scream from the distant heights--and the Captain fell. A monstrous
glassy had struck him fairly in the legs, and owing to his military
habit of standing with them close together--well, it was all too sad,
too harrowing, to relate. An ambulance corps of Grandfather and Uncle
Ned carried the crippled soldier to the Tool Chest Hospital. He was
just conscious, that was all. The operation he bore with great
fortitude, refusing to take chloroform, and insisting on dying with his
musket beside him, if die he must. What seemed to give him greatest
anguish was his heels, for, separated at last, they would not click
together now; and his little fingers groped nervously for the misplaced
seams of his pantaloons.
Long afterwards, when the Captain had left his cot for active duty
again, it was recalled that the very moment when he fell so gallantly in
the trenches that day a lady was found unconscious, flat on her face, at
the foot of Rocking Chair Hill.
Captain Jinks was never the same after that. Still holding his gun as
smartly as before, there was, on the other hand, a certain carelessness
of attire, a certain dulness of gilt buttons, a smudginess of scarlet
coat, as though it were thumb-marked; and dark clouds were beginning to
lower in the clear azure of his pantaloons. There was, withal, a certain
rakishness of bearing not provided for in the regulations; a little
uncertainty as to legs; a tilt and limp, as it were, in sharp contrast
to the trim soldier who had guarded the commissary chocolates under the
Christmas fir. Moreover--though his comrades at arms forbore to mention
it, loving him for his gallant service--he was found one night, flat on
his face, under the dinner-table. Now the Captain had always been
abstemious before. Liquor of any kind he had shunned as poison, holding
that it spotted his uniform; and once when forced to drink from
Lizbeth's silver cup, at the end of a dusty march, his lips paled at the
contaminating touch, his red cheeks blanched, and his black mustache, in
a single drink, turned gray. But here he lay beneath the festive board,
bedraggled, his nose buried in the soft rug, hopelessly
inarticulate--though the last symptom was least to be wondered at, since
he had always been a silent man.
You shook him where he lay. There was no response. You dragged him
forth in his shame and set him on his feet again, but he staggered and
fell. Yet as he lay there in his cups--oh, mystery of discipline!--his
heels were close together, his toes turned out, his musket was at a
carry, and his little fingers were just touching the seams of his
pantaloons.
For the good of the service Mother offered to retire the Captain on half
pay, and give him free lodging on the garret stair, but he scorned the
proposal, and you backed him in his stand. All his life he had been a
soldier. Now, with war and rumors of war rife in the land, should he,
Captain Jinks, a private in the Grenadier Guards, lay down his arms for
the piping peace of a garret stair? No, by gad, sir! No! And he
stayed; and, strangest thing of all, he was yet to fight and stand guard
and suffer as he had never done before.
But while the Captain thus sadly went down hill, the Rag Doll retired to
a modest villa in the closet country up-stairs. It was quiet there, and
she could rest her shattered nerves. Whether she blamed herself for her
rejected lover's downfall, or whether it was mere petulance at the
social triumphs of the waxen blonde is a question open to debate.
Sentimentalists will find the former theory more to their fancy, but,
the blonde and her friends told a different tale. Be that as it may,
the Rag Doll went away.
January passed in barracks; then February and March, with only an
occasional scouting after cattle-thieves and brigand bands. The Captain
chafed at such inactivity.
"War! You call this war!" his very bristling manner seemed to say. "By
gad! sir, when I was in the trenches before..."
It was fine then to see the Captain and Grandfather--both grizzled
veterans with tales to tell--side by side before the library fire. When
Grandfather told the story of Johnny Reb in the tall grass, the Captain
was visibly moved.
"Jinks," Grandfather would say--"Jinks, you know how it is
yourself--when the bacon's wormy and the coffee's thin, and there's a
man with a gun before you and a girl with a tear behind."
And at the mention of the girl and the tear the Captain would turn away.
Spring came, and with it the marching orders for which you and the
Captain had yearned so long. There was a stir in the barracks that
morning. The Captain was drunk again, it is true, but drunk this time
with joy. He could not march in the ranks--he was too far gone for
that--so you stationed him on a wagon to guard the commissary stores.
A blast from the bugle--Assembly--and you fell into line.
"Forward--_March!_"
And you marched away, your drum beating a double-quick, the Captain
swaying ignominiously on the wagon and hugging his old brown gun. As
the Guards swung by the reviewing-stand, their arms flashing in the sun,
the Captain did not raise his eyes. So he never knew that looking down
upon his shame that April day sat his rag lady, with Lizbeth and the
waxen blonde. Her cheeks were pale, but her eyes were tearless. She did
not utter a sound as her tottering lover passed. She just leaned far
out over the flag-hung balcony and watched him as he rode away.
It was a hard campaign. Clover Plain, Wood-pile Mountain, and the
Raspberry Wilderness are names to conjure with. From the back fence to
the front gate, from the beehives to the red geraniums, the whole land
ran with blood. Brevetted for personal gallantry on the Wood-pile
Heights, you laid aside your drum for epaulets and sword. The Guards
and the Captain drifted from your ken. When you last saw him he was
valiantly defending a tulip pass, and defying a regiment of the Black
Ant Brigade to come and take him--by gad! sirs--if they dared.
The war went on. Days grew into weeks, weeks into months, and the
summer passed. Search in camps and battlefields revealed no trace of
Captain Jinks. Sitting by the camp-fire on blustering nights, your
thoughts went back to the old comrade of the winter days.
"Poor Captain Jinks!" you sighed.
"Jinks?" asked Grandfather, laying down his book.
"Yes. He's lost. Didn't you know?"
"Jinks among the missing!" Grandfather cried. Then he gazed silently
into the fire.
"Poor old Jinks!" he mused. "He was a brave soldier, Jinks was--a brave
soldier, sir." He puffed reflectively on his corn-cob pipe. Presently
he spoke again, more sadly than before:
"But he had one fault, Jinks had--just one, sir. He was a leetle too
fond o' his bottle on blowy nights."
November came. The year and the war were drawing to a close. Before
Grape Vine Ridge the enemy lay intrenched for a final desperate stand.
To your council of war in the fallen leaves came Grandfather, a scarf
around his throat, its loose ends flapping in the gale. He leaned on
his cane; you, on your sword.
"Bring up your guns, boy," he cried. "Bring up your heavy guns. Fling
your cavalry to the left, your infantry to the right. 'Up, Guards, and
at 'em!' Cold steel, my boy--as Jinks used to say."
Grandfathers for counsel; little boys for war. At five that night the
enemy surrendered--horse, foot, and a hundred guns. Declining the
General's proffered sword, you rode back across the battle field to your
camp in the fallen leaves. The afternoon was waning. In the gathering
twilight your horse stumbled on a prostrate form. You dismounted,
knelt, brushed back the leaves, peered into the dimmed eyes and ashen
face.
"Captain!" you cried. "Captain Jinks!" And at your call came Lizbeth,
running, dragging the Rag Doll by her hand. Breathless they knelt beside
him where he lay.
"Oh, it's Captain Jinks," said Lizbeth, but softly, when she saw. Prone
on the battle-field lay the wounded Grenadier, his uniform gray with
service in the wind and rain.
"Captain!" you cried again, but he did not hear you. Then the Rag Doll
bent her face to his, in the twilight, though she could not speak. A
glimmer of recognition blazed for a moment, but faded in the Captain's
eyes.
"He's tired marching, I guess," said Lizbeth.
"'Sh!" you said. "He's dying."
You bent lower to feel his fluttering pulse. You placed your ear to the
cross of honor, rusted, on his breast. His heart was silent. And so he
died--on the battlefield, his musket at his side, his heels together,
his little fingers just touching the seams of his pantaloons.
*Father*
Every evening at half-past six there was a sound of footsteps on the
front porch. You ran, you and Lizbeth, and by the time you had reached
the door it opened suddenly from without, and you each had a leg of
Father. Mother was just behind you in the race, and though she did not
shout or dance, or pull his coat or seize his bundles, she won his first
kiss, so that you and Lizbeth came in second after all.
"Hello, Buster!" he would sing out to you, so that you cried, "My name
ain't Buster--it's Harry," at which he would be mightily surprised. But
he always called Lizbeth by her right name.
"Well, Lizbeth," he would say, kneeling, for you had pulled him down to
you, bundles and all, and Lizbeth would cuddle down into his arms and
say:
"_Fa_-ther."
"What?"
"Why, Father, now what do you think? My Sally doll has got the measles
awful."
"No! You don't say?"
And "Father!" you would yell into his other ear, for while Lizbeth used
one, you always used the other--using one by two persons at the same
time being strictly forbidden.
"Father."
"Yes, my son.
"The Jones boy was here to-day and--and--and he said--why, now, he
said--"
"_Fa_-ther" (it was Lizbeth talking into _her_ ear now), "do you think
my Sally doll--"
It was Mother who rescued Father and his bundles at last and carried you
off to supper, and when your mouth was not too full you finished telling
him what the Jones boy said, and he listened gravely, and prescribed for
the Sally doll. Though he came home like that every night except Sunday
in all the year, you always had something new to tell him in both ears,
and it was always, to all appearances, the most wonderful thing he had
ever heard.
But now and then there were times when you did not yearn for the sound
of Father's footsteps on the porch.
"Wait till Father comes home and Mother tells him what a bad, bad boy
you have been!"
"I don't care," you whispered, defiantly, all to yourself, scowling out
of the window, but "Tick-tock, tick-tock" went the clock on the
mantel-shelf--"Tick-tock, tick-tock"--more loudly, more swiftly than you
had ever heard it tick before. Still you were brave in the broad light
of day, and if sun and breeze and bird-songs but held out long enough,
Mother might forget. You flattened your nose against the pane. There
was a dicky-bird hopping on the apple-boughs outside. You heard him
twittering. If you were only a bird, now, instead of a little boy.
Birds were so happy and free. Nobody ever made them stay in-doors on an
afternoon made for play. If only a fairy godmother would come in a gold
coach and turn you into a bird. Then you would fly away, miles and
miles, and when they looked for you, at half-past six, you would be
chirping in some cherry-tree.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock--whir-r-r! One! Two! Three! Four! Five!"
struck the clock on the mantel-shelf. The bright day was running away
from you, leaving you far behind to be caught, at half-past six--caught
and ...
But Father might not come home to supper to-night! Once he did not. At
the thought the sun lay warm upon your cheek, and you rapped on the pane
bravely at the dicky-bird outside. The bird flew away.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."
Swiftly the day passed. Terribly fell the black night, fastening its
shadows on you and all the world. Grimly Mother passed you, without a
look or word. She pulled down the window shades. One by one she
lighted the lamps--the tall piano-lamp with the red globe, the little
green lamp on the library-table, the hanging lamp in the dining-room.
Already the supper-table was set.
The clock struck six!
You watched Mother out of the corners of your eyes. Had she forgotten?
"Mother," you said, engagingly. "See me stand on one leg."
"Mother does not care to look at naughty little boys."
"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."
You were very little to punish. Besides, you were not feeling very
well. It was not your tummy, nor your head, nor yet the pussy-scratch
on your finger. It was a deeper pain.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock."
If you should die like the Jones boy's little brother and be put in the
cemetery on the hill, they would be sorry.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock."
Mother went to the window and peered out.
"TICK-TOCK!"
"Whir-r-r-"
And the clock struck half-past six!
Steps sounded upon the porch--Mother was going to the door--it opened!
"Where's Buster?"
And Mother told!
... And somehow when Father spanked it always seemed as if he were
meddling. He was an outsider all day. Why, then, did he concern himself
so mightily at night?
After supper Father would sit before the fire with you on one knee and
Lizbeth on the other, while Mother sewed, till by-and-by, just when you
were most comfy and the talk most charming, he would say:
"Well, Father must go now."
"Oh no, Father. Don't go yet."
"But Father must. He must go to Council-meeting."
"What's a Council-meeting, Father?" you asked, and while he was telling
you he would be putting on his coat.
"Don't sit up for me," he would tell Mother, and the door would shut at
half-past seven just as it had opened at half-past six, with the same
sound of footsteps on the porch.
"Oh, dear," you would say. "Father's always going somewhere. I guess
he doesn't like to stay home, Mother."
Then Mother would take you and Lizbeth on her lap.
"Dearies, Father would love to stay at home and play with you and
Mother, but he can't. All day long he has to work to take care of us
and buy us bread-and-butter--"
"And chocolate cake, Mother?"
"Yes, and chocolate cake. And he goes to the Council to help the other
men take care of Ourtown so that the burglars won't get in or the
street-lamps go out and leave us in the dark."
Your eyes were very round. That night after you and Lizbeth were in bed
and the lights were out, you thought of the Council and the burglars so
that you could not sleep, and while you lay there thinking, the
wolf-wind began to howl outside. Then suddenly you heard the patter,
patter, patter of its feet upon the roof. You shuddered and drew the
bedclothes over your head. What if It got inside? Could It bite
through the coverlet with its sharp teeth? Would the Council come and
save you just in time? ... Which would be worse, a wolf or a burglar? A
wolf, of course, for a burglar might have a little boy of his own
somewhere, in bed, curled up and shivering, with the covers over his
head.... But what if the burglar had no little boy? Did burglars ever
have little boys? ... How could a man ever be brave enough to be a
burglar, in the dead of night, crawling through windows into pitch-dark
rooms, ... into little boys' rooms, ... crawling in stealthily with
pistols and false-faces and l-lanterns? ...
But That One was crawling in! Right into your room, ... right in over
the window-sill, ... like a cat, ... with a false-face on, and pistols,
loaded and pointed right at you.... You tried to call; ... your voice
was dried up in your throat, ... and all the time He was coming nearer,
... nearer, ... nearer...
"Bad dream, was it, little chap?" asked the Council, holding you close
to his coat, all smoky of cigars, and patting your cheek.
[Illustration: "BAD DREAM, WAS IT, LITTLE CHAP?"]
"F-father, where did he go?"
"Who go, my boy?"
"Why, the burglar, Father."
"There wasn't any burglar, child."
"Why, yes, Father. I saw him. Right there. Coming through the
window."
And it took Father and Mother and two oatmeal crackers and a drink of
water to convince you that it was all a dream. So whether it was in
frightening burglars away, or keeping the street-lamps burning, or
smoking cigars, or soothing a little boy with a nightmare and a fevered
head, the Council was a useful body, and always came just in time.
On week-day mornings Father had gone to work when you came down-stairs,
but on Sunday mornings, when you awoke, a trifle earlier if anything--
"Father!"
Silence.
"Father!" a little louder.
Then a sleepy "Yes."
"We want to get up."
"It isn't time yet. You children go to sleep."
You waited. Then--
"Father, is it time yet?"
"No. You children lie still."
So you and Lizbeth, wide-awake, whispered together; and then, to while
away the time while Father slept, you played Indian, which required two
little yells from you to begin with (when the Indian You arrived in your
war-paint) and two big yells from Lizbeth to end with (when the Paleface
She was being scalped).
Then Father said it was "no use," and Mother took a hand. You were
quiet after that, but it was yawny lying there with the sun so high.
You listened. Not a sound came from Father and Mother's room. You rose
cautiously, you and Lizbeth, in your little bare feet. You stole softly
across the floor. The door was a crack open, so you peeked in, your
face even with the knob and Lizbeth's just below. And then, at one and
the same instant, you both said "Boo!" and grinned; and the harder you
grinned the harder Father tried not to laugh, which was a sign that you
could scramble into bed with him, you on one side and Lizbeth on the
other, cuddling down close while Mother went to see about breakfast.
It was very strange, but while it had been so hard to drowse in your own
bed, the moment you were in Father's you did not want to get up at all.
Indeed, it was Father who wanted to get up first, and it was you who
cried that it was not time.
Week-days were always best for most things, but for two reasons Sunday
was the best day of all. One reason was Sunday dinner. The other was
Father. On Sunday the dinner-table was always whitest with clean linen
and brightest with silver and blue china and fullest of good things to
eat, and sometimes Company came and brought their children with them.
On Sunday, too, there was no store to keep, and Father could stay at
home all day.
He came down to breakfast in slippers and a beautiful, wide jacket,
which was brown to match the coffee he always took three cups of, and
the cigar which he smoked afterwards in a big chair with his feet thrust
out on a little one. While he smoked he would read the paper, and
sometimes he would laugh and read it out loud to Mother; and sometimes
he would say, "That's so," and lay down his paper and talk to Mother
like the minister's sermon. And once he talked so loudly that he said
"Damn." Mother looked at you, for you were listening, and sent you for
her work-basket up-stairs. After that, when you talked loudest to
Lizbeth or the Jones boy, you said "Damn," too, like Father, till Mother
overheard you and explained that only fathers and grandfathers and bad
little boys ever said such things. It wasn't a pretty word, she said,
for nice little boys like you.
"But, Mother, if the bad little boys say it, why do the good fathers say
it--hm?"
Mother explained that, too. Little boys should mind their mothers, she
said.
It was easy enough not to say the word when you talked softly, but when
you talked loudest it was hard to remember what Mother said. For when
you talked softly, somehow, you always remembered Mother, and when you
talked loudly it was Father you remembered best.
The sun rose high and warm. It was a long time after breakfast.
Fragrance came from the kitchen to where you sat in the library, all
dressed-up, looking at picture-books and waiting for dinner, and
wondering if there would be pie. Father was all dressed-up, too, and
while he read silently, you and Lizbeth felt his cheeks softly with your
finger-tips. Where the prickers had been at breakfast-time it was as
smooth as velvet now. Father's collar was as white as snow. In place
of his jacket he wore his long, black Sunday coat, and in his shoes you
could almost see your face.
"Father's beautifulest on Sunday," Lizbeth said.
"So am I," you said, proudly, looking down your blouse and trousers to
the shine of your Sunday shoes.
"So are you, too," you added kindly to Lizbeth, who was all in white and
curls.
Then you drew a little chair beside Father's and sat, quiet and very
straight, with your legs crossed carelessly like his and an open book
like his in your lap. And when Father changed his legs, you changed your
legs, too. Lizbeth looked at you two awhile awesomely. Then she
brought her little red chair and sat beside you with the Aladdin book on
her lap, but she did not cross her legs. And so you sat there, all
three, clean and dressed-up and beautiful, by the bay-window, while the
sun lay warm and golden on the library rug, and sweeter and sweeter grew
the kitchen smells.
Then dinner came, and the last of it was best because it was sweetest,
and if Company were not there you cried:
"It's going to be pie to-day, isn't it, Mother?"
But Mother would only smile mysteriously while the roast was carried
away. Then Lizbeth guessed.
"It's pudding," she said.
"No, pie," you cried again, "'cause yesterday was pudding."
"Now, Father, you guess," said Lizbeth.
"I guess?"
"Yes, Father."
And at that Father would knit his brows and put one finger to one side
of his nose, so that he could think the harder, and by-and-by he would
say:
"I know. I'll bet it's custard."
"Oh _no_, Father," you broke in, for you liked pie best, and even to
admit the possibility of custard, aloud, might make it come true.
"Then it's lemon jelly with cream," said Father, trying another finger
to his nose and pondering deeply.
"Oh, you only have one guess," cried you and Lizbeth together, and
Father, cornered, stuck to the jelly and cream.
"Oh, dear," Lizbeth said, "I don't see what good it does to brush off
the crumbs in the middle of dinner."
Silence fell upon the table, you and Lizbeth holding Father's
outstretched hands. Your eyes were wide, the better to see. Your lips
were parted, the better, doubtless, to hear. Only Mother was serene,
for only Mother knew. And then through the stillness came the sound of
rattling plates.
"Pie," you whispered.
"Pudding," whispered Lizbeth.
"Jelly," whispered Father, hoarsely.
The door swung open. You rose in your seats, you and Lizbeth and
Father, craning your necks to see, and, seeing--
"_Pie!_" you cried, triumphantly.
"Ah!" said Father, lifting his pie-crust gayly with the tip of his fork.
"Apples," you said, peeping under your crust.
"Apples, my son? Apples? Why, no. Bless my soul! As I live, this is a
robber's cave filled with sacks of gold."
"Oh, _Father_!" you cried, incredulous, not knowing how to take him yet;
but you peeped again, and under your pie-crust it was like a cave, and
the little slices of juicy apple lay there like sacks of gold.
"And see!" said Father, pointing with his fork, "there is the entrance
to the cave, and when the policemen chased the robbers--pop! they went,
right into their hole, like rabbits."
And sure enough, in the upper crusts were the little cuts through which
the robbers popped. Your eyes widened.
"And oh, Father," you said, "the smoke can come out through the little
holes when the robbers build their fire."
"Aha!" cried Father, fiercely. "I'm the policeman breaking into the
cave while the robbers are away," and he took a bite.
"And I'm another policeman," you cried, catching the spirit of the thing
and taking a bigger bite than Father's.
"And I'm a policeman's wife coming along, too," said Lizbeth, helping
herself, so that Mother said:
"John, John, how am I ever going to teach these children table manners
when--"
"But see, Mother, see!" Father explained, taking another bite, and
ignoring Mother's eyes. "If we don't get the gold away the robbers will
come back and--"
"Kill us!" you broke in.
"Yes, kill us, Mother!" shouted Father, balancing another sack of gold
on the end of his fork. "Yes, yes, Mother, don't you see?"
"I see," said Mother, just between laugh and frown, and when the robbers
came back around the coffee-pot hill, lo! there was no gold or cave
awaiting them--only three plates scraped clean, and two jubilant
policemen and a policeman's wife, full of gold.