The White Shield

In Reflected Glory

Wheels! Wheels! Wheels! The boulevards were full of them, from the glistening up-to-date mount, back to the antiquated '91 model with its hard tires and widely curved handle-bars.

The sun struck the sheen of nickel and new enamel and sent a thousand little needles of light in all directions. Even the '91 model was beautiful in the light of the spring day, overtaken though it might be by the swiftly moving procession.

Wheels! Every man, woman, and child in the city of Chicago who could beg, borrow, or rent a bicycle, was speeding westward to the flagstaff at the entrance to the Garfield Park Loop. Every spoke and bar had been polished to the limit, and the long asphalt boulevard was a glittering, sparkling avenue of wheels.

Wheels! It was the day of the great road race, under the auspices of the Associated Cycling Clubs. The twenty-five mile course had been smoothed and measured, the sky was blue and cloudless, and far away in Wheeling four hundred eager cyclers awaited the bugle call.

John Gardner stood at the door of his news-room and watched with a wistful eye, the few hundred wheelmen who had chosen to ride on the business street that went past his door. The orange and black of the South Shore Club fluttered from many a shining bar, and at the sight of the colours the old man's face grew tender. For it was Jack's club that boasted the orange and black – Jack Gardner of the "Varsity, '98," and his only son. A touch on his arm made him turn his face within.

"Father," said a gentle voice, "why don't we go to the doin's?"

"Land sakes, Mother, who'd take care of the store?"

"Guess the store ain't goin' to run away, and we ain't been out in years. Let's go, Father, and see Jack ride!"

It was John Gardner's way to oppose everything at first, and then to generously give in. He liked to feel himself master in his own house, so he hesitated.

But the stronger will was fully settled upon going. "I'm a-goin' Father, even if I have to go alone."

She vanished into the back part of the store and began to brush carefully the state gown, the brown silk, made after the quaint fashion of a bygone day. After a few minutes the old man appeared in the door.

"I reckon we'll go, Hannah," he said, with the air of one granting a favour, "but it do seem wrong to leave the little store!"

For many a year the little store had been open on all holidays, as well as weekdays and evenings, for Jack in school and college had needed money, and a startling amount of it. Old John Gardner never complained. Hampered, and made ashamed all his life by his lack of "book larnin'," he had vowed that his son should have "a bang-up eddication, the best they is a-goin'," if he could get it for him.

To-day Jack was to ride in the road race, and imbued with solemn importance Gardner, senior, robed himself for the occasion. They made a queer picture as they stood on the corner waiting for a car. Hannah's brown silk was wrinkled and shabby, but her thin gray hair arranged in tiny puffs around her forehead, looked, as her fond mate said, "right smart." Twenty years ago, when Jack was a little boy in dresses, his father had bought a silk hat to wear to a funeral, and it was this relic of past splendour which now adorned his head.

Once on the car, a new fear presented itself. "Mother," he said, "sposen Jack should see us!"

For an instant her heart stood still. "He won't," she said bravely; "he won't see anything but that new bicycle of his'n and we will come home as soon as it's over."

"I don't know's we'd ought," said the old man doubtfully. "He might not like it."

"Like what?" demanded Hannah sharply.

"Our goin'!"

"Hush, Father," she answered, "you know we don't see Jack very often 'cause he has to live down where his school is. Lemme see – it's three months now since he's been home, ain't it?"

"Three months yestidy."

"So what's goin' to hurt if we see him ride to-day? He'll never notice us among all them folks."

Two girls who sat opposite were watching the old couple with very evident amusement. "There's rural simplicity for you," said one.

"So I see," responded the other. "They appear to be attached to some Jack. Wouldn't it be funny if it were Jack Gardner?" They laughed in unison and Hannah looked up into their faces. John's eyes followed hers and neither spoke for a moment. They saw nothing but the joy and happiness of girlhood and something blinded them both. Jack was forgotten for the moment in the memory of the little girl who lay in the Silent City beyond the smoke and dust of the town.

They left the car when the others did and followed the crowd.

"I don't b'leeve Jack'll see us, Mother," said the old man. "I ain't goin' to worry about it no more."

Twenty-five miles away, Jack Gardner surveyed his wheel complacently. Every screw was tightened, his chains were just right, his tires were exactly mellow enough and his handle-bars were at the proper pitch. He was none the less pleased with his own appearance, for he had written his father that he needed a new suit in the colours worn by the South Shore Club. He had searched the town for the orange and black and finally found them. The S.S.C. on his black chest could be seen as far as his wheel could, and he had topped the glaring outfit with a flaming orange cap, with a black tassel to stream in the wind behind.

"Get on to the oriole!" The champion of a rival club was inclined to be sportive at Jack's expense. He retorted with a fling at the green costume of the other, and then the bugle sounded for the flying start.

Anxious friends and trainers shouted, final directions from behind the "dead line," as Jack called it. Another blare from the bugle, a sudden whir, a flash of the shining spokes and they were off.

As the last group flew over the tape the train started back to the city. A South Shore Club man climbed up on the locomotive to "josh" the engineer. "You'll have to get a move on you, if you catch Gardner," he said.

The engineer laughed and looked fondly at his giant of steel. Perhaps an engineer enamoured of his engine can understand the love of a cyclist for his wheel.

The people around the Garfield Park Loop were beginning to get impatient. Most of them had stood for two hours holding their bicycles, and even a well behaved bicycle is an awkward possession in a crowd. Pedals scraped the shins of utterly strange riders, handle-bars got tangled in watch-guards, and front wheels got into mischief with unpleasant regularity.

Close to the course, and on the grassy bank, sat Mr. and Mrs. Gardner. Kindly souls had made way for them until they had at last reached the very front. The day and the multitude were almost spectacle enough, but a cry from the far north brought them to their feet.

Yes, there they were – a cloud of dust across the field. How small the riders seemed! Nearer and nearer they came – how the shining wheels flew through the sunlight! Tense, strained faces almost on the handle-bars: every man of them was doing his best, and the crowd was cheering like mad. The band played merrily, as on and on they flew, – past the judges' stand, over the tape and down, to the mingled praise and solicitude of their friends. The old people were very much disappointed. Jack had not ridden after all! Perhaps – but there was another cloud of dust and another cry from the north. On came another group of riders. They went by like the whirlwind, but no Jack was there.

"I sh'd have thought he'd got back somewheres near the front," said the old man. He was hurt to think his son was so far behind.

Group after group passed by, the old people watching anxiously; then Hannah gripped his arm suddenly.

See! Down the course, only a faint speck now, shone the orange and black of the South Shore Club. Perhaps —

Yes, riding at the head of thirty tired wheelmen, to the stirring strains of a Sousa march, their Jack, strong, superb, excited, nerving himself for the final effort.

Their hearts stopped beating during the instant he was flying by. "There," she whispered reassuringly, "I told you he wouldn't see us. My! Wasn't he fine?"

But John Gardner could not speak, for his eyes were dim with happy pride in remembrance of that superb specimen of perfect manhood six feet high – his Jack, to whom he had given the "eddication."

They watched the rest of the race with little interest, for the best of it all had gone by.

When the last rider crossed the tape, the multitude stirred to go. "We better stand right here, Hannah, till some of these folks gets away," he said. So they stood perfectly still and let the crowd surge around them.

Then a great huzza went up, the track cleared again, as if by magic, and down the course came a dozen men, shouting in unrestrained joy. Aloft on their shoulders they held – the old people craned their necks to see – yes, Jack – their Jack – looking sheepish and very much ashamed.

"Why, Mother," the old man cried, "he's won! Our Jack's won the race! Do you hear?"

Mother's eyes were fixed on the black and orange sweater, for Jack was once again in regulation bicycle attire, and her heart was too full to trust itself for speech.

"Three cheers for Gardner! 'Rah for the South Shore Club!" and the great field swelled and swelled again with bursts of applause. And then – the crowd parted some way and Jack saw those pathetic faces upturned to him.

It is said that when a man is drowning, in the flash of a second his whole previous life passes in review. Something like this came to him at the crowning moment of his twenty-three years.

At that minute he knew, as never before, how those hands had toiled for him, how those lips had prayed for him, and how those honest hearts had loved him ever since he was born. A sudden lump came into his throat, for he seemingly had withheld the only reward they wanted for it all.

"Let me down, fellows," he cried, "there's my folks."

Almost before they knew what had happened, he had rushed up to them with hands outstretched. "Why, Father! Mother!" he exclaimed; "why didn't you let me know you wanted to come?"

Just a minute the old people doubted the wisdom of their course, then the gladness in Jack's face set all at rest. The men from the South Shore Club gathered around and were presented, one by one. They shook hands with the old gentleman and told them how proud they were of Jack, and doffed their caps to Mrs. Gardner, "just z's if I was a fine lady," she said afterward.

Then Jack said everybody was going down to the club for lunch and his father and mother must come too.

"No, no!" gasped Mrs. Gardner in affright; "no! no!"

"Well, indeed you are coming," said Jack, with a charming air of proprietorship. "I guess when a fellow wins the race of the year that his father and mother will go to lunch with him." Then he squeezed her thin wrinkled hand and whispered tenderly: "Dear little mother! To think you wanted to come, and I didn't know!"

The hero of the day turned to those who were with him: "Will some of you fellows get a carriage? I don't think I want any more bicycle riding to-day and I'll go down with my father and mother if one of you boys will lead my wheel."

It was an enchanted journey for the old people to roll down the broad smooth boulevard in a real carriage, with Jack sitting in front of them telling them all about the race. The President of the South Shore Club, the son of a man known and honoured throughout Chicago, had asked to be presented, and said he hoped Jack's father would be willing to be his guest for the day.

"I told him father would be pleased," concluded Jack, "and he wanted mother too, but I said I guessed not, that I was going to have my little mother for my own guest."

At last, when the carriage stopped before an imposing brown stone house, Jack helped them out, and entered the club with the shabby little brown figure on his arm. "Just wait here a few minutes," he said, "until I make myself presentable."

He stationed them on a luxurious sofa, and ran off to the dressing-rooms.

The old man looked after him fondly. "I didn't think Jack would be ashamed of us, Mother," he said.

"No, Father, and he ain't."

"My, ain't this a grand place?"

Half awed, they gazed at the rich furnishings in silence. "Seems like heaven don't it?" he murmured.

"Makes me think more of the chapter in Solomon," she replied.

"How's that, Mother?"

The little old lady looked up at him, her face shining with ineffable happiness, and repeated softly:

"'He led me into his banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.'"

The House Beautiful

Four years at College had given Jack Hardy high ambitions, but two years in society had perceptibly lowered them. Jack had inherited enough money to make him a prize in the matrimonial lottery and he was not slow to see that the reason of it lay in his bank account. With a singular lack of conceit, he did not admit, even to himself, his personal charms.

Walking home one evening from a large reception, his indignation rapidly developed into a moving force, and in a sudden flash of insight he saw two paths which lay straight before him.

One was smooth, leading to gardens of pleasure; the other rough, toilsome, and strewn with failures, but at the end of it was a goal well worth working for. His inheritance was all he needed to enter one; but on the other hand, hard, unfaltering work lay before him and was the only way to success.

His strong young face was set in lines of unwonted determination. "Farewell to an idle society life," he said aloud, "here's to hard work, self-respect, and perhaps an honourable name."

There was not a little comment in his set when it became known that Hardy had left town without assigning any reasons, length of stay, or even leaving an address.

He retired to an obscure hamlet on the Jersey coast and secured a room in a rambling old house which faced the sea. Here he could work; he could study hard, or write, and become, perhaps, a strong man intellectually, instead of being a fastidious ornament in a drawing-room where he felt his financial value was the key-note to his popularity.

The white-haired mistress of the mansion, however, had a confession to make which did not agree at all with his inclinations.

"I've got another boarder," she said, "but she's a quiet, nice-appearing girl and I guess she won't disturb you any."

"Girl!" Hardy scowled, then recovered himself. "Please, don't take any more boarders," he said smilingly, "I'll make it worth your while."

When he said "please" women instinctively obeyed him. Mrs. Kitson readily promised to abstain from further extension of the hilarious pastime of taking boarders, which she had hitherto found to be necessary to her pocket-book, if not to her inclinations.

He spent the afternoon in getting his traps settled in his new location. The quiet was broken only by the boom of the breakers on the shore below, and the room was guiltless of sofa pillows and photograph frames with which women are wont to burden a helpless bachelor. He felt a certain sense of emancipation.

It was rather awkward having a girl around, and he contemplated the propriety of bribing Mrs. Kitson to invent some excuse for dispensing with her presence. Some country damsel, he reflected, perhaps a seamstress, or a teacher who "boarded round." He determined to treat her with cool politeness while he might be forced to endure her proximity.

Going down to supper he encountered the other boarder in the sitting-room. His hostess, rather uncertain as to the proper form of introduction, mumbled something he did not quite understand. He did not wish to appear at all concerned anyway, and bowed distantly.

Miss Wheeler's dark eyes flashed and the colour came into her face. He noted the signs of resentment and wondered what he had done; not that he cared, particularly, only one should always be polite.

The supper was delicious. Everything was well cooked and well served. The china was dainty and the linen spotless.

Under the kindly influence of food which proverbially melts the masculine heart, Hardy began to look occasionally, and with some curiosity at the girl opposite him. She was tall, and well formed, her head well poised, and her voice, when she spoke, was agreeably modulated. She must be the teacher who "boarded round."

She was apparently unconscious of his presence. She drew Mrs. Kitson into volumes of personal reminiscence which prevented any awkward silence, and when they had finished, went with the hostess into the kitchen and helped her wash the dishes.

Hardy stood aloof for a moment, and then went up-stairs. He was accustomed to having girls all smiles and attention when he graciously consented to appear. This one, however, could not have been more politely unconcerned if he had been a door-mat!

"She doesn't know," he began unconsciously, as the dull red flooded his face. "No, and she never shall!"

With that desire for achievement which pique inspires, he went to work. He had a dim notion of writing a story, such as he used to do for a college paper, but it eventually became a short sketch, half humorous and half cynical in tone.

When it was finished, he went out to send it off. He knew the street number of only one publication – a thing he had bought on the way down to appease the business instincts of the energetic and persistent train boy.

When he returned, he glanced through the window of the sitting-room as he stepped upon the broad, old-fashioned veranda. There was no light except the driftwood fire in the big fireplace, and Miss Wheeler sat in a low chair watching it. It was an earnest womanly face full of purpose and aspiration. The repressed energy, which he had first noticed in her manner, was gone. She was off her guard, and her eyes were those of a wistful child, softened and made tender by her dreaming.

When he went down to breakfast the next morning, he learned that Miss Wheeler had taken her bicycle and gone off to spend the day. With a little tact, he diverted Mrs. Kitson's conversation to herself. He did not wish to take an unfair advantage, and besides he was not at all interested.

It was a long day, for he did not feel like work, so he tramped through the fields, sat on the sea shore, read a little, envied the consolation other men seemed to find in smoking, and was conscious of a new interest in life, when, just at dusk, Miss Wheeler rode up and dismounted at the gate.

Mrs. Kitson's penetrating voice rang out clearly, and rose to his room. "How fur did you ride?"

Miss Wheeler was bending over her cyclometer, but her reply was inaudible.

"Hey?"

"Twenty-three miles." Her young voice was clear and strong this time.

At supper he watched her closely for symptoms of weariness, but she was fresh and rosy, and unaffectedly hungry. She still wore her bicycle suit, and talked pleasantly with Mrs. Kitson. She answered Hardy's questions, to be sure, but it was in monosyllables.

"She must have the strength of an Amazon," he mused, as he sat by the fire while she was helping Mrs. Kitson with the dishes, and laughing occasionally in a happy childlike way.

A ten-mile ride would utterly exhaust any girl he knew, and she apparently considered twice that distance merely a pleasant outing!

She came in after a while and sat on the other side of the hearth. Mrs. Kitson with many apologies, had gone "visitin'."

After an awkward silence he laughed outright – the boyish hearty laugh that won him friends everywhere.

"Are you going to keep it all to yourself?" she asked smiling.

"I was thinking," he returned, "of what the Autocrat said when some one asked him to define happiness."

She dimpled prettily.

"Yes, I know. 'Four feet on a fender.'"

Hers were not so far away but that the contrast in size was evident.

The ice was broken. "And are you happy?" he inquired tentatively.

"Why shouldn't I be?" she answered. "I've got a sound body, a clear brain, an honest name and a clean heart. Isn't that enough?" She looked up smiling.

He hesitated, for her point of view was new to him. "Most people would include money in the list, I've got all the things you say make you happy, and yet – "

"You haven't the money." She had finished his sentence for him.

"You don't look as if it bothered you a great deal," she added shyly.

He was silent. For once he had been separated from his birthright and considered apart from his inheritance. The sensation was distinctly novel. "Do you ever think," she went on, "of the house you would build if you had all the money you wanted?"

"I used to, when I was a very little boy," he answered with an effort.

"I do even now, it's one of my daydreams and I call it my House Beautiful," she said.

He asked a timid question and something of the expression he had seen on her face in the firelight the evening before, returned to it. Had she been dreaming of her "House Beautiful" then?

The mellow tones of her voice sounded full and soft in his ears. She was telling of a house of grey stone with wide porches and massive columns. She spoke of the reception hall, the stately stairway, and the tiger skin rug in the drawing-room.

A tower room with windows facing both the sunset and the sea, beautiful things in costly woods, and fabrics in white and gold.

He was interested, in spite of himself, and began to help her plan it. There was no difference of opinion, even in the smallest detail, and room by room, and floor by floor, they furnished their imaginary castle. On the very top of the tower, the Stars and Stripes would always flutter – "because it's the most beautiful flag in the world," with a little choke in her voice, "and it means the most."

Only a week before he had attended that offensive reception, and he was thinking of the contrast now. The men that night had spoken with an affected English drawl, and the girls were all "going abroad for the summer."

And to-night he had forgotten his bank and mining stocks, and was sitting by a driftwood fire with a girl who had childish dreams of building a house, and choked when she spoke of the flag.

"And the doors should open forever, and ever, to all who had done anything noble in the world, or had tried to do it."

With a little lingering sigh, she stretched her white hands towards the flames. The House Beautiful was finished, but she was still dreaming.