Part 23 (1/2)
CHAPTER X
It was three days later that Pen came home one evening, alert of step, bright-eyed, his countenance beaming with satisfaction and delight.
”Well, mother,” he cried as he entered the house; ”it's settled. I'm going!”
She looked up in surprise and alarm.
”What's settled, Pen? Where are you going?”
”I'm going to war.”
She dropped the work at which she had been busy and sat down weakly in a chair by her dining-room table. He went to her and laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder.
”Pardon me, mother!” he continued, ”I didn't mean to frighten you, but I'm so happy over it.”
She looked up into his face.
”To war, Pen? What war?”
”The big war, mother. The war in France. Do you remember the other night when I told you I had an idea?”
”Yes, I remember.”
”Well, that was it. It occurred to me, then, that if I couldn't fight for my own country, under my own flag, I would fight for those other countries, under their flags. They are making a desperate and a splendid war to uphold the rights of civilized nations.”
He stood there, erect, manly, resolute, his face lighted with the glow of his enthusiasm. She could but admire him, even though her heart sank under the weight of his announced purpose. Many times, of an evening, they had talked together of the mighty conflict in Europe.
From the very first Pen's sympathies had been with France and her Allies. He could not get over denouncing the swiftness and savagery of the raid into Belgium, the wanton destruction of her cities and her monuments of art, the hards.h.i.+ps and brutalities imposed upon her people. The Bryce report, with its details of outrage and crime, stirred his nature to its depths. The tragedy of the _Lusitania_ filled him with indignation and horror. Now, suddenly, had come the desire and the opportunity to fight with those peoples who were struggling to save their ideals from destruction.
”I'm going to Canada,” he continued, ”to enlist in the American Legion. They say hundreds and thousands of young men from the United States who are willing to fight under the Union Jack, have gone up into Canada for training and are this very minute facing the gray coats of the German enemy in northern France.”
”But, Pen,” she protested, ”this is such a horrible war. The soldiers live in the muddiest, foulest kinds of trenches. They kill each other with gases and blazing oil. They slaughter each other by thousands with guns that go by machinery. It's simply terrible!”
”I know, mother. It's modern warfare. It's up to date. It's no pink tea as some one has said. But the more awful it is the sooner it'll be over, and the more credit there'll be to us who fight in it.”
”And you'll be so far away.”
She looked up at him, pale-faced, with appealing eyes. He knew how uncontrollably she shrank from the thought of losing him in this wild vortex of savagery. He patted her cheek tenderly.
”But you'll be a good patriot,” he said, ”and let me go. It's my duty to fight, and it's your duty to let me fight. There isn't any doubt about that. Besides, this isn't really France's war nor England's war any more than it is our war, or any more than it is the war of any country that wants to maintain the ideals of modern civilization. I shall be serving my country almost the same as though I were fighting under the Stars and Stripes. And I'll be answering in the only way it's possible for me to answer, those people who have been charging me with disloyalty to the flag. Oh, I must show you what Grandfather Butler says. He made a speech yesterday at the flag-raising at Chestnut Valley, and it's all in the Lowbridge _Citizen_ this morning.
Listen! Here's the way he winds up.”
He drew a newspaper from his pocket and read:
”'So, fellow citizens, let me predict that before this great war shall come to an end the Stars and Stripes will wave over every battlefield in Europe. Sooner or later we must enter the conflict; and the sooner the better. For it's our war. It's the war of every country that loves liberty and justice. Up to this moment the Allies have been fighting for the freedom of the world, your freedom and mine, my friends, as well as their own. It is high time the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, impelled by the patriotic ardor of our thinking citizens, declared the enemies of England and France to be our enemies, and joined hands with those heroic countries to stamp out forever the teutonic menace to liberty and civilization. In the meantime I say to the red-blooded youth of America: Glory awaits you on the war-scarred fields of France. Go forth! There is no barrier in the way. Remember that when the ragged troops of Was.h.i.+ngton were locked in a death-grip with the red-coated soldiers of King George, Lafayette, Rochambeau and de Gra.s.se came to our aid with six and twenty thousand of the bravest sons of France. It is your turn now to spring to the aid of this stricken land and prove that you are worthy descendants of the grateful patriots of old.'”
Pen finished his reading and laid down the paper. There had been a tremor in his voice at the end, and his eyes were wet.
”That's grandfather,” he said, ”all over. I knew he'd feel that way about it. I had decided to go before I read that speech. Now I couldn't stay at home if I tried. I'm his grandson yet, mother, and I shall answer his call to arms.”