CHAPTER XIII
A WORK-A-DAY VACATION
IT was late in the afternoon when we crossed the sandy court and wentthrough the picket gate into Uncle Darcy's grassy dooryard. As usual theold yellow-nosed cat was curled up in one of the seats in the woodenswing, and the place was so quiet and cool after the glare of the sunand sand we had tramped through, that Father took off his hat with asigh of relief.
Belle and Dan live next door now in the cottage where Mrs. Saggs used tolive. We could see little Elspeth's flaxen head bobbing up and down asshe played in the sandpile on the other side of the fence. I was justthinking that I was no bigger than she is now when I first began comingdown to Fishburn Court, when Father startled me by saying the samething. _He_ was just Elspeth's size when he began tagging after UncleDarcy all day long.
Aunt Elspeth sat dozing in her wheeled chair inside the screen door.When we went in she didn't recognize Father. Had to be told who he was.But when she got it through her head that it was "Judson, grown up andcome back from sea," she was fairly childish in her welcome of him. Shewanted him to hide as he used to do when he was a boy and let "Dan'l"guess who was there when he came home. And Father humored her, and wewent out into the kitchen when we heard Uncle Darcy click thegate-latch. Then in her childish delight at his home-coming she forgoteverything else. She even forgot we were in the house, so, of course,couldn't ask him to guess who was there.
He came in breathing hard, for the length of the town is a long walkwhen one is "eighty odd." He had been crying a church supper, and was sotired his feet could scarcely drag him along. But he didn't sitdown--just put the big bell on the mantel and went over to Aunt Elspeth.And then, somehow, the tenderness of a lifetime seemed expressed in theway he bent down and laid his weatherbeaten old cheek against herwrinkled one for a moment, and took her helpless old hands in his,feeling them anxiously and trying to warm them between his rough palms.
There was something so touching in his unspoken devotion and the way sheclung to him, as if the brief separation of a few hours had been one ofdays, that I felt a lump in my throat and glanced up to see that thelittle scene seemed to affect Father in the same way.
Then Uncle Darcy fumbled in his pocket and brought out a paper bag andlaid it in her lap, watching her with a pleased twinkle in his dim eyes,while she eagerly untwisted the neck and peered in to find a big, sugarycinnamon bun.
"You're so good to me, Dan'l," she said quaveringly. "Always so good.You're the best man the Lord ever made."
And he patted her shoulder and pulled the cushions up behind her,saying, "Tut, lass! You'll spoil me, talking that way."
Then Father cleared his throat and went into the room, and Uncle Darcy'sdelight at seeing him was worth going far to see. You'd have thought itwas his own son come home again. But even in the midst of all they hadto say to each other it was plain that his mind was on Aunt Elspeth'scomfort. Twice he got up to slap at a fly which had found its way inthrough the screens to her annoyance, and another time to change theposition of her chair when the shifting sunlight reached her face.
On the way home I asked, "Did you ever see such devotion?" I was so surethat Father would answer that he never had, that I was surprised andsomewhat taken aback by his emphatic yes. His face looked so stern andsad that I couldn't understand it. We walked nearly a block before headded,
"It was an old, old couple, just like Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth. Ikept thinking of them all the time I was at Fishburn Court. Their homewas just as peaceful, their devotion to each other as absolute. It wasin Belgium. The Huns came and tore them apart. Bayoneted _her_ rightbefore the old man's agonized eyes, and drove him off with the othervillagers like frightened, helpless sheep, to die in the open. When hewandered back weeks afterward, dazed and half-starved, he found everyhome in the village in ruins. His was burned to the ground. Only thewell was left, but when he drank of it he nearly died. It had beenpoisoned. He's in an asylum now, near Paris. Fortunately, his memory isgone."
When I cried out at the hideousness of it, Father put his arm across myshoulder a moment saying, "Forgive me, dear. I wish I might keep theknowledge of such horrors from you, but we are at a place now where eventhe youngest must be made to realize that the only thing in the worldworth while is the winning of this war. Sometimes I feel that I muststop every one I meet and tell them of the horrors I have seen, tillthey feel and see as I do."
I understood what was in his mind when a little farther along we met twoyoung Portuguese fishermen. They were Joseph and Manuel Fayal. He hadknown them ever since the days when they used to go past our placedragging their puppy in a rusty tin pan tied to a string, and using suchshocking language that I was forbidden to play with them. They are big,handsome men now, with black mustaches and such a flashing of whiteteeth and black eyes when they smile that the sudden illumination oftheir faces makes me think of a lightning-bug.
They flashed that kind of a smile at Father, when he stopped to shakehands with them, plainly flattered at his remembering their names. Icould see them eyeing his uniform admiringly, and they seemed muchimpressed when he said, "We need you in the navy, boys," and went on inhis grave way to put the situation before them in a few forcefulsentences.
He was that way all the time he was at home. It made no difference wherewe went or what we were doing, he couldn't shake off the horror ofthings he had seen, and the knowledge that they were still going on.Several times he said he felt he oughtn't to be taking even a week'srest. It was like taking a vacation from fighting mad dogs. Everymoment should be spent in beating them off.
It worried Barby dreadfully to see him in such a state. She's afraidhe'll break down under the strain. He's promised her that when the waris over he'll ask for a year's leave.
* * * * *
Father has been gone two weeks. It was hard to see him go this time, somuch harder than usual, that I am glad to have my days filled up withwork as well as play. Down at the office I'm so busy there isn't time toremember things that hurt. This arrangement isn't half as bad as itsounded at first. In fact, it isn't at all bad, and there's lots aboutit that I enjoy immensely.
For one thing I go only in the mornings. The stenographer is a niceBoston girl who gives me lessons in shorthand in between times when sheisn't busy, and I'm getting a lot by myself, just out of a text book. Ican already run the typewriter, and I certainly bless Tippy these daysfor giving me such a thorough training in spelling. Old Mr. Carver is adarling. He likes taking me around inside the business and showing mehow the wheels go round. It may sound disrespectful, to say it gives hima chance to show off, but I don't mean it that way.
I'm learning all about the weirs and the fisheries connected with thePlant, and where our markets are, and what makes the prices go up anddown, and where we buy chemicals to freeze with and what companies we'reinsured with and all that sort of thing. It's amazing to discover howmany things one has to know--banking and payrolls and shipping andimportant clauses in contracts. I never before realized how pitifullyignorant I am and what a world full of things there is to learn outsideof the school room.
One of his ways of testing how much I have learned about shipments andprices and things, is to hand me a letter to answer, just for practice,not to send away. I've always been told that I write such good lettersthat I was awfully mortified over the way that he smiled at my firstattempt. I had prided myself on its being quite a literary production.But I caught on right away what he meant, when he told me in hiswhimsical fashion that "frills are out of place in a business letter.They must be severely plain and tailor-made." Then he gave me a sampleand after that it was easy enough. I've answered three "according to mylights," as he puts it, that were satisfactory enough to send, withoutany dictation from him.
Often he drifts into little anecdotes about grandfather, and lots ofthings I never heard before about the Huntingdon family and the oldertown people. Usually the mornings fly by so fast that I'm surprised whenthe noon whistle blows and it's tim
e to go home. At first I brought myknitting along to pick up at odd moments, such as the times when he getsto reminiscing. Then I got so interested in practising shorthand, that Ibegan taking down his conversations, as much as I could get of them.That old saying of Uncle Darcy's, "All's fish that comes to my net,"seems to be a true one. For everything that comes my way seems to helpalong towards the goal of my ambition. These very tales I am taking downin shorthand, once I am proficient enough to catch more than one word ina sentence, may prove to be very valuable material for future stories.
* * * * *
It isn't turning out to be a very gay summer after all. Babe and Violaare up in the White Mountains, and Judith is tied at home so closely,keeping house and nursing her mother who has been ill all vacation, thatI never see her except when I go to the house. George Woodson is areporter on a Boston paper, and comes home only on Sunday now and then,and Richard seems to have dropped entirely out of my life. He says he isso busy these days that there's never any time to write, except whenhe's so dead tired he can't spell his own name.
There's so little going on here of interest to him that my letters tohim are few and far between. It's strange how absence makes people driftapart. When he was home he was one of the biggest things in mylandscape. If he were here now I'd find plenty of time to boat and rideand talk with him, but now it's hard to find a moment for even a shortnote; that is, when I'm in a mood for writing one. I surely do miss him,though. We've spent so many summers together.
* * * * *
For the few things that happened between my seventeenth birthday andthis last day of August, see my "Book of Second Chronicles." Barby wasso interested in reading my Harrington Hall record, and so verycomplimentary, that I have been writing in it this summer, to theneglect of this old blank book. But I'm going to put it in the bottom ofmy trunk and take it back to school with me.
Babe is back home. She had a chance to investigate the brass balls ofthat bedstead in the White Mountains. She did it in fear and trembling,for it was in her Aunt Mattie's room, and she was afraid she'd walk inany minute and ask what she was doing. The balls were empty. So she'sstill wondering where in the Salvation Army those letters can be. Weare going back to Washington together next week. To think of our beingSeniors! Father is going to be pleased when he gets Mr. Carver's reportof me. I never had a vacation fly by so fast.
PART II
"_True to One's Orbit and the Service of Shining._"
Georgina's Service Stars Page 14