Heart's Kindred

“President Receives Telegrams from Eighteen Mass Meetings Demanding War.”

he read.

A rough voice cried out:

“Yes, and if there’d been anybody home in Washington, we’d had a meeting here!”

No one made any comment, and the man disappeared in the crowd.

“Ten Thousand Cut to Pieces in the Stelvio Pass.”

the bulletin went on.

“‘End of the War Not in Sight’ Lord of Admiralty says.

“Two Thousand Women March Sixty Miles in the Snow with Their Children.

“Seven Women Travel Together to Washington from Seven Warring Nations.”

The Inger went on down the street. The bulletin board was like a window opened abruptly upon another world, and closed again. Again the quiet and soft brilliance of Pennsylvania Avenue came to meet him. He turned and looked back at that dim, watchful dome.

“Nothin’ to stir a man up to enlist here,” he thought. “This town looks like the war’d been put to bed.”

He looked in at the door of the New Willard, saw the lobby and the corridor unaccountably filled with women, and retreated. On the street he looked down at himself in slow speculation.

“I donno but what I’d look better in some differ’nt clothes,” he thought, in surprise.

When he returned to the house, Lory had gone to bed, and he felt a vague disappointment. He had wanted to tell her about it. Yet, in the morning, when he tried to tell her, all that he found to say was:

“It’s a nice, neat town. Everybody minds their own business. I tell you, a fellow’d have his nerve to get drunk here.”

Against her aunt’s will, Lory was to begin her search for work that day. There were virtually no advertisements for help. She started early to find an employment agency. The Inger went with her, and when they were alone in the street, she turned to him.

“Don’t you leave me keep you here a minute,” she said earnestly. “You go when you’re ready – you know that.”

“Go where?” he said. “Where’ll I go?”

“Where you want to,” she answered. “I mean – I’ve hung on to you long enough.”

“You want me to go, don’t you?” he said. “Well – I should think you would.”

“I don’t want to drag on you – and spend your money,” she answered. “As soon as I can, I’ll pay you for my ticket – you know that – ”

She stopped, suddenly breathless.

“Oh,” she said, “I ain’t goin’ to try to tell you all you done for me. I guess you know that!”

“You look a-here,” he said, “I’m goin’ to sit by till I see you get some kind of a job – if a job’s what you want. Oh, don’t be afraid I’ll bother you. I’ll get a room somewheres – and keep track. And don’t you be afraid I’ll do much – not much– that I don’t want to do.”

They went to one or two of the agencies, and the Inger waited on the curb till she reappeared – sometimes after an hour of his waiting. And once as they went through a downtown street, he spoke in wonder:

“I never saw so many women in a place in my life,” he said. “Not even in Inch, in race track times. Did you notice?”

Lory sighed. “Yes,” she said, “I did. How do you s’pose they all got so much to see about, and such a lot o’ nice clothes?” she asked.

The day passed fruitlessly for her. The Inger found a room, which he rented without looking at it, and came back to the Folts’s for his things. Mrs. Folts insisted that he stay for supper, and when he had accepted he was aghast to find that, the evening being chilly, and Mr. Folts being kept late at the department that night, they were to sit at supper in the kitchen.

The old man on the settle was very quiet. He sat crouched in a corner, and save for those immovable eyes on them all, his presence would hardly have been noticed. The Inger had brought an evening paper, and occasionally he read from it snatches of the European news, but principally to keep his eyes from the old man.

“Ranks to be thrown open without age limit.”

he read.

“Rumored that young boys and old men will be drafted within a month.”

“There, pa, who says that ain’t your chance?” Mrs. Folts put in.

The old man lifted his head, and listened.

“War may drag on for another year,” the Inger continued, and the old man broke out with that sharp labored outpouring of guttural breath – once, twice, three times.

“War!” he said. “War. War. Who says I can go? Who says…”

He forgot what he had been saying, and searched for it piteously. He sprang up, and paced the four steps each way that his chain allowed him.

“There, there, pa! I’ll come feed you your supper now,” Mrs. Folts soothed him.

But while she fed him, she was called away to the door, and thrust the dish into Lory’s hand, and went. The old man, seeing the dish recede, burst into savage grunting. The Inger took the plate from Lory, and sat beside him on the settle.

The old man ate – the Inger never forgot how. With his eyes immovably fixed on the Inger’s face, he crept cautiously forward to meet the spoon, and when he had the contents safe, drew back like a dog to his corner, with those strange grunting breaths.

“Poor old fellow!” the Inger tried to say, softly – and the grunting mounted to a snarl.

When they had fed him, the Inger drew Lory out into the quiet of the little garden.

“You can’t stand that,” he said. “I won’t have you stand that. You’ve got to get some place an’ get out o’ this.”

She looked down the dusk of the garden, and he was surprised to see that she was smiling a little.

“You don’t know,” she said. “With that – or hard work – or anything else – I’ll always think it’s heaven to what I thought had to happen.”

“You mean Inch?” he comprehended.

“I mean Bunchy,” she said.

She moved down the path, and following her for a step or two, he noted the dress she was wearing, and the tan of her neck, and her arms in their thin sleeves.

“That’s the dress you had on that day in the desert,” he said suddenly.