At South Norwalk I descended and took the train for Littledale. Hardly had I turned up the platform before I was among friends, welcomed with incredulous shouts:Burke, the conductor, and Lannigan, of the express, smothering me with rapturous greetings. I rode back in the baggage car, the center of an admiring group. The old oil lamps still flickered overhead, undisturbed in their appointed task of gathering in the cobwebs, and for a while I forgot my loneliness in the warm pleasure of being back among my own kind. Heaven be thanked, nothing had changed! The baggage car still dates from 1870, wheezing and bumping over the narrow-gauge road as the old familiar figures gather about the stove in the solemnity of country-store conclave.
I had not thought to have such a thrill, yet a lump was in my throat when at the station old man Carpenter came hobbling up and a group of youngsters set up a cheer. It was no longer New York: it was my America, and I belonged to it.
I refused a trap and set out on foot, after cautioning them against telephoning my arrival. Hardly five years were gone, yet every detail of the green and white village was so definite in my memory that I noted with an intolerant resentment the new porch at Hamill’s and the glass front which had arrived at Sherwood’s corner grocery. All my boyhood was about me as I hurried on under the vaulted elms: Parson Miller’s home, where Ben and I had strung a tick-tack; the green picket fence where the fox terrier came fearfully out when we rattled our sticks; the side street where I had fought M’Ginnis; the hideous soldiers’ monument, where the snowball fights raged; the stone bridge to which I used to steal after supper to meet Jenny. The past lay at my side,—tranquil, unchanging, and undisturbed by the currents that whirled and struggled three thousand miles away, and in that moment I, too, felt a leaping joy in my heart to be in this America which had stood still in the breathless rush of things.
The lights were in the windows of the great hall as I turned the postern and came up the deep well of the evergreens, towards the low, rambling, red house that sat at the feet of the three drooping elms. I came slowly across the white hoar frost which coated the lawn, and the stiff gravel crackled as I stood under theporte-cochère, undecided, fearful of what I should find, steeling myself against the shock of disillusionment, and in my heart the cold repugnance of that one dreaded confrontation,—Letty, at the side of Ben. Yet, despite doubt and shrinking, I think that in my heart the deepest sentiment was a weak gladness to leave all the world behind and come back, as a tired boy comes back, into that sheltered warmth which is called home.
As I debated, with a sudden scurry and barking defiance, the dogs came tumbling over each other,—and the next moment old Dan was in my arms, while the two younger dogs, accepting me on faith, set up a furious chatter. Then, a rush of feet across the hall, the door flung open, and something soft and fluttering leaped to my neck;—home was a reality and Molly was crying my name! It was no longer the laughing tomboy of the bobbed hair and short skirts, but a woman whose eyes were on a level with mine. I took her by the shoulders and held her from me fiercely, and then caught her to me once more with a great thankfulness, for the eyes were straight and clear and the heart was the heart of my little sister.
My mother ran out, and it gave me a great thrill to see her face, for we had always stood in awe of her,—of her austerity, her brilliance and her measured mentality. To us she had always been one on whose public services we children should never intrude. I think she must have pictured me as stricken or mutilated, for I shall never forget the first incredulous look on her faceas she saw me, and then—the burst of tears. In all my life, in stress and disaster, I never remember to have seen her show such emotion.
“Be careful, with the Governor,” Molly whispered. “Don’t seem surprised. He’s in there.”
He was in the dusky library, sunk in a great leather chair, a drop-light at his side, and I noticed at once how thin and loose was the hand that lay on the magazine.
“Hello, Governor,” I said. “Dropped in to see you.”
He put out his hand and felt of me. He was gray, and the red blood had run from his face and left feeble veins under the drawn skin. The watery eyes came unsteadily up to mine and passed on to the faces of my mother and Molly, in a silent, terrifying interrogation. I guessed what was in his mind, even before hesaid,—
“Then, it’s closer than I thought.”
The mater stood it without flinching, but Molly swayed and went suddenly out of the room.
“Not much, Governor,” I said, in bluff cheerfulness. “We’re a tough lot. They tried hard to get me, but they couldn’t. Don’t get any such nonsense in your head. I came home because the doctors insisted upon my being fattened up before they’d let me back. Two months’ furlough.”
His fingers had closed over my wrist and, still holding it, he motioned me to be seated.
“Glad you’re here, Davy.”
“And lots to tell you, Governor. I’ve good news for you.”
“Alan?”
Now, the Governor had never been as quick as that, and I ascribe it to the uncanny prescience which comes to the very sick.
“Yes—Alan.” I drew out the cross from my pocket and laid it before him.
“Governor, you don’t need to be ashamed of Alan. He sent that to you, and told me to tell you how he’d won it.”
He looked up quickly at the mater, and his lip trembled so that we hurriedly changed the subject. I left him presently, with a promise to return, and went out into the hall, where Molly’s hand slid into mine.
“Aunt Janie?”
“Upstairs.”
“You expected me?”
“Mr. Brinsmade telephoned.”
“Who’s here?” I said suddenly. “Ben?”
“No. They’re coming at the end of the week.”
This news took a sudden dread from my heart. For that night, the night of my home-coming, I would not have to face that!
*****
The very old change little. Aunt Janie was the same fairy godmother that I remember as a mischievous youngster: tall, thin, a little stooped, soft-voiced, gentle, living in a more measured age, aloof from the momentum of the present. Strange, silent, devoted soul: she had come into the home, asking of life only the opportunity of serving others! She had brought us up, run the house, planted the trees which had grown to stature and let the rest of the world pass her by, faithful to the one and only love of her life, the memory of the Captain of the —th Massachusetts who had died at Antietam. His sword hangs above the fireplace and his portrait is in the locket at her throat. Each night, after the rest of the house has retired, she descends and closes the doors, examines the windows, ushers the dogs into the back hall, and extinguishes the lights. Nothing has ever been able to dissuade her from this last responsibility. We argued with her, we implored her, and, finally, we came toaccept with a feeling of restful gratitude the sound of her slippered step up the stairs, ushering in the night.
I am always to her about twelve years old and, I think, her favorite.
“I have prayed for you every night, Davy,” she said, when I put my arm around her. “You’vecome back.”
Possibly she had been dreaming by the fire of the other, who had not returned. I sat there, trying to answer her questions and finding it difficult. It is not easy to talk about the war. The point of view is so different. All that I have lived has been so inevitable, so part of the instincts of the man who fights, that I find it hard to comprehend the curiosity of those who look on it from the outside. To me still it is this other life that is incomprehensible and chaotic, and profoundly disturbing. When men must fight, it is better to forget.—With all the home memories thronging about me, sitting there with Aunt Janie’s hand in mine, I was thinking but one thing.
“In two months I shall return to it—the grim gamble—where those who stake their lives must lose in the end inevitably,—as all gamblers do.”