The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 38

Well, he's startin' to raise a company right here in Paris-a company o'

real soldiers-so's to have 'em ready in case we get into the Europe sc.r.a.p. They're goin' to drill four nights a week and Sundays in Academy Hall."

"It isn't surprising," commented Sam Hod. "He comes from a family of soldiers. Well, I hope he does. If he's captain of a company of men like his grandaddy was in '63 he'll have his position to maintain and that won't mean flirting with whisky. Good for the boy! I said he had the right stuff in him. Go see him and write his scheme up, Pinkie. The _Telegraph_'ll give it all the preferred position it deserves."

"Hey," said Pinkie, s.h.i.+fting suddenly to another subject through the a.s.sociation of ideas, "-d'yer know that old Martin Chisholm kicked off last night? Yep; heart disease!"

Sam looked around the office at our faces.

"So 'The Toast to Forty-five' has narrowed down to Henry Weston, Uncle Joe Fodder, and Wilbur Nieson! Too bad, too bad!"

Jack Fuller, out of regard for the little wife's feelings, did not take the quartermaster's job. But he did organize the Paris Home Guard.

Soldier blood ran in his veins. The "Fuller Fire-eaters" as our town named them, was a crack company. The place Jack held as head of that company was as a tonic to the lad; it gave him something to think about, to interest himself in when the hankering for the fellows.h.i.+p of our three saloons became too powerful. When the trouble with Mexico became acute there were weeks when the local boys, catching his enthusiasm, drilled six nights in succession in their rooms up-stairs in the Cedar Street Engine-house. They had regular army uniforms and were connected somehow with the State National Guard-we never could just understand the connection.

As for "The Toast to Forty-five," the climax didn't come in August, 1916. When Bennington Battle Day rolled around that year all three men were still living who had been alive the reunion before.

In February the United States severed relations with Germany. In April the United States declared war. In June ten million young Americans enrolled themselves for the draft. And in July, when all the confusion of the draft had cleared away, it was found that half of "Fuller's Fire-eaters" had been called upon to fill the Paris quota of Vermont's two thousand.

But Jack Fuller's name was not drawn.

On a certain July night in the little tenement which they still kept on Pleasant Street, the Fuller boy stood beside the table in the same room where his small son had been killed in the overturning of the cradle a while before, with his face as white as chalk and Betty before him on her knees where she had sunk down in her misery, clutching him convulsively.

"Don't go and leave me, Jack," she moaned. "Oh, Jack, don't do it.

You're all I've got, Jack-and there are so many unmarried men to go-!"

"My grandfather led the Paris boys in '63, Betty," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "My great-great-grandfather led a company in the battle of Bennington. The country's calling again, Betty. It's up to a Fuller to take his place at the head of the Paris lads once more. I've got the company, Betty.

They're wild to enlist as a body and I can get the regular appointment as their captain-"

"Wait till your turn comes in the draft, Jack. Don't leave me, now, Jack. There are so many unmarried men to go. If the country wants you so bad that they call all the married men, I'll try to be brave and give you up, Jack. But wait for that-tell me you will!"

"I can't stand it to see the boys I've drilled march away with another chap at their head, Betty."

"Jack!" she cried hysterically, "it was _you_ that took little Edward away from me! And now-you're taking yourself. You don't have to go-yet.

You're taking yourself-yourself-because-you don't love me-"

It was the first time in two or three years that she had taunted him with what he had done to their child. It reacted upon him as though she had struck him a blow.

"Betty!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Don't say that, Betty. You're mad over this thing-you're asking me to hide behind the skirts of women-"

"Jack-I've had so much sorrow-first with Mother, then with Father, then losing the baby so-now with you going away and leaving me-that I can't stand much more, Jack. I'll go mad-really mad, Jack! I can't go back and live again with Father, and see his stumbling footsteps when he comes home drunk, and hear his talk, and see him gibber-I'll have n.o.body, n.o.body, to live for! Oh, Jack!"

"You can be as brave as millions of other childless wives all over America, able for a while to care for themselves. You told me once that you hated the Nieson blood in you even if your father was a soldier. You said after we were married that you were trying to pull yourself up and be somebody. You said you were happy because our kids would have Fuller blood in them. And now instead of coming up to the scratch in a real crisis, Betty, you're showing yellow and groveling round like a Nieson.

If I'm willing to run the chance of getting shot-"

But he did not go on. Her screams of hysteria began. And the little wife who had stood so much broke down at last.

Doctor Johnson was called. He attended the girl for eight days. During that time, only regard for Jack made the boys hold off in enlisting as a unit altogether for France. Doctor Johnson said that if Jack volunteered with them, and Betty heard he was going, the shock would kill her. So the boy went around town, torn between love and duty.

And during those days something happened in our community. Wilbur Nieson and Henry Weston died-within a few days of one another. Henry Weston succ.u.mbed to kidney trouble which had afflicted him for years. And old Wilbur Nieson-Wilbur Nieson had the "tremors" as we say up here in New England-delirium tremens-one night in the rear of the Whitney House. The boys in the livery found him. The Sons of Veterans buried him. So much for the carefully cherished plans of humankind. For a half-century the members of Farrington Post had saved that rare old Vintage for "The Toast to Forty-five." And there were not even two old soldiers left of that original company to observe the sentiment. "The Toast to Forty-five" could never be pledged, after all!

A couple of weeks slipped away. August sixteenth approached. The boy came into the office of our little local paper one morning and said:

"I've made up my mind; I'm going to France. Instead of having our ranks broken by the draft, all the 'Fire-eaters' are enlisting as a body in the National Guard. And I-am going-with them."

"But your wife?"

"It won't be any harder for her to stay behind than it is for me to leave. But I've got to get into this thing. Something inside of me is firing me to do it. She'll bear it-somehow."

"When are you boys going?" asked Sam.

"We'll be leaving somewhere around the twentieth."

"The twentieth!" exclaimed Sam. In that moment something occurred to him. "The twentieth!" he exclaimed over again. "And on the sixteenth-the old army men were going to hold their last reunion if only those two hadn't died. Jack-!"

"Yes."

"Why not-why not-why not have Paris give you boys a royal send-off on that night-the night of the sixteenth-a dinner for you fellows the sixteenth; a dinner for you fellows in place of the old Grand Army reunion!"

"I guess the boys would be willing," replied Jack with a sad smile.

We printed a long piece in our little local paper about it, that night.

Again the Vermont boys were going to war. Again a Fuller was to lead them. Tickets for the farewell dinner were on sale at the Metropolitan Drug-store, five dollars apiece, the proceeds to go to the Red Cross.

Bennington Battle Day came. All preparations for the greatest banquet Paris ever saw were completed. The time-worn custom of having the dinner in the rooms of Farrington Post was abandoned. The Post rooms would never hold the crowd. The dinner was to be held in the a.s.sembly hall of the new high school. That was the largest floor-s.p.a.ce procurable in Paris.

Sam Hod had three sons in Captain Jack's company-more than any other father in Paris. He was designated as toastmaster for that epochal dinner. At a long table at the head of the hall he was to sit with Uncle Joe Fodder on his right and young Captain Jack Fuller on his left.

Beyond, on either side there were grouped officers of the company. Then the rest of the places were filled up with the privates of Fuller's Fire-eaters and the public. The dinner was set for eight o'clock and by ten minutes of eight there were hundreds of Parisians in the hallways and on the sidewalk unable to get standing room in the dining-room, to say nothing of obtaining a seat and a plate.

Promptly on the dot of eight, Otis Hawthorne, leader of the Paris Band, tapped his baton on his music-stand.

With a great crash the apartment was filled to the furthermost crevices with the thunderous tumult of "The Star Spangled Banner."

Every man and woman in that hall rose to his feet. They sang that song.

They sang it as they had never sung it before. Because in that moment the real meaning of the words came home to them.

"-Oh, say, does the Star Spangled Banner yet wave, O'er the land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?"

Sam Hod looked at his three lean boys in khaki, that in another week would be only a memory. And his face shone with an emotion he had never known the meaning of before. Women wept like-women. As the chorus died away, cheer on cheer arose and floated out the lowered windows into the soft summer night.

They resumed their chairs. Jack Fuller turned to the editor.

"Who's this empty chair for on my left?" he demanded.

"Your wife, my son," the editor replied simply, and Mrs. Hod brought the girl in.

She was white and weak. How the editor's wife had broken the news to her-persuaded her to come to the hall and sit in the place of honor beside her husband-has been something that we bewhiskered males in the office of our little local paper have never been able to explain.

Perhaps Mrs. Hod's sacrifice of those three tall Yankee lads in Fuller's Fire-eaters had something to do with it. Anyhow, Betty Fuller was persuaded to come in.