MISSING
Sure enough, in the morning came better news. Father Bob's face, when
he turned around from the telephone, told that, even before he opened
his lips.
"Sidney is holding his own," he said.
You may think that wasn't much better news, but it meant a great deal
to the Camerons. "Sidney is holding his own," they told every one who
inquired, and their faces were hopeful. If Father Bob had any fears,
he kept them to himself. The rest of the Camerons were young and it
didn't seem possible to them that Sidney could do anything but get
well. Last night had been a bad dream, that was all.
The next morning's message had the word "better" in it. "Little" stood
before "better," but nobody, not even Father Bob, paid much attention
to "little." Sidney was better. It was a week before Mother Jess wrote
that the doctors pronounced him out of danger and that she and Laura
would soon be home. Meanwhile, many things had happened.
You might have thought that Sidney's illness was enough trouble to
come to the Camerons at one time, but as Bruce quoted with a twist in
his smile, "It never rains but it pours." This time Bruce himself got
the message which came from the War Department and read:
You are informed that Lieutenant Peter Fearing has been reported
missing since September fifteenth. Letter follows.
The Camerons felt as badly as though Peter Fearing had been their own
brother.
"The telegram doesn't say that he's dead," Trudy declared, over and
over again.
"Maybe he's a prisoner," Tom suggested.
"Perhaps he had to come down in a wood somewhere," Henry speculated,
"and will get back to our lines."
"The government makes mistakes sometimes," Stannard said. "There was a
woman in Upton--" He went on with a long story about a woman whose son
was reported killed in France on the very day the boy had been in his
mother's house on furlough from a cantonment. There were a great many
interesting and ingenious details to the story, but nobody paid much
attention to them. "So you never can tell," Stannard wound up.
"No, you never can tell," Bruce agreed, but he didn't look convinced.
Something, he was quite sure, was wrong with Pete.
"Don't anybody write Mother Jess," he said. "She and Laura have enough
to worry about with Sid."
"What if they see it in the papers?" Elliott asked.
"They're busy. Ten to one they won't see it, since it isn't head-lined
on the front page. Wait till we get the letter."
"How soon do you suppose the letter will come?" Gertrude wished to
know.
"'Letter follows,'" Henry read from the yellow slip which the postman
delivered from the telegraph office. "That means right away, I should
say."
"Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't," said Tom and then _he_ had a
story to tell. It didn't take Tom long, for he was a boy of fewer
words than Stannard.
Morning, noon, and night the Camerons speculated about that telegram.
They combed its words with a fine-toothed comb, but they couldn't make
anything out of them except the bald fact that Pete was missing.
If you think they let it go at that, you are very much mistaken. Where
the fact stopped the Cameron imaginations began, and imaginations
never know where to stop. The less actual information an imagination
has to work on, the busier it is. The Camerons hadn't any more
imagination than most people, but what they had grew very busy. It
fairly amazed them with its activity. If you think that this was silly
and that they ought to have chained up their imaginations until the
promised letter arrived, it only shows that you have never received
any such telegram.
After all, the letter, when it came, didn't tell them much. The letter
said that Lieutenant Peter Fearing had gone out with his squadron on a
bombing-expedition well within the enemy lines. The formation had
successfully accomplished its raid and was returning when it was taken
by surprise and surrounded by a greatly superior force of enemy
planes, which gave the Americans a running fight of thirty-nine
minutes to their lines. Lieutenant Fearing's was one of two planes
which failed to return to the aërodrome. When last seen, his machine
was in combat with four Hun planes over enemy territory.
"What did I tell you?" interrupted Tom. "He's a prisoner."
An airplane had been reported as falling in flames near this spot, but
whether it was Lieutenant Fearing's machine or another, no data was as
yet at hand to prove. The writer begged to remain, etc.
No, that letter only opened up fresh fields for Cameron imaginations
to torment Cameron hearts. Nobody had happened to think before of
Pete's machine catching fire.
"Gee!" said Henry, "if that plane was his--"
"There's no certainty that it was," said Bruce, quickly.
All the Camerons, you see, knew perfectly well what happens to an
aviator whose machine catches fire.
"If that machine was Pete's," Father Bob mused, "Hun aviators may drop
word of him within our lines. They have done that kind of thing
before."
"Wouldn't Bob cable, if he knew anything more than this letter says?"
Gertrude questioned.
"I expect Bob's waiting to find out something certain before he
cables," said Father Bob. "Doubtless he has written. We shall just
have to wait for his letter."
"Wait! Gee!" whispered Henry.
"Both the boys' letters were so awfully late, in the summer!" sighed
Gertrude. "However can we wait for a letter from Bob?"
Elliott said nothing at all. Her heart was aching with sympathy for
Bruce. When a person could do something, she thought, it helped
tremendously. Mother Jess and Laura had gone to Sidney and she had had
a chance to make Laura's going possible, but there didn't seem to be
anything she could do for Bruce. And she wished to do something for
Bruce; she found that she wished to tremendously. Thinking about
Mother Jess and Laura reminded her to look up and ask, "What _are_ we
going to write them at Camp Devens?"
Then she discovered that she and Bruce were alone in the room. He was
sitting at Mother Jess's desk, in as deep a brown study as she had
been. The girl's voice roused him.
"The kind of thing we've been writing--home news. Time enough to tell
them about Pete when they get here. By that time, perhaps, there will
be something definite to tell." He hesitated a minute. "Laura is going
to feel pretty well cut up over this."
Elliott looked up quickly. "Especially cut up?"
"I think so. Oh, there wasn't anything definite between her and
Pete--nothing, at least, that they told the rest of us. But a fellow
who had eyes--" He left the sentence unfinished and walked over to
Elliott's chair. "You know, I told you," he said, "that I shouldn't go
into this war unless I was called. Of course I'm registered now, but
whether or not they call me--if Pete is out of it--and I can possibly
manage it, I'm going in."
A queer little pain contracted Elliott's heart. And then that odd
heart of hers began to swell and swell until she thought it would
burst. She looked at the boy, with proud eyes. It didn't occur to her
to wonder what she was proud of. Bruce Fearing was no kin of hers, you
know.
"I knew you would." Somehow it seemed to the girl that she could
always tell what Bruce Fearing was going to do, and that there was
nothing strange in such knowledge. How strong he was! how splendid and
understanding and fine! "Oh," she cried, "I wish, _how_ I wish I could
help you!"
"You do help me," he said.
"I?" Her eyes lifted in real surprise. "How can I?"
"By being you."
His hand had only to move an inch to touch hers, but it lay
motionless. His eyes, gray and steady and clear, held the girl's. She
gave him back look for look.
"I am glad," she said softly and her face was like a flower.
Bruce was out of the house before Elliott thought of the thing she
could do for him.
"Mercy me!" she cried. "You're the slowest person I've ever seen in my
life, Elliott Cameron!" She ran to the kitchen door, but the boy was
nowhere in sight. "He must be out at the barn," she said and took a
step in that direction, only to take it back. "No, I won't. I'll just
go by myself _and do it_."
Whatever it was, it put her in a great hurry. As fast as she had
dashed to the kitchen she now ran to the front hall, but the third
step of the stairs halted her.
"Elliott Cameron," she declared earnestly, "I do believe you have lost
your mind! Haven't you any sense _at all_? And you a responsible
housekeeper!"
Perhaps it wasn't the first time a whirlwind had ever struck the
Cameron farmhouse. Elliott hadn't a notion that she could work
so fast. Her feet fairly flew. Bed-covers whisked into place;
dusting-cloths raced over furniture; even milk-pans moved with
unwonted celerity. But she left them clean, clean and shining.
"There!" said the girl, "now we shall do well enough till dinner-time.
I'm going into the village. Anybody want to come?"
Priscilla jumped up. "I do, unless Trudy wants to more."
Gertrude shook her head. "I'm going to put up tomatoes," she said,
"the rest of the ripe ones."
"Don't you want help?"
"Not a bit. Tomatoes are no work, at all."
Elliott dashed up-stairs. In a whirl of excitement she pinned on her
hat and counted her money. No matter how much it cost, she meant to
say all that she wanted to.
Her cheeks were pink and her dimples hard at work playing hide-and-seek
with their own shadows, when she cranked the little car. Everything
would come right now; it couldn't fail to come right. Priscilla
hopped into the seat beside her and they sped away.
"I have cabled Father," Elliott announced at dinner, with the
prettiest imaginable little air of importance and confidence, "I have
cabled Father to find out all he can about Pete and to let us know _at
once_. Perhaps we shall hear something to-morrow."
But the next day passed, and the next, and the day after that, and
still no cable from Father.
It was very bewildering. At first Elliott jumped every time the
telephone rang, and took down the receiver with quickened pulses. No
matter what her brain said, her heart told her Father would send good
news. She couldn't associate him with thoughts of ill news. Of course,
her brain said there was no logic in that kind of argument, and that
facts were facts; and in a case like Pete's, fathers couldn't make or
mar them. Her heart kept right on expecting good tidings.
But when long days and longer nights dragged themselves by and no
word at all came from overseas, the girl found out what a big empty
place the world may become, even while it is chuck-full of people,
and what three thousand miles of water really means. She thought
she had known before, but she hadn't. So long as letters traveled
back and forth, irregularly timed it might be, but continuously,
she still kept the familiar sense of Father--out of sight, but there,
as he had always been, most dependably _there_. Now, for the first
time in her life, she had called to him and he had not answered.
There might be--there probably were, she reminded herself--reasons
why he hadn't answered; good, reassuring reasons, if one only knew
them. He might be temporarily in a region out of touch with cables;
the service might have dropped a link somewhere. One could imagine
possible explanations. But it was easier to imagine other things. And
the fact remained that, since he didn't answer, she couldn't get
away from a horrible, paralyzing sense that he wasn't there.
It didn't do any good to try to run from that sensation; there was
nowhere to run. It blocked every avenue of thought, a sinister shape
of dread. The only help was in keeping very, very busy. And even then
one couldn't stop one's thoughts traveling, traveling, traveling along
those fearful paths.
At last Elliott knew how the others felt about Pete. She had thought
she understood that and felt it, too, but now she found that she
hadn't. It makes all the difference in the world, she discovered,
whether one stands inside or outside a trouble. The heart that had
ached so sympathetically for Bruce knew its first stab of loss and
recoiled. The others recognized the difference; or was it only that
Elliott herself had eyes to see what she had been blind to before? No
one said anything. In little unconscious, lovable ways they made it
quite clear that now she was one with them.
"Perhaps we would better send for them to come home from Camp Devens,"
Father Bob suggested one day. He threw out his remark at the
supper-table, which would seem to address it to the family at large,
but he looked straight at Elliott.
"Oh, no," she cried, "don't _send_ for them!" But she couldn't keep a
flash of joy out of her eyes.
"Sure you're not getting tired?"
"Certain sure!"
It disappointed her the least little bit that Uncle Bob let the
suggestion drop so readily. And she was disappointed at her own
disappointment. "Can't you 'carry on' _at all_?" she demanded of
herself, scornfully. "It was all your own doing, you know." But how
she did long at times for Aunt Jessica!
Of course, Elliott couldn't cry, however much she might wish to, with
the family all taking their cues from her mood. She said so fiercely
to every lump that rose in her throat. She couldn't indulge herself at
all adequately in the luxury of being miserable; she couldn't even let
herself feel half as scared as she wished to, because, if she did,
just once, she couldn't keep control of herself, and if she lost
control of herself there was no telling where she might end--certainly
in no state that would be of any use to the family. No, for their
sake, she must sit tight on the lid of her grief and fear and
anxiety.
But there were hours when the cover lifted a little. No girl, not the
bravest, could avoid such altogether. Elliott didn't think herself
brave, not a bit. She knew merely that the thing she had to do
couldn't be done if there were many such hours.
One day Bruce heard somebody sobbing up in the hay-loft. The sound
didn't carry far; it was controlled, suppressed; but Bruce had gone up
the ladder for something or other, I forget just what, and, thinking
Priscilla was in trouble, he kept on. The girl crying, face down in
the hay, wasn't Priscilla. Very softly Bruce started to tiptoe away,
but the rustling of the hay under his feet betrayed him.
"I didn't mean--any one to--find me."
"Shall I go away?"
She shook her head. "I can't stand it!" she wailed. "I simply can't
_stand it_!" And she sobbed as though her heart would break.
Bruce sat down beside the girl on the hay and patted the hand nearest
him. He didn't know anything else to do. Her fingers closed on his
convulsively.
"I'm an awful old cry-baby," she choked at last. "I'll behave myself,
in a minute."
"No, cry away," said Bruce. "A girl has to cry sometimes."
After a while the racking sobs spent themselves. "There!" she said,
sitting up. "I never thought I'd let a boy see me cry. Now I must go
in and help Trudy get supper."
She dabbed at her eyes with a wet little wad of linen. Bruce plucked a
clean handkerchief from his pocket and tucked it into her fingers.
"Yours doesn't seem quite big enough for the job," he said.
She took it gratefully. She had never thought of a boy as a very
comforting person, but Bruce was. "Oh, Bruce, you _know_!"
"Yes, I know."
"It's so--so lonely. Dad's all I've got, of my really own, in the
world."
He nodded. "You're gritty, all right."
"Why, Bruce Fearing! how can you say that after the way I've acted?"
"That's why I say it."
"But I'm scared all the time. If I did what I wanted to, I'd be a
perpetual fountain."
"And you're not."
She stared at him. "Is being scared and trying to cover it up what you
call grit?"
"The grittiest kind of grit."
For a sophisticated girl she was singularly naïve, at times. He
watched her digest the idea, sitting up on the hay, her chin cupped in
her two hands, straws in her hair. Her eyes were swollen and her nose
red, and his handkerchief was now almost as wet as her own. "I thought
I was an awful coward," she said.
A smile curved his firm lips, but the steady gray eyes were tender. "I
shouldn't call you a coward."
She shook herself and stood up. "Bruce, you're a darling. Now, will
you please go and see if the coast is clear, so I can slide up-stairs
without being seen? I must wash up before supper."
"I'd get supper," he said, "if I didn't have to milk to-night.
Promised Henry."
She shook her head positively. "I'll let you do lots of things, Bruce,
but I won't let you get supper for me--not with all the other things
you have to do."
"Oh, all right! I dare you to jump off the hay."
"Down there? Take you!" she cried, and with the word sprang into the
air.
Beside her the boy leaped, too. They landed lightly on the fragrant
mass in the bay of the barn.
"Oh," she cried, "it's like flying, isn't it! Why wasn't I brought up
on a farm?"
There was a little choke still left in her voice, and her smile was a
trifle unsteady, but her words were ready enough. In the doorway she
turned and waved to the boy and then went on, her head held high,
slender and straight and gallant, into the house.