After the slackers had spent the afternoon in heavy sleep and eaten a
hearty supper, the atmosphere of gloom was partially lifted from the
camp; but the thoughts of all were still busier than their tongues as
they sat and smoked about the fire. Though conversation lagged, nobody
was sleepy, and all lingered, lounging on the grass until Ted suddenly
rose to his feet and asked if he might say a few words.
"I am only a boy," he said, "and a boy is not expected to talk to men,
but there are a few things I want _so much_ to say, and I hope you will
let me."
"Go ahead, kid," said Buck Hardy.
Al Peters and Bud Jones added their permission, the others remaining
silent. All stared at the boy, giving him close attention. Instead of
shrinking before the steady gaze of so many eyes, he felt inspired
thereby. It had been so ever since he was first given declamation
exercises at school. Always he had found writing "a composition" a
distasteful, unwelcome and heavy task, but as soon as he was given a
chance to speak to attentive listeners his work became easy, his active
mind became more fully awake, crowding thoughts clamored for expression,
and, while he talked, the subject given to him developed far beyond any
previous outline that he had made. And it was so now, his proposed few
words becoming many and his promise to be very brief being soon
forgotten.
"Of course, we are all thinking a lot about that poor man," he said,
"and perhaps some of you have thought, as I have, how much better it
would have been for him and his family if he had gone to the war and
died gloriously for his country instead of coming to such an end in such
a place as this at such a time. But I don't want to say much about Mr.
Jackson. Ever since the days of old Rome, my uncle says, it has been
agreed that we ought to say little about the dead unless we are ready to
say something in praise.
"I speak of him because the way he died reminds me of what I read in
that newspaper Mr. Jenkins brought in here when he came. I read in that
paper of how a captain in our army wasn't true to our side because his
parents were Germans and he had relatives in Germany, and of how he was
sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor. That and lots of other
things I've read show what we are up against in this country. My uncle
says our Northern States are full of foreigners who came over here just
to make money, and they and their children still love the countries they
came from, the Germans especially, who, I've read, claim twenty millions
in our country that are German by birth or descent."
"Gee-whiz!" cried Buck Hardy, quick to see the boy's point.
"Of course, most of these have been here long enough to become real
Americans. My uncle thinks there is doubt about only the more recent
immigrations. But even these are a great population, and the things that
have happened prove that very many of them are working for the Kaiser
with all their might. They spy for Germany and blow up and burn down
munition plants. They do even more harm by their cunning whispers and
continual talk. They get hold of ignorant people and try to persuade
them that it costs too much in blood and money to fight Germany and
that, anyhow, the world would be better off under the Kaiser's rule. I
read of one German, a professor in one of our colleges, who actually
argued in print that the wisest thing to do is to submit and make peace
on any terms. You see, they are not real Americans, and still love and
admire Germany; they would really enjoy having the Kaiser walk on their
necks, and they may think that to try to make this country one of the
tails to the Kaiser's kite is just the thing they ought to do. Besides,
they know that German rule would bring them forward and make them the
aristocrats in this country."
The listeners to this boyish, but pointed and intensely earnest harangue
were all of old American stock and at this point all of them, without
exception, were visibly indignant.
"Don't you see what this brings us up against?" asked Ted. "And what we
are up against reminds me of the way Mr. Jackson died. This great German
element that is secretly for the Kaiser is our Snake in the Grass that
watches and waits and will come out and strike openly if ever a German
army lands on our shores. Meanwhile it tries to poison the minds of our
people and it does all the damage it possibly can on the sly. You see
what we have to fight right here at home and how, in a way, we have a
harder pull and need more help than any of our Allies.
"Now this is my answer to the argument I have heard in this camp. Some
of you have said that you are not needed because the country is so big
and powerful and has so many men. We _are_ powerful, but, you see, we
have the secret foe at home as well as the open foe on the French
border, and we need all our strength--all our able-bodied young men--so
that we can go ahead in a big way and _smash_ the hateful Huns. Our
country needs _you_, and _you_, and _you_," cried Ted, nodding his head
toward Buck Hardy, and then toward every man around the camp fire in
turn.
"Do you want to see a German viceroy taking orders from the Kaiser at
Washington?" he demanded. "Do you want to see a German general in
command of Atlanta and of every other State capital? Do you want to see
a strutting German boss lording it over every town and county in this
country? If you do, then you can say that you are not needed. Maybe you
can't be stirred up by the President's call to make the world safe for
democracy, because that may sound to you like something far away--though
it isn't--But don't you--" cried the boy, tears starting in his
eyes--"don't you want to see the American flag keep on flying? Don't you
want to see your neighbors and all our people live in freedom and
safety? Don't you want Americans still to rule in the country which our
ancestors fought for and won and built up? Even little children have not
been safe from the cruelty of the Germans. Do you want them protected?
Do you want to keep our young women from being carried off into slavery?
Do you want your mothers and sisters and sweethearts to belong to
foreign beasts? Do you want to see in your own neighborhoods the
dreadful things that have been seen in Belgium and France? The people in
France have suffered so that when our first soldiers landed some of the
French kissed the very hem of their garments. Do you want to wait until
_we_ feel like that toward any people who might come to help us to drive
back the German hordes?
"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!'
"Breathes _here_, to-night, a man with soul so dead that he thinks of
the safety of his own skin instead of the safety of his country, his
people, his women, and who is not willing to stand up and fight for
freedom, for security, for the right to live in peace, against powerful
and wicked aggressors? Oh, God, I wish _I_ were old enough to go to the
war and do my part!"
Then, overcome by his emotions, Ted threw himself down on the grass and
sobbed aloud. Hubert, who was near, put an arm over his cousin and
sobbed with him. July, who had crawled nearer on the grass while Ted was
speaking and now lay flat on his stomach close at hand, reached out a
hand and touched the boy's shoulder, whispering:
"Nem-mind, Cap'n Ted. You done yo' part to-night. You been doin' yo'
part ever since you come to dis camp. Don't you cry, Cap'n Ted, honey."
"Did you ever see the like o' that boy?" asked Al Peters softly. "He
sure made the cold chills run up and down my back."
The remark was made to Buck Hardy, whose lips were twitching nervously
and who did not answer.
"Too bad he _ain't_ old enough," said Bud Jones. "He'd sure make a dandy
cap'n in the army."
The other slackers stared into the fire in gloomy silence.
Suddenly Buck Hardy rose to his feet, clearing his throat as he too
looked steadily into the fire.
"Well, fellows," he said, "I don't know how the rest o' you feel, but
I'm ready to quit. I'm tired o' playin' the game of a sneakin' suck-egg
dog and I want to try the game of bein' a _man_."
"Goin' to desert, air you?" asked Zack James in a harsh, unsteady voice.
"No--goin' to _quit desertin'_."
"Goin' to go back on _us_," insisted James, "jes' because a _boy_ has
got lots o' lip and can talk to beat the band."
"No," said Buck, keeping his temper. "He sure is game and a great kid,
and he stirred me up powerful; but I made up my mind before to-night. I
made it up when I was by my sick mother's bed. I'm free to say that that
boy's talk before that had a lot to do with it, but the truth is I ain't
been satisfied from the start. I never did really belong to this crowd.
I got in wrong last summer when I thought I knew better than the
Congress of the United States about that draft business and was fool
enough to get mad."
Zack James blew out his breath in a sort of contemptuous hiss.
"I meant to tell you all as soon as I come back yesterday," continued
Buck, taking no notice of James, "but the trouble in camp stopped me. I
only come back to get them boys, and to-morrow I'll start out with 'em.
I'm goin' to take them boys home and then I'm goin' to the war."
"Oh, Mr. Hardy," cried Ted, who had been drying his eyes as he listened,
and who now started up, "I'm gladder to hear that than to know that we
are going home!"
Mitch' Jenkins now spoke for the first time.
"Maybe you are goin' to take them boys home," he said, "but you ain't
goin' to the war. You are goin' to jail, and then you are goin' to be
shot."
"What do you mean?" demanded Buck in startled tones, plainly disturbed.
Then Ted darted his hand into an inside pocket and brought out a
battered newspaper clipping.
"That's what they are sayin' in my neighborhood," declared Jenkins.
"And that's why, when I heard of you fellows on the quiet, I came in to
join you. I'd let the time to register go by, and so I come in here
a-kitin'."
"Mr. Jenkins," said Ted, boldly facing hostile eyes, his voice quite
steady, "you heard a wild rumor of the sort the Germans in this country
are spreading all the time. I have the real facts here, Mr. Hardy. I cut
this out of that paper Mr. Jenkins himself brought in, thinking I might
need it. It got wet when we crossed the 'prairie,' but you can read it.
It is a part of Provost Marshal General Crowder's report on the first
draft. It says that out of nearly ten million men not much over five
thousand arrests were made for failure to register, that more than half
of these, after registering, were released. "'The authorities,'" read
the boy from his clipping, "'wisely assumed an attitude of leniency
toward all those who after arrest exhibited a willingness to register
and extended the _locus penitentiae_ as far as possible, believing that
the purpose of the law was to secure a full registration rather than
full jails.'"
Ted handed the clipping to Buck, who, after looking it over carefully,
handed it to Al Peters, remarking:
"Another lie nailed. I don't mean that you did the lyin', Jenkins. I
reckon it was the Germans."
The clipping passed from Peters to Jones and then to Jenkins, each
holding it near the fire and reading in silence. Jenkins studied it
carefully and then, without comment, passed it to James, who, after
hardly a glance at the printed lines, tore up the clipping and threw it
into the fire.
"What good will that do you?" asked Peters scornfully.
"Nothin' but newspaper lies to fool runaways like us out of their hidin'
places," said James bitterly.
Ted, who regarded the clipping as of great value and considered it his
property, turned with an outraged face to Buck, who chose to take no
notice of an incident which appeared to him unimportant.
"Well, fellows," he said in conclusion, "I've put you on notice, and now
all I've got to do is to get ready."
"So you've gone back on us," repeated James, his voice trembling with
anger, "and you'll go out and put the sheriff on our trail?"
"I didn't say that. I don't expect to hunt up the sheriff. I'll be
satisfied if he don't hunt me up. But if he asks me straight up and
down, I don't engage to do any lyin'."
"You mean that after them boys has blabbed the whole thing, you won't
deny it?" demanded James.
"I told you I wouldn't do any lyin'," said Buck sharply.
"All _right_," said James menacingly. "That's all I want to know."
"How much more do you deserve?" asked Buck, his tone showing irritation
for the first time. "Al Peters," he said suddenly, turning to the young
man addressed, "I don't think you belong in this crowd, either. If
there's any yellow dog in you, I ain't seen it. Don't you want to come
along with me and join the _men_?"
"Buck," said Peters, rising and stepping forward, "I have a good mind to
do it."
"Good for you! Now, Jones, let's hear from you. I ain't seen any yellow
dog in you either. I think that down underneath you're a _man_. Don't
you want to come along?"
"Buck, I think I will," said Bud Jones.
He spoke as lightly as if a fishing trip had been proposed. He even
smiled as he rose and took his stand in the group of which the boys were
now the center.
Zack James started up, staring and muttering, his manner suggestive of
impotent rage. He drew Thatcher aside and whispered to him.
"How about you, Jenkins?" asked Buck, smiling. "You're new and I hardly
know you, but from things I've heard it looks to me like you're pretty
nearly all white."
"No, thank you," said Jenkins, with mocking courtesy. "I'm stayin'. It's
risky--with the sheriff gettin' on to it in three days' time--but it
ain't as risky as goin' to jail with the chance o' bein' shot."
"Then, that's all," said Buck. "No use to ask any o' the rest."
"July wants to go out with us," spoke up Ted.
"I sho do want to go wid Mr. Hardy an' Cap'n Ted," declared the grinning
negro.
"All right, July. I brought you in and, if you want to go, I'll take you
out."
The two groups were now quite distinct, first Carter and then Jenkins
having joined James and Thatcher.
"So," said James, as if estimating the relative strength of contending
forces, "there's three of you and the nigger and the boys, and there's
four of us--five when Wheeler gets back."
"Yes, you'll get Wheeler--not a doubt of it," said Buck, as if greatly
amused. "And you're welcome to him."
Then he turned his back on James, remarking to those about him: "Well, I
think our crowd had better go to bed. We ought to start early in the
mornin'."
To this there was general assent, the three men and the two boys moving
at once toward the sleeping-loft, followed slowly by the negro.
"Good night," called out Buck, his tone quite friendly.
But no response came from the four slackers who, standing in their
tracks, watched the departing "deserters" with hostile eyes.
As the three men and the boys were climbing the ladder, July quietly
disappeared. Stealing into the bushes bent double, he skirted the
clearing, treading very softly. Five minutes later he lay in the brush
within earshot of the four slackers who still stood in consultation.