GREEN VALLEY MEN
Close on the heels of Lilac Sunday comes Decoration Day. And nowhere
is it observed so thoroughly as in Green Valley.
The whole week preceding the day there is heard everywhere the whir of
sewing machines. New dresses are feverishly cut and made; old ones
ripped and remade. Hats are bought, old ones are retrimmed. Buggies
are repainted and baby carriages oiled. Dick does a thriving business
in lemons, picnic baskets, flags, peanuts and palm-leaf fans, these
being things that Jessup's chronically forget to carry, regarding them
as trifles and rather scornfully leaving them to Dick, who makes a
point of having on hand a very choice supply.
This fury of work gradually dies down, to be followed by such an
epidemic of baking that the old town smells like a sweet old bakery
shop with its doors and windows wide open. There is then every evening
a careful survey of the flower beds in the garden, a rigid economy of
blossoms and even much skilful forcing of belated favorites.
The last day is generally given over to hat buying, the purchasing of
the last forgotten fixings and clothes inspections. From one end of
the town to the other clotheslines, dining-room chairs, porch rockers
and upstairs bedrooms are overflowing with silk foulards, frilled
dimities, beribboned and belaced organdies, not to mention the billows
of dotted swiss and muslin.
On short clotheslines, stretched across corners of back and side
porches or in the tree-shaded nooks of back yards, may be seen hanging
the holiday garments of Green Valley men. But what most catches the
eye are the old suits of army blue flapping gently in the spring breeze
with here and there a brass button glinting. There are a surprising
number of these suits of army blue just as there are a surprising
number of graves in the little Green Valley cemetery over which, the
long year through, flutters the small flag set there by loving hands
each Decoration Day.
There are all manner of cleaning operations going on in full view of
anybody and everybody who might be interested enough to look. For
there is no streak of mean secretiveness in Green Valley folks.
This is the one time in the year when Widow Green takes off and "does
up" the yellow silk tidy that drapes the upper right-hand corner of her
deceased husband's portrait which stands on an easel in the darkest
corner of her parlor. This little service is not the tender attention
of a loving and grieving wife for a sadly missed husband but rather a
patriotic woman's tribute to a man, who, worthless and cruel as a
husband, had yet been a gallant and an honorable soldier.
As the widow sits on the back steps carefully washing the tidy in a
hand basin and with a bar of special soap highly recommended by Dick,
she looks over into the next yard and calls to Jimmy Rand and asks him
whether he's going to march with the rest of the school children and
will there be anything special on the programme this year. And he
tells her sure he's going to march. Ain't he got a new pair of pants,
a blouse, a navy blue tie and a new stickpin? And as for the
programme, he warns her to watch out "fur us kids because we're going
to be fixed up for something, but I dassent tell because it's a
surprise the teachers got up."
This is the one day in the year when Jimmy Rand polishes his
grandfather's shoes with scrupulous care and without demanding the
usual nickel. He takes his payment in watching the blue army suit
swaying on the line under the tall poplars and in hearing the crowds on
Decoration Day shout themselves hoarse for old Major Rand.
It is the one time too when Old Skinflint Holden gets from his fellow
citizens and neighbors a certain grave respect, for they all know that
on the morrow among the men in blue will be this same Old Skinflint
Holden with a medal on his breast.
Though every preparation has seemingly been made days ago, still that
last night before the event is the very busiest time of all.
Joe Baldwin's little shop is crowded. Jake Tuttle is there with the
four children, buying them the fanciest of footgear for the morrow.
The two Miller boys, who work in the creamery until nine every night
but have special leave this day to purchase holiday necessities, are
standing awkwardly near Joe's side door and waiting patiently for
Frankie Stevens and Dora Langely, better known as "Central," to depart
with their black velvet slippers, before making any effort to have Joe
try his wares on their awkward feet. Little Johnny Peterson comes in
to inquire if Joe has sewed the buttons on his, Johnny's, shoes, and
Martha Gray has a hard time trying to decide which of two pairs of
moccasins are most becoming to her youngest baby. Any number of youths
are hanging about waiting for Joe to get around to selling them a box
of his best shoe polish and some, getting impatient, wait on
themselves. Joe, with his spectacles pushed up into his hair, is
rushing around from customer to customer and through it all is dimly
conscious of the fact that outside under the awning Dolly Beatty is
waiting anxiously for the men folks to get out before she ventures in
to buy her Joe's special brand of corn salve and bunion plaster.
And so it is all the way down Main Street. In the gents' furnishings'
corner of Peter Sweeney's dry-goods store Seth Curtis is buying a new
hat, a little jaunty hat that seems to fit his head well enough but
doesn't somehow become the rest of him. Seth looks best in a cap and
always wears one except, of course, on such state occasions as the
coming one. He asks the Longman boys how he looks in the brown fedora
Pete has just put on his head and Max Longman laughs and wants to know
what difference it makes how a married man with a bald spot looks.
Then he turns away to pick out carefully the kind of tie that will make
him most pleasing in Clara's sight on the morrow.
In the ladies' department of that same store Jocelyn Brownlee is asking
for long, white silk gloves. A little hush falls on the crowd of
feminine shoppers as Mrs. Pete gets the stepladder, mounts it and
brings down with a good deal of visible pride a pasteboard box
containing six pairs of white silk gloves that Pete bought three years
ago in a moment of incomprehensible madness, a thing which Mrs. Pete
has never until this minute forgiven him.
Jocelyn, pretty, eager, unaffected, selects the very first pair and is
wholly unconscious of the stir she has made. It is only when David
Allan comes up and asks her if she is ready that she becomes confused
and conscious of the watching eyes of the other buyers.
She has promised to go to the Decoration Day exercises with David and
has hurried to buy gloves for the occasion not knowing, in her city
innocence, that gloves aren't the style in Green Valley, leastways not
for any outdoor festival.
David watches the gloves being wrapped up and that reminds him that it
wouldn't hurt to buy a new buggy whip, one of the smart ones with the
bit of red, white and blue ribbon on its tip that he saw standing in
Dick's window.
So he and Jocelyn go off together to get the whip. It is the first
time that Jocelyn has been out in the village streets after nightfall
and she looks about her with eager eyes.
"My--how pretty the streets look and sound! It's ever so much prettier
than village street scenes on the stage!" she confides to David. And
David laughs and takes her over to Martin's for a soda and then,
because it is still early, he coaxes her to walk about town with him
and as a final treat they stop in front of Mary Langely's millinery
shop.
Mary Langely's shop stands right back of Joe Baldwin's place on the
next street. Mary is a widow with two girls. Dora is the Green Valley
telephone operator and Nellie is typist and office girl for old Mr.
Dunn who is Green Valley's best real estate and lawyer man. He sells
lots, now and then a house, writes insurance and draws up wills,
collects bills or rather coaxes careless neighbors to settle their
accounts, and he absolutely does not believe in divorce or woman
suffrage. These two matters stir the gentle little man to great wrath.
His wife is even a gentler soul than he is. She is the eldest of the
Tumleys, sister of George Hoskins' wife and to Joe Tumley, the little
man with a voice as sweet as a skylark's.
You go to Mr. Dunn's office through a little low gate and you find an
old, deep-eaved, gambrel-roofed house with a hundred little window
panes smiling at you from out its mantle of ivy. You love it at once
but you don't go in right away, because the great old trees won't let
you. You go and stand under them and wonder how old they are and lay
your hand caressingly on the fine old trunks. And then you see the
myrtle and violets growing beneath them and near the house clumps of
daisies and forget-me-nots. And then you spy the beehives and the
quaint old well and you walk through the cool grape arbor right into
the little kitchen, where Mrs. Dunn, as likely as not, is making a
cherry pie or currant jell or maybe a strawberry shortcake. She is a
delicious and an old-fashioned cook. Why, she even keeps a giant
ten-gallon cooky jar forever filled with cookies, although there are
now no children in this sweet old manse. Nobody now but Nellie Langely
who goes home every night to the millinery shop where she helps her
mother make and sell the bonnets that have made Mary Langely famous in
all the country round.
Green Valley folks have never quite gotten over wondering about Mary
Langely. When Tom Langely was alive Mary was a self-effacing, oddly
silent woman. People said she and Tom were a queer pair. Tom had
great ambitions in almost every direction. He even made brave
beginnings. But that was all. Then one day, in the midst of all
manner of ambitious enterprises, he grew tired of living and died. And
then it was that Mary Langely rose from obscurity and made Green Valley
rub its eyes. For within a week after Tom's death she had gathered
together all the loose ends of things that he had started, clapped a
frame second story on the imposing red brick first floor of the house
Tom had begun, converted this first floor into a store, and inside of a
month was selling hats to women who hadn't until then realized they
needed a hat.
There were more electric bulbs and mirrors in Mary's shop than in any
three houses in Green Valley. That was why it was always the gayest
spot in town on the night preceding any holiday.
It was interesting and pleasant to watch through the brightly lighted
windows and the wide double glass doors the women trying on the gay
creations and hovering over the heaps of flowers and glittering
ornaments heaped upon the counters.
Jocelyn and David stood in the soft shadow of an old elm and while they
watched David explained the customers going in and coming out. He told
her that the tall straight woman buying the spray of purple lilacs for
her last year's hat was the Widow Green. The short, waddly woman
trying on the wide hat with the pink roses was Bessie Williams. The
tall girl with the pretty braids wound round her head was Bonnie Don,
big Steve Meckling's sweetheart. Steve, David explained, was so
foolishly in love that he was ready to commit murder if another lad so
much as looked at Bonnie.
The tall quiet man buying hats and ribbons for his girls was John
Foster. And the little bow-legged one, with the hard hat two sizes too
big, was Hen Tomlins who always went shopping with his wife.
So Green Valley made its purchases and hastened home to pack its lunch
basket and lay out all its clothes on the spare-room bed. Even as
David and Jocelyn walked home through the laughing streets, lights were
being winked out in the lower living rooms only to flash out somewhere
up-stairs where the family was wisely going to bed early. No one even
glanced at the sky, for it was taken for granted that Green Valley
skies would do their very best, as a matter of course.
When the last star began to fade and the first little breath of a new
morning ruffled the soft gray silence a sudden sharp volley rang out.
It was the Green Valley boys setting off cannon crackers in front of
the bank. And it must be said right here that that first signal volley
was about all the fireworks ever indulged in in Green Valley. This
little town, nestling in the peaceful shelter of gentle hills and
softly singing woods, naturally disliked harsh, ugly sounds and was
moreover far too thrifty, too practical and sane a community to put
firearms and flaming death into the hands of its children. Green
Valley patriotism was of a higher order.
At that sharp volley Green Valley awoke with a start and a laugh and
ran to put flags on its gateposts and porch pillars and loop bunting
around its windows. And when the morning broke like a great pink rose
and shed its rosy light over the dimpling hills and lacy, misty
woodlands the old town was a-flutter with banners, everybody was about
through with breakfast and certain childless and highly efficient
ladies were already taking their front and side hair out of curl papers.
At eight o'clock sharp the school bell summoned the children. Then a
little later the church bell summoned the veterans. And by nine the
procession was marching down Maple Street, flags waving, band playing
and every face aglow.
First came the little tots all in white, the boy babies bearing little
flags and the girl babies little baskets of flowers, with little
Eleanor Williams carrying in her tiny hands a silken banner on which
Bessie Williams, her mother, had beautifully embroidered a dove and the
lovely word, "Peace."
Then came the older children, a whole corps it seemed of Red Cross
nurses, followed by a regiment of merry sailor boys. There were
cowboys and Boy Scouts, boys in overalls and brownies. There were
girls in liberty caps, crinolines and sunbonnets.
So grade after grade Green Valley's children came, a proud and happy
escort for the men in blue who followed. Nanny Ainslee's father led
the veterans, sitting his horse right gallantly. Nanny and her father
were both riding and so was Doc Philipps.
There were plenty of people on horseback but most of the town marched,
even The Ladies Aid Society, every member wearing her badge and new hat
with conscious pride and turning her head continually to look at the
children, as the head of the procession turned corners. The young
married women with babies rode in buggies, from every one of whose
bulging sides flags drooped and fat baby legs and picnic baskets
protruded.
Everything went smoothly, joyously along, though a few incidents in
various parts of the procession caused smiles, gusts of laughter and
even alarm.
Jimmy Rand had a few anxious moments when the four fat puppies he
thought he had shut safely into the barn came yelping and tumbling
joyously into the very heart of the marching crowds.
Jim Tumley was down on the day's programme for several numbers. But as
the line swung around the hotel and the spring winds stained with the
odors of liquor swept temptingly over him he half started to step out
of line. But Frank Burton guessed his trouble and ordered Martin's
clerk, Eddie, to bring the little chap an extra large and fine soda
instead.
Mrs. Hen Tomlins upset things by ordering Hen back home to change his
shirt. It seems that Hen had deliberately put on a shirt with a soft
collar and in the excitement of getting under way and trying to
remember which way her new hat was supposed to set Mrs. Hen had failed
to notice the crime until, her fears set at rest by Mary Langeley, she
turned around to see if Hen looked all right.
Uncle Tony was in a great state of excitement. He was continually
leaving his place in The Business Men's Association to have a look from
the side lines at the imposing spectacle.
Here and there mothers close enough to their offspring were suggesting
a more frequent use of handkerchiefs and calling attention to
traitorous garters and wrinkled stockings. Tommy Downey had forgotten
what his mother had told him about being sure to put his ears inside
his cap and those two appendages, burned and already blistered by the
hot May sun, stood out in solemn grandeur from his small, round,
grinning face. The school teachers were keeping anxious eyes on their
particular broods and insisting that the eager feet keep solemn step to
the music.
Sam Ellis' new greenhorn hired girl, Francy, was sitting in the back
seat of the buggy, holding down the brimming baskets and leaning out as
far as possible so as not to miss anything that might happen at either
end as well as the middle of the procession. She had been utterly
unable to pin on her first American hat with hatpins, so had wisely
tied it to her head with a large red-bordered handkerchief which she
had brought over from the old country.
Jocelyn Brownlee, sitting beside David in his smart rig, had begged him
to go last so that she could see everything. This was her first
country festival and no child in that throng was so happily, wildly
eager to drain the day to the very last drop of enjoyment.
Jocelyn and David however did not end the procession. Behind them,
though quite a way back, was Uncle Tony's brother William. William was
driving his span of grays so slowly that the pretty creatures tossed
their heads restlessly, impatiently, lonely for the companionship of
the gay throng ahead.
But though their owner knew what they wanted he held them back sternly.
But he looked as wistfully as they at the fluttering flags and listened
as keenly to the puffs of music that the wind dashed into his face
every now and then.
Every Decoration Day Uncle Tony's brother William rode just so, slowly
and alone at the end of the gay procession. On that day he was a
lonely and tragic figure. Loved and respected every other day in the
year, on this he was shunned. For he was the only man in all Green
Valley who, when conscripted, would not go to the war but sent a
substitute, one Bob Saunders.
Bob was killed at Gettysburg and nobody mourned him, not even his very
own sister though Green Valley was duly proud of the way he died. Only
on this one day did Green Valley remember the man whose death was the
one and only worth while deed of a misspent life. But on this one day
too Green Valley shunned the man who sent him to his death.
So every Decoration Day William came alone to put a wreath on Bob's
grave and watch the exercises from a distance. When it was over he
went home--alone. And Green Valley let him do it year after year.
He was never known to murmur at Green Valley's annual censure nor did
he ever seem to hope for forgiveness. Green Valley had asked him once
why he had done it and he said that he would have been worthless as a
soldier because he did not believe in killing people and was himself
horribly afraid of being butchered.
Green Valley was appalled at this terrible confession, at the absence
in one of its sons of even the common garden variety of courage. It
did its best for a while to despise William. But it is hard work
despising an honest, quiet, just and lovable man. So gradually William
was allowed to come home into Green Valley's life. And it was only on
this one holiday that he was an outcast. Neither did any one ever
remind William's children of what years ago their father had done. But
of course they knew. Their father had told them himself. They were in
no way cast down. They were all girls who loved their father and did
not believe in war.
In that fashion then, and in that order, Green Valley marched down Main
Street, up Grove, through lovely Maple and very slowly down Orchard
Avenue so that Jeremy Collins, who was bedridden because of a bullet
wound suffered at Shiloh, could see his old comrades with whom he could
no longer march.
All the way down Park Lane the band played its very best and loudest as
if calling from afar to those comrades who lay sleeping beneath the
pines and oaks of the little cemetery. And just as the Green Valley
folks came in sight of the white headstones the Spring Road procession
came tramping over the old bridge, and Elmwood, with its flags and
band, was coming up the new South Road. The three towns met nicely at
the very gates of the cemetery and together made the sort of sound and
presented the sort of sight that lingers in the heart long after other
things have faded from one's memory.
Then the bands grew still and there was quiet, a quiet that every
minute grew deeper so that the noisiest youngster grew round-eyed and
the fat sleek horses moved never a hoof. And then, sweet and soft
through the waiting, hushed air, came the notes of Major Rand's cornet.
He was playing for his comrades as he had played at Shiloh, at
Chickamauga and many another place in the Southland. He played all
their old favorites and then very, very softly the cornet wailed--"We
are tenting to-night on the old camp ground"--and somewhere beside it
little Jim Tumley began to sing.
From the high blue sky and the softly stirring tree-tops the words seem
to drop into little hearts and big hearts and the sweet, melting
sadness of them misted the eyes. When the last feathery echo had died
away the men in blue passed two by two through the cemetery gate.
Reverend Campbell, who had been their chaplain, said a short prayer.
At its end the children, with their arms full of flowers, crowded up
and the men in blue stopped at every grave. The little boys planted
their flags at the head and the little girls scattered the blossoms
deep.
From beyond the gates Green Valley and Spring Road and Elmwood watched
its heroes and its children. In David Allan's smart rig sat a little
city girl, her face crumpled and stained like a rain-beaten rose. She
was saying to no one in particular, "Oh--my daddy was a soldier too but
I know that he never had a Decoration Day like this."
The bands played again and each class went through its number on the
programme with grace and only a very few noticeable blunders. Tommy
Downey, ears rampant, a tooth missing and a face radiant with joy and
absolute self-confidence, mounted the bunting and flag-draped stage and
in a booming voice wholly out of proportion to his midget dimensions
and in ten dashing verses assured those assembled that the man who wore
the shoulder straps was a fine enough fellow to be sure, but that it
was after all the man without them who had to win the day.
The old country roads rippled with applause and Tommy's mother,
forgetting for once Tommy's funny ears which were her greatest source
of grief, drew the funny little body close and explained to admiring
bystanders that Tommy "took" after one of her great-uncles, a soul much
given to speech making.
So number after number went off and then there came the speech of the
day. It had been decided at the last moment that Doc Philipps must
make this, because the specially ordered and greatly renowned speaker,
one Daniel Morton from down Brunesville way, had at the last moment and
at his ridiculous age contracted measles.
Now Green Valley knew how Doc Philipps hated to talk about almost
everything except trees. But Green Valley also knew that Doc could
talk about most anything if he was so minded. He was, moreover, as
well known and loved in Spring Road and Elmwood as he was in his own
town. So Green Valley folks leaned back, certain that this speech
would be worth hearing.
The bulky figure in army blue stepped to the edge of the platform and
for a silent minute towered above his neighbors like one of the great
trees he so loved. Then, without warning or preface, he began to talk
to them.
"War is pretty--when the uniforms are new and the band is playing. War
is glorious to read about and talk about--when it's all over. But war
is every kind of hell imaginable for everybody and everything while
it's going on! And they lie who say that it ever was, is, or can be
anything else. Every soldier here to-day above ground or below it will
and would tell you the same.
"And they are fools who say that wars cannot be prevented. War is the
rough and savage tool of a world as yet too ignorant to invent and use
any other. But here and there, in odd corners of the world, an
ever-increasing number of men are recognizing it as a disease, due to
ignorance, as possible to cure and wipe out, as any other of the
horrible plagues of mankind.
"When I was twenty-three I too believed in war. I liked the uniform, I
liked the excitement of going, I liked the idea of 'fighting for the
right.' I was too young and too ignorant to realize that older, better
men than I on the other side felt just as right as I did. In those
days war was the only tool and we thought it right, and some of us went
hating it and some of us went shouting like fools. I went for the lark
of it, for I knew no better. I marched away in a new uniform with the
band playing and the flags snapping. And on the little old farm my
father gave me I left a nineteen-year-old wife with my one-year-old
baby.
"Next door to that wife and baby of mine lived a man who did not
believe in war, a man who, even when conscription came and he was
called, refused to go to war. He hired a substitute and stayed at
home. And for that Green Valley has marked that man a coward and every
year sits in judgment upon him.
"Yet the man who would not go to war stayed at home to plough my fields
and plant them. He it was who saw to it that that wife of mine and the
wives of other war-mad boys did not want for bread. He stayed at home
here and minded his business and ours as well. He wrote letters and
got news for our women when they got to fretting too hard. He
harvested our crops, tended our stock, and mended our fences because he
is so made that he cannot bear to see things wasted, neglected, ruined.
"As a soldier that man was worthless, for the business of a soldier is
to kill, to burn, to waste, to maim. He knew that and he knew that
being what he was he could serve his country better doing the things he
liked and believed in.
"I came out of that war a physical wreck but with a heart purified. I
saw such a hell of evil, such destruction, such misery that to-day I am
a doctor and a planter of trees. When I saw men torn to rags and
lovely strips of woodland ripped to splintered ugliness I vowed that if
I ever came through that madness I would make amends. I swore I would
go through the world mending things. So terribly did those war horrors
grip me. And I have tried to keep my promise. For every tree I saw
splintered I have tried to plant another somewhere. I have been able
to do this because of that old neighbor of mine.
"When I came home a wreck and said that I wanted to be a doctor, people
laughed at the idea. But the man who does not believe in war came to
me at night and offered to help me through the medical school. It was
that man who made a doctor of me. He had the courage to believe and
trust when every one else laughed.
"Yet that is the man Green Valley has been punishing all these years.
You have been counting that man a coward when you know he is no coward.
When Petersen's fool hired man let that bull out of its stall to rage
through Green Valley's streets it was Green Valley's coward who caught
him at the risk of his life. When Johnny Bigelow was sick with
smallpox it was the coward who nursed him.
"You know all that. Yet, because of outlived and mossy tradition, you
let that man ride alone, keep him out of a Green Valley day, you who
count yourselves such good neighbors.
"I tell you we men in blue and gray are dead and our tool of war is a
poor and clumsy thing of the past. Ours was a brave enough, great
enough day. But it has passed, its story is over and done with.
"It is the new brand of courage that the new generations want and will
have. And no old soldier here but is glad to feel that the days of
bloodshed are over, that somewhere in the days ahead there is coming
the dawn of peace, a world peace forevermore."
As suddenly as he began he stopped, for a long second there was a
strange silence. For just the space of ten heart flutters there was
amazement at this new style of address. No old soldier had ever talked
to them in that fashion. But when they saw him striding over that
stage and headed straight for William the storm broke and eddied out to
where William sat, holding in the grays, not even dreaming that at last
he was understood and forgiven.
After the last songs were sung the sun stood high. So then the great
gathering broke into little family groups that strolled off up the
roads in every direction. Here in shady spots tablecloths were spread
and soon everybody seemed to be opening a basket and the feast was on.
In half an hour all manner of things had happened. The Whitely twins
fell into some strawberry pies, and supposedly hard boiled eggs were in
many cases found to be extremely soft boiled. Boys of all sizes were
beginning to be smeared from ear to ear and two of Hen Tomlin's wife's
doughnuts were found to be quite raw inside, a discovery that so
stunned that careful lady that she never noticed Hen had taken off his
stiff linen collar, opened his shirt and tucked both it and his
undershirt into a very cool and comfortable décolleté effect.
In another half hour fat babies fell asleep where they sat, their
little fat hands holding tight to some goody. Boys old enough to
wonder about the contrariness of things mortal looked sadly at the
still inviting tables and marveled that a thoughtful and farseeing
Providence should have made a boy's stomach in so careless and
penurious a fashion.
They made as many as a dozen trials to see if by any chance some corner
of the said organ could be further reenforced. But when even ice-cream
and marshmallows refused to go down they gave up and dragged themselves
away to some spot where a more lucky or efficient comrade was still
blissfully busy.
The married men openly loosened their belts and looked about for a
quiet and restful spot. The unmarried ones went sneaking off where
their mothers and their best girls couldn't see them smoking their
cigarettes.
In the general relaxation Dolly Beatty slipped off her tightest shoe,
one bunion and four corns clamoring loudly for room. And though nobody
saw her do it, everybody knew that Sam Bobbins' wife had gone behind
some convenient bush and taken off her new corset.
In this quiet time old friends searched each other out and sat
peacefully talking over old times. The married women kept their eyes
on the strolling couples, hoping to see a lovers' quarrel or discover a
new and as yet unannounced affair. Little by little news was
disseminated and listened to that in the elaborate preparations of the
past days had been overlooked or unreported.
David and Jocelyn were in the crowd of merrymakers and yet not of it.
They had selected a fine old tree a little removed from the thick of
things and here Jocelyn spread their luncheon.
"It's a lucky thing," she explained shyly, "that Decoration Day doesn't
come earlier in the year or I'd never have dared to go to a party like
this and be responsible for lunch. About all I knew how to make when
we came to Green Valley was fudge, fruit salad and toasted
marshmallows. And before Annie Dolan came to teach me how to do things
I nearly died trying. I was all black and blue from falling down the
cellar and scarred and blistered from frying things. But now I know
ever so much.
"I can make two lovely soups and biscuits and apple pie and gravy. And
I know how to clean and stuff a turkey. Only last week Annie taught me
how to make red raspberry and currant jell. And my burns are nearly
all healed except this one. It was pretty bad, but I was ashamed to go
to the doctor's so it's not quite healed yet. That's why I just had to
have gloves to cover the bandage. But nobody else seems to be wearing
elbow gloves so I guess I'll take mine off and be comfortable. Would
you mind putting them in your pocket for me?"
David caught the silken ball she tossed him and carefully tucked it
away. He insisted on seeing the burn but Jocelyn waved him aside,
declaring that her hunger was worse just then.
So they ate and then sat and talked quietly of everything and nothing.
All about them people laughed and chattered. Every now and then some
one called to them and they answered correctly enough, yet knew not
what they had said. For as naturally as all the simple unspoiled
things of God's world find each other, so this sweet, unspoiled little
city girl and the big, unspoiled country boy had found each other. And
a great content possessed them. They did not know as yet what it was
but knew only that the world for them was complete and every hour
perfect that they spent together.
They sat under their tree even after the games and races had begun and
were rather glad that in the excitement over the afternoon's programme
they two were forgotten and free to roam about.
They went down to the creek where the burned arm was unbandaged.
Jocelyn was rosily pleased to see David frown at the ugly raw scar. He
gathered the leaves of some weed strange to her and when he had pounded
them to a cool pulp he laid them on the burn and once more bound up the
arm. He was as glad to do it as she was to have him and each knew how
the other felt.
They strolled through the now deserted cemetery and read the epitaphs
on the mossy stones and yet nothing seemed old or sad or caused them
the least surprise. They saw Nanny Ainslee standing with Cynthia's son
before a stone that had neither name nor date but only the love-sad
words:
"I Miss Thee So."
But they thought nothing of it. The world was far away and they were
serenely happy in a rarer one of their own.
Slowly the golden afternoon was waning. Little children were beginning
to pull on their stockings, mothers began packing up the baskets and
fathers were harnessing the horses. Soon everybody was ready and Green
Valley, Spring Road and Elmwood, with many waves of flags and hands,
each started down its own road toward home.
It was a tired, happy town that straggled down Main Street just as the
sun was gilding it with his last rays. Green Valley mothers were
everywhere hurrying their broods on to bread and milk and bed. In the
sunset streets only the little groups of grown-ups lingered to talk
over the day and exchange last jokes before going on toward home and
rest.