THREE QUARTERS OF A YEAR
Billy went back to school and saw the following months of work and play
go by in a dizzy procession of speeding days. Thanksgiving and Christmas
seemed to stop a little longer than the others; he spent the one at a
town on one of the Great Lakes, ice-boating, and the other in Chicago,
where he had some cousins. They were pleasant days and weeks and months;
yet he saw them go by with some satisfaction, for he looked forward
greatly to the time when his father and mother would come home.
The Easter vacation approached and, on account of some alterations to
the school buildings, was made much longer than usual. Billy, however,
could get little satisfaction out of even such unexpected good fortune,
for letters from South America had been becoming more and more doubtful
as to the chance of an early return, and one, arriving the morning the
holidays began, settled the matter finally.
“Business moves too slowly in these Spanish-American countries,” his
father wrote, “and what you think you can do in one day always takes you
two or three. Therefore plans for one year are almost bound to stretch
into two, so do not be disappointed, son, if we do not come back until
autumn.”
Billy put down the letter when he had read so far and sat staring at the
opposite wall. It seemed too hard to endure after he had waited
patiently for so long. He picked up the page and read on.
“Your mother and I have decided that since you must spend another summer
alone you might as well have the camping trip you had so counted on last
year. Ask any three of the boys you like and make all your own plans.
Otto Bradford at Mason’s Falls will be the best guide for you to take;
you remember we had him two years ago. Indeed, if your Easter vacation
is extended, as the headmaster wrote me it might be, you could run out
to Montana and make your arrangements with Otto; that would probably be
most satisfactory. You are old enough now to manage such matters.”
Again Billy laid down the paper and sat thinking. Here was the thing
that, next to his father’s and mother’s coming, he had long wanted above
all others. A camping trip—among those wonderful mountains—planned by
himself—to include just the boys he wanted. Whom should he ask? There
was—
“Come on, Billy Wentworth, or you’ll miss the train.” The shout from the
hall below brought him quickly to his senses. They were all leaving for
Chicago to play the last basketball game of the season; it was from
there that they were to scatter for the holidays. He seized his
suitcase, jammed on his hat and ran downstairs. He would have to decide
on the way whether he would go West at once or not.
It was not unnatural, perhaps, that a party of boys wrapped up in their
own and the school’s affairs, should have very little knowledge of the
bigger matters of the outside world. Lately, however, events were
becoming so exciting, situations were growing so tense, that every boy,
the moment he got on the train, must have his paper and devour the daily
news. For nearly three years the war had waged in Europe, a war far too
big to realize, far too distant to be very disturbing to a schoolboy’s
daily life. But now war was coming near, the war with Germany that every
one suddenly discovered had been inevitable from the first, yet for
which every one had been too busy to get ready. It was the week before
Easter, the season of that April session of Congress when the war-bill
slowly but surely made its way through Senate and House, and the
possibility of a struggle became a final reality.
The party of boys reached Chicago on Monday, and played their basketball
game that evening. For a moment the victory that was so hardly but so
triumphantly won by their team blotted out in Billy’s mind the memory of
what was stirring the whole world outside. Yet even on the way back to
the hotel he felt the thrill in the air, he saw crowds gathering about
the bulletin boards and heard some one say, “The President is addressing
Congress now.”
He went to bed clinging somehow to the obstinate thought,
“There can’t be war, there can’t. Things like that happen to other
people, in other places. Nothing happens here at home.” When he got up
in the morning the war again seemed far away. The whole party of boys
was to be taken out by their hosts of the rival school, to be shown some
of the sights of Chicago before train time. They all stood waiting in
the lobby for the automobiles to come up, when the mail was brought in
and some one handed Billy a letter.
It was a note from his aunt who had been spending the winter in Boston.
“I am going down to Appledore Island for Easter,” it said, “although I
have never been there so early in the season before. I have a fancy to
try it, and wonder whether you would feel tempted to try it with me. I
happened to hear that your vacation is to be longer than usual, so that
it would give you time to come. I admit that the invitation does not
seem a very exciting one, but, if you happen to have no other place to
go, you might be glad of my company, as I shall be so glad to have
yours.” There was a postscript added,
“If you should happen to arrive before I do, and do not find the hotel
ready, you could stay with Captain Saulsby.”
The first motor rolled up to the door, Billy was called for, so he
stuffed the letter into his pocket and hurried out. They were swept away
through the crowded streets of Chicago, where spring was already showing
in the green grass and blooming crocuses of the little squares. It was
even more in evidence in Lincoln Park where the shrubs and trees were
putting out their new leaves and flowers were blooming all along the
way. It made one feel queer and restless, Billy thought, as though one
wanted something very badly and did not quite know what it was. It
seemed strange how hard it was to make up his mind just what he was
going to do.
The lake was very blue there on their right hand as they drove along the
Sheridan Road sweeping constantly through neat suburbs, some large, some
small, but all alike in one thing: that every one in the world was busy
planting a garden. They passed through bits of real country with fields
and meadows and pasture lands, and stopped at last before a big iron
gate that guarded an enclosure full of brick buildings, wide, smooth
lawns and many winding roads.
“They won’t let us in on account of the war scare,” said one of the boys
who had brought them, “but we have to turn back here so we might as well
stop and look through the gate. It is the Great Lakes Naval Station,
where they train the sailors for the warships. Oh, look, they’re
drilling now!”
A squad of uniformed sailor boys came marching past, very neat with
their blue coats, their small white hats, their brown legs all moving
together. They swept by like a great perfect machine, minds and bodies
all trained to act absolutely together for the better accomplishment of
a common purpose. They moved back and forth across the green, wheeling,
turning, marching and countermarching. How hard they must have worked,
Billy thought, to learn to do it so well, how each one must be trying
now to do his own part perfectly so that the whole might be perfect. It
brought back to him a quick memory of the night he had witnessed the war
game, of the early morning when he had watched the ships go by and had
seen, if only for a moment, what the Navy really meant. From what port
were those same ships sailing forth today, to play at the new war game;
over what seas would they be scattered to guard America from a real and
terrible foe?
Then, for some reason his mind swept back to the other subject upon
which he had been thinking so deeply, to the camping trip for which he
should, even now, be making plans. At this very moment Otto Bradford
would probably be coming out of his cabin to take the horses down to
water, the sun would be bright, the thin air very cold, and the
mountains all scarlet and yellow and brown in the strange colors that
only the Rocky Mountains can show. Perhaps it would be so clear that you
could see the Highlands, that circle of tremendous peaks beyond the
rough brown buttes that hemmed the valley in, the high sky line that
often was not visible for weeks together but, on a brilliant day like
this, would spring suddenly into being, a vast wall of glittering white,
with jagged summits that seemed to touch the very sky. The wind would
blow down from the snow fields sharp and chill, it would lift the manes
of the horses as they snorted, kicked up their heels and went galloping
off down the trail. It would be good to see it all again but—
The sailors were marching away across the wide green. Beyond them,
between two buildings he could see the lake, rough and deep blue on this
windy morning, darkened here and there by the passing shadows of flying
clouds. A schooner came into view, beating into the wind, first in
shadow, then in sunshine, cutting the blue water in a line of foam. She
was doubtless some worn old tub of awkward lines and dingy sails, should
you see her close; but here, with the stiff breeze to aid her, she sped
along like a live thing, the bright sun changing her sails to silver. If
fresh water was so blue as that, what would salt water be? If this wind
could seem so sharp and bracing, if Lake Michigan could roll in such
waves upon the beach, what would it be to feel the fresh sea breeze, and
to hear the surf come thundering in on the shores of Appledore?
“What are you thinking about so hard, Billy?” one of his comrades asked
suddenly, breaking sharply into his dream.
Billy drew a long breath, glanced up at the clock above the gateway and
said,
“I was wondering how soon we can be getting back to the hotel. I have to
make the noon train for Boston. I think I will go East instead of West
for this vacation.”
Once he had started on his journey he began to realize how truly he had
longed to go back. The miles seemed to crawl, he stood on the platform
and counted the white posts and wondered why they did not go by faster.
He seemed to have been travelling a week by the time they reached
Albany; he was utterly worn out with impatience when at last they
steamed into Boston.
Having an hour or so to wait he went down to Atlantic Avenue, just to
see the fish markets and the rows of schooners lying at the piers, to
listen to the splash of the rising tide. He found the place so
fascinating that he nearly missed his train, but managed to catch it at
the last minute, and sped away on the final stage of his journey.
“Rockford?” said the conductor, looking at his ticket, “we don’t run as
far as that at this season of the year. We stop at Piscataqua, and there
is only one train a day from there until the summer rush begins. I don’t
think you can make connections; you will have to stop over.”
To wait a whole day when he was but a few miles from the end of his
journey was quite out of the question for Billy. He knew that a
jingling, rattling, two-horse stage plied between Piscataqua and
Rockford; perhaps he could catch that. He found on inquiry that he
could, that it would start in half an hour. In summer one could go by
motor, but “it ain’t the season” was the only answer he could get to all
his questions, so that he was forced to content himself with Silas
Oakley and his slow and talkative mode of travel.
He walked about the streets a little in Piscataqua and stopped at a
bulletin board before the newspaper office. It was the Friday morning
that war was actually declared. Billy saw the notice go up as he stood
watching, but observed very little change in the crowd that gathered to
read that the last step had been taken. People looked a little more
anxious, perhaps; more than one said, “Well, I’m glad the waiting’s
over.” That was all.
At the end of the street he saw two bluejackets standing before the door
of a little building above which a big flag was flying.
“That’s the recruiting station,” a passerby told him; “they are
enlisting men for the Navy. It’s going pretty briskly, too, I hear; they
have almost the authorized number now, so they will close the place in a
few days. I’m glad our town has done so well.”
Billy walked on down to the corner where the stage was to start. He did
not yet feel that the war was real; why, it couldn’t be real on a
bright, gay, spring morning, with the church bells ringing for Good
Friday services, and everything looking just the same as it always did.
It was time for the stage to go, but the driver was telling a good story
to some friends and could not be bothered to hurry himself for the three
passengers who were waiting. The boy bounced about impatiently on the
narrow seat and thought that the “I says” and “he says” and “then I just
told him” would never come to an end.
They started at last, and a long, bumpy, weary ride it proved to be. The
woods on each side of them were green and full of flowers, the little
brooks below the bridges were brimming full with the spring rains, the
birds were all singing their best songs, but Billy saw only the road
before them and heard nothing but the squeaking of the wheels and the
creaking of the clumsy old stage. It seemed as though the drive and
Silas Oakley’s conversation would never have an end; but at last both
were cut short by their arrival at Rockford.
It was late in the afternoon, just the time for the Appledore boat.
Billy made a breathless dash down to the landing and made it just as the
gang-plank was being taken in. He hardly understood, himself, why he was
in such haste to be there; he only knew that his longing for the place
made it impossible to delay a minute. As the boat puffed out of the
harbour he leaned back in the deck chair, content at last, since he knew
that now there were no more obstacles between him and his journey’s end.
He was glad to find that it was still light when finally the little
steamer lay alongside of Appledore wharf. He was rather surprised to see
Johann Happs on the pier, an unfamiliar Johann dressed in best clothes a
good deal too small for him, and carrying a battered old suitcase.
“Are you going away, Joe?” he asked in surprise.
“No—yes—that is, I don’t know,” was Johann’s rather startling answer. He
had a worried, hunted look that troubled Billy.
Johann walked down to the steamer’s gangway, turned back once, then
finally stepped resolutely aboard. Yet a little later, when Billy looked
back over his shoulder at the wharf, he saw the boat steaming away and
Johann sitting on his suitcase gazing after her, an odd and forlorn
figure.
“I wonder what’s the matter with him,” Billy thought; but he did not
have time to reflect very deeply upon the matter. He could not wait to
inquire whether the hotel was open; he merely set down his bag and sped
along the beach path toward Captain Saulsby’s point. He could see the
red roof peeping out among the trees, he could even see some one moving
in the garden; therefore he could not wait. The crooked old willow trees
were a mass of new yellow-green, and a blackbird sang very loud to him
as he hurried through the gap in the wall.
The old sailor was digging in the garden when Billy came swinging down
the path. His pipe and a folded newspaper lay upon the bench, he seemed
to be working very busily and to be talking angrily to himself. He
greeted Billy as calmly as though they had parted only the evening
before.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve come back, have you? I thought you would.”
His smile of welcome was a warm and friendly one, but it disappeared
almost instantly. Plainly something was weighing very heavily on Captain
Saulsby’s mind.
“Did you bring an evening paper?” he demanded almost at once, and took
eagerly the one that Billy drew from his pocket. The announcement that
war had been declared blazed in huge headlines across the first page.
“It’s no surprise,” commented the old man as he sat down on the bench to
read. He growled with impatience because he tried to make out the
smaller print without his spectacles, could not manage it, but had to
take time to search through his pockets, find them and set them
laboriously on his nose. He read greedily for some minutes, then put the
paper down and sat on gazing moodily out to sea.
“They are recruiting for the Navy over at Piscataqua,” Billy remarked at
last, merely for the sake of saying something.
“Yes,” answered the Captain; “I was over there myself two days ago.”
“Why, what for?” the boy asked in surprise.
“What for?” exclaimed the Captain. “Why, to enlist of course. And they
wouldn’t take me; no, the fools wouldn’t take me! Here I know every yard
and shroud and timber in every kind of ship that’s afloat. I’ve lived
long enough really to learn something—and they turned me away. They’re
taking boys of eighteen, sixteen even, if their parents say yes, fellows
who have learned about as much of ships as they could find out from
sailing chips in a duck-pond. I don’t know what our Navy means. Here’s a
war coming, and a valuable man like me applies—and they won’t have him.”
His outburst was so full of wrath that for a moment Billy was awed into
silence. But even the silence was thunderous with rage, so he finally
broke it.
“What are you doing now?” he inquired.
Captain Saulsby put down the paper and his spectacles, rose stiffly and
once more grasped his spade.
“I’m planting potatoes,” he said bitterly.