With a bitter feeling of disappointment and shame, Frank took the
proffered twenty-five dollars, after a long wrangle had convinced him
that there was positively no more to be wrung from the pawnshop man. He
left the shop with dragging feet, half inclined to go back and throw
down the money with a demand for his watch. But the thought of Jardin
deterred him. As he went out he could see the man leaning into the
window where he rearranged the group of watches already displayed there,
and placed the watch, Frank's beautiful watch, in the place of honor on
a purple velvet cushion in the center.
Two weeks passed, and one day remained before the boys were to start to
school. Frank finally heard from Horace Jardin. Horace urged him again
to collect what he termed a "_wad_," assuring him that life would be
really terrible without a lot of money. Also he hinted darkly of
something very surprising that he would have to tell later. That it only
concerned Jardin himself Frank did not question, as Jardin was never
interested in anything concerning other people except as it had some
bearing on himself in one way or another.
Money--money! Frank thought of nothing else. Then, as though it had been
a terrible unseen monster waiting to spring on the boy, his temptation
leaped upon him.
Temptation only attacks the weak. If we allow ourselves to harbor
unworthy or wicked thoughts, if we pave the way with wicked and unworthy
deeds, temptation has an easy time. Temptation is like a big bully. He
does not like to be laughed off, or to be scorned. He prefers to be
parleyed with. Then there is always a good chance for him. Better still,
he prefers to dash up to the weak and sinning, and say hurriedly, "Here:
quick, quick! Here's the easy way out! It's the _only_ way out! Just you
tell this lie, disobey your parents, or take this money. It isn't
stealing, you know, because you mean to put it back as soon as you can
and everything will be all right."
That is the way temptation talks, and on that last day before the boys
started off to school Frank listened.
He was over at Bill's quarters, in B2, when the telephone rang. Now
there are just two telephones to each building at the School of Fire,
one upstairs and one down. They are wall phones, fastened on the outside
of the buildings, midway of the porch that runs the whole length. When
the bell rings, whoever is nearest answers and calls the person who is
wanted. So Frank, standing in Bill's doorway and close to the phone,
stepped out and took down the receiver. While he waited for an answer,
he leaned his elbow on the sill of the window beside him and idly
scanned the confusion of papers on the big desk shoved close to the sill
inside. A strong wind fluttered the papers.
Frank, waiting on a dead line, stared at the desk and his eyes grew
wild. Down at the end of the porch a grey-haired Colonel sat with his
eyes glued to the _Army and Navy Journal_. He was reading about a
proposed increase in pay, and he had no interest in small boys. Across
the sandy space on the porch of the opposite quarters two ladies sat
embroidering.
In the Sherman quarters, he could hear Mrs. Sherman and Bill and Lee
talking as they finished packing Bill's trunk.
No one noticed Frank. No one saw what he did next, so stealthily and
rapidly. But in a moment he put the receiver down on the shelf, hurried
to the Shermans' door, and called for Lee.
"Someone wants you on the phone," Frank said, and as Lee hurried out,
Frank sat down on the door sill and whistled shrilly to the Shermans'
Airdale, who was trying to chum with the pretty ladies across the way.
They looked up, saw Lee at the phone but did not see Frank who had
dodged inside the door. The Colonel looked up from his paper, scowling.
He laid the whistle to Lee and glared.
Lee called "Hello!" half a dozen times. He too leaned on the sill of the
open window. No one answering the phone, he hung up and went back to the
packing.
And the next morning, Bill and Frank, feeling fearfully overdressed in
new suits, and bearing spotless shiny yellow suitcases, stood on the
train waving to two rather damp looking mothers and two fathers who
stood up almost _too_ straight, and started away on their long journey.
Lee did not wave at them. The half of Lee that was Indian was afraid
that the half that was white would look too sorry and lonesome if he
stood on the platform watching the two small figures waving on the train
while a friendly porter clutched a shoulder of each. So Lee stayed in
the machine and listened as the train pulled out, and felt very blue and
lonesome, and fell to planning how he would ask for a furlough and go
shoot some wildcats to make rugs for Bill's room. And he wondered how
soon the boys would look inside their suitcases. Lee had opened both
those suitcases!
The boys, wildly excited over the charm and novelty of travelling alone,
went to their seats and gravely studied the flat bleakness of Oklahoma.
As yet they had no regrets at leaving the Post, although Bill felt
rather low whenever he thought of his mother. Her picture, as radiant
and lovely as any of the girls who came visiting on the Post, he had
pasted on the dial of his wrist watch, the Major helping. They had had
lots of fun doing it, the Major pretending to be awfully jealous. But
when the picture was fastened safely on the dial, it was the Major, who
was something of an artist, who got out his color-kit and delicately
tinted the lovely features until the cut-out snapshot looked rare and
lovely as a portrait painted right on the watch. Then he carefully
fastened the crystal, and Frank slipped it on his wrist, more than
pleased.
"In old times," said the Major, washing his brushes in the tumbler of
water, "the knights always wore a ribbon or a glove belonging to the
lady they loved the best. They did not hide their keepsakes in their
inside pockets but bound them boldly on their helmets, to remind
themselves that they must be loyal, faithful, fearless, brave and true
for her sake, and to show all who cared to look that they were proud to
do their best for one so fair. No doubt there were dark days and hard
times when they needed every ounce of support and encouragement they
could get.
"You will find it so, old man. I can't help you, but," he gently touched
the watch, "_she_ will, always. You know it, don't you?"
"Yes, sir, I do!" said Bill, looking down on the smiling face.
"Then you don't need another word from me, son," said the Major. They
were alone. He bent and kissed the boy on the cheek. Then he smiled.
"That is allowable between men, you know, son, on the eve of battle. Put
up a good fight." He left the room, and something that was part promise
and part prayer went up from his soul.
"I _will_ put up a good fight!" he whispered.
Frank had spent his last evening alone, a throng of distressful thoughts
crowding in on him. His father was on some official business in town and
his mother had not thought it necessary to break her weekly engagement
with her bridge club. Frank wandered over to the hangars but he missed
Lem and Chauncey and soon returned home. He was greatly excited over the
coming trip, and had other and most serious reasons for wishing to go
away. So many unpleasant thoughts crowded upon him that it was not until
ten o'clock that he happened to think of his watch, still in Lawton at
the pawnshop. He had not redeemed it, and the twenty-five dollars
reposed in the bottom of his kit bag, in an envelope that had thread
wound around it.
He reflected that he could send the money and his ticket back to the
pawnshop man, for it was too late to take the trip to town. His parents
were apt to return at any time. They did not come very soon, however,
and Frank went to bed, a lonely, unhappy and sinning boy.
The boys had so much to look at that for awhile they were quite silent.
Then Bill remembered something.
"Say!" he suddenly exclaimed. "We are having the deuce of a time at the
school. Right in our quarters, too. Did you hear?"
"No," said Frank, still staring out. "What was it?"
"Somebody stole six hundred dollars from Captain Jennings next door to
us. It was money he had to pay the Battery, and it is gone. There is an
awful fuss about it."
"Will they arrest him?" asked Frank.
"Why, no; they won't do that, of course. He didn't steal it from
_himself_, and Dad says he has money besides what he gets as captain,
but I don't suppose he likes the idea of making it good. There is going
to be an _awful_ fuss about it."
"Did he lose it out of his pocket?" asked Frank.
"No; that's the funny part," said Bill. "He had it on his desk in his
study, under a paperweight, in an envelope, and that's the last he ever
saw of it. Oh, there will be an _awful_ fuss over it! Whoever took it
will go to Leavenworth for so many years that he will have a good chance
to be sorry about it. It is an awful thing."
"Do they suspect anyone?" asked Frank.
"I didn't hear anything this morning," said Bill. "We left too early.
But there will be an awful fuss. Why, it is an _awful_ thing, you know.
I didn't know there was anyone over there low enough to steal. It makes
me feel kind of queer!"