The Tin Soldier Part 67

"You will ask why I am telling you all this. Well, there was one sentence in your letter which called it forth. You say that you want me because I will hold you to the best that is in you.

"Oh, Bruce, what would you gain if I held you? Wouldn't there be moments when in spite of me you would swing back to women like Hilda?

You are big and fine, but you are spoiled by feminine wors.h.i.+p--it is a temptation which a.s.sails clergymen and doctors--who have, as it were, many women at their feet.

"Does that sound harsh? I don't mean it that way. I only want you to come into your own. And if you ever marry I want you to find some woman you can love as you loved your wife, someone who will touch your imagination, set you on fire with dreams, and I could never do it.

"Yet even as I finish this letter, I am tempted to tear it up and tell you only of my real appreciation of the honor you have conferred upon me in asking me to be your wife. I know that you are offering me more in many ways than Ulrich Stolle. I don't like his name, because something rises up in me against Teuton blood and Teuton nomenclature.

But he loves me, and you do not, and because of his love for me and mine for him, everything else seems too small to consider.

"Oh, you'd laugh at his house, Bruce, but I love even the fat angels that are carved on everything from the mahogany chests to the soup tureens. It is all like some old fairy-tale. I shall make few changes; it seems such a perfect setting for Ulrich and his busy old gnome of a father.

"When you get this, pray for my happiness. Oh, I do want to be happy.

I have made the best of things, but there has been much more of gray than rose-color, and now as I turn my face to the setting sun, I am seeing---loveliness and light--"

She read it over and sealed it and sent it away. It was several weeks before it reached Doctor McKenzie. He was very busy, for the spring drive of the Germans had begun, and shattered men were coming to him faster than he could handle them. But he found time at last to read it, and when he laid it down he sat quite still from the shock of it.

And the next time he saw Drusilla he said to her, "Emily Bridges is going to be married, and she is not going to marry me."

"I am glad of it," Drusilla told him.

"My dear girl, why?"

"Because you don't love her, and you never did."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE HOPE OF THE WORLD

The great spring drive of the Germans brought headlines to the papers which men and women in America read with dread, and scoffed at when they talked it over.

"They'll never get to Paris," were the words on their lips, but in their hearts they were asking, "Will they--?"

Easter came at the end of March, and Good Friday found Jean working very early in the morning on fawn-colored rabbits with yellow ears.

She worked in her bedroom because it was warmed by a feeble wood fire, and Teddy came up to watch her.

"The yellow in their ears is the sun s.h.i.+ning through," Jean told him.

"We used to see them in the country on the path in front of the house, and the light from the west made their ears look like tiny electric bulbs."

Margaret-Mary entranced by one small bunny with a splash of white for a cotton tail, sang, "Pitty sing, pitty sing."

"They don't weally lay eggs, do they?" Teddy ventured.

"I wouldn't ask such questions if I were you, Teddy."

"Why not?"

"Because you might find out that they didn't lay eggs, and then you'd feel terribly disappointed."

"Well, isn't it better to know?"

Jean shook her head. "I'm not sure--it's nice to think that they do lay eggs--blue ones and red ones and those lovely purple ones, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And if they don't lay them, who does?"

"Hens," said Teddy, rather unexpectedly, "and the rab-yits steal them."

"Who told you that?"

"Hodgson. And she says that she ties them up in rags and the colors come off on the eggs."

"Well, I wouldn't listen to Hodgson."

"Why not? I like to listen."

"Because she hasn't any imagination."

"What's 'magination?"

They were getting in very deep. Jean gave it up. "Ask your mother, Teddy."

So Teddy sought his unfailing source of information. "What's 'magination, Mother."

"It is seeing things, Teddy, with your mind instead of your eyes. When I tell you about the poor little children in France who haven't any food or any clothes except what the Red Cross gives them, you don't really see them with your eyes, but your mind sees them, and their cold little hands, and their sad little faces--"

"Yes." He considered that for a while, then swept on to the things over which his childish brain puzzled.

"Mother, if the Germans get to Paris what will happen?"

He saw the horror in her face.

"Do you hate the Germans, Mother?"

"My darling, don't ask me."

After he had gone downstairs, Margaret got out her prayer-book, and read the prayers for the day.

"Oh, merciful G.o.d, who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy word, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they may be saved--"

She shut the book. No, she could not go on. She did not love her enemies. She was not in the least sure that she wanted the Germans to be saved!

On Easter morning, however, Teddy was instructed to pray for his enemies. "We mustn't have hate in our hearts."