The Best Short Stories of 1920 Part 53

"Poor little one," he said, "you call, but there is only old Jacques to come."

Claire Rene put out her hand and let it rest on the old man's head.

"Dear Jacques," she whispered, "always I will love you."

The sun was streaming through the tiny house the next morning. Jacques had left Claire Rene sitting in the warm light of the open doorway while he went to bring wood from the forest. There were no birds singing from the leafless trees, but Claire Rene saw a sparrow hopping about on the bright brown earth of the garden patch. She was wis.h.i.+ng she had a great piece of white fat to hang out on a tree for the bird's winter food; wis.h.i.+ng there were crumbs to leave on the window ledge, as grand'mere used to do.

She was wis.h.i.+ng so hard about so many things that she failed to see three men coming out of the forest. They were tall and straight and fair, and their eyes were as blue as the sky above their heads. Their clothes were the color of pale brown sand and on their heads were jaunty caps of the selfsame color.

Jacques was with them; he was making a great many motions with his hands. They were all walking very slowly and talking very fast.

As they neared the house Jacques pointed to Claire Rene, and the three strange men held back. Jacques came slowly forward. The sound of his step on the hard ground interrupted Claire Rene's reverie; she looked up and around. She saw the three men standing at attention beyond the garden gate.

She threw back the heavy cloak wrapped about her; the thin folds of her calico dress hung limply from her sunken shoulders, and above the wasted child body the sun spun circles of gold in her tangled hair. She made a slight quivering start toward Jacques, which pa.s.sed into a rigid stare toward the three figures beyond.

She was unaware when Jacques put a caressing, supporting arm about her and said: "Listen, my child."

The three men were coming forward. One of them had a letter in his hand.

With kind eyes and bared heads they stood before the straining gaze of Claire Rene.

"The letter is for you, ma pet.i.te." Jacques voice was infinitely tender; the added pressure of his arm made Claire Rene conscious of his presence; she suddenly clung to him and buried her face in his coat sleeve. He went on to say: "The letter is for Claire Rene--from the 'Great Man from America'!"

The tangled head shook in the angle of his arm. Claire Rene was crying.

The tallest of the three men handed the letter to Jacques; he wiped his eyes and turned his head away. The others s.h.i.+fted in position and tightly folded their arms across their broad chests.

Jacques read:

_To Mademoiselle Claire Rene_: The soil of France now covers the bodies of your three brothers, Clement and Fernand and Alphonse Populet. The soil of France covers the Croix de Guerre upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The sons of France, and of America, hold forever in their hearts the memory of their honor. We are all one family now--France and America--and so I send to you three brothers--not in place of, but in the stead of those others. They come to give you love and service in the name of America.

Claire Rene slowly moved apart from Jacques. She stood alone with head erect and taut arms by her sides. She hesitated a moment, then came forward and held out her hands.

"Bonjour, messieurs," she said.

The tallest of the three men covered her hands with his own. "Little friend," he said, "we can't make you forget your brothers; we want to help you remember them. We want to do some of the things for you that they used to do, and we want you to do a lot of things for us. We are pretty big, it is true, but we need a little girl like you to sort of keep us in order. We want to take you right along with us this very day--to a place where we can care for you, and----"

But Claire Rene slipped with electric swiftness to Jacques' side; from his sheltering arm she made declaration: "Never! I stay here with Jacques--always." Then struggling against emotion she added with finality: "I thank you, messieurs."

The tall man lingered with his thoughts a moment before he spoke; he was standing close to Claire Rene and made as though to lay his hand upon her hair, but drew back and said that they were all pretty good cooks and that they were very, very hungry.

At this Claire Rene threw a frightened, wistful glance at Jacques.

The tall man interrupted hastily. He said they had brought food with them, and would she allow them to prepare it?

Claire Rene nodded her head; her eyes looked beyond her questioner--out into the lonely forest.

Jacques presently lifted her into his arms and carried her within the house. With reverence he placed her in grand'mere's chair by the window.

Her ears were filled with distant echoes; her sight was blurred; speech had gone from her lips. As through a dark curtain she saw the figures moving about the room; far away she heard the clatter and the talk and sometimes laughter.

After a long time Jacques came and held some steaming coffee to her lips. He made her drink and drink again; a pink flush crept into her cheeks; shyly she met the glances from the eyes of those three fair, kind faces. Then her own eyes filled with tears and she lowered her head.

The tallest of the three men came behind her chair and spoke gently, close to her ear: "Our great and good commander, who sent us here, will be very unhappy if you do not come. You see, he wanted the sister of Clement and Fernand and Alphonse Populet to be a sister to some of his own boys. It would help us a great deal, you know; we're pretty lonely too--sometimes."

The collaboration in the faces of his friends seemed to put an instant end to his effort and, as if an unspoken command were given, they all sat down and made a prompt finish to the meal.

With no word on her lips Claire Rene watched from Grand'mere's chair by the window. About her, figures moved like dim marionettes; they cleared the table; they polished the copper pans; they sat in the chimney corner and puffed blue circles of smoke above their heads.

Dimly she saw all this, but clearly she saw the inside of a great man's mind. She, Claire Rene, had work to do; she was called--for France!

Long, slanting shadows from the sinking sun were streaking the wall of the whitewashed room with slender, forklike fingers. Jacques and the three men were knotted in talk beside the ruddy fire glow. Claire Rene braced herself with a sharp sigh. No soldier ever went into battle with a more self-made courage than hers.

Unseen, unnoticed, noiselessly she made her pilgrimage across the room.

In the dark closet, under the stairs, she reached for the wreaths. With quick, short breath she gathered them in her arms. One moment she lowered her head while her lips touched the faded crackling flowers. The compact was sealed; her sacrifice was ready.

In that att.i.tude she pa.s.sed swiftly within the circle about the fireplace. She came like a spirit of Peace with the wreaths in her arms.

Over and above the serenity in her face there dawned a joyous expectancy. Yes; she could trust les Americains!

On each reverent, bowed head she placed her wreath; and when she had finished, without tremor in her voice she said: "My brothers!"

FOOTNOTE:

[17] Copyright, 1919, by The Curtis Publis.h.i.+ng Company. Copyright, 1921, by Ethel Dodd Thomas.

THE ROMAN BATH[18]

#By# JOHN T. WHEELWRIGHT

From _Scribner's Magazine_

Ralph Tuckerman had landed that day in Liverpool after a stormy winter voyage, his first across the Atlantic. The s.h.i.+p had slowly come up the Mersey in a fog, and the special boat train had dashed through the same dense atmosphere to the home of fogs and soot, London, and in the whole journey to his hotel the young American had seen nothing of the mother country but telegraph-poles scudding through opacity on the railway journey, and in London the loom of buildings and lights dimly red through the fog.

Although he had no acquaintances among the millions of dwellers in the city, he did not feel lonely in the comfortable coffee room of his hotel, where a cannel-coal fire flickered. The air of the room was surcharged with pungent fumes of the coal smoke which had blackened the walls and ceilings, and had converted the once brilliant red of a Turkey carpet into a dingy brown, but the young American would not have had the air less laden with the characteristic odor of London, or the carpet and walls less dingy if he had had a magician's wand.

The concept of a hotel in his native city of Chicago was a steel structure of many stories, brilliantly lighted and decorated, supplied with a lightning elevator service running through the polished marble halls which swooned in a tropical atmosphere of steam heat emanating from silvered radiators. So it was no wonder that the young man felt more at home in this inn in old London than he had ever felt in an American caravansary.

The shabby waiter who had served him at dinner appeared to him to be a true representation of the serving-man who had eaten most of David Copperfield's chops, and drained the little boy's half pint of port when he went up to school. It may be that Tuckerman's age protected him from any such invasion of his viands, but in justice to the serving-man it seems probable that he would have cut off his right hand rather than been disrespectful to a guest at dinner.

After the cloth was removed, Tuckerman ordered a half-pint decanter of port out of regard for the memory of d.i.c.kens, and, sipping it, looked about with admiration at the room with its dark old panels. Comfortable as he felt, after his dinner, he could not help regretting that he had not had with him his old friends Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and Traddles to share his enjoyment--the guests whom Copperfield entertained when "Mr.

Micawber with more s.h.i.+rt collar than usual and a new ribbon to his eyegla.s.s, Mrs. Micawber with a cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel, Traddles carrying the parcel and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm"

arrived at David's lodgings and were so delightfully entertained. He wished that he could see "Micawber's face s.h.i.+ning through a thin cloud of delicate fumes of punch," so that at the end of the evening Mr. and Mrs. Micawber would feel that they could not "have enjoyed a feast more if they had sold a bed to pay for it."

These cheery spirits seemed to come back to him from the charming paradise where they live to delight the world for all time, and it seemed to him that he could distinctly hear Mr. Micawber saying: "We twa have rin about the brae, And pu'd the gowans fine," observing as he quoted: "I am not exactly aware what gowans may be, but I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them if it had been possible."

His modest modic.u.m of port would have seemed a poor subst.i.tute to the congenial Micawber for the punch.