," he said one day. "When we fell ..."
"Hildegarde von Essen," his mother said.
"Was she--"
"As well as ever," his mother said, a bit resentfully. "She has been out
of the hospital for weeks."
"That's ... good," said Potter.
A day or two later he asked about his 'plane. "What's become of it?" he
wanted to know.
"It's up on the shore where you--fell," his mother said.
"The shore?" he repeated. "The shore?... What shore?"
"About ten miles up on Baltimore Bay," she said.
He thought about that for minutes, and it was apparent he was not
satisfied. "It was on an island," he said. "A little island ... not on
Baltimore Bay.... Just back of the Flats."
"No, son, it was on the mainland. You--you don't remember."
He shook his head uneasily, and his eyes were puzzled. "There was an
island," he said, and then let the subject drop as if he were too weary to
go on with it.
"Is the war still going on?" he asked, one day.
"Yes."
"Are we in it?" he asked, after a pause.
"No."
"We should--be," he said. "There's some reason why we should, but I seem
to--have forgotten it."
Day by day he grew stronger; day by day his memory returned to him, and he
brooded over his recollections. For hours he would lie with closed
eyes--thinking. It was the first quiet he had ever known; the first
opportunity ever forced upon him to think. He remembered Major Craig.
"Would you like to read to me?" he asked, one day.
"I'd love to, son. What shall I read?"
"I wish you'd get a history of the United States--the best one there is.
I'd like you to read that."
So his mother sat by his bedside and read to him the history of his
country, and when she laid down the book he considered what she had read,
and pondered over the significance of it. He had been vaguely familiar
with the history of the nation, but only vaguely. Now he was meeting his
country for the first time, and groping for an understanding of it. Major
Craig had asked him if he loved his country.... He fancied he had answered
that question when he imagined it invaded as Belgium had been invaded.
Now, day by day, he was learning why he should love his country; what his
country meant, why it existed, why it had prospered, what his country was
giving to him as one of its citizens. The United States was emerging from
chaos in his mind, assuming a distinct entity, a _character_.... It was a
lovable character. As he lay there, listening to the story of its life,
Potter Waite was falling in love--he was falling in love with his country
and his country's flag.
His mother understood something of what was passing in his mind. It made
her glad, for there was promise in it.... One day, following the
completion of the history, she brought a thin little book.
"I'd like to read this to you, son," she said, and he, not even asking for
its name, because he thought to please her, nodded assent. It was a story
with a peculiar title. "_The Man Without a Country_," his mother said.
She commenced to read, and he lay with eyes closed, his attention not
fixed. Presently he opened his eyes, and before half a dozen pages were
read he was giving to the reading such attention as he had never given to
any narrative before. His eyes did not leave his mother's face, and there
came into them a hungry, troubled look.... His mother's face became dim,
and he realized that he was seeing through a mist. Every word of that
wonderful lesson, that text-book of patriotism, was reaching his mind as
with rays of white light. At last she finished and looked down at him, and
his cheeks were wet. She did not speak. It was he who spoke after a long
silence.
"That's the answer," he said, and his mother, possessing that marvelous
quality, intuition, went quietly out of the room.
It was not long before he was able to sit up. Two weeks past the second
month of his confinement, he was well enough to be taken to his home, and
there, in his own rooms, he demanded books. Not the books one might
suppose, not books to pass the long hours of convalescence lightly, but
treatises on the gas-engine, on carburetion, on ignition; highly
specialized books on the aeroplane.
"I should think you'd had aeroplane enough," his father said--a father who
was now nearer to him by much than he had been before. "You're not going
to meddle with those things again, I hope."
"Dad," said Potter, slowly, "they're the only thing I'm going to meddle
with. They're my business, and I haven't any other business.... I'm going
to be the man in the United States who knows more about aeroplanes and how
to build them than anybody else.... And some day I'm going to build them."
"Can't make it a commercial success, son. Nothing in it. If you want to
get into business seriously, why, when you're strong enough, just drop
around at the plant. I'll give you all the business you want."
"I'm not thinking about commercial success," said Potter.
"What's the big idea, then?" his father asked, jocularly.
"Do you believe we can keep out of this war?" Potter countered.
"Certainly. Why not? All we've got to do is keep our heads level and mind
our own business. Nobody can get to us, and we couldn't get to anybody.
You can't go to war in this country unless the people want war--and you
never saw a people who want war less."
"They're educated not to want war," Potter said, with an access of
shrewdness. "Business is educating them, and I shouldn't be surprised if
Germany was helping the education along. The Germans seem to be pretty
well organized in a publicity way over here."
"Well, don't let the possibility of war bother you. It won't come."
"I'm afraid, Dad," Potter said, "that it _will_ come. If it comes, what
shape are we in to fight? Do you realize that we would have to have twenty
thousand aeroplanes? That's one item, but one of the most important.
Twenty thousand! An army of millions--and the aeroplane is as vital to the
army as the commissariat. That's fact. You can't dodge it. And we've got
to get ready. Not to build an army of men alone. That is simple compared
to the other things.... Where would we get twenty thousand aeroplanes if
they were necessary suddenly?"
"We wouldn't," said Fabius, and he laughed indulgently. "When you're well,
you'll get these notions out of your head. It's just your condition, son.
It'll work off."
"No, Dad. It's here to stay.... We've got about fifty 'planes to-day.
Bulgaria's got more.... Do you care much if this country keeps on?"
"Why, sure! I'm an American. It's my country, but I guess nobody's going
to monkey with us." It was the old, absurd notion of military
invincibility.
"We're going to get a mighty unpleasant waking up.... We've got to get
ready. If we're ready there's less likelihood of trouble than if we
aren't. Burglars don't break into a house when a policeman is standing in
front and a bulldog is barking inside.... It's insurance. But we won't get
ready. Not all of us." He paused, and something in the level determination
that shone from Potter's eyes impressed his father.
"But one of us will be ready," Potter said, "and that's me. I'm going to
be ready for the day when the country needs that twenty thousand 'planes.
I'm going to know how to build them, and I'm going to know where and how
they can be built. Dad, the day's coming when the main business of the
Waite Motor Car Company will be the building of aeroplane engines."
"Fiddlesticks!" said Fabius Waite, and there could be no doubt of his
sincerity. Fabius Waite considered himself a good American. He was a good
American, but, like millions of other able, sincere, honest,
country-loving men in those summer days of the year 1915; those days which
were seeing Italy's entrance to the war, which were witnessing Mackensen's
war-machine crushing the Russians out of Galicia, capturing Przemysl and
then Lemberg; wondering if Calais and the Channel ports could be
held;--like those other millions Fabius Waite was asleep. Potter's voice
was of one crying in the wilderness. All ears were shut against him.