THE CALL TO ARMS
IT has come at last--the call to arms--the biggest thing that may ever
be my lot to record in all my life, or the life of my country. So I have
hunted up this old book of Memoirs that I have not written in for
months, in order that I may put down the date.
_April 6, 1917. On this day the United States declared war against
Germany!_
Far down the street a band is playing, and in every direction flags are
flying in the warm April breeze. All Washington is a-flutter with
banners. The girls are so excited that they can't talk of anything else.
Some of them have been in tears ever since the announcement came. Many
of them have brothers in Yale or Princeton or Harvard who've only been
waiting for this to break away and enlist. Not that the girls don't
glory in the fact that they've got some one to go, just as I glory in
the thought that Father is in the service. But we've been on a fearful
nervous strain ever since the last of January, when Germany declared
she'd sink at sight all vessels found in certain zones, and those zones
are the very waters where our ships are obliged to go.
Lillian Locke's Uncle Charlie went down in one of the merchant ships
they sank last month. He was her favorite uncle, and most of us girls
knew him. He came to the school twice last year, and whenever he sent
Lillian "eats" he sent enough for her to treat the entire class. Then
there is Duffield, and Bailey Burrell and Watson Tucker all off on the
high seas somewhere. Sometimes at vespers when we sing:
"O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,"
the thought of Father and of all those boys who danced with us just a
year ago, and who went marching so gaily across the green mall, chokes
me so that I can't sing another note. Sometimes all over the chapel
voices waver and stop till only the organ is left to finish it alone.
We Seniors have voted to cut out all frills in our Commencement
exercises, and give the money to the Red Cross. We're going to wear
simple white shirt-waist suits. It'll make it such a plain affair it
won't be worth while for our families to come on to see us get our
diplomas.
Barby is coming anyhow, and I know she'll be disappointed. She has all
the old-time ideas about flowers and fluffy ruffles for the "sweet girl
graduates." She had them herself, with so many presents and
congratulations that her graduation was almost as grand an occasion as
her wedding. Her Aunt Barbara's pearl necklace which she inherited was
handed over to her then, and I think she has visions of my wearing it on
the same stage, on the occasion of my Commencement. There are only a few
strands in the necklace and the pearls are quite small, though
exquisitely beautiful, but, of course, I couldn't wear it with just a
plain shirt-waist.
* * * * *
Easter has come and gone, and nothing of importance has happened here at
school, but a letter from Barby brings news of happenings at home which
have a place in this record, so I am copying it.
"What a cold and snowy Spring this has been! All week we have had to
pile on the wood as we do in midwinter. I am glad that you are away from
this bleak tongue of sand, far enough inland and far enough South to
escape these cold winds from the Atlantic, and to have Spring buds and
Spring bird-calls in the school garden.
"Yesterday, just before supper, while I sat knitting in the firelight,
the front doorbell rang. Not hearing Tippy go out into the hall, I
started to answer it. You know how she opens a door by degrees, one
cautious inch and then another-- well, I was just in time to see a big
man in a fur cap and burly overcoat shoulder his way in and throw his
arms around her in a hearty embrace. I couldn't see his face in the
dusk, nor did I recognize the deep voice that cried out--'Ah, Tippy! But
you look good to me!'
"The next instant I was caught up in a great bear hug by those same
strong arms. It was Richard, home again after two long years, and so
glad to be back that it was a joy to see his delight. He had come home
to enlist.
"You can easily picture for yourself the scene at the table a little
while later. He teased and flattered Tippy till she was almost beside
herself. She kept getting up to open some new jar of pickle or
preserves, or to bring on something else from the pantry which she
remembered he had an especial liking for. Afterwards he insisted on
tying one of her aprons around him and wiping the dishes for her. He
kept her quivering with concern as usual for the safety of the cups and
saucers, when he tried his old juggling tricks of keeping several in
the air at the same time.
"But later, when we were alone, he dropped all his gay foolery and sat
down on the hearthrug at my feet, as he used to do when he was a little
lad, and, leaning his head against my knee, looked into the fire.
"'You're all I've got now, Barby,' he said, and took my knitting away
that my hand might be free to stray over his forehead as it used to do
when he came to me for sympathy and comfort. After a moment he began
talking about his father. It was the first time I had seen him, you
know, since Mr. Moreland was killed.
"Then he told me how circumstances had made it possible for him to come
back to the States to enlist, as soon as war was declared. He is no
longer bound by his promise to the Canadian whose family he was caring
for. The man was sent back home two months ago, dismissed from a
hospital in France. He was wounded twice so badly that one leg had to be
amputated. But though he came home on crutches he came back with
something which he values more than his leg--the Victoria Cross. He won
it in an awful battle, one in which nearly his whole regiment was wiped
out.
"Richard sprang up from the rug and paced the floor as he talked about
it. His face glowed so that I couldn't help asking, 'But how did you
feel when you saw him with the cross that might have been yours had you
gone in his stead!'
"He stood a moment with one elbow resting on the mantel, looking down
into the fire. Then he said slowly, 'Well, it would have been ripping,
of course, to have had it one's self--worth dying for in fact; but after
all, you know, little Mother, it isn't the "guerdon" any of us are after
in this war. It's just that the deed gets done. I believe that is the
spirit in which all America is going into it. Not for any gain--not for
any glory--she's simply saying to herself and to the world, "_For the
deed's sake_ will I do this."'
"As he said that, he looked so like his father in one of his inspired
moods, that I realized the two years in which he has been away has made
a man of him. It was only that he was so boyishly glad to be at home
again that I hadn't noticed before how earnest and mature he had grown
to be.
"Within a month after the Canadian's return, he was able to take a place
in the factory. His artificial limb made it possible. Richard went at
once to an aviation field to complete his training. He intended to go
from there to join a flying squadron in France, for his Cousin James is
ready now to do anything for him he asks. But just as he was about to
start, the United States declared war, and he hurried home to enlist
under his own flag. He has been promised a commission and an opportunity
to go soon in some special capacity, for he passed all the tests in
expert flying. He will probably be kept at Newport News while he is
waiting for some bit of red tape to be untied.
"He did not stay late, for there were some business matters he had to
discuss with Mr. Milford, and he left town early this morning. Several
times while here, he glanced around saying, 'Somehow I keep expecting
Georgina to pop in every time the door opens. It doesn't seem like home
without her here to keep things stirred up.'
"He asked many questions about you and said that he hopes mightily to
see you before he sails. I told him that was highly improbable as
Commencement is to be so late this year owing to the enforced vacation
in January when over half the school was in quarantine on account of
mumps and measles. That was the first he had heard of it, and he said to
congratulate you for him on your lucky escape."
I am glad that Barby wrote in detail as she did, for I have not had a
line from Richard in three months. Evidently he did not get my last
letter, for in that I told him all about that quarantine, and the fun we
girls had who escaped the contagion, but who were kept in durance vile
on account of the others.
I wish I had been at home when he surprised them. I wish I were a boy
and could do what he is doing. It would be simply glorious to go winging
one's way into battle as he will do. It's one thing to give your life
for your country in one exalted moment of renunciation, and quite
another to give it in little dribs of insignificant sacrifices and petty
duties, the way we stay-at-home girls have to do. It is maddening to
have the soul of an "Ace" who would dare any flight or of a "Sammie" who
would endure any trench, and then have nothing but a pair of knitting
needles handed out to you.
* * * * *
Another letter from Barby this week. Of course I knew the war would come
close home in many ways, but I hadn't expected it would get that little
mother-o'-mine first thing. This is what she writes:
"It is quite possible that I may be in Washington by the last of May.
Mrs. Waldon has written, begging me to come and stay with her while
Catherine goes back to Kentucky for a visit. She writes that she is 'up
to her ears' in the Army and Navy League work, and that is where I
belong. She says I should be there getting inspiration for all this end
of the state, and lending a hand in the grand drive they are planning
for. Her letter is such a veritable call to arms that I feel that I'll
be shirking my duty if I don't go. Tippy says there is no reason why I
shouldn't go. She can get Miss Susan Triplett to come up from Wellfleet
to stay with her till you come home.
"Her patriotic old soul is fired with joy at no longer being under the
ban of a 'neutral' silence. When it comes to her powers of speech, Tippy
on the war-path is a wonder. I wish the Kaiser could hear her when she
is once thoroughly warmed up on the subject. She'd be in the first
soup-kitchen outfit that leaves for the front if it wasn't for her
rheumatism. As it is, she is making the best self-appointed recruiting
officer on the whole Cape.
"I have written to your father, asking him if he can find me a place
where I can be useful on one of the hospital ships; I can't nurse, but
there ought to be many things I can do if it's nothing more than
scrubbing the operating rooms and sterilizing instruments. And maybe in
that way I could see him occasionally. Of course it isn't as if he were
stationed on one particular ship. I believe he could manage it then, but
being needed in many places and constantly moving he may not want me to
go. In that case I shall join Mrs. Waldon. She says she can put me into
a place where every hour's work will count for something worth while."
It made the tears come to my eyes when I read that. Little Barby, out in
the world doing things for her country! Since I have grown to be half a
head taller than she, and especially since my office training last
summer and Father's leaving her in my care, I've been thinking of her as
_little_ Barby. She's never done anything in public but read her
graduating essay. The tables are turned now. It is _she_ who is going
out on a stony road in her little bare feet, and she's never been shod
for such going. But she's got the spirit of the old Virginia Cavaliers,
even if she didn't inherit a Pilgrim-father backbone as the Huntingdons
did. She'll never stop for the stones, and she'll get to any place she
starts out to reach. I'm as proud of her as I am of Father. I've simply
_got_ to do something myself, as soon as school is out.
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