The Boy Grew Older Part 20

"The Boche--the German--he comes sometime but I am not afraid. You know, Peter, now I know that there is the G.o.d. It is something. I cannot tell you just what. But he is smart. When the others did not know about the voice it was that I remembered. He would know. If there was n.o.body else he would be smart enough. He is not silly. Nothing can happen to Maria Algarez."

"Gosh," said Peter, abashed and puzzled by this outburst, "I hope he feels the same way about me. Most of the last three years I've been needing him more than you do."

Maria's rapt expression faded. "I am the pig. All the time I talk about myself. And you, you, Peter, what is it you do? You are the officer, that I know, but captain, colonel, general that I do not know."

"I see I've got a kick coming, too. Where have you been hiding? I'm not an officer. I'm a war correspondent. If you can say it I guess I can.

Any way I will. I'm the best war correspondent in the world," Peter grinned. "That's not such a joke either. Maybe I am. Didn't you ever hear of my book--'Lafayette, Nous Voila?' All the rest of it's English.

It means 'Lafayette, We're Here.' I forgot you'd know that. They've sold seventy-five thousand copies. Didn't you ever hear of it?"

"No, I have not heard. I think you are still the newspaper man."

"Well, a war correspondent's a sort of a newspaper man, only more so.

I'm still on the Bulletin. That was my paper years ago when--when we knew each other."

Maria was almost startled. "The boy," she said suddenly. "Your boy, how is he? He is well? He is big? What is it that you call him?"

"Yes," said Peter, "bigger than I know, I guess. I haven't seen him for almost three years. His name is Peter Neale, Jr."

"But you hear from him? He writes? What is it he says?"

"Well, as a matter of fact I just got a letter from him today. There isn't anything much in it. I don't know whether you'd be interested.

It's just about stuff he's doing in school."

"Yes, I want to know what it is he learns. Here, let me see?"

Peter fumbled in his pocket and found Pat's letter.

"Maybe I'd better read it you. Handwriting is one of the things they haven't taught him. I don't believe you could make out his writing."

He picked up the letter and began, "'Dear Peter---- '

"'Peter,' it is so he calls you?"

"Yes 'father' sounds terribly formal to me and I don't want to be 'pop'

or 'dad' or anything like that. 'Peter' seems closer. Before this war Pat and I were pretty chummy."

Maria settled back and Peter went on with the letter.

"'Perhaps, I didn't tell you about my joining the fraternity here last month. It's called Alpha Kappa Phi. The letters stand for Greek words which are secret and mean friends and brothers or maybe it's brothers and friends. And of course the initiation is secret, but I guess it won't be any harm if I tell you about it. I had to report at the fraternity house in the afternoon and they took me down in the cellar and put me in a coffin. It wasn't really a coffin, but a big packing case but we tell the fellows that come in that it's a coffin and that scares the life out of some of them. I wasn't scared any, but it got pretty tiresome lying around all afternoon. In the evening they took me out and told me they were going to put the initials of the fraternity on my chest. They pretended to be heating up an iron. There was a long speech which went with this and it is quite beautiful. While they were pretending to heat up the irons they burned something, meat I guess, and it made an awful smell. They did make me a little nervous but when they got around to cutting the initials in my chest it was just an electric battery they had and they ran the current over my chest. It hurt a little, but I knew they weren't really cutting initials and so I didn't mind. After that they took a chemical called lunar caustic and traced out Alpha Kappa Phi on my chest. It didn't do anything just then, but the next day it turned all black. Every time I took a shower in the gym all the younger kids stared at me. One asked me what I got on my chest and I said maybe I fell down in some mud. After I was branded they took me up some stairs and down some more. I was still blindfolded, you know.

They said to me, "You must jump the last fifteen steps." Well, I jumped and it was just one step and it nearly ruined me. Then there were some more things like having to stand on your head and sing the first verse of the school song. They helped you a little by holding up your feet.

And you had to get down on the floor and scramble like an egg. Then there was something very impressive. They took the bandage off and I was standing just in front of a skull. A man all in white read out about the secrets of the society. It was quite beautiful but I can't remember enough to tell you. Just when he came where it said what would happen to any neophyte who divulged aught on the sacred scroll of Alpha Kappa Phi, a great big tongue of flame shot out of the mouth of the skull. They do it by pinching the end of a piece of gas pipe and putting it in the mouth of the skull and when you turn on the gas the thing shoots out.

That was about all except all of us being stood up against a wall and hitting us in the tail with tennis b.a.l.l.s. Of course there was supper finally and I shook hands with all the brothers and they said most of them get scared a lot more than I did. We've put in a couple of lots since I got in and I certainly got square with them for what they did to me. I suppose you read in the paper about my kicking a goal from the thirty-three yard line and winning the game from the Columbia freshmen.'"

There was a good deal more about the game, almost a complete play by play account, but Peter, peeking over the edge of the letter saw that Maria was yawning. He just put in a "With love--Pat," and stopped in the middle of a paragraph.

"He is nice. I think he is like you," she said. "How old is he, Peter?"

"Just about seventeen."

"Like you he will be the writer for the Bulletin? Is it so that you want it?"

"Yes, I've set my heart on that."

"It is good. He knows about the baseball that you know and all your sport. Is he big too like you, Peter?"

"I guess he must be by now. He sent me a picture. It's an enlargement of a snapshot. Just a head like one of these motion picture closeups."

Maria held out her hand casually. "Let me see."

She took the picture under a lamp and looked closely. For a full minute or more Maria held the picture and stared at it. She said nothing, but Peter was conscious in some way that the casual mood had gone. He could tell that she was enormously moved. He did not even dare break in upon her silence. Still looking at the picture Maria whispered, "He is my son. It is my nose. It is my nose exactly."

"Yes," said Peter, in a matter of fact way, "there is quite a resemblance."

Maria waved her left hand impatiently. "No, no, it is not a resemblance.

The rest does not look alike. It is the nose. That is not a resemblance.

It is the same. It is my nose. Here you see," she slapped the bridge of her nose violently, "so it would be if the bone it had been broken. You see in the picture of my son it is the break. The same. The hook in the nose. But it is not broken. Never it has not been?"

"Why, no," said Peter, "his nose has always been like that."

"Yes, yes, it is from me he has it. Yes, and from the G.o.d. Do you not know why it is the break in the nose?"

"Well, he's got to have some kind of a nose I suppose."

"But this kind, Peter, it is for just one thing. It marks him like those foolish letters on his chest in the letter. You cannot read the marking.

I can read it for you. It says singer, singer, singer. It must be. The singing nose it is always so. Sometimes it is not so much. But this is my nose. It says more than singer. It says great singer."

"Well," said Peter somewhat impatient at the fervency of Maria, "he says in his letter that he sang the first verse of the school song standing on his head. That must have been hard."

"Yes," replied Maria fiercely, "he is standing on his head. He writes to you only foolishness. It is about skulls and jumping steps. And about the sport. And there was more. I know you did not read it all. You have made him to stand on his head. They have made him. He lives only for foolishness. The mark is there but first there must be work. Years of work. He is not a child to jump over steps. He must come with me to the Argentine."

"Whoa," cried Peter. "We can't let a nose run away with us. Just stop and think a minute. It's impossible for Pat to go to Argentine with you.

In a year or so he may be old enough to go into the army. It would look as if he was running away."

Peter's attempt at a conciliatory speech was conspicuously a failure.

"The army! The war!" said Maria between clenched teeth. "That is the most silly of all. Better he should stay with the good brothers and jump down the steps. My G.o.d! Peter, you won't, you can't let him go to the war. If there was in him not one note of music you would not let him. He is a boy. He is something alive. And don't you understand? I think it is in him the fire. They won't kill him. This I will not let."

"All right, but if the war goes on and he comes of age what can anybody do about it?"

"I have much money, Peter. It can be all spent to save him if there is the need."

"Money, I've got money too. Lots of it. That's all foolishness. It won't work."

"Is it that you want him to go?"

"d.a.m.n you," said Peter, almost sobbing in his anger, "you mustn't say things like that. He's my son too. He was my son when you ran away and left him. I've seen war. I've got lately so I see it all from one angle.

Any time our lines go forward I think of them fighting for just one thing, fighting to keep Pat out of it. You get all excited and worked up about a nose in a photograph. A picture of a boy you don't even know.

I've wheeled him in the park. I saw him walk the first time. I'm not looking to save him because he's some kind of a genius. I want him to live because he's Pat."