The Home TrenchAll Soldiers Welcome
The Home Trench
All Soldiers Welcome
Joey followed Mrs. Wilmerding into the house. Inside, a pretty girl pounced on Joey, asked his name, and pinned a tag on his coat bearing the words “I am Private Pell.”
Blinking, he stepped from the hallway into the large front room. It was filled with soldiers and girls. In one corner a phonograph was grinding out brassily “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile.” Some of the girls and soldiers were dancing—the soldiers for the most part stiff and self-conscious, the girls bright-eyed and putting much spirit into the task of making the soldiers enjoy themselves.
A little bobbed-haired girl captured Joey.
“I’m Peggy Sturgis,” she announced, taking his hand, which hung limply by his side, and shaking it violently. “You’re Private Pell, aren’t you?”
Joey gulped, and nodded.
“I know some Pells at Tuxedo Park,” she said. “Are you one of them?”
“No’m,” said Joey.
“Shall we dance?”
He was too overwhelmed by this entirely novel experience to refuse. She towed and hauled and steered him about the crowded room, while the phonograph did its best with “Over There.”
“I think,” she said, “it’s just wonderful of you boys to do what you are doing.” Joey flushed. “I wish,” she said wistfully, “that I were a man. I’d be in the cavalry. Don’t you just adore horses, Mr. Pell?”
Joey licked dry lips and nodded. He hated horses, as a matter of fact; but she had called him Mister, and that was another new and stimulating experience.
Other girls danced with Joey Pell that day. They told him, every one of them, how brave a thing he was doing. He drank a great deal of not very sweet lemonade, and only when the Home Trench closed for the day, at six o’clock, did he leave.
He was almost as much intoxicated as if the lemonade had been champagne, as he strode up the avenue, chin out, eyes narrowed sternly.
He wished earnestly that he might meet one of the enemy face to face at that moment. He felt capable of laying him low, barehanded. He saluted all officers with a sharp precise salute; he even saluted a passing letter carrier. His heart beat with unwonted vigor; he was a soldier; a somebody.
He surveyed suspiciously each passerby in the hope that he might discover a spy. He found no spy, but he did find an elderly gentleman who gave him a theater ticket, and a blessing. Joey took the ticket without embarrassment; he was getting used to gifts.
As he marched along he saw a sign:
Free Chow for the Lads in Khaki
He entered the big brick building and was greeted by an aroma of disinfectant, liniment and athletes, and by a plump enthusiastic man, who slapped Joey on the shoulder and cried jovially, “Howdy, buddy! Greetings! Come right in and get your chow. Afterwards we’re going to have a get-together and sing. You’ll stay, of course.” He patted Joey’s shoulder with a big-brother gesture. “You sure are lucky to be in the Army,” said the plump man. “It’s mighty fine, the spirit you boys are showing. I wish I could be in khaki, but these darn flat feet of mine——”
He waved an apologetic pink hand toward his feet.
In the dining-room Joey ate copiously of beans, cocoa and pie. He stayed a while for the singing, and even added a cracked and unpractised tenor to the chorus, which, led by the plump man with the unfortunate feet, sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” “K-K-Katy,” and “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.”
Joey slipped away and went to the theater. A war play was being given—a moving piece with blank cartridge battles and air raids offstage, and a whole corps of villains in the persons of enemy officers, cold sneering devils with spiked mustachios and evil habits.
Joey hissed them loudly. He was so carried away indeed, that at one critical juncture in the play he contemplated swarming over the footlights and doing violence to the chief villain, a fiend in human form if ever there was one.
He was diverted from this by an opportunity closer at hand. Between acts a speaker urged the audience to buy bonds to support the war. The speaker was eloquent, and he pointed dramatically at Joey, who sat in the fifth row.
“Boys like him,” said the speaker, “are giving their lives for you. Will you not give your dollars?”
Joey blushed with a happy pride; the eyes of the house were on him. Pretty girls passed subscription blanks. The man in front of Joey did not take one. He was a stumpy man with a round bristly head; Joey had had his suspicions of him.
“Don’t be a slacker,” the girl with the blanks said.
“I em nod a slecker,” returned the man.
His voice was guttural; the enemy officers on the stage talked in that same tone, Joey had observed.
To Joey his duty was plain.
He leaned forward and hissed into the man’s ear, “You buy one of dem, see.”
The man looked around; his face was purplish and obstinate. He glared at Joey.
“I vill nod,” he said.
Again Joey saw his simple duty; he punched the man squarely on his bulb of nose. The man punched back, but a dozen fists descended on him from all sides and he was hustled up the aisle by the ushers. As he passed, members of the audience took kicks at him. Joey was left in possession of the field. He glowed. On the way out, several men, strangers, shook hands with him; one man gave him a box of cigarets.
Joey Pell returned to camp in high spirits. The wandering, furtive, foggy look of his stable days was gone from his face; the droop was gone from his spine. He had found himself; he was a soldier, a person to be admired, respected, and even feared a little. In his dreams he, single-handed, held the breach against a prodigious number of the enemy. They charged upon him, but he, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, did not retreat. He held them back; with rifle, bombs, bayonet, even fists, he hurled them back until he was ringed round by piles of the slain. The enemy fell back at last before his fury. Then came the general, who pinned a large medal on Joey’s chest.
“You are a man,” said the general, “and a soldier. Give me your hand.”
Joey saluted, then fainted. In some dreams he never recovered; he was given a military funeral of considerable pomp. He even saw his tombstone, with the words carved on it:
PRIVATE JOSEPH PELLHe Died for His Flag
PRIVATE JOSEPH PELL
He Died for His Flag
He saw Mrs. J. Goodhue Wilmerding, in black, sobbing. He saw Peggy Sturgis, inconsolable. He saw the pretty girls at the Home Trench in tears. He even saw the plump man with the traitorous feet turn his head away to hide his emotion.
In most of his dreams, however, he permitted himself to survive; badly wounded, of course. He saw himself nursed back to health by Peggy Sturgis, under the solicitous maternal eye of Mrs. Wilmerding. He saw himself given a good job by a grateful Government—something with a large salary and not much work.
He contrived to go to New York often. He invented sick sisters, dying mothers, important business of a private nature. He would step out into the rattling rush of the city with the tread of a conquerer. He liked the friendly, approving glances that were cast on him. His appetite for deference grew keen. It was an enormously fine feeling to swing with military step and carriage up Fifth Avenue on a crisp day, uniform pressed, shoes shined, and with campaign hat rakishly shading eyes that managed to look grim, warlike and noble all at the same time, and yet did not miss a single sign of interest or sympathy in a single passing face. It was a never-ending source of delight to Joey Pell that he could step to the curb and signal any of the handsome motor cars that were passing, and have the car stop for him, and be treated as an honored guest by the occupant and be driven wherever he wished to go. It was pleasant to know that he could not walk two blocks without having some well-dressed person stop his motor car and invite Joey to have a ride. He spent whole days being taken up Fifth Avenue and then back again. He got so that he accepted offers only from the most expensive cars.
Always he found a ready welcome at the Home Trench. Mrs. Wilmerding was so gracious, and Peggy Sturgis so interested and so eager that he should feel at home. And there were many other places that opened their doors to him—clubs and rest rooms and private homes. He was called “buddy,” and told many times how proud everyone was of him; he was, indeed, not a little proud of himself.
He was attacked by an urgent desire to live up to what was expected of him, to be a hero in reality, to win medals, to do violence to the enemy; his hate, daily more bitter, demanded an outlet.
He began to ask the sergeants, “When do we go across?”
They did not know, so they looked mysterious. He began to be worried; he had a fear that the war might be over before he could get into it. He even ventured to ask the captain when the regiment would sail. The captain, who did not know, looked mysterious. Joey’s worry increased. His dreams became haunted by visions of an early peace or by the specter of himself being left behind when his regiment did, at last, sail. Why didn’t it sail? Surely he was ready.
The day toward which all Joey Pell’s thoughts had turned did come. The sergeants looked more mysterious than usual; the officers whispered together and looked very wise. At retreat the captain announced the news with a suitable gravity; Joey quivered from the peak of his campaign hat to the nail-studded soles of his army shoes.
“The regiment sails from Hoboken May fifth.”
In all his life Joey Pell had never heard more exciting, more gratifying words. May fifth was but six days distant.
Joey cajoled a one-day pass to New York from the top sergeant. It was one of the brightest days he had ever known. Everyone was so kind to him. At the Home Trench they were especially nice to him; Mrs. Wilmerding had him to dinner in her own dining-room, and they had turkey. To Joey for anyone to have turkey at any time but Christmas was unheard-of luxury; it made him surer than ever that he was a personage. They all wrung his hand when at last, reluctantly, he left, bearing a load of wristlets, sweaters, trench mirrors, candy and cigarets.
The night before he was to sail Joey Pell did not sleep at all. He lay watching his equipment; now and then he examined it to see if it was all there and in perfect order; he did not want to take the most minute chance or to risk in any way being left behind.
He was in M Company, which was to go aboard the transport last. He sat on the chilly pier, chafing. He wanted to get under way; he could not be sure he was actually going until the Statue of Liberty faded from view.
He heard a sergeant’s staccato order: “Detail—Privates Leary, Kochanski, Pell——”
He sprang up and stood at attention with the others.
“Go aboard,” the sergeant ordered, “and feed the mules.”
Joey held back when he reached the hold where the artillery mules were; they were restless and were scuffling and biting in the half darkness. He decided that he had done his duty in bringing the pails of water that far; others could give them to the mules. But a watchful corporal spied him.
“Here, you!” shouted the corporal. “Water them mules.”
But still Joey held back.
“Say, you ain’t afraid of them, are you?” demanded the corporal scornfully.
“Naw,” said Joey, “not exactly, but——”
“Don’t be yella!” shot out the corporal. “Are you a soldier or ain’t you?”
Joey picked up the pails resolutely; decidedly he was a soldier. He shouldered his way in among the mules; they seemed gigantic, grotesque in the dimness. He set down one of the pails. It was then that a mule lashed out with its steel-shod hoof. It hit Joey Pell squarely in the back of the head. Sharply a swift blackness fell on his brain.
At the military hospital in a deserted department store on lower Sixth Avenue, to which they rushed Joey Pell, the doctors said that his skull was crushed and that part of it was pressing on his brain. His regiment sailed without him; but Joey Pell never knew it.
His was a curious case, the doctors said. They were able to relieve some of the pressure on his brain, but not all of it. He continued to exist. But he existed as a vegetable does. The part of his brain that gave him memory did not work at all. He had no past, no yesterdays. Each day when he woke, it was as if he were freshly born. Certain habits remained—eating, dressing, simple motion. But he was quite unsensitive to impressions. Each day they told him his name, and a moment later he forgot it. He never asked how he happened to be there; he never asked about anything; he simply sat in the corner of the private room they had given him, quiet, apathetic.
For two years the brain of Private Joseph Pell lay fallow. His mind simply closed up shop and went on a vacation. So, while he sat there, impervious to anything, in a perfect vacuum, his regiment fought, the Armistice was signed, his regiment returned, there was a triumphal march up Fifth Avenue, the regiment was demobilized, and the great city swallowed it once more. The soldiers who had been clerks returned to their counters, the soldiers who had been truckmen returned to their trucks.
It was May fifth, two years after Joey Pell’s accident. The attendant on duty near Joey’s room had gone to the floor below to play cards with another attendant. Joey Pell in his chair grew sleepy in the drowsy spring morning air. His head nodded forward on the bosom of his hospital nightshirt. He fell asleep. A fire engine bellowing past in the street below screamed with its siren under his window. The impact of the sound startled him awake. It jerked him upright in his chair; the sudden movement tipped the chair over and Joey Pell pitched backward to the floor; his head struck violently a sharp corner of his iron bed.
He lay for a moment where he had fallen; then slowly he pulled himself to his feet and stared, puzzled, about him. What was he, Private Joseph Pell, doing in this room on the day his regiment was to sail for the Front? Then he remembered; they had made him go among the mules; one of the mules must have kicked him and stunned him; certainly his head still buzzed; the fools had carted him to this hospital, thinking he was badly hurt; as if a kick in the head could hurt a soldier! Decisively Joey Pell tore the nightshirt from his body. His regiment was going to sail that day at noon, and he was going to sail with it.
He saw that he must act swiftly, but with caution. In the next ward soldiers were drowsing. Their uniforms hung on pegs by their beds. Joey commandeered the first uniform he came to; its owner was asleep. He was a very much bigger man than Joey, and the uniform was half a dozen sizes too large, so that it draped around Joey’s meager frame in great folds. The purloined shoes were elevens, and Joey customarily wore fives. The hat came down over his ears; no matter; once aboard the transport, Joey knew he could get a new outfit. He hunted feverishly for his pack and his rifle. He could find no pack, but in a storeroom he did find a rifle. It was not his, for it was rusty and dusty, and his own was always clean and well cared for. He took it anyhow.
He had seen a clock, and saw that it was ten. He had two hours to get to Hoboken. He had no idea where he was and his knowledge of geography was limited, so he was not at all certain where Hoboken was; in Jersey, somewhere, he fancied. He slipped out of the hospital; his idea was to find the Hudson River and get a ferry. He saw from the street signs that he was at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street; he breathed a sigh of relief. His problem was simple; he had only to hail a passing motor car and ask its driver to take him to one of the downtown ferries. He turned toward Fifth Avenue.
A man was coming along the street toward Joey. He was a well-dressed man, and he was escorting an appreciable paunch. Joey smiled at him; the man scowled and increased his pace.
Joey reached Fifth Avenue. People were hurrying along. They did not smile at Joey Pell; they hardly glanced at him; when they did, it was with scant interest and no friendliness. He wondered about it.
A big motor car cruised slowly past; there was a lady in white summer furs in the back seat, and there were orchids in the silver vase. Joey held up his hand as a signal for the car to stop. The lady looked at him obliquely.
“Give us a lift,” called Joey Pell.
The lady leaned forward and said something to the chauffeur; the car jumped ahead and sailed at a swifter rate of speed down the Avenue. Joey looked after it; he scratched his head.
He signaled another car; it did not stop. He signaled another; it did not stop. He signaled others; none of them paid the least heed to him. He stood, perplexed, on the corner. Something hard prodded him in the ribs; it was the night stick of a policeman.
“Move along there, Jack,” ordered the policeman. “I been watchin’ you. If you wanna panhandle, go over on Broadway; Fifth Avenue is closed, see?”
“But——” sputtered Joey.
“Don’t give me no argument,” said the policeman sternly. “Beat it.”
He gave Joey another prod with his club. Joey moved down Fifth Avenue; he was a little giddy. He wished he had time to show that big stiff of a cop that he could not talk to a soldier that way, but time was going fast, and his regiment sailed at noon.
Joey Pell hurried along. He had no time to speculate about why no one smiled at him. He had an idea, and that was to go to the Home Trench, which was near Eleventh Street; Mrs. Wilmerding always had a car or two on hand; a word to her, and he’d be driven to Hoboken at top speed.
He ran up the steps of her stately house. Someone had taken down the Home Trench sign, he noticed. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. That was odd, he thought; it had always been open from eight till six. It must be stuck, he thought. So he pressed the bell. A jowlish man with side bars came to the door and surveyed Joey in his tentlike uniform coldly.
“Well?” inquired the man.
Joey started to enter, but the man barred the way.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Goin’ in,” said Joey. “Wanna see Mrs. Wilmerding.”
“You’ll have to be announced,” the man stated. “What are your name and business?”
“Why—er”—Joey stammered—“just tell her it’s Joey Pell—Private Pell. She knows me.”
“Wait here,” said the man, and he closed the door.
Joey Pell waited. It was all very strange, he thought. He could look in through the window and see the long front room; usually it was crowded with soldiers; this day it was empty; not quite empty, however. At a desk sat a well-nourished lady—Mrs. Wilmerding, unquestionably. Joey Pell felt greatly relieved.
The door opened a trifle. The side-barred man was there. “Mrs. Wilmerding is not at home,” he said.
Joey decided that the man was joking; that this was a new system of entertainment.
“Say, kid,” he said, “you ain’t looked very hard. I can see her right in there.”
“She’s not at home,” said the man; his voice was frigid.
“Say, cut the kiddin’,” said Joey. “My reg’ment sails at noon and I gotta get to Hoboken.” The butler appeared to be closing the door.
“Hey, Mrs. Wilmerding! Mrs. Wilmerding!” Joey called loudly.
She came out from her drawing room; her face was unsmiling.
“Jeffords,” she said to the butler, “what does he want?”
“I told him you were not at home, madam,” the butler said.
“Mrs. Wilmerding,” broke in Joey, “I gotta get to Hoboken—quick—see?—and I thought you could help me.”
“I advise you to apply to the Veteran’s Charity Bureau, in Madison Avenue,” she said, and shut the door.
Joey stood on the steps for two precious minutes. He wondered what he had done to offend her. But he knew he had no time to puzzle it out. He again started down the Avenue. And again he noticed that the faces of those who passed him were uninterested, without friendliness.
Out of the sea of faces swam a familiar one—Peggy Sturgis.
He saluted her and said, “Hello, Miss Sturgis. Well, I’m off.”
She did not return his salutation; she looked at him queerly, as if there were something curious about him.
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“Say—you ain’t forgot me already?” blurted Joey Pell.
“I’m sorry,” she said coolly, “but I’m afraid I have. One met so many soldiers you know. I hope things are going well with you. Goodby.”
She was gone before he could catch his breath. What terrible thing had he done, he wondered. But he had no room in his mind for much wondering; his immediate problem was to get to Hoboken by noon. He pushed on toward Washington Square.
As he progressed along, at a half run, he overtook two men who were also going toward the square. Joey saw that they, too, were in uniform—but it was not khaki; it was a garish uniform, strange to him. He stopped short. But it was not the uniforms of the men that stopped him; it was their talk. They were talking in the language of the enemy. Joey Pell had learned to recognize it. Joey knew at once that they must be spies. He slackened his pace and followed close behind them. Fear hit him. If he captured the men he’d miss the transport. But it was his duty, he saw that, to capture them; he would do his duty.
Across the broad square he followed the two men. They headed for a crowd assembled in the southeast corner of the square. Joey did not take his eyes off them till they neared the crowd. Then he looked up, and his heart turned a somersault. His fingers closed tight on his rifle. The crowd was forming in a military formation, and they all wore the same strange garish uniforms as the two spies; and furthermore, they were speaking the same language. Joey stopped and stared.
The uniformed men carried a banner; it bore words in a foreign language. The truth came to Joey Pell in a sickening flash: the enemy had captured New York! How or when, he did not know. But there they were; they held Washington Square. He watched them, petrified with horror and hate. He tried to decipher their flag, but it meant nothing to him. He could not read its inscription:
Young Men’s UniformedGymnastic and SingingSociety of the ReformedLutheran Church
Young Men’s Uniformed
Gymnastic and Singing
Society of the Reformed
Lutheran Church
He could not tell from their speech that they were assembling to march to the funeral of a deceased member. One thought filled his brain: the enemy had captured New York. Now he understood why the people had ignored him; they were afraid to do otherwise.
His hands tightened on his rifle; there was no question what his duty was; they were two hundred to one; but he was a soldier.
He fumbled at his belt for cartridges, then groaned as he realized he had none. Crouching behind a tree he drew from its scabbard the bayonet; his teeth bit into each other as he fixed the bayonet in its socket.
Then he jumped from behind his tree. His voice, high and shrill, sounded through the square.
“I’ll show you, you devils; I’ll show you!”
The surprised members of the uniformed gymnastic and singing society saw his fantastic figure come running toward them. At first they thought he was joking. Then, when they saw the leveled bayonet, they thought him crazy. Straight into the midst of them charged Private Joseph Pell. His big hat came down over his eyes, so the lunge he made with his bayonet at the chest of the leader of the society missed its mark and the point became entangled in the sleeve of that astonished young gymnast and singer. The men were sure he was a madman now. They knocked him down on the granite pavement; Private Joseph Pell’s head hit one of the blocks.
So ended the Battle of Washington Square, the briefest battle in history, and yet the only one where the American Army’s casualties were 100 per cent.
THE LAST OF THE FLATFEET
HIS name was Ugobeecheebuggocheebeepawpawkeepiswiskiweeweechinoobee. In Flatfoot Indian this means, of course, Little-Big-Fat-Brown-Muskrat-Sitting-on-a-Pine-Stump-With- His-Tail-just-Touching-the-Ground. At the school on the reservation whither he was taken, screaming, at a tender age, the teacher, in the interest of simplicity and patriotism, renamed him George Washington Ug.
After some months had passed, the teacher voiced a regret that he had done this; it hardly seemed fair to the Father of His Country. Closer acquaintance with the young aborigine forced the teacher to conclude that it was entirely unlikely that Ug would ever be first in war, peace, or, indeed, anything. Privately the teacher expressed the opinion that if Ug were to unveil his boxlike head in the open air Ug would be in acute peril from woodpeckers. The juvenile Ug seemed absolutely impervious to the pearls of knowledge with which he was pelted. So the teacher decided to change his name to Walter Muskrat.
It was then that the salient trait of Ug’s character shone forth. He refused flatly to be Walter Muskrat. Somehow the idea had seeped through some chink in his cranium that George Washington was, or had been, a great white chief entitled to many feathers and rich in horses, squaws and scalps, for whom it was an honor to be named. Ug announced without passion but with palpable determination that he intended to remain George Washington Ug. What was his, was his, he intimated. Arguments, cajolery, threats left him equally unmoved. He refused to answer to any other name, and he refused to eat. Before his wooden-faced obduracy the teacher at length surrendered; Ug remained George Washington Ug.
To the task of civilizing Ug, the teacher, a zealous soul, gave particular attention. It was a matter of pride with that teacher that the civilizing job should be a thorough one, neat, efficient, and with no rough edges; for Ug, it seemed quite probable, was destined to be the last of the Flatfeet. To civilize a Flatfoot! That was an ambition worthy of any man, thought the teacher. It had never been done; full well the teacher knew this. Had he not been trying for thirty years? He had seen no end of Flatfoot youths issue forth from his schoolroom, to the outward eye finished products, glowing with the high polish of civilization and possessed of well-cultivated tastes for derby hats, bank accounts, a reasonable amount of morality, safety razors, hymns, suspenders, lawsuits and the other essential habiliments of civilization, only to backslide into barbarous practises at the first suitable opportunity that presented itself.
“There’s a broad streak of atavism in the Flatfoot,” said the teacher. “He reverts to type as easily as the rattlesnake sheds its skin. On Saturday night he may be seen in a derby hat and rah-rah clothes, peaceably eating a nut sundae in a drug store and discussing Ty Cobb, ship subsidies and self-starters with the clerk. On the following Monday, like as not, he is back in moccasins and feathers, doing some forbidden tribal dance, whetting up his hunting knife and wistfully regretting that the Government has such narrow-minded prejudices against a little scalping.
“But,” concluded the teacher, “I’ve got hold of Ug early enough to civilize him so it will stick. The last of the Flatfeet is going to be the best of the Flatfeet. I’ll train Ug so that he will never want to take off his derby hat. After all, the derby hat is the symbol of civilization. No man can possibly be wild in a derby hat.”
So he labored over Ug. Time passed, as it is apt to, and Ug’s chest measurement and appetite increased, and the teacher watched hopefully for signs of mental and moral development. That Ug would ever become a profound thinker, the teacher harbored grave doubts; there was scant indication that the chunky, square-faced boy would ever become a Flatfoot Aristotle. Indeed, in darker moments the teacher sometimes opined that the only way to implant seeds of knowledge in that brown head was by means of a major operation involving trepanning. It was not that Ug preferred sin to syntax; docilely enough, and readily, he accepted the leading facts of an elementary education—to wit: That in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue; that six times nine is invariably fifty-four; that one must spell “separate” with an “a” till one’s hair turns gray; that homicide is not only illegal but unethical; that the femur is the longest bone in the human body; that when a fat man gets into a tubful of water the water will overflow. Having accepted them, he forgot them.
“However,” said the teacher, “if I can teach him to be a law-abiding member of his community, who will work and keep sober, it will be enough. A man can be civilized without being a mental Hercules.”
He continued most earnestly to train Ug in the way, by civilized canons, he should go. When Ug was fourteen a most encouraging event happened. With his own delighted eyes the teacher observed the behavior of Ug that day at recess in the school yard when Ug became involved in a quarrel with Henry James Curly Bear, a sprig of the Blackfoot tribe, and a youth of superior size and brawn. Henry James Curly Bear, whom no amount of effort had been able to redeem from savagery, had kicked Ug roundly in a dispute over the somewhat knotty technical problem of whether Jack Dempsey was a greater fighter than Ty Cobb was a ball player. Ordinarily such an act meant instant and spirited fistic battle, for traditionally the Flatfeet are of martial cast and care no more for Blackfeet than one male bulldog cares for another male bulldog confined in the same coal bin. The teacher made ready to launch himself into the fray and drag the opponents apart. To his surprise and joy he heard Ug say in ringing tones:
“I will not fight you, Henry James Curly Bear. The teacher says only bad people fight. Good people sue in the courts. If you kick me again, Henry James Curly Bear, when I say my prayers tonight I’ll tell our heavenly Father on you, and He’ll fix you, Henry James Curly Bear.”
Young Curly Bear expressed the opinion that Ug was afraid of him. This Ug gently denied.
“The Good Book,” said George Washington Ug, “says that it is wicked to fight; and, anyhow, why don’t you take somebody your own size?”
Then, not without a show of dignity, Ug turned his back on young Curly Bear and retired from the scene. The teacher felt the warming flush of pride.
“Score one for civilization,” he said.
As he walked toward his home that evening the teacher was decidedly in a self-congratulatory mood; overnight, almost, it seemed that Ug had begun to respond to the efforts of the teacher. With such gratifying thoughts in his brain, the teacher passed a grove of live oaks, a secluded spot. To his ears came sounds. He stopped. Louder grew the sounds, and stranger; they appeared to issue from the grove. Now he heard a wail, shrill and laden with some emotion akin to anger; then he heard a chant, weird, almost frenzied. The teacher cautiously pushed aside some underbrush and peered into the grove. An unpedagogical expression leaped to his lips, for he saw the person from whom the sounds came, and he knew their import.
The chanting lips were the lips of his pupil, George Washington Ug. As Ug chanted he danced—a wild, abandoned dance full of twists, turns, bends and wriggles. Gone were Ug’s pants; they hung on a stump; and so did his derby hat. In his black hair stood feathers, plainly the tail feathers of a recently despoiled rooster. In his hand gleamed the blade of a jackknife, and he made menacing gestures at what the teacher thought at first was a bit of red string but which closer scrutiny revealed to be an adult earthworm of the night-crawler variety. A concentrated and bloodthirsty scowl was on the face of Ug as he twisted in the dance, and chanted:
“Koopeekis koopeekisBobbochee cheeboboToowanda bonda bonda bondaBopokum kobokum.”
“Koopeekis koopeekisBobbochee cheeboboToowanda bonda bonda bondaBopokum kobokum.”
“Koopeekis koopeekisBobbochee cheeboboToowanda bonda bonda bondaBopokum kobokum.”
“Koopeekis koopeekis
Bobbochee cheebobo
Toowanda bonda bonda bonda
Bopokum kobokum.”
At this point Ug dispatched the earthworm by biting off its head. Chagrin and horror overwhelmed the watching teacher, for he knew that the chant meant:
“Help me, O bloody war spirit, to strangle my enemy, Curly Bear, even as I strangle this serpent. Give me the strength to mash him, smash him, scalp him and cut him into very small bits.”
“Help me, O bloody war spirit, to strangle my enemy, Curly Bear, even as I strangle this serpent. Give me the strength to mash him, smash him, scalp him and cut him into very small bits.”
It was the forbidden snake dance. By such heathenish rites, the teacher knew, Flatfoot braves in the unregenerate days of yore had whipped themselves into a fury before going on the warpath.
The teacher descended, outraged, on Ug, confiscated the worm on the spot, and chastised Ug corporeally on another spot. What, demanded the teacher, did Ug mean by this? Ug, frightened, replied that he didn’t know. Once, years and years before, when he was little more than a papoose, he had seen his father and the other men of the tribe do this dance in a secret spot. He had not thought of it since; but on this evening, as he was wandering past the grove, smarting under the insults and kicks of Henry James Curly Bear, an earthworm had crossed his path; and suddenly, somehow, the idea had come to him to do the dance. He could not explain why.
“It just came over me, like, teacher, please,” he said.
That night the teacher thought long over the problem of civilizing Ug.
“I must do more than make him accept the ways of white men,” the teacher said. “I must make him like them. But how? First, I must get hold of his imagination. I must find the secret spring in his nature to which he will respond with genuine enthusiasm.”
The teacher was unlike many teachers in this: He did not think that every little Indian was exactly like every other little Indian. He set about the task of prodding for Ug’s own particular secret spring. It took days, but he found it at last. It was pride; ardent patriotic pride.
Mostly, when the teacher was talking of fractions or verbs or such things, Ug was in a species of torpor, with dull face. But when the teacher conducted the class in history and civics and spoke of Uncle Sam, Ug, the teacher noticed, straightened his backbone and brightness came into his black eyes. The clue was enough for the astute teacher. He dilated on the power of Uncle Sam and his love for all in the country, but particularly for his wards, the Indians, and most particularly of all for a certain youthful Flatfoot named George Washington Ug. Ug was impressed; that was plain. He became passionately devoted to Uncle Sam; he appeared to derive unlimited comfort and inspiration from the fact that a benevolent old gentleman in a tall gray hat, a star-spangled vest, striped trousers and a goatee was his friend and protector. Tho Ug’s notions of what a ward is were slightly fogbound, he was very proud of the fact that he was a ward of Uncle Sam. He rather looked down on the white farmers whose land adjoined the reservation; they were mere citizens; he was a ward. No longer, when larger Indians kicked him, did he plan to massacre them as they slept. Instead, he said, “Just you wait! I’ll tell my Uncle Sam on you some day when I see him.” And he wrote down their names in a small note-book.
From the day that Ug discovered Uncle Sam he became a changed Flatfoot. Gladly he embraced the ways of the white man. “Uncle Sam won’t like you if you don’t do this or that,” the teacher would say; it would be enough.
No longer with reluctance did Ug wash his ears. He attended church cheerfully; he brushed his derby hat without being told; he contributed an occasional penny to the missionary box; he learned empirically that it is unwise to use the fingers in eating custard and he desisted from doing so; he voluntarily abandoned the notion of keeping a family of pet skunks under his beds; he discontinued the practise of putting grasshoppers down the necks of smaller Indians during Sabbath school; he expressed at various times ambitions to be a railroad engineer, a moving-picture actor and a big-league shortstop; he told lies only when it was necessary, and sometimes not then. The teacher felt that Ug at last was headed in the right direction; the last of the Flatfeet was destined to be completely civilized.
When Ug was twenty the teacher decided that the job was done. It was true that Ug’s scholarship was still of dubious quality; he was still under the impression that Utah is the capital of Omaha and that six times six is forty-six. But his devotion to Uncle Sam, his burning patriotism—they were unimpeachable. Love of his country and its institutions was in his blood; it broke out in a rash of small flags in his coat lapels. Ug was given a diploma full of curly penmanship, and a new derby hat, a gift from a proud teacher, and sent forth into the world. He was not worried about his future; Uncle Sam would take care of him. Perhaps he’d raise pigs; that seemed like a genteel occupation and one not involving undue labor. Anyhow, whatever he did, if he was a good Flatfoot, washed his ears regularly, paid his bills, resisted any wayward impulses to commit assault, battery, arson or theft, and in general respected the edicts of his Uncle Sam’s representatives, all would go well with him. He had, as one of his most valued possessions, a newspaper picture of the Atlantic Fleet riding the high seas; and, Ug liked to reflect, at a word from him to his uncle, these giant war canoes, with cannons as big as redwood trees, would come chugging up the mountain streams leading to the reservation to protect the rights of Ug and strike terror to the hearts of Ug’s enemies. Of course, Ug must merit this protection by leading an unblemished life. This idea was the only thing George Washington Ug carried away from the school in addition to his diploma and his new derby hat; but the teacher was satisfied that it was enough.
There was no doubt about it—Ug was a good Indian, a credit to his teacher and an estimable member of society. His room-and-a-half frame house on the edge of the reservation he painted red, white and blue. He bought a tin bathtub. He planted hollyhocks. He carried a nail file in a leather case and used it openly and unabashed at the gibes of the less refined Indians. He refused to have dealings with traffickers in illicit spirits; indeed, he obeyed all rules, laws, ordinances and regulations punctiliously. On the wall of his dwelling, opposite the rotogravure of the Atlantic Fleet, was a large picture of the Washington Monument, for the teacher, when pressed, had told Ug that this was one of the homes of his Uncle Sam. Ug had sent to himself from Chicago a very civilized suit of blue serge with braid-bound lapels and freckled with small pearl buttons. He wore a rubber collar on Sundays, on formal calls and on the Fourth of July, which he believed to be Uncle Sam’s birthday.
He even decided to shatter the best traditions of the male Flatfoot and work a little.
The work he selected for himself was of a sort in keeping with the importance and social position of a ward of Uncle Sam. George Washington Ug became a model. He permitted himself to be photographed by passing tourists, and for this privilege he charged a dime. It was worth it. Ug was a perfect specimen of Flatfoot beauty. His head had sharp corners, because when he was a papoose it had been strapped to a board, this being the Flatfoot contribution to the science of child-rearing. His face was a mocha prairie, with nostrils like gopher holes. He had eyes like bits of new patent leather. In figure Ug was inclined to plumpness; in general outline he resembled a hot-water bag at high tide.
It was natural, as one of the fruits of civilization, that Ug should aspire to be a capitalist. Accordingly he saved his dimes and, after prayer and meditation, invested them in a pig. It was not much of a pig, and it was given to whimpering. Ug had no special fondness for dumb animals, especially pigs; but he kept his charge under his bed and waited for him to increase and multiply. It was Ug’s hope and plan that the pig would be the nucleus of a far-flung pig ranch. After consulting his school history book Ug named the animal General Grant.
Then he left the pig to browse about in the chickweed in the back yard and toughen its snout by trying to root under the hog-tight fence, while Ug himself added more dimes to his store by lurking in the vicinity of the railroad station and displaying his charms to the lenses of amateur photographers in passing trains.
The lightning of calamity struck Ug one afternoon at six minutes past five. Returning to his domicile, Ug discovered that General Grant was not snuffling about the back door, as was the General’s habit. That the General could have burrowed under the fence was impossible. So Ug searched the house. He looked everywhere—under the bed, in the bathtub, in the phonograph-record case. General Grant had vanished. Ug retained enough hunting instinct to look for tracks, and he found them. They were nail-shod boot tracks and they pointed in the direction of the farm of one Patrick Duffy, white farmer, just across the boundary of the reservation. To him went Ug.
Mr. Duffy came out from his supper with egg on his overalls and fire in his eye. He was a high, wide, thick man, with a bushel of torch-colored hair, a jaw like an iceberg and fists like demijohns. Ug removed his derby hat, bowed, and inquired politely if Mr. Duffy had seen a pig answering to the name of General Grant.
“I have,” said Mr. Duffy, grim of voice.
“Where is he, please?”
“In my pen,” responded Mr. Duffy.
“I’ll take him away,” said Ug.
“You will not,” said Mr. Duffy.
“But he’s mine,” protested Ug.
“He was,” corrected Mr. Duffy. “Now he’s mine.”
“Since when, Patsy Duffy?” Ug was growing agitated; he had heard tales of Mr. Duffy.
“Your thievin’ pig,” declared Mr. Duffy, “come over and et my prize parsnips. I was goin’ to show ’em at the state fair. They was worth eleven dollars—to me, anyhow—not countin’ the honor an’ glory. Now they’re et. I’ll be keeping the pig.”
“You give me back my pig, Patsy Duffy!” cried Ug.
“You give me back my parsnips,” returned Mr. Duffy coldly.
“But General Grant didn’t eat your parsnips,” said Ug. “He hates parsnips. And, anyhow, he was home all day. You took——”
“Look here, Injin,” said Mr. Duffy severely, “I ain’t got time to stand out here debatin’ with you.”
Ug was trembling with an emotion he knew to be sinful and contrary to all moral precepts. An ax lay on a near-by woodpile, and Ug’s eyes leaped from it to the bushy head of Patrick Duffy and then back to the ax again; for a second, civilization tottered. Then Ug, with a movement of resolution, replaced the derby hat on his black locks.
“All right, Patsy Duffy,” he said with dignity. “Just you wait! I’m going to tell my uncle on you.” And Ug turned away.
“You can tell your aunt, too,” Mr. Duffy called after him, “and all your cousins. But the pig stays here, and if I ketch you pesterin’ around here, Injin, I’ll boot you for a gool.”
Ug made his way cabinward with cloudy brow. Here was injustice, flagrant injustice. He was a ward of Uncle Sam and he didn’t propose to be treated like that, even by Patsy Duffy.
“It’s not the pig; it’s the principle of the thing,” muttered Ug as he tramped along.
It was not that he was sentimentally attached to General Grant; the pig, indeed, had grown to be more of a pest than a pet. But the pig was his property, and another man had dared to take him. Ug shook his fist in the direction of the Duffy house.
“You’ll rue the day, Patsy Duffy,” said Ug; he had seen melodramas. Then Ug chuckled to himself. He had reached the cabin and his eye had fallen on the picture of the Atlantic Fleet; he was picturing to himself Patsy Duffy shelled into submission by its big guns.
To his teacher, as the nearest representative of Uncle Sam, Ug went and stated the case of the kidnaped General Grant. The teacher listened sympathetically, but he shook his gray head; he knew Patsy Duffy, his gusty temper, his heavy fist, his plethoric bank roll, his political power. He pointed out to Ug that the recovering of kidnaped pigs was not a pedagogical function; furthermore, Ug was no longer a schoolboy, but a man of the world. Ug suggested a direct appeal to Uncle Sam. The teacher said emphatically that that would never do. Uncle Sam was much too busy to be bothered about one pig. He never, the teacher assured Ug, concerned himself personally with any matter involving less than a million pigs; his hired men looked after lesser cases, the teacher said, congratulating himself secretly that “hired men” was a rather good stroke. The law, suggested the teacher, was on Ug’s side; his best advice to Ug was to consult the law in the person of Marcellus Q. Wigmore, attorney and counselor, in his office in Timberlake City. Yes, that was the civilized thing to do. Uncle Sam would approve; yes, yes, consult the law by all means.
Ug, a shade disappointed but not at all downhearted, greased his hair, dusted off his derby and walked the sixteen miles to Timberlake City. The majesty of the law, as embodied in Attorney and Counselor Wigmore, was enthroned in two cobwebby back rooms over a hay-and-feed store on Main Street. Ug was permitted to sit in the outer room until he was impressed, and this did not take long, for it was a musty, intimidating, legal-smelling place lined with books of repealed statutes and reports of drainage commissions, important-looking books with bindings suffering from tetter. Then Ug was summoned into the presence of Attorney Wigmore, a lean, dusty man of prehistoric aspect, with a dazzling bald head, an imposing frock coat and a collar like a spite fence.
He pursed shrewd lips and said, “And in what way may I have the honor of serving you, sir?” in a solemn court-room voice.
Ug, overawed, got out, “Patsy Duffy stole General Grant.”
“Ah?” said Mr. Wigmore. “Ah?”
“He said he et his parsnips,” hurried on Ug. “But General Grant never et them. He hated parsnips—honest.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Wigmore, “an interesting historical fact. But how, may I inquire, do the tastes of the late general concern me?”
Ug poured out his story of the abduction of his pig. Mr. Wigmore said, to himself, “Patsy Duffy? Ah, yes; ah, yes.” Then he addressed Ug, as if he were a jury.
“My dear sir,” said Attorney and Counselor Wigmore gravely, “this is indeed a pretty legal problem. Hur-r-rumph! Yes, a pretty legal problem. I hesitate to give anex-cathedraopinion on a question involving so moot a point of jurisprudence. Hur-r-rumph!”
Ug listened, confused but fascinated. The eyes of Mr. Wigmore searched the grimy ceiling.
“Hur-r-rumph!” he said, with a bass judicial clearing of the throat. “Let us put the case in its simplest terms. We have you, the plaintiff, the party of the first part; we have one Patrick Duffy, defendant, party of the second part; we have one General Grant, pig,casus belli, party of the third part; we have certain parsnips, party of the fourth part. It is alleged by the party of the first part that the party of the second part did feloniously steal, make away with and confiscate the party of the third part because said Duffy alleges said General Grant did unlawfully eat, devour and consume or cause to be consumed the party of the fourth part. The plaintiff contends that he can prove an alibi for the aforementioned General Grant and that the said General Grant is innocent of the overt act imputed to him by the party of the second part. Is that not correctly stated, sir?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ug, by now dizzy.
Mr. Wigmore consulted a book weighing ten pounds. For minutes he regarded the pages darkly. Then he spoke:
“Hur-r-rumph! To speakex capite, your case is not unlike the case of BullpittversusNudd, 67 Rhode Island, 478, in which the honorable court ruled that the unlawful abduction of animals wascontra bonos mores; and, if I remember correctly—and I think I do—fined the defendant two dollars and costs. Your case, sir, clearly involves a definition ofmeumandtuum; and, speakingcum grano salis, it has a precedent, if my memory is not at fault, and I do not believe it is, in the case of the International Knitted Knight Klose KorporationversusGumbelet al., 544 South Carolina, 69, although I must warn you that it will be a question of adjudication just how far the doctrine ofcaveat emptorconflicts with that ofcave canem. You can see that for yourself, can’t you?”
Ug, utterly numb of brain, nodded.
Mr. Wigmore thoughtfully rubbed a bony chin with a thumb.
“Inter se,” he observed, “it will take much study to determine what your remedy is. Your pig was caughtin flagrante delicto, according to the defendant, which would make himparticeps criminis, would it not?”
Ug gulped.
“It might,” said Mr. Wigmore, “be possible to obtain a writ ofhabeas corpus. Or again we might have the defendant indicted for abduction. Possibly a question of riparian rights is involved. I hesitate to say without consulting an authority on torts. Have you ten dollars?”
Ug had. He produced it and saw it vanish into a recess beneath the tails of Mr. Wigmore’s long coat.
“Pray wait here,” said Mr. Wigmore, “while I go into conference.”
Mr. Wigmore went into the other room and the door closed behind him. He watched the men pitching horseshoes in the street below for ten minutes, and then returned, with grave face, to the sanctum where Ug waited, perspiring freely.
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Wigmore blandly, “my advice to you is—drop the case.”
Ug stared.
“And not get my pig back?” he quavered.
“What,” said Mr. Wigmore philosophically, “is a pig more or less in the cosmic scheme?”
“But he’s mine! I want my pig!” Ug was nearly in tears.
“Possession,” remarked Mr. Wigmore, showing impatience, “is nine points of the law. You came to me for advice. I gave it to you. You have received it. The law says nothing that would help you. Forget the pig.”
“But that isn’t fair! He’s mine! Patsy Duffy is a thief!”
Mr. Wigmore grew stern.
“Take care, young man,” he said. “There are laws against slander. Mr. Duffy is a respected member of this community. His brother is the sheriff, his brother-in-law is the county judge and his son is the district attorney. Good afternoon. What a bright warm day it is, isn’t it?”
Ug found himself on Main Street, stunned. He had appealed to the law and it had failed him. It didn’t seem possible that so learned a man as Marcellus Q. Wigmore could be wrong, and yet Ug found himself embracing that heresy. It seemed to him that he had a right to get his pig back. He decided to appeal to another of Uncle Sam’s representatives, the superintendent of the reservation.
He was a genial soul, the superintendent, who professed often and loudly a love for the Indians. The winds of politics had wafted him from his cigar store in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Indians, except wooden ones, are something of a rarity, to his present position. He greeted Ug warmly, almost affectionately, slapped his back and asked after his health. Ug replied that he was in a persecuted state of mind, and pigless, and narrated the story of the loss of General Grant. The superintendent was horrified, sympathetic, indignant simultaneously.
“How dare this fellow Duffy take the property of one of my Indians?” he demanded with heat. “I’ll show him! Now don’t you worry, young fellow. I’ll take this matter up myself, personally, see?” And he patted Ug out of the office.
Ug waited a week. But his pig was not returned. He summoned up his courage, bathed his rubber collar, and once more tremulously visited the superintendent. As he approached the office he noted that the superintendent was busy with some visitor. Ug paused in his approach. He could see the visitor now. There was no mistaking that beacon light of red hair and those haystack shoulders. Ug grinned; doubtless at that very moment the superintendent was castigating Duffy for purloining the pig. Then Ug perceived that that could hardly be the case, for Mr. Duffy emitted a bull bellow of a laugh, and Ug heard with dismay that the superintendent laughed with him. Ug crept nearer the window. He saw that on the table between the two men were cards and piles of chips and a brown bottle. Ug departed as softly as he had come. He did not go back to the superintendent again. Somehow he had divined that it would be of no avail.
He went to the teacher. What could he do now? Write to one of the men in Washington to whom Uncle Sam had intrusted the task of looking after the Indians, the teacher suggested. Ug returned to his cabin and struggled with pen, ink and paper all evening. By morning he had produced a smeary note: