Weary and weak for lack of food, and exhausted with the terrible cold, he plodded on in the lessening gloom of dawn.
He knew enough about the location. He had studied deeply into that. He knew where and when there would be great dangers, he knew of some hazards that were incalculable, he knew his stars when there were any stars to guide him, and he knew how to be exceedingly cautious. But there were things he did not know, and then he could only trust to his Guide. So some of those who knew him well, and had watched for him these weeks since his departure, had said he might come back because he went “in the strength of the Lord.”
Barney, safe at home, thought about it that night before he fell asleep. He thought of every step that friend of his might have to travel, he thought of the ventures of the way, because he had been in that land himself at one time and had escaped. He knew what there might be to pass through, and so he began to pray about Stormy, until before he slept it came to seem that the way he had envisioned Stormy’s path of escape was a sort of picture of the way his life might have to go. Even over here in this own land of freedom—supposed freedom—where there were no actual prisoners’ camps that might entrap him, no sharpshooters, no enemy guards, no spies and informers to bring him into danger. But yet there was an enemy. The great enemy of his Lord, and he had his scouts out to trap unwary soldiers of a heavenly allegiance. His mother’s letter from the dead had warned him of that, had made him see that he must be aware of danger everywhere, and so be watching, and so be trusting in a higher power where he could not see the way clearly himself.
Fantastic thinking. That was what Hortense would call such ideas. But yet, was there real danger for him in that girl? No, he could not think it. Yet he knew of old that she had had power to enmesh one’s sympathies, one’s lower nature. Perhaps this was one of the temptations that his mother meant when she said the Bible taught that there were some temptations from which one must flee.
It had sounded to him as a young boy when his mother taught him, that “fleeing” was what the fellows called “yellow.” The idea had not commended itself to him as a child, but now he was beginning to see. His youthful trust had been in his own strength, but he had seen enough of life now to know that there were temptations that one had no right to enter into if there was a way to escape them, and that it wasn’t yellow for a soldier, unarmed, to stand around in battle. He must get ready to protect himself if he was to go to war. He must have his armor on at all times, and if he didn’t have it on he was to flee from the danger. Well, he was beginning to see. And what was the next direction his mother had taught him about what to do when temptation came? Oh yes, “Resist.” He wasn’t to give in weakly. He was to resist. That was what all right-minded people should do in battle.
He was thinking all this out as sleep came down upon him and he dreamed on, tracing Stormy’s possible way through danger. He woke up longing to see him. Determined, too, to make his own spiritual walk from day to day with as much caution as if he were Stormy trying to wend his way back in the strength of the Lord, from the power of the enemy where he had gone in his service for the war.
But his last waking thought was a resolve that in the morning he would try to get in touch with Washington and find out if they had any information yet about Stormy. Perhaps he had been heard from, and he felt as if he must know.
Then he knew nothing more, through the long hours of the lovely, quiet night, until he woke to another spring morning, cheery with the singing of birds.
His first waking thought was of thankfulness that there was still a place where birds could sing, where war had not scarred the earth, where little birds, and even people, could be glad. And then he remembered Stormy. Where was Stormy? Was he still alive? Was he somewhere under torture? God grant it might not be that. He was better dead than under some of the tortures that other soldiers had endured. Would Stormy ever come back? Would he be able to get to a place where the birds were singing and people were really glad? Would the world ever come to a place again where sun could shine without the thought of the gloom of sorrow and bitterness? Would the war be over sometime soon? Oh, if he might only go back now, this morning, and help to bring the end of the war! He felt like such a good-for-nothing lying here and luxuriating in the singing of birds when his comrades were over there dying, and Stormy was somewhere doing his part, and he ought to be over there finding Stormy and bringing him back. If he only could find him now, this morning, and bring him here to this place of song. Would the world ever come back to peace, and the singing of birds again?
Then he thought of what Stormy would say if he could ask him that. “God is not dead,” Stormy would say, with that great wide trusting smile of his. Yes, if Stormy wasn’t already in heaven with the Lord, Stormy was surely saying that somewhere, even if only to himself. Stormy was the most trusting man Barney had ever known, the man who walked continually in the strength of the Lord.
Then he sprang up with almost his old vigor and got ready for the day. There were two definite things he meant to do that day, and somehow the thought of them heartened him. He was going to do his best to get information about Stormy, and he was going to manage somehow to see his little friend of past years, Sunny Roselle, and get acquainted with her again. He had a feeling that she would not be as disappointing as Hortense had been. And oh, of course, there were other girls, his old schoolmates. He ought to look them all up pretty soon. Maybe he’d have a party or something, just for the sake of the old days. He would talk to Roxy about that.
But meantime, a party for Barney was being arranged with speed and determination by Hortense, and its plan was anything but along the lines in which Barney had been thinking. Hortense meant to make it the smartest gathering that had ever ventured to show its head in the town of Farmdale. But of that Barney knew nothing, of course, and was not intended to know, as it was to be a surprise, to welcome him back from the war, and the speedy preparations were carried on behind whispers and a wink or two.
“But don’t you think you ought to consult Roxy about this, Hortense?” asked Amelia Haskell, one of the more sensible of the group that traveled after Hortense.
“Consult Roxy? For Pete’s sake, why?”
“Well, because I’ve heard that Barney has been terribly wounded, and that he’s home on a stiff schedule and has to rest a lot. Roxy would know if it is all right to have a party,” finished Amelia lamely.
“Rot!” said Hortense angrily. “Consult that old hag? Not I! Ridiculous nonsense! As if she knew what was good for a down-and-out soldier! What he needs is a little cheering up. He needs to see his old friends, and realize that they are all proud of him and care for him a lot. He needs to laugh and grow merry, and that’s what I’m planning for him. Let that old grouch know about our party? Not on yer life! She would squelch it at the start. She wants to keep that young hero all for herself. She wants to put him right back under the thumb his mother tried to fasten on him for life. But I’m setting him free, see? He’s a man now and an old nurse can’t keep him back and make him walk a chalk line anymore. And if any of you so-called friends let her get an inkling of what we’re planning, I’m off you for life, and I don’t mean mebbe!”
Amelia subsided meekly, and no more was dared by anybody else, although several of the girls remembered Barney’s decided ideas of right and wrong in his school days. But then, maybe the war had changed him, the way Hortense had said. They whispered it over together, but not when Hortense was around.
But Hortense, as a result of these suggestions, merely hastened her plans, and set the time for her surprise party a day sooner. It was necessary that this thing get definitely started before it could possibly be suspected by the victim, or else she was practically sure it would never be permitted to come off at all.
So Hortense got busy, and gave her orders, and the very next evening three carloads of young people turned noisily into the driveway of the old Vance house, and after barely waiting long enough to park their cars, burst wildly into the ho
use with raucous laughter and an improvised number of what they called singing, to make the occasion more definitely a celebration.
And when there was no immediate response from the house, when instead there seemed to be a breathless silence, they looked wildly around and then sang their song over again:
“Happy welcome to you,
Happy welcome to you,
Happy welcome, dear Barney,
Happy welcome to you!”
But, in the meantime, Barney was having a little private party of his own, out on the side terrace, quite away from the road side of the house. Roxy had given Joel his supper early before he went to his fire company business meeting, and had set a little table on the terrace for Barney and Sunny. They had just finished their dessert when the cavalcade arrived. Barney did not at first recognize what all this other disturbance was about. Not until he looked up and saw the dismay on the face of his guest, and the frown on the face of old Roxy. And just about the time his uninvited onslaught of old acquaintances began to sing their song for the third time, still louder, and more pointedly than before, he began to listen and to recognize what was happening inside the house.
Aghast, he started to his feet flinging down his napkin and giving a startled look, first to Sunny’s sweet face suddenly grown grave, and then questioningly at Roxy, to whom he had been so accustomed for years to looking in any times of stress.
It was Sunny who gained her poise first, with her sweet smile dominating the situation.
“I think,” she said in a very low tone, “that you are about to have a surprise party, and the best thing for me to do is to vanish. Go in there quickly, Barney, before they swarm out here and spoil everything.”
Then Barney came to himself. “Vanish? Not much you won’t vanish! Come on in with me and help me through this situation.”
He put out his hand to take hers, and lead her in, but she stepped back and eluded him quickly. “No, I mustn’t, Barney. I wouldn’t fit with them, and I would be much misunderstood. Really! Go quickly! They mustn’t know about this, you know”—and she swept her hand toward the table. “Good-bye, I’ve had a lovely time!” And suddenly she was gone! Vanished! Just like a little pink and golden wraith in the mist of the evening.
Barney gave a despairing motion toward her, started to call, but Roxy shook her head.
“Hush! Go in there quick! She’s right! They mustn’t know about this!” And she gathered up the dishes on a tray and vanished into the kitchen.
Chapter 8
To say that Barney was annoyed at the sudden turn of events was putting it mildly. He had been looking forward to a pleasant evening getting acquainted all over again with the little girl, Sunny, and trying to reconcile her with the charming, grown-up Sunny who seemed so fittingly to be called “Margaret” as Roxy had been calling her that evening. And now she had to disappear and he must go in and be gracious to a lot of nitwits in the other room who had come to do a little hero-worshipping and look him over, at the instigation of that brat Hortense. For he at once jumped to the conclusion that Hortense was at the bottom of this.
Well, he would go into the other room and greet them for half an hour perhaps, and then afterward they might leave in time for him to run down to Sunny’s house and apologize for letting her go home alone. And he meant also to find out just why she hadn’t stayed.
Ah, but he was reckoning without the present-day knowledge of Hortense and her ways.
So he put on his dignity in haste and stalked in at the side door that opened into the back hall from the terrace. He reflected as he passed their supper table that it was good they had finished the strawberries and ice cream they had been eating for dessert, and there were very few dishes for Roxy to get out of sight, since she had taken the tray with her.
So he entered the hall as they finished the last line of that awful song again, and assumed a surprised attitude, looking at them curiously, identifying a few of the men, and recognizing some of the others, with Hortense right in the forefront, in a very scanty and sophisticated evening gown. For an instant he was so angry at her that she should have pulled off a thing like this without warning, he could scarcely trust his voice to speak. But he quickly controlled himself and went forward, a distant smile upon his face.
“Well,” he said formally, “look who we have here! Old friends, come to call! Say, that’s kind of you. Come in and sit down, won’t you? This really isn’t my birthday, though, you know, so you needn’t overwork that poor old song any longer. Now, let me see, do I know you all? Some of you have changed a lot, haven’t you? Grown up, isn’t that it? This one is Amelia Haskell, isn’t it? Yes, I thought I knew those big gray eyes. And the Wrexall twins! Yes, I’d know you anywhere. And—say, don’t tell me you are Hortense Revenal? Why, I’d hardly know you in that glad rag. Isn’t that one of those they call a ‘smaht fwock’? And here is Lucy Anne, and Jan Harper! Why, I’m doing pretty good identifying my old friends, don’t you think? And my word! There’s Cap Withrow. How’d you get here? I thought I heard you were in Africa, or somewhere overseas. And Hank! Good night! How many feet do you grow a month? You’ve grown so tall I have to look up to you now.”
So he went on down the line, cheerily, a word for everybody, and for the moment in perfect control of the situation, as they all stood watching him, studying him, recognizing the changes that had come to him, in gravity, in assurance, in experience. Yes, he was different. Even Hortense could recognize that.
Yet Hortense wasn’t quite satisfied with the state of things. She wanted to be the center of the show, right from the start, in fact the whole show, in her new and expensive gown that wasn’t paid for yet and had cost her more than she could afford. She wanted to dominate the evening, and here she was only one of the whole bunch, and she could see by Barney’s manner that he intended to keep her so. She was not to be allowed to exercise her possessive powers, not if he had anything to say about it. But she was only the more determined to show him. He couldn’t put her off like that when she had got this whole thing up to honor him. She would show him!
“Won’t you all sit down? I guess there are enough chairs in here, aren’t there?” said Barney. “It looks like we ought to have a regular old-time talkfest, doesn’t it? Hank, you and Cap bring some of the dining-room chairs in here, won’t you? Same room where we used to play blind man’s bluff in the past ages. Amelia, you take the piano stool. We’ll be wanting to sing some of the old songs pretty soon, and you’ll be handy there to play for us.”
He was certainly taking things in his own hands, and doing it very thoroughly. Hortense realized that she must get busy and take control.
“Hi, Hank!” she called, making a picturesque trumpet of her pretty white hands with their gleaming red claws and flashing jewels. “Get busy and bring the gramophone in. We want to get started on our evening. We came to have a good time, you know. This is not a church social. We want to dance.”
“Oh, we don’t need a gramophone,” said Barney coolly, with one of his old-time grins. “Don’t try to be so sophisticated. We’re all just hungering and thirsting to do some of the old-time things we used to do. How about playing ‘I have a rooster for sale,’ and ‘Drop the handkerchief,’ and ‘Here we go round the barberry bush,’ and a few of those. Nothing like the old-time childish games to take off the stiffness. And then, pretty soon we ought to sit down and really get acquainted over again. Call the roll and find out where everybody is and what you all have been doing. Suppose we do that first. I’ll call the roll as far as I can, and then somebody else take over and finish, till we’ve got around. When you answer, tell where you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and what’s likely ahead of you, and when we get done, I’ll be caught up on my home history. Hank, we’ll begin with you!”
Hank grinned and answered briskly, “Working in a defense plant, got called, had my physical, they found I had a bad heart and turned me down, so now I’m a riveter.”
“Next! Cap. What about you?�
�� asked Barney quickly.
“Oh, I wanted to be a flier the worst way, but they found I had something the matter with one eye, so now I’m a machinist. Over at Tennally’s, fiddling with screws for airplanes, when I wanted to fly the planes.” He grinned comfortably and somewhat ruefully, and one of the girls called out, “Lucky boy!” That was Rowena Lake. Barney gave her one quick withering glance and passed on to the next.
“Arta Perry, what about you?”
“I joined the army nurses. I’m leaving tomorrow morning for my new location.”
Barney gave her a keen once-over, decided the uniform was becoming, and turned to Hortense, who stood next to her.
“And you, Hortense?” He asked the question casually, making her just one of many, instead of a special one, and Hortense resented it. She tossed her head indifferently.
“Oh, I’m an entertainer for the boys at the center,” she said, quite as if it bored her to even think of it. “But say, for heaven’s sake, Barney, how long are you going to keep this up? We came here to show you a good time, and you’re just spoiling it all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Barney gravely. “I was under the impression I was the host to my guests and ought to do my best to entertain them. I think we ought to get acquainted all over again, though, don’t you? It won’t take long and then we can go on from there.”
“Oh, well, make it snappy, then,” said Hortense. “We’ve got a program of our own, you know.”
“Oh, I see. Well, we’ll hurry this up. Who’s the next one?”
Two dimpling, grinning girls in nurses’ uniforms were next, and they answered the roll call interspersed with giggles.
They went down the line rapidly, crisply, each telling a bit about himself, briefly, sometimes half in the spirit of fun, and some more gravely, and when the last guest had answered the roll call, Barney called out, “That’s good. Now we can go on from here and enjoy ourselves more intelligently. How about it, Hortense, will you take over and let me sit down?”
Time of the Singing of Birds Page 7