Sonnie-Boy's People Part 7

"No."

"No?"

"No. And let that be the end of the noes."

Necker smoked thoughtfully. Then, slowly gathering up his papers, he said: "I'm licked, Welkie; but I would like to know what licked me. It might save me from making the same mistake again."

"Why, I don't know's I know what you mean; but there is one thing, Necker: if it ever happens that a nation which don't like us comes steaming up here to get hold of this base, to batter it to pieces, say, she won't. No. And why? Because it's no haphazard mixture of water and sand. It's a good job, and if I'm no more than a lump of clay in my grave, I want to be able to roll over and say"--a flame seemed to shoot from his eyes--"'You sons o' guns, you can't get in, because what you've come to take was built right, and 'twas me built it, by G.o.d!'"

Necker studied him. "Well, if that isn't throwing a halo around your work, I don't know what is. I've met that before, too. But you've got more than that--what is it?"

"If I have, I don't know it." He paused.

"I know," whispered Marie in Balfe's ear--her eyes turned to the ensign on the table.

"But if there's anything else there, it must've been born in me, and so that's no credit. But if there is anything else there, I want my boy to have it, too."

Necker picked up his hat and cane. "He'll have it, never fear, Welkie, and the more surely because he won't know it either. I'm off. Do you mind if I take another of Cabada's cigars?"

"Surely. Help yourself. Fill your case."

"Thanks." He lit up. "These _are_ a smoke. I wish he'd let me have some, but he's like you something--he's only to be got at from the inside, and I guess I'm not on the inside. Good-by, Welkie. I hope you get your reward some day, though I doubt it. Good-by, Mr. Balfe. You're the first of your kind I ever met. You fooled me, but I'll be ready for you next time. Good-by, Miss Welkie. I forgot to say"--he smiled slyly--"there was a sixty-horse-power French car and a fifty-foot motor-launch went with that house. Good-by."

The pebbly beach crunched under Necker's receding feet. "Dear me,"

sighed Marie, "don't you feel half sorry for him, Andie?"

"Just about half. I'll bet he plays a good game of poker. But, Greg--"

Balfe drew a square white envelope from an inner coat-pocket--"I was given a letter the other day to give you--in case you were still on the job here."

"On the job? Where else could I be?" He had taken the envelope and was about to rip it carelessly open, when his eye caught the embossed blue lettering on the corner:

WHITE HOUSE

He held it up in bewilderment. "Not from the President, Andie?"

"Why not? Read it."

Slowly Welkie read it. He took it over to the light at the little table and read it again. He dropped it on the table and gazed through the screen at the lights of the fleet. After a time he said in a low tone: "I must tell Sonnie-Boy," and, turning, went inside the house.

"Is it very private, Andie?" whispered Marie.

"No, no."

"Then I'm going to read it."

She read it. "Why, Andie!" she gasped, and, crowding to the light, she also read it again. Her face was alight when she looked up at last.

"Andie, Andie, isn't it splendid! If Mr. Necker could only hear this:

"'It is a fine thing in these days of materialism that a man of your genius can set aside the allurements of money and fame, and exile yourself to a region where certain hards.h.i.+p and probable disease await you; and this only that your country may be served.' And the rest of it!

O Greg!"

Welkie was back with his boy in his arms. He took the letter from his sister. "Look here, Sonnie-Boy, what do you think? Here's a man says your papa is the greatest man ever was in his line. Years from now you'll look at that letter and perhaps you'll be proud of your papa.

Your papa's boasting now, Sonnie-Boy, but only you and your auntie and G.o.dfather can hear him, and they'll never tell. So that's all right.

'Our papa was as good as anybody in his line'--a great man said so.

What do you say, little five-and-a-half, you'll be a good man, too, in your line some day, won't you?"

"Can I be a fighter, papa, on a big gun-s.h.i.+p?"

"Well, if you're bound to go that way, I don't see who's to stop you, Sonnie-Boy. But if you are, whether it's a sword to your belt or a lanyard to your neck, here's hoping you'll never go over the side of your s.h.i.+p without"--he picked the ensign up--"you leave your colors flying over her. And now we'll go back to bed, Sonnie-Boy, and this time we'll go to sleep." In the doorway he stopped. "What do you reckon Necker would say to that letter, Andie?"

Balfe smiled. "He'd probably say, 'Welkie, you ought to publish that letter--capitalize it,' and think you were four kinds of a fool if you didn't."

"Well, I won't publish it or capitalize it. I'm going to frame it and hang it at the foot of your bed, Sonnie-Boy, where you'll see it mornings when you wake. Up we go, son."

Facing each other across the little work-table were Marie Welkie and Andie Balfe. She had said: "You surely have been my brother's friend, and, if you were not already so successful, I could wish a great reward for you."

He laid one hand of his gently down on hers. "Wish the reward, then, Marie. Do, dear, wish it, for I'm not successful. I played hard at my game, because playing it made me forget other things. Almost anybody playing a game long enough becomes half-expert at it. But successful?

No, no, dear. So far I seem to have travelled only unending roads through bleak countries; and I'm dreading to go back to them alone."

Beyond the veranda screen the fireflies were flas.h.i.+ng; farther out, the little green and red side-lights of the steaming launches, like other colored fireflies, were sliding by; to the mastheads of the battle-s.h.i.+ps the red and white signal-lights were winking and glowing. The night was alive with colorful things. Closing her eyes, Marie could hear the lapping of little waves over pebbles, the challenging hail of a sailor on watch, the music of a far s.h.i.+p's band. She bent her head to hear it better--the sweetly faint cadence of that far-away band.

"And when was it you began to think of me, Andie?"

"Since those first days, Marie, when your brother and I bunked together in the old S.$1.$2.construction camp. He used to read me letters of yours from home. You were only a little girl then, and it was years before I saw you; but I knew what you looked like even before I stole your photograph----"

"Stole?"

"I did. Greg dropped it one day. I found it and never gave it back.

There it is--after nine years."

She laughed when she saw it. "Why, I can't make out to see what I looked like then, Andie!"

"I know what you looked like. I've kissed the face away, dear, but I know. In nine years, Marie, I never s.h.i.+fted from one coat to another without s.h.i.+fting your photograph, too. If anything had happened to me, they would have found your photograph on me, with your address on the back. 'Then,' I used to say to myself, 'she'll know. And Greg won't mind my stealing it.'" He laid it face up between them on the table. "The miles you've travelled with me, dear heart, and never knew! Back in the days of the construction camp they used to find sketches of a girl's head in my note-books, a beautiful head badly done--drawn from that photograph. But after I met you----"

"And after you met me, Andie?"

"Then I needed no photograph, though look and look at it I surely did.

Steamers in western seas, battle-s.h.i.+ps in eastern waters, bal.u.s.trades of palaces--wherever it might be I was whirling with this old earth around, I've had your face to look at. And when I couldn't see for the darkness--rolled up in my rubber poncho, in no more romantic a place than the muck of a swamp, I've looked up through the swaying branches--or in the lee of a windy hill, it might be, with no more to hinder than the clear air, I've looked up and marked your face in the swirling clouds: your nose, your chin, the lips so shyly smiling. And if through the clouds a pair of stars would break, I'd mark them for your s.h.i.+ning eyes, Marie."

"Poetry again, Andie!" She was laughing, but also she was melting under his eyes.

"If that's poetry, then I'm losing respect for it. It's a weak thing, Marie, and----"

"Sh-h--if somebody should be walking on the beach!"

"Let them, sweetheart. It's a fine night for a walk. What harm is truth?"

"But I don't want all the world to hear, Andie. For my poor heart was aching, too, Andie, and now it wants it all to itself, Andie mine."