And you sit alone....’
“Well! we’re not sitting alone, so that’s more sentimental1 than suitable.” Sara Davenport broke off short in the low song which she had started, looking away over the yellow cantonments of broad Camp Evens, turned to fine gold by the sun’s last flaming ray.
“And I’m sure it’s been anything but a perfect day! What about the poor blighter, and his matches?” struck in her officer-brother, who, seated edgeways upon the railing of the lofty balcony surrounding the camp Hostess House, half-faced the four girls who had been his guests at the illuminated2 “smoke party” in Gas Valley.
At a little distance, absorbed in the sunset effects upon the burnished3 rows of elevated barracks brooding like gilded4 dove-cots, were Olive’s father, Colonel Deering, and a much-loved spinster-cousin, who, during the morning, had been calling upon an old friend, an officer attached to Headquarters Troop.
“The Blighter! Oh! he’s not outmatched yet,” laughed Olive. “Didn’t--didn’t the last word from the base hospital proclaim that he was getting better?”
“Anyhow, we could forgive him,” murmured Arline half under her breath, in quivering rainbowed speech, “because here we’ve been, for the past year or two, trying to live up to the hardy5 Minute-Girl program, hiking so many hours a week, sleeping out, though at first we ‘caved’ before a cow-bell,”--a double rainbow, this, shedding a reflection of laughter--“and now--now this morning proves that one of our number, at least, could be truly an Emergency Girl!”
She cast a moved look at Olive.
“Ah, yes!” Sesooā shot an amused glance through her half-closed lashes--pretty eyelashes they were, which began by being dark and, shading to amber6, now stole gold tips from the sunset--a peculiarity7 rather typical of Sara herself, and of her speech at the moment, which showed that she was determined8 that any allusion9 to the morning should be tipped off with lightness. “Ah, yes! battling with gas is one thing, but--for Olive--battling with grass and grubs in a war-garden may be quite another! Wait till it comes to fighting weeds an’ witch-grass. How much--how much of the dauntless Emergency Girl will be on deck then, I wonder, in our oasis10 by the seashore?”
“Oh! she’ll be there--a hundred per cent of her!” protested the Torch Bearer, her courage rising to a treble trill.
“Humph! Your voice sounds as if you had just eaten a canary-bird, my dear--and it was only squab that we had for dinner!” merrily mocked the Flame. “But will--will the note be as sweet when, on some broiling11 hot morning in July or August, the bugle12 sounds Fatigue13 on the edge of those white sand-dunes14, where we’re going to camp? And it’s ‘Fall in for work in the field!’ amid the potato-rows on the one semi-green hill that would grow a ‘tater’ within a mile of us! A case of ‘Joan of Arc, they are calling you! Lead your comrades to the field!’ ... Oh! you should have seen Olive in silver-scaled armor, as the Maid of France, with her holy lance uplifted, in some tableaux15 that we gave for the benefit of the Red Cross. She did make a hit!”
Sara’s eyelashes twinkled in the direction of her brother. He shifted his edgy16 position a little on the railing. His color rose slightly as he glanced towards the modern Joan, a girl like a white orchid17, whose dark eyes and hair, with the capacity for spiritual fervor18 in her face, offered rare material for such an impersonation. But he did not answer.
Perhaps, when he did go over, this keen-eyed young officer of the fiery19 mettle20, nicknamed in camp O Pips, or Observation Post, from the unerring alertness in him which made him come down hard upon a blunder--he whose temper exploded like a whiz-bang--the picture on which he would dwell oftenest, of the oldest girl in this group, would, he felt, outshine every other.
It would show her kneeling by a gassed soldier, with the flame and smoke of the Torch Bearer’s emblem21 upon her hat seeming especially designed to fight that other hateful yellow smoke and flame rolling away from her to leeward--the one the type of ideality that would finally win out over the baleful reality of the other, and leave none but the flame of brotherhood22, with its sacred smoke of service, burning in the soul of man.
It was the ideal for which the soldier himself was going over to fight--going “shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace”--though humanly rough-shod!
He pulled himself together.
“And so you’re going to sport a war-garden on this jumping-off spot that you’re bound for next summer, to camp out during July and August on the edge of those white sand-dunes. I thought nothing could flourish there but sand-snails an’ seals, with--with, perhaps, this summer, an occasional submarine thrown in,” he laughingly remarked. “Aren’t you afraid that if you’re out on the water at all, a sub may come to the surface and fire a tin fish at you?”
“Oh! catch her wasting a torpedo23 on us when she’d have nothing to hit but my little blunt-nosed dory that you gave me, Iver; or Little Owl’s Indian canoe, which she mends with rosin when it sucks in water like a thirsty cow!” Sara, the lieutenant24’s sister, burst into a laugh, looking sidewise at Ko-ko-ko--the Camp Fire Owlet--otherwise Lilia Kemp.
“Well, if it does leak a little, it’s a ‘slick bit of birch-bark,’ for all that, as Captain Andy says.” Lilia chuckled25. “You’re all just envious26 of my genuine Indian canoe, brought by my father from Oldtown, Maine, and built by an Indian named Nodolinat--canoe-maker. I’m thinking of changing my Camp Fire name to Dolina, which has something to do with a canoe, either making or mending it, see?”
“Marring it, you mean! It’s a funny-looking craft when you have the bottom all plastered over with sticky rosin,” challenged Sara. “Oh, besides dory and birch-shell, I suppose we’ll have our old reliable, the broad, flat-bottomed camp skiff, which Captain Andy calls a ‘tender old wagon,’” laughingly.
“Captain Andy! Are you going to have that old king-pin with you again, shouldering the safety of a dozen girls or more? I don’t envy him.” The soldier smiled.
“Now, you do! You know you do! We can’t have him all the time. War got him back into active service. He’s been ‘skippering’ a coaster carrying lumber27 from some part of Maine round to the Essex shipyards,” said Arline. “Wasn’t that it, Olive? You had a letter from him.”
“Yes, but lately he had to give it up because of his lameness28, and is doing his ‘bit’ in other directions,” replied Blue Heron, her dark eyes gazing off into the last rays of the sunset. “You know those country shipbuilding yards aren’t so very far from where we’re going to camp on the white Ipswich beach. By the bye,”--laughter trickling29 through her speech like sunlit water through a sieve--“by the bye, do you all know who’s going to work in those shipyards, this coming summer, if they draft him for labor30? Why, my cousin, Atty Middleton Atwell!”
“Atwood Atwell, of Atwood and Atwell, city bankers! What! What! That young sprig from Nobility Hill? I beg your pardon!” The soldier, slipping off his perch31, smiled apologetically at Olive, whose girlhood had blossomed in the same luxuriant soil of ancestral wealth. “Why! that kid is worth a million or two in his own right. And his great-grandfather--plus a couple more ‘greats’--signed the Declaration, eh?”
“Is--isn’t that the very reason why he should do his part where it’s most needed, as he’s too young to go across?” The oldest girl’s eyes twinkled challengingly. “Take my other cousin, Clayton Forrest; he’s not twenty-one yet! War was no sooner declared than off he went, hotfoot, and enlisted32 in the local infantry33 company being raised in his little town--about fifty young men from his father’s big loom-works signing up with him. And Clay--up to this, Clay was never a ‘grind,’” laughingly, “any more than--than Atwood was!”
“Good enough! And you have two more cousins in the navy, haven34’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, she has! Why, it was with one of them, Admiral Haven Warde’s son, that Olive went down in a submarine; actually--actually submerged! Think of it!” put in the Rainbow--Arline--again, rosy35 now with vicarious excitement, as if the wonderful experience for one of their number touched her with an after-glow. “That--that’s what it means to be daughter of a steel king who’s connected with government shipbuilding yards! Ensign Warde is Junior Aide to the Commandant of the Miles River Navy Yard.”
“And--and it was off there that you--dove! Jove! that was an experience. What did it feel like?” The soldier’s eyes flashed curiously36.
“Awfully still an’ tense while we were going down--just about half a minute, you know--with the big engines all stopped and only the electric motors going! And the swish of the water against the sub’s side! I closed my eyes and felt like a shell-fish. But when I opened them again on the bottom, oh! it was a fairy palace down there, under the sea--such bright electric lights glittering on wheels and pipes and I don’t know what not; a--a regular miracle-world of machinery,” in awed37 girlish tones.
“I suppose so, every inch--about--crammed full of mechanical power, except the forward quarters, where the officers slept!” suggested the lieutenant.
“Yes, and made toast and tea on a little electric contrivance attached to the shining switchboard that controlled the dynamos,” supplemented the favored one who had dived to sea-nymph’s regions in a steel shell, internally so radiant, so charged with magical power that it might make Neptune38 himself feel outclassed. “I--I was a fish again when we came to the surface once more, broke water, and climbed up into the conning-tower, to look through the periscope39’s eye! It seemed such a strange dream-world that I saw outside, not one bit familiar; either very clear and shining and remote, or with waves and boats--and trees along the shore--looming unnaturally40 large and frowning, according as the telescope was adjusted. Oh-h! I’m sure I was a nice little flounder or haddock then,” merrily, “taking a peep at the upper world.”
“You came near ‘floundering’ out--being shot out, rather--through the mouth of the conning-tower into the gray pulpit, or superstructure, where you might have preached a sermon to the fishes on power, if you hadn’t been killed; that was through--gracious!--through one tiny misstep on an automatic lever, like a sleeping tiger. The Junior Aide, who could control the beast, saved you just in time, eh?” prompted Sara, but abruptly41 swallowed her chaff42 as she caught her soldier-brother’s eye.
She knew he was envying that Junior Aide, the young naval43 ensign, with the gold cord drooping44 from his left shoulder, thinking that no girl as attractive as Olive--as game in an emergency, too--should have quite so many heroic cousins.
What chance, in her memory, could an ordinary peppery lieutenant in an infantry company have against them--a lieutenant who had let his rash temper betray him into prematurely45 “skinning” a sergeant46?
“I guess I was the blighter myself to-day--or as much of a ‘blight’ as that poor ‘doughboy’ with the matches--for letting temper, headlong anger, gas me. That little flame of a sister of mine, Sara, and I, we have the same sort of ‘pull-the-pin-and-see-me-explode’ temper,” he murmured heavily later, this thought rankling47, in the ear of the oldest girl, who had looked into dreamland through the rounded eye of a periscope, when her companions had withdrawn48 to another corner of the lofty balcony for a better view of the sunset.
“Oh! don’t talk of ‘blights!’” she gasped49 laughingly. “I’m afraid that ‘bothering bugs’ and plant mildew50 won’t be in it with me for--for a ‘hoodoo’ when it comes to our working steadily51 three hours a day, weather permitting, in that green oasis of a war-garden amid the sandy desert of the white dunes, when we’re camping out, the coming summer! And yet I--I was the first to volunteer when the president of the Clevedon County Farm Bureau addressed all the Camp Fires of our city a week ago, and called for recruits for just that very thing. If I don’t stick to my pledge the other girls won’t. And we know America has got to be the ‘world’s pantry.’ But, O dear! give me knitting, sewing, painting war-posters, posing, anything else, from morning till night, except weeding an’ hoeing when the sun’s hot and--and one’s back feels as crooked52 as--as one of those old French streets that the boys write home about!”
Blue Heron straightened her long, girlish spine53 with humorous apprehension54. She was a tall girl, the white parting on the right side of her dark little head being on a level with the soldier’s cheek-bone, if they were both standing55.
“Oh! you’ll carry on.” He smiled at her. “It’s a good line; hold it!”
“As you will when you repel56 an attack, or--or go over the top!... When d’you suppose you’ll be--starting--across?”
“No knowing! At any minute, perhaps! But--but, if you should be around here a week from to-day, you may see me, still on this side, undergoing gas initiation57--getting my medicine down in the trenches58 at the hands of the Gas Defense59 Division, Chemical Warfare60 Service. Certainly those young chemists have a witch’s imagination in the horrors they put over on us!” The soldier laughed.
“And they hold their classes every Thursday. I expect to be in the neighborhood, anyway, because father will. And Sara, you know, is staying with me. The other girls go back to the city to-morrow, to be in time for a ceremonial meeting of our Camp Fire Group, at which we’re going to have a novel initiation of our own--initiate, as a novice61, that is, a foreign-born Camp Fire Sister, whom we’ve adopted for nine months, little Flamina Miola, born in Italy! I’m teaching her one or two patriotic62 poems--along with our special ritual--and you should hear her begin on:
“’Merica’s de lan’ we lova.
Oh, granda lan’ so free,
An’ school-a-mate, wherto I go,
Dis is de Flag fora me!”
“Good!”
“I chose her name for her, too: Nébis, A Green Leaf. Isn’t that pretty? She’s going to camp out with us this summer.”
“Green Leaf for Little Italy! It is poetic63. I hope you’ll make it a laurel leaf. Well! I guess that sometimes, over there, when a fellow misses some of the things that--that make life hum, you know; when I’m ‘gooing’ up my gas-mask or, maybe, drawing pictures with my ‘toothpick’ (bayonet) in the mud, I’ll think of you Camp Fire Girls. You certainly have a corner on the poetic--fringes, beads64, ceremonies--and it only seems to hearten you to meet what’s rough--ugly.”
“That’s our outdoor life,” half whispered Olive. “We get so many new sensations, come so near to--to the heart of things that we----Why! sometimes I,”--she caught her breath in a little low gush65 of confidence--“I feel as if it were only the fag-end of me that was shut up in--in the five feet eight or nine of flesh and blood--bloomers and blouse--called Olive.” The low girlish voice soared softly upon the last word as to a height from which the girlish soul looked out upon a great Adventure.
“You mean that you get a real glimpse into unseen things--spiritual things!” The soldier’s voice was low too--low and thrilled. “Well, since we are wading66 into the deep things, I may say to as much of Olive as is left in the fetching jersey67 suit beside me now, that ours is a rough game, but somehow, as it were, I have come nearer--nearer to God since I volunteered.... I wish it could help me to get the better of a--whiz-bang temper.”
The Torch Bearer’s eyes were wet. So were the soldier’s. The last word had been said. All she could do was to put out a tremulous little hand and touch his understandingly. He wanted very much to stoop and kiss it. But he didn’t. For he remembered that, though he wore his Plattsburg shoulder-bars, yet they were hardly more than Boy and Girl. And up to the threshold of this unifying68 war-time their lives had not run in parallel channels, as did that of the Junior Aide, who was an admiral’s son, for instance.
So he only covered the girlish hand warmly with his own--held it nested for a moment as that of a comrade with whom one has shared the secret trail, the rainbow trail, that leads into the unseen.
And he hid another, and very special, picture away in his soldier’s heart to brighten those moments when, riding endless miles on a troop train, “hitting the hay” at midnight or vegetating69 in mud until he felt himself sprouting70, he might miss those things which make life hum.
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1
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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4
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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11
broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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12
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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15
tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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edgy
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| adj.不安的；易怒的 | |
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orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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torpedo
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| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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25
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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lameness
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| n. 跛, 瘸, 残废 | |
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trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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periscope
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| n. 潜望镜 | |
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40
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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41
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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42
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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43
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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44
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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45
prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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46
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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47
rankling
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| v.（使）痛苦不已，（使）怨恨不已( rankle的现在分词 ) | |
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48
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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49
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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50
mildew
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| n.发霉；v.（使）发霉 | |
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51
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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52
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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53
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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54
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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55
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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56
repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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57
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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58
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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59
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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60
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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61
novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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62
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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63
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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64
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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65
gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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66
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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67
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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68
unifying
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| 使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一 | |
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69
vegetating
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| v.过单调呆板的生活( vegetate的现在分词 )；植物似地生长；（瘤、疣等）长大 | |
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70
sprouting
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| v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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