A week later one of the New York evening papers printed an inspiring
view of Merle Dalton Whipple in what was said to be the rough garb of
the workingman. He stanchly fronted the world in a corduroy suit and
high-laced boots, a handkerchief knotted at his throat above a flannel
shirt, and a somewhat proletarian cap set upon his well-posed head. The
caption ran: "Young Millionaire Socialist Leaves Life of Luxury to be
Simple Toiler."
A copy of this enterprising sheet, addressed in an unknown hand, arrived
at the Whipple New Place, to further distress the bereft family. Only
Sharon Whipple was not distressed. He remarked that the toiler was not
so simple as some people might think, and he urged that an inquiry be
set on foot to discover the precise nature of the toil now being engaged
in by this recruit to the ranks of labour. He added that he himself
would be glad to pay ninety dollars a month and board to any toiler
worth his salt, because Juliana was now his only reliable helper, and it
did seem as if she would never learn to run a tractor, she having no
gift for machinery. If Merle Whipple was bent on toil, why should he not
come to the Home Farm, where plenty of it could be had for the asking?
Both Harvey D. and Gideon rebuked him for this levity, reminding him
that he did not take into account the extreme sensitiveness of Merle.
Sharon merely said: "Mebbe so, mebbe not."
There came another issue of the _New Dawn_. It was a live issue, and
contained a piece by the associate editor entitled, This Unpopular War,
in which it was clearly shown that this war was unpopular. It was
unpopular with every one the writer had questioned; no one wanted it,
every one condemned it, even those actually engaged in it at Washington.
The marvel was that an army could continue to go forward with existing
public sentiment as the _New Dawn_ revealed it. But a better day was
said to be dawning. The time was at hand when an end would be put to
organized exploitation and murder, which was all that the world had thus
far been able to evolve in the way of a government.
In a foreword to the readers of the _New Dawn_, however, a faintly
ominous note was sounded. It appeared that the interests had heinously
conspired to suppress the magazine because of its loyalty to the ideals
of free thought and free speech. In short, its life was menaced. Support
was withdrawn by those who had suddenly perceived that the _New Dawn_
meant the death of privilege; that "this flowering of mature and
seasoned personalities" threatened the supremacy of the old order of
industrial slavery. The mature and seasoned personalities had sounded
the prelude to the revolution which "here bloodily, there peaceably, and
beginning with Russia, would sweep the earth." Capital, affrighted, had
drawn back. It was therefore now necessary that the readers of the _New
Dawn_ bear their own burden. If they would send in money in such sums as
they could spare--and it was felt that these would flow in abundantly
upon a hint--the magazine would continue and the revolution be a matter
of days. It was better, after all, that the cause should no longer look
to capital for favours. Contributors were to sign on the dotted line.
There were no more _New Dawns_. The forces of privilege had momentarily
prevailed, or the proletariat had been insufficiently roused to its
plight. The _New Dawn_ stopped, and in consequence the war went on. For
a time, at least, America must continue in that spiritual darkness which
the _New Dawn_ had sought to illumine.
Later it became known in Newbern that the staff of the _New Dawn_ would
now deliver its message by word of mouth. Specifically, Merle Whipple
was said to be addressing throngs of despairing toilers not only in New
York, but in places as remote as Chicago. Sharon Whipple now called him
a crimson rambler.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, news of the other Cowan twin trickled into Newbern through
letters from Winona Penniman, a nurse with the forces overseas. During
her months of training in New York the epistolary style of Winona had
maintained its old leisurely elegance, but early in the year of 1918 it
suffered severely under the strain of active service and became blunt to
the point of crudeness. The morale of her nice phrases had been
shattered seemingly beyond restoration.
"D--n this war!" began one letter to her mother. "We had influenza
aboard coming over and three nurses died and were buried at sea. Also,
one of our convoy foundered in a storm; I saw men clinging to the wreck
as she went down.
"Can it be that I once lived in that funny little town where they make a
fuss about dead people--flowers and a casket and a clergyman and careful
burial? With us it's something to get out of the way at once. And life
has always been this, and I never knew it, even if we did take the
papers at home. Ha, ha! Yes, I can laugh, even in the face of it. 'Life
is real, life is earnest'--how that line comes back to me with new
force!"
A succeeding letter from a base hospital somewhere in France spelled in
full certain words that had never before polluted Winona's pen. Brazenly
she abandoned the seemly reticence of dashes.
"Damn all the war!" she wrote; and again: "War is surely more hellish
than hell could be!"
"Mercy! Can the child be using such words in actual talk?", demanded
Mrs. Penniman of the judge, to whom she read the letter.
"More'n likely," declared the judge. "War makes 'em forget their home
training. Wouldn't surprise me if she went from bad to worse. It's just
a life of profligacy she's leadin'--you can't tell me."
"Nonsense!" snapped the mother.
"'And whom do you think I had a nice little visit with two days ago? He
was on his way up to the front again, and it was our Wilbur. He's been
in hot fighting three times already, but so far unscathed. But oh, how
old he looks, and so severe and grim and muddy! He says he is the
worst-scared man in the whole Army, bar none. He thought at first he
would get over his fright, but each time he goes in he hates worse and
worse to be shot at, and will positively never come to like it. He says
the only way he can get over being frightened is to go on until he
becomes very, very angry, and then he can forget it for a time. You can
tell by his face that it would be easy to anger him.
"'But do not think he is cowardly, even if habitually frightened,
because I also talked with his captain, who is an outspoken man, and he
tells me that Wilbur is a regular fighting so-and-so. These were his
very words. They are army slang, and mean that he is a brave soldier. A
young man, a Mr. Edward Brennon from Newbern, a sort of athlete, came
over with him, and they have been constantly together. I did not see
this Mr. Brennon, but I hear that he, too, is gallantly great, and also
a regular fighting so-and-so, as these rough men put it in their slang.
"'Wilbur spoke of Merle's writing about the war, and about America's
being rotten to the core because of capital that people want to keep
from the workingman, and he says he now sees that Merle must have been
misled; as he puts it in his crude, forceful way, this man's country has
come to stay. He says that is what he always says to himself when he has
to go over the top, while he is still scared and before he grows
angry--"This man's country has come to stay." He says this big American
Army would laugh at many of Merle's speeches about America and the war.
He says the country is greater than any magazine, even the best. Now my
rest hour is over, and I must go in where they are doing terrible things
to these poor men. For a week I have been on my feet eighteen hours out
of each twenty-four. I have just time for another tiny cigarette before
going into that awful smell.'
"Mercy!" cried the amazed mother.
"There you are!" retorted the judge. "Let her go into the Army and she
takes up smoking. War leads to dissipation--ask any one."
"I must send her some," declared Mrs. Penniman; "or I wonder if she
rolls her own?"
"Yes, and pretty soon we'll have the whole house stenched up worse'n
what Dave Cowan's pipe does it," grumbled the judge. "The idee of a girl
of her years taking up cigarettes! A good thing the country's going dry.
Them that smoke usually drink."
"High time the girl had some fun," returned his wife, placidly.
"Needn't be shameless about it," grumbled the judge. "A good woman has
to draw the line somewhere."
The unbending moralist later protested that Winona's letters should not
be read to her friends. But Mrs. Penniman proved stubborn. She softened
no word of Winona's strong language, and she betrayed something like a
guilty pride in revealing that her child was now a hopeless tobacco
addict.
A month later Winona further harassed the judge.
"'I think only about life and death,'" read Mrs. Penniman, "'and I'm
thinking now that the real plan of things is something greater than
either of them. It is not rounded out by our dying in the right faith.
Somehow it must go on and on, always in struggle and defeat. I used to
think, of course, that our religious faith was the only true one, but
now I must tell you I don't know what I am.'"
"My Lord!" groaned the horrified judge. "The girl's an atheist! That's
what people are when they don't know what they are. First swearing, then
smoking cigarettes, now forsaking her religion. Mark my words, she's
coming home an abandoned woman!"
"Stuff!" said Mrs. Penniman, crisply. "She's having a great experience.
Listen! 'You should see them die here, in all faiths--Jews, Catholics,
Protestants, and very, very many who have never enjoyed the consolation
of any religious teachings whatsoever. But they all die alike, and you
may think me dreadful for saying it, but I know their reward will be
equal. I don't know if I will come out of it myself, but I don't think
about that, because it seems unimportant. The scheme--you remember Dave
Cowan always talking about the scheme--the scheme is so big, that dying
doesn't matter one bit if you die trying for something. I couldn't argue
about this, but I know it and these wonderful boys must know it when
they go smiling straight into death. They know it without any one ever
having told them. Sometimes I get to thinking of my own little set
beliefs about a hereafter--those I used to hold--and they seem funny to
me!'"
"There!" The judge waved triumphantly. "Now she's makin' fun of the
church! That's what comes of gittin' in with that fast Army set."
Mrs. Penniman ignored this.
"'Patricia Whipple feels the same way I do about these matters; more
intensely if that were possible. I had a long talk with her yesterday.
She has been doing a wonderful work in our section. She is one of us
that can stand anything, any sort of horrible operation, and never
faint, as some of the nurses have done. She is apparently at such times
a thing of steel, a machine, but she feels intensely when it is over and
she lets down.
"'You wouldn't know her. Thin and drawn, but can work twenty hours at a
stretch and be ready for twenty more next day. She is on her way up to a
first-aid station, which I myself would not be equal to. It is terrible
enough at this base hospital. For one who has been brought up as she
has, gently nurtured, looked after every moment, she is amazing. And, as
I say, she feels as I do about life and death and the absurd little
compartments into which we used to pack religion. She says she expects
never to get back home, because the world is coming to an end. You
would not be surprised at her thinking this if you could see what she
has to face. She is a different girl. We are both different. We won't
ever be the same again.'"
"Wha'd I tell you?" demanded the judge.
"'The war increases in violence--dreadful sights, dreadful smells. I am
so glad Merle's eyes kept him out of it. He would have been ill fitted
for this turmoil. Wilbur was the one for it. I saw him a few minutes the
other day, on his way to some place I mustn't write down. He said: "Do
you know what I wish?" I said: "No; what do you wish?" He said: "I wish
I was back in the front yard, squirting water on the lawn and flower
beds, where no one would be shooting at me, and it was six o'clock and
there was going to be fried chicken for supper and one of those
deep-dish apple pies without any bottom to it, that you turn upside down
and pour maple sirup on. That's what I wish."'"
"Always thinking of his stomach!" muttered the judge.
"'But he has gone on, and I can't feel distressed, even though I know it
is probable he will never come back. I know it won't make any difference
in the real plan, and that it is only important that he keep on being a
fighting so-and-so, as they say in the Army. It is not that I am
callous, but I have come to get a larger view of death--mere death. I
said good-bye to him for probably the last time with as little feeling
as I would have said good-bye to Father on departing for a three-days'
trip to the city.'"
"Naturally she'd forget her parents," said the judge. "That's what it
leads to."
* * * * *
Late in June of that year the shattered remains of a small town
somewhere in France, long peaceful with the peace of death, became noisy
with a strange new life. Two opposing and frenzied lines of traffic
clashed along the road that led through it and became a noisy jumble in
the little square at its centre, a disordered mass of camions,
artillery, heavy supply wagons, field kitchens, ambulances, with
motorcycles at its edges like excited terriers, lending a staccato
vivacity to its uproar.
Artillery and soldiers went forward; supply wagons, empty, and
ambulances, not empty, poured back in unending succession; and only the
marching men, gaunt shapes in the dust, were silent. They came from a
road to the south, an undulating double line of silent men in
dust-grayed khaki, bent under a burden of field equipment, stepping
swiftly along the narrow, stone-paved street, heads down, unheeding the
jagged ruin of small shops and dwellings that flanked the way. Reaching
the square, they turned to cross a makeshift bridge--beside one of stone
that had spanned the little river but now lay broken in its shallow bed.
Beyond this stream they followed a white road that wound gently up a
sere hill between rows of blasted poplars. At the top of the rise two
shining lines of helmets undulated rhythmically below the view.
At moments the undulations would cease and the lines dissolve. The
opposing streams of traffic would merge in a tangle beyond extrication
until a halt enabled each to go its way. A sun-shot mist of fine dust
softened all lines until from a little distance the figures of men and
horses and vehicles were but twisting, yellowish phantoms, strangely
troubled, strangely roaring.
At these times the lines of marching men, halted by some clumsy clashing
of war machines, instantly became mere huddles of fatigue by the
wayside, falling to earth like rows of standing blocks sent over by a
child's touch.
Facing the square was a small stone church that had been mistreated. Its
front was barred by tumbled masonry, but a well-placed shell had widely
breached its side wall. Through this timbered opening could be seen rows
of cots hovered over by nurses or white-clad surgeons. Their forms
flashed with a subdued radiance far back in the shaded interior. Litter
bearers came and went.
From the opening now issued a red-faced private, bulky with fat. One of
his eyes was hidden from the public by a bandage, but the other
surveyed the milling traffic with a humorous tolerance. Though
propelling himself with crutches, he had contrived to issue from the
place with an air of careless sauntering. Tenderly he eased his bulk to
a flat stone, aforetime set in the church's façade, and dropped a crutch
at either side. He now readjusted his hat, for the bandage going up over
his shock of reddish hair had affected its fit. Next he placed an
inquiring but entirely respectful palm over the bandaged eye.
"Never was such a hell of a good eye, anyhow," he observed, and winked
the unhidden eye in testimony of his wit. Then he plucked from back of
an ear a half-smoked cigarette, relighted this, and leered humorously at
the spreading tangle before him.
"Naughty, naughtykins!" he called to a driver of four mules who had
risen finely to an emergency demanding sheer language. "First chance I
had to get a good look at the war, what with one thing and another," he
amiably explained to a sergeant of infantry who was passing.
Neither of his sallies evoked a response, but he was not rebuffed. He
wished to engage in badinage, but he was one who could entertain himself
if need be. He looked about for other diversion.
To the opening in the church wall came a nurse. She walked with short,
uncertain steps and leaned against the ragged edge of the wall, with one
arm along its stone for support. Her face was white and drawn, and for a
moment she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the dust-laden air.
The fat private on the stone, a score of feet away, studied her
approvingly. She was slight of form and her hair beneath the cap was of
gold, a little tarnished. He waited for her eyes to open, then hailed
her genially as he waved at a tangle of camions and ambulances now
blocking the bridge.
"Worse'n fair week back home on Main Street, hey, sister?"
But she did not hear him, for a battered young second lieutenant with
one arm in a sling had joined her from the dusk of the church.
"Done up, nurse?" he demanded.
"Only for a second. We just finished something pretty fierce."
She pointed back of her, but without looking.
"Why not sit down on that stone?"
He indicated a fallen slab at her feet. She looked at it with frank
longing, but smiled a refusal.
"Dassent," she said. "I'd be asleep in no time."
"Cheer up! We'll soon finish this man's job."
The girl looked at him with eyes already freshened.
"No, it won't ever be finished. It's going on forever. Nothing but war
and that inside."
Again she pointed back without turning her head.
"Another jam!"
The second lieutenant waved toward the makeshift bridge. The girl
watched the muddle of wheeled things and stiffened with indignation.
"That's why it'll last so long," she said. "Because these officers of
ours can't learn anything. Look at that muddle--while men are dying on
beyond. You'd think they were a lot of schoolboys. Haven't they been
told to keep one road for their up traffic and another road for their
down traffic? But they wouldn't do it, because it was the British who
told 'em. But the British had found out, hadn't they? Catch them having
a senseless mix-up like that! But our men won't listen. They won't even
listen to me. I've told one general and six or seven colonels only this
morning. Told the general to keep certain roads for troops and wagons
going to the front, and other roads of traffic coming back to camps and
depots, and all he could say was that he hoped to God there wouldn't be
another war until the women could staff it."
"Hooray, hooray!" squeaked the listening private in a subdued falsetto
not meant to be overheard.
Then he turned to stare up the street of broken shop fronts. One of
these diverted his attention from the nurse. Above its door protruded a
bush, its leaves long since withered. He knew this for the sign of a
wine shop, and with much effort regained his feet to hobble toward it.
He went far enough to note that the bush broke its promise of
refreshment, for back of it was but dry desolation.
"_Napoo_!" he murmured in his best French, and turned to measure the
distance back to his stone seat. To this he again sauntered carelessly,
as a gentleman walking abroad over his estate.
The second lieutenant was leaving the nurse by the extemporized portal
of the church, though she seemed not to have done with exposing the
incompetence of certain staff officers. She still leaned wearily against
the wall, vocal with irritation.
"Bawl 'em out, sister! I think anything you think," called the private.
Then from his stone seat he turned to survey the double line of marching
men that issued from the street into the square. They came now to a
shuffling halt at a word of command relayed from some place beyond the
bridge, where a new jumble of traffic could be dimly discerned. The
lines fell apart and the men sank to earth in the shade of the broken
buildings across the square. The private waved them a careless hand,
with the mild interest of one who has been permanently dissevered from
their activities.
One of them slouched over, gave the private a new cigarette, and
slouched back to his resting mates. In the act of lighting the cigarette
the fat private noted that another of these reclining figures had risen
and was staring fixedly either at him or at something beyond him. He
turned and perceived that the nurse and not himself must be the object
of this regard.
The risen private came on a dozen paces, halted hesitatingly, and stared
once more. The nurse, who had drooped again after the departure of the
second lieutenant, now drew a long breath, threw up her shoulders, and
half turned as if to reënter the church. The hesitating private,
beholding the new angle of her face thus revealed to him, darted swiftly
forward with a cry that was formless but eloquent. The nurse stayed
motionless, but with eyes widened upon the approaching figure. The
advancing private had risen wearily, and his first steps toward the
church had been tired, dragging steps, but for the later distance he
became agile and swift, running as one refreshed. The fat private on the
stone observed the little play.
The couple stood at last, tensely, face to face. The watcher beheld the
girl's eyes rest with wild wonder upon the newcomer, eyes that were
steady, questioning green flames. He saw her form stiffen, her shoulders
go back, her arms rise, her clenched hands spread apart in a gesture
that was something of fear but all of allure. The newcomer's own hands
widened to meet hers, the girl's wrists writhed into his tightened
grasp, her own hands clasped his arms and crept slowly, tightly along
the dusty sleeves of his blouse. Still her eyes were eyes of wild
wonder, searching his face. They had not spoken, but now the hands of
each clutched the shoulders of the other for the briefest of seconds.
Then came a swift enveloping manoeuvre, and the girl was held in a close
embrace.
The watching private studied the mechanics of this engagement with an
expert eye. He saw the girl's arms run to tighten about the soldier's
neck. He saw her face lift. The soldier's helmet obscured much of what
ensued, and the watcher called softly. "Hats off in front!" Then
fastidiously dusting the back of one hand, he kissed it audibly. Behind
him, across the square, a score of recumbent privates were roused to
emulation. Dusting the backs of their hands they kissed them both
tenderly and audibly.
The two by the church were oblivious of this applause. Their arms still
held each other. Neither had spoken. The girl's face was set in wonder,
in shining unbelief, yet a little persuaded. They were apart the reach
of their arms.
"As you were!" ordered the fat private in low tones, and with a little
rush they became as they were. Again the girl's arms ran to tighten
about the soldier's neck. The watcher noticed their earnest
constrictions.
"I bet that lad never reads his dice wrong," he murmured, admiringly.
"Oh, lady, lady! Will you watch him June her!"
He here became annoyed to observe that his cigarette had been burning
wastefully. He snapped off its long ash and drew tremendously upon it.
The two were still close, but now they talked. He heard sounds of
amazement, of dismay, from the girl.
"Put a comether on her before she knew it," explained the private to
himself.
There followed swift, broken murmurs, incoherent, annoyingly, to the
listener, but the soldier's arms had not relaxed and the arms of the
girl were visibly compressed about his neck. Then they fell half apart
once more. The watcher saw that the girl was weeping, convulsed with
long, dry, shuddering sobs.
"As you were!" he again commanded, and the order was almost instantly
obeyed.
Presently they talked again, quick, short speech, provokingly blurred to
the private's ears.
"Louder!" he commanded. "We can't hear at the back of the hall."
The muffled talk went on, one hand of the girl ceaselessly patting the
shoulder where it had rested.
Now a real command came. The line of men rose, its head by the bridge
coming up first. The pair by the church drew apart, blended again
momentarily. The soldier sped back to his place, leaving the girl erect,
head up, her shining eyes upon him. He did not look back. The line was
marking time.
The fat private saw his moment. He reached for his crutches and
laboriously came to his feet. Hands belled before his mouth, he
trumpeted ringingly abroad: "Let the war go on!"
An officer, approaching from the bridge, seemed suddenly to be stricken
with blindness, deafness, and a curious facial paralysis.
Once more the column undulated over the tawny crest of the hill. The
nurse stood watching, long after her soldier had become
indistinguishable in the swinging, grayish-brown mass.
"Hey, nurse!" the fat private, again seated, called to her.
To his dismay she came to stand beside him, refreshed, radiant.
"What you think of the war?" he asked.
He was embarrassed by her nearness. He had proposed badinage at a
suitable distance.
"This war is nothing," said the girl.
"No?" The private was entertained.
"Nothing! A bore, of course, but it will end in a minute."
"Sure it will!" agreed the private. "Don't let no one tell you
different."
"I should think not! This man's war won't bother me any more."
"Not any more?" demanded the private with insinuating emphasis.
"Not any more."
The private felt emboldened.
"Say, sister"--he grinned up at her--"that boy changed your view a lot,
didn't he?"
"You mean to say you were here?" She flashed him a look of annoyance.
"Was I here? Sister, we was all here! The whole works was here!"
She reflected, the upper lip drawn down.
"Who cares?" she retorted. She turned away, then paused, debating with
herself. "You--you needn't let it go any farther, but I've got to tell
someone. It was a surprise. I was never so bumped in my whole life."
The private grinned again.
"Lady, that lad just naturally put a comether on you."
She considered this, then shook her head.
"No, it was more like--we must have put one on each other. It--it was
fierce!"
"Happy days!" cheered the private. She lighted him with the effulgence
of a knowing smile.
"Thanks a lot," she said.
The war went on.
* * * * *
In her next letter Winona Penniman wrote: "We moved up to a station
nearer the front last Tuesday. I spent a night with Patricia Whipple.
The child has come through it all wonderfully so far. A month ago she
was down and out; now she can't get enough work to do. Says the war
bores her stiff. She means to stick it through, but all her talk is of
going home. By the way, she told me she had a little visit with Wilbur
Cowan the other day. She says she never saw him looking better."