"THE GATES AJAR"
COMMENCEMENT is over, the good-byes are said and most of the girls have
departed for home. Babe and I leave this morning at ten 'clock when Mrs.
Waldon's machine is to come for us and take us to her apartment for a
week's visit. Babe is included in the invitation because she can't go
home till I do. Her family won't let her travel alone, although she's
nineteen, a year and a month older than I.
Father wasn't willing for Barby to leave this country, so she went into
the Army and Navy League work with Mrs. Waldon, the first month she was
here. But now she's at the head of one of the departments in the Red
Cross and will be in Washington all summer, and longer if necessary.
I've finished my Book of Second Chronicles and shall leave it for her to
read whenever she can find an opportunity. But I'm keeping my Memoirs
out of my trunk till the last moment, because there's something I want
to write in it about Babe.
It was agreed that nobody was to wear flowers at Commencement, and we
asked our families not to send any, so it was generally understood that
there was to be no display of any kind. But yesterday an enormous
florist box arrived for Babe Nolan. If she hadn't been so mysterious
about it we wouldn't have thought anything of it. Any one of us would
have opened it right then and there in the hall, and passed it around to
be sniffed and admired. But she got as red as fire and, grabbing the
box, hurried into her room with it and shut the door. That's the last
anybody saw of it. A little later when I had occasion to go to her room
there wasn't a sign of a flower to be seen, not even the box or a piece
of string. The girls all thought it was queer they should disappear so
absolutely, and wondered why she didn't put them in the dining-room or
the chapel if she didn't want them in her own room, and they teased her
a good deal about her mysterious suitor.
But last night, after Lillian and Jessica had started to the train, she
called me to her room and threw open the wardrobe door with a tragic
gesture, and asked me what on earth she was to do with _that_. Her trunk
wouldn't hold another thing, and she supposed she'd have to go all the
way to the Cape with it in her two hands, and it smelled so loud of
tuberoses and such things she was afraid people would think she was
taking it to a funeral.
There on the wardrobe flood stood a floral design fully three feet high,
that looked exactly as if intended for a funeral, for it was one of
those pieces called "Gates Ajar." I didn't dare laugh because Babe stood
there looking so worried and so deeply in earnest that I knew she'd be
offended if I did. I suggested simply leaving it behind, or taking out
the flowers and chucking the wire frame into the ash can. Then I saw my
advice was unacceptable. Evidently she hadn't told me all, and didn't
intend to for fear I'd laugh at the person who sent such a design.
But when I said in a real sympathetic and understanding way that it was
_so_ appropriate for a Commencement offering because everybody thinks of
Commencement Day as being a gate ajar, through which a school girl steps
into the wider life beyond, she gave me a sharp glance and then took me
into her confidence. She had on one of those new sport skirts with two
enormous side pockets, the most stylish thing I ever saw Babe wear. She
drew a card out of one of the pockets. On it was engraved, "Lieutenant
Watson Tucker."
I nearly dropped with surprise, for two reasons. First, I didn't think
he was the sort of a man to send such a queer thing. It would have been
more like him to have sent a bunch of sweet peas. And second, I didn't
know he had kept up with Babe enough to know the date of her graduation.
She said yes, they correspond occasionally, and in his last letter he
said he was expecting to have a two-weeks' shore leave soon. She
wouldn't be surprised any day to hear that the ship was in. Although she
said it airily, I know Babe. She couldn't fool me. She over-acted her
indifference, and when she said she supposed she might as well box up
the flowers and take them along when the machine came, I knew positively
that she cared far more for Watty Tucker than she'd have me know.
* * * * *
Babe says it's like visiting in the Hall of Fame to be here at Mrs.
Waldon's. Every way we turn are autographed pictures on the walls of
celebrities who have helped to make history. Every time the door bell
rings it is a call from somebody who is helping to make it now. And
they're not Admirals and Generals and diplomats and their wives to Mrs.
Waldon. They're just Joe and Ned and Nancy who took "pot luck" with her
in the old army days on the frontier before they got to be famous or
else somebody who knew her intimately in the Philippines.
It is so thrilling to meet them and so interesting to hear intimate bits
of their family history afterward. People she hasn't heard of in years
are constantly turning up, brought to Washington by the war. Only this
morning, a Major whom she thought was out among the "head-hunters"
dropped in and stayed to lunch.
We have spent the greater part of every day sight-seeing. Not the usual
places like Mount Vernon and the Smithsonian, etc. We've been doing them
for the last two years in school excursions with the teachers. But
places that have taken on unusual interest because of these stirring war
times. We went over to Fort Meyer in time for "Retreat" one afternoon,
and again to see the trench-digging and the dummies being put up for
bayonet practice. And we spent hours at the Wadsworth House, a palace of
a home which has been turned over to relief work. There is where Barby
spends most of her time. I was so thrilled when I found her there at a
desk, directing things in her department, and looking so lovely in her
uniform, white with a band around her sleeve, and a blue veil floating
over her shoulders, bound on the forehead by a white band and a red
cross.
Two retired Admirals in their shirt sleeves were filling huge packing
boxes in one of the side rooms. They give their services, working like
Trojans all day long. Upstairs in the great dismantled ballroom, and the
apartments adjoining, were long tables surrounded by the women working
on surgical dressings and hospital garments and comfort kits.
Downstairs, near the entrance, was the desk of the Motor Service Corps.
A pretty society girl in a stunning uniform came in while we stood
there, saluted her superior officer, received her orders and started out
to drive her machine on some Red Cross errand, with all the neatness and
dispatch of a regular enlisted soldier. That's what I'd love to do, if I
only had a machine of my own. She looked too adorable for words in that
uniform.
One afternoon we went out to see the President receive the Sanitary
Corps of a thousand men trained to carry litters. A temporary platform
gay with bunting and flags was erected on the edge of the green where
the President and his guests of honor sat. Barby was one of them in her
floating blue veil, on account of the position she holds now. We parked
the machine and sat down tailor-fashion on the grass in the front row of
the crowd, which pressed against the rope that barred our entrance to
the mall.
After awhile there was a sound of music down the street, and the marine
band came marching across the great field towards us, at the head of
the litter-bearers. It was a sunny afternoon, and the band played a gay
marching tune as they advanced. I was feeling so uplifted over Barby's
being on the grandstand among the honor guests, looking her prettiest,
that I didn't realize the significance of the scene at first. Then the
thought stabbed me like a knife, that on every one of those litters
somebody's best beloved might some day be stretched, desperately wounded
maybe, dead or dying. I couldn't help thinking "suppose I should see
Father brought in that way, or Richard." When I glanced across at Babe
the tears were running down her cheeks, so it evidently affected her the
same way.
I'd have been willing to wager she was seeing Watson on one of those
stretchers. When we got back to our room, which is a large one with twin
beds in it, she dived under hers and pulled out the big florist's box
and carried it to the bathroom to sprinkle the flowers. It's wonderful
how fresh the thing has kept. She's had it nearly a week. She treats it
like a mother would an idiot child, keeps it out of sight of the public,
but hangs over it when alone with a tenderness that is positively
touching.
Babe's the funniest thing! Every time the hall door opens she is out and
up the little stairway to the roof, like a cat. It is a nice place to
go, for there is a magnificent view of the city from there, and at night
it's entrancing, with the Monument illuminated, and the great dome
showing up when the searchlights play. But I don't believe it's the view
Babe is after. She wants to be alone. Twice when I went up after her to
tell her it was time to start somewhere, I found her sitting staring at
a rubber plant in front of her, as if she didn't see even that. And once
she was leaning against the iron railing which surrounds the roof,
oblivious to the fact that that section of it was rusty. It simply
ruined her best evening dress, a delicate blue veiling made over white
silk. When we got downstairs to the light there were great streaks of
iron rust across the whole front, where the bars had pressed against it.
Saturday night Mrs. Waldon had a long-distance call from her cousin, Mac
Gordon. His ship was in from the long cruise, and the boys were
scattering to their homes for a short visit before being sent to join
the fleet abroad. He wanted to know if he could stop by next day to see
her, on his way home. She told him to come and welcome, and bring any of
the other boys who cared to come. That Babe and I were with her.
Well, Sunday afternoon when Mac walked in there was a whole string of
boys behind him; Bob Mayfield and Billy Burrell and Watty Tucker. Only
four in all by actual count, but added to the six already in the room,
the little apartment seemed brim full and running over. Two of her old
army cronies were there besides Barby.
I wondered what Mrs. Waldon was going to do about feeding them all,
because the cook is always away on Sunday night. But when the time came
she simply announced they'd serve supper in the time-honored Crabtown
fashion. At that the men all got up and crowded out into the little
kitchenette to see what she had on her "emergency shelf" and to announce
what part each one would be responsible for on the menu.
When we were ready to sit down to the table we noticed that Babe and
Watson were missing, and when I tried to recall when I had seen them
last, I was sure they had slipped away during the general exodus to the
kitchen. And I am sure that when I ran up the steps to the roof garden
with the announcement, "The rarebit is ready," neither one of them was a
bit grateful to me.
I was sorry Duffield Locke wasn't with the boys. His family met him in
New York and they went on to New York together. Bob Mayfield tried to
tease me about him. He said Duff had my picture in the back of his
watch. When I hotly denied it, and vowed I had never given him one,
except a little snapshot taken with Lillian of just our heads, he said,
"Well, Duff had a pair of scissors."
After we went to our room that night, late as it was, Babe re-packed her
trunk and deliberately squeezed all her hats into one compartment,
thereby ruining two of them for life, to make room in the tray for that
florist box. The flowers were badly shriveled up by that time. Seeing
from my face that an explanation was necessary, she said she couldn't
carry it back on the train as she had intended, because Watson was going
up to Provincetown the same time we were, to visit his cousins, the
Nelsons, and she didn't want him to see it.
"But the Nelsons aren't in Provincetown this summer," I answered. "And
he knows it, because I told him what Laura said in her last letter.
Besides, why shouldn't he see his own floral offering? He'd be
complimented to think you cared enough for it to lug it all the way
home."
She seemed a bit confused at my answer, but I couldn't tell at which
part of it. Then she said that he didn't pick it out. He thinks he sent
roses, and he'd have a fit if he knew it was that awful Gates Ajar. He
sent his card to some old relative in Georgetown with a check and asked
him to order something appropriate for the occasion.
I asked Babe then, why, if the design wasn't Watty's choice, and she
thought it was so dreadful, _why_ did she cling to it so fondly, and
take it back to the Cape at the risk of all her hats and the sure ruin
of two of them. But she paid no attention to my remark, just went on
with her packing. I know she's relieved to find out it wasn't Watty's
taste. If they are not actually engaged, they have almost reached the
gate, and it _is_ ajar.
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